Breakdown VI

Baekhwa Girls High.

To be more precise, there were quite a few signs indicating that 'School Ghost Stories' was the nest of the Infinite Void.

First, the school's scenery was a decisive piece of evidence.

Once, in the 89th cycle, my consciousness briefly touched the Fairy King, allowing me to glimpse the Infernal Hell, and the sight was exactly like this.

[The school was an abandoned wooden building. The name Baekhwa () wavered ominously.]

[The sky was blood-red. Broken windows, with white birch trees scratching their pale skin against the shards of glass, peered into the schools corridors. The school was a wreck, pierced through by white spikes.]

No matter how you looked at it, it was just like School Ghost Stories.

Of course, there were differences as well.

For instance, the school name.

Originally, Baekhwa () meant 'white flower.' Although the characters and looked somewhat similar, they were clearly different in Hanja.

However, as I had emphasized before, wordplay, 'playing with words in the world,' was the basis of magic.

My theory was as follows.

In Baekhwa, the 'white' () referred to the white birch trees. These white birches were evident throughout the school's corridors, seen through the broken windows of both the new and old buildings.

They embodied the concept of 'white.'

As they transformed into birch trees, the empty spot left by the white () was filled by the homonymic white ().

A simple wordplay.

Then what about the flower () in Baekhwa?

This was also simple. Despite exterminating 99 anomalies, only two things in Baekhwa Girls High School had not returned to their original state.

The birch trees, standing like prison bars. And the red spider lilies blooming everywhere.

These red spider lilies had taken over the meaning of flower ().

Reality had its words stolen by anomalies, transforming white flower into red flower, and the world was overtaken by the void.

Thus, no matter how many anomalies were exterminated, the name Baekhwa itself... the last magic of the anomaly remained intact.

Thats my interpretation.

Wow... I never thought of it like that. I always wondered why the birch trees and spider lilies stayed the same while everything else went back to normal...

Step. Step.

We walked through the empty hospital. The ceiling, pillars, and floor were all bleached white, extending endlessly.

Where we were. When we were.

We kept our consciousness clear, which was becoming blurry from the lack of any fixed coordinates, by continuing our conversation.

No matter how far we walk, its the same corridor repeating. Is there no exit...?

Just hang on a bit longer.

This was why a duo was important. Even if Cheon Yo-hwa was far inferior to me in combat power, being in a pair in the void was much more advantageous than being alone.

The basic unit that made up a person's world wasnt an atom but rather the duo of someone else and myself.

Hmm. Oh, right! How do we get rid of the birch trees and spider lilies? Cant we just cut them down?

Tried it, they just grow back.

Ew...

They may look like trees and flowers on the outside, but theyre actually anomalies. While most anomalies can be exorcised through brute force, some cant be harmed physically. You have to exploit their weak points.

Weak points...

In fact, that was why I used school desks as firewood for the funerals instead of birch trees.

Burning the bodies of anomalies for a funeral pyre would be too ominous. The toxic substances from the smoke were far less harmful.

Hmm. But thinking about it that way... The weak point of the Baekhwa anomaly is still unclear, right? It doesnt move around like other ghosts, we dont know its true nature. Oh, is the weak point hidden in the basement?

Close enough.

Step. A lighter step echoed after mine.

Following the instructions when we first entered, Cheon Yo-hwa moved precisely in sync with my steps.

Stop here.

Ah, okay.

We can take ten more free steps. Get comfortable now if you need to. Make sure you take all ten steps.

...Whats the point of this?

If we take ten more steps, that will be exactly the 4,444th step.

......

I opened my trunk bag. Then I took out candles one by one and set them around.

Before long, a hundred candles stood in a formation like a birch forest. I sat in the middle, with Cheon Yo-hwa across from me.

Snap

With a snap of my fingers, the hundred candles all lit up with a whoosh. It was an application of aura.

Ahjussi, this is...

Yo-hwa, were about to perform a ritual.

......

Did you take all ten steps?

Yes.

You asked earlier what the weak point of the Baekhwa anomaly was, right? The ritual were about to conduct will be that weak point. The ritual is simple. Have you ever shared ghost stories with friends during summer outings?

Yes, I have.

Good. Its the same as that. Were going to talk about all the ghosts weve exorcised so far, you and I, alternating. Every ghost, making up a total of 99. Well talk about them one by one.

......

Why dont you start?

Ah, yes. Um, lets see. A ghost I saw personally, while walking on the fourth floor of the school, I heard a faint knocking sound...

Quietly.

Her voice flowed gently as she began the ghost story. Flicker, flicker. The hundred flames swayed, and the white hospital lights hummed.

Between the red flames from the ground and the white flames from the ceiling, Cheon Yo-hwa stared blankly at me.

... Thats the end of my story.

Good.

Snap.

When I snapped my fingers, one candle flickered out. A thin gray smoke rose to the ceiling.

Ah...

Now its my turn. From my own experience, theres a Hanako ghost in the third stall of the boys bathroom at Baekhwa. If you spin thirteen times in that stall...

One. Two. Three. Four.

The candles went out one by one. Each time, a wisp of smoke rose as an offering to the sky, and the dried wicks emitted a black stench. Cheon Yo-hwas shoulders twitched.

Flicker

Cheon Yo-hwa realized the anomaly around the fortieth flame.

Ahjussi, look. The corridor lights...

I know. Dont worry.

The hospital corridor lights were going out.

From the far end. One by one. One meter at a time.

There was no exit or window in the infernal basement. The infinite hospital corridor, once the lights went out, was pitch dark.

Lets continue. Its your turn.

...Okay.

Flicker.

The darkness exhaled, closing in. From both sides. Each breath matched our own, as if our breaths drew it closer.

My friend told me this story, about a ghost named Crash, who was just a head with dangling guts...

Flicker. Flicker. Flicker. Flicker

We picked up the pace in our storytelling. The darkness quickened in response. Each light going out made Cheon Yo-hwa flinch.

My story... ends here.

The surroundings had grown cold.

Before the ritual, the hospital corridor had seemed endless. Now, only a narrow strip remained.

......

......

Flicker

Only one light remained.

One candle struggled against the encroaching darkness, its flame weakly sputtering.

Good. Now its my turn...

Ahjussi.

Cheon Yo-hwa suddenly spoke up.

Youre not actually our schools security guard, are you?

......

It felt odd. Ive lived in the dorms, so I know most of the guards faces. But Id never seen you before. I was too out of it when we first met, you were in uniform and had a flashlight, so I thought maybe you were new. But none of the others recognized you either. Still, you kept helping us...

After a moments thought, I nodded.

No, Im not.

Knew it. So... why did you help us?

To eradicate the void here. The School Ghost Stories. The Infernal Hell.

Infernal Hell...

But Ill explain my true identity tomorrow. For now, lets focus on exorcising the anomaly thats been killing you. Can you trust me?

......

Cheon Yo-hwas orange ponytail bobbed like a candle flame.

Yes. Of course.

Good. Now, its time for the last story. This is a Japanese ghost story. Have you heard of the Hundred Tales?

The Hundred Tales?

The Hundred Tales.

In Japanese, its called Hyakumonogatari, a collection of ykai stories.

To summon this ghost, people gather and light a hundred candles, each telling a ghost story, extinguishing a candle with each tale.

......

Just like were doing now.

The last candle flickered.

According to the tale, when all hundred candles go out, the storyteller of the last tale dies.

Dies...

Or a ghost appears. Were already in the underworld. A person in the underworld cant die again, so a ghost has to appear.

......

Heres the interesting part. In the original tale, the ghost is called Aoandon, appearing when a blue lantern is lit.

Flicker.

I pressed the flashlight button. A blue LED light swept through the darkness.

But the ghost that will appear here isnt Aoandon.

Then who...?

The name of this school is Baekhwa, meaning white flower. But remember I said the name was stolen?

I pulled out a brush pen and wrote on the white floor of the corridor.

The void is an empty space. It takes over the original world, making it a void, and then it imprints itself. So the letters of Baekhwa were stolen, and the new letters are...

.

One hundred stories () and tales ().

......

In Japanese, the concept of a story is expressed with two characters, monogatari ().

I continued writing.

For example, the famous Arabian Nights is called Thousand and One Nights monogatari () in Japanese. But in Korean, its simply translated as thousand nights tale (). So, the Japanese use two characters for a concept expressed with one character in Korean.

Then... the ghost story called Hundred Tales in Korean would be...

Baekhwa ().

Literally.

The anomaly that consumed Baekhwa Girls High.

The true name of the entity weve been calling School Ghost Stories.

The alternate identity of the entity I once referred to as the Void.

The leader of the Hundred Ghosts () that controls the other ninety-nine ghosts. The one that took the original name of this school, turning part of the world into a void. Baekhwa () is the final ghost of this infernal hell.

Snap

The candle died.

The lights went out.

The darkness laughed. The thick smoke smell was the breath of the endless maw of darkness.

Flicker.

Time moved in the darkness. The universe was originally darkness, so it was the original color of time and spaces hostile intent.

The hundred extinguished candles grew into a white forest in an instant. A forest of birch trees.

The white skin of the trees caught fire, and the flames bloomed into red spider lilies. The red flames turned into fairy faces, and a hundred fairies laughed. Their laughter went like this:

Flowers () bloom into bigger flowers (), which burn into fire (). Burn, burn. All things are infinitely equal. So, shall not a hundred stories become a hundred flowers and a hundred flames...?

Coordinates. Time. Space became abstract, and existence twisted.

Ahjussi

Its alright.

I grabbed Cheon Yo-hwas hand.

Im here.

......

Cheon Yo-hwa gripped my hand tightly.

Thus, the coordinates were fixed.

In that moment, the colorful flames of the universe paused, and the fairies stopped laughing. The Milky Way flowed. Hundreds, thousands, millions, billions of eyes stared at us.

I called out its name.

Infinite Void.

The universe shuddered.

-Unexpected contact.

-A possibility not previously calculated.

-Infinite Void.

-Infernal Hell.

-A correct name.

-An incorrect name.

-Another random variable.

Colors breathed. Starlight danced in a round.

-What are you?

-A massive variable.

-How did you perceive our existence? How did you understand our identity? How did you locate us?

The entity that saw the world as a vast laboratory, creating fairies as terminals and sending them to the tutorial grounds, questioned.

I raised my head.

Are you alright, Yo-hwa?

Yes. A bit dizzy, but surprisingly fine. Actually...

Cheon Yo-hwa let go of my hand and bent down. The laces of her red and black basketball shoes tightened.

I feel great. Right now, I could sprint at full speed for forty minutes. Anyway, that weird Milky Way is the culprit behind all this, right? Ill kill it.

Wonderful. Lets show the combat power of a former school guard.

Boss battle.

Threat level: Void God.

Infinite Void.

Begin combat.

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