Chapter 40
Chapter 40: The Skinning Locker Room, Wang Meng's Fatty Liver
"Ugh…where…is this?"
"What exactly happened?"
Guo Shuai clutched his dizzy head.
He pressed his palms against the floor and tried to push himself upright, but the sensation beneath his hands was sticky and slippery.
"What the heck?"
He lowered his head in confusion.
His pupils instantly contracted.
He discovered that beneath him was a pool of blood that had already begun to congeal!
"What the hell?!"
Guo Shuai was so startled he jolted, scrambling up on all fours, instinctively backing away.
Bang.
His back slammed into what should have been a wall.
But…
The sensation that came back was not a hard surface, but…
Something soft, elastic, still retaining a trace of warmth.
"?"
Guo Shuai swallowed, and with trembling movements, turned his head around.
"Ahhhhh!!"
The next second, he nearly slipped on the floor.
Behind him, a blood-soaked corpse was hanging upside down from the ceiling by an iron hook.
It was a corpse that had been completely skinned!
The vivid red muscle tissue was clearly visible.
And those eyeballs, stripped of their eyelids, were bulging out rigidly—facing Guo Shuai who had just turned around, eye to eye!
Within the pupils, traces of absolute terror from the moment before death seemed to linger.
"Hah…hah…"
Guo Shuai pressed his back against an iron locker, gasping for breath.
Even though he had already been through the baptism of the Scarecrow.
This kind of horror-movie scene with such extreme visual impact still frightened him considerably.
"Heh heh……"
At that moment, that familiar mocking voice rang out in his mind.
"So you're not as brave as you seem, you little brat?"
"A small-time scene like this and you're already done? How do you plan to keep following that freak boss of yours?"
It was Albert.
Guo Shuai was in no mood to bicker with him. He wiped off his cold sweat and asked:
"Stop the nonsense! What exactly is going on?!"
"We were clearly at the school gate—why did we suddenly end up here? Where are the boss and the others?"
"Because……you've been pulled into a 【Ghost Domain】."
Albert's voice was, unusually, several degrees more serious.
"Or in your terms, a Sub-Instance."
"A Ghost Domain?!"
Guo Shuai's heart lurched "Could it be an independent space like the Watchful Scarecrow from before?"
He recalled the bizarre time mechanics of the Death Wheat Field—which meant…
There existed within this school a Cursed Object on par with the S-Grade Scarecrow Overlord—or possibly even stronger!
"Heh heh, scared now?"
Albert seemed to relish Guo Shuai's shock.
"From the moment you all stepped through the gates of this school, 'it' had already set its sights on you."
"Then some unlucky soul violated its 'school rules,' and that conveniently dragged all of you into its game by force."
Guo Shuai listened and grew furious: "If you knew, then why didn't you say anything?! Can't you scan things?"
"Why would I say anything?"
Albert shot back without a hint of remorse.
"That thing doesn't harbor any direct malice."
"Or rather…it simply wants to run a school, nothing more."
"The only difference is, this school isn't for people—it's for ghosts."
"Think carefully—what does a school exist for?"
"Isn't it born for the purpose of screening and testing, to cultivate 'clever ones' and 'the strong'?"
"This school is the same."
"Only those who follow the rules and pass the exams—people or ghosts—get to live."
As he said this, Albert's voice began to grow distant and ethereal.
"Alright, I'm tired."
"A Ghost Domain of this level suppresses my spirit form."
"I'll be falling into slumber next."
"Make good use of the 【New Ability】 I just gave you and produce an excellent answer sheet."
"Don't disappoint me, and don't you dare die…you little punk…"
The voice grew smaller and smaller, then vanished entirely.
"Hey! Hey! Old man?!"
Guo Shuai called out twice and received no response.
It seemed this fellow had genuinely fallen asleep—or was evading some kind of detection.
'Clever ones and the strong, huh…'
Guo Shuai turned Albert's words over in his mind, and couldn't help but mutter to himself:
'Then how do you classify the boss?'
'Knowing the boss's personality, he wouldn't just fill out the answer sheet—he'd tear the whole thing up.'
'And then charge straight into the principal's office and kick the principal to death!'
Just as he was musing over this.
Tick. Tick.
He suddenly noticed that the black Ghost Face Mark on the back of his hand had begun displaying a line of blood-red digits.
【06:31】
【06:30】
‘A countdown?’
Guo Shuai's heart tightened. ‘Does it mean something? Or is it a death countdown?’
Not daring to waste time, he quickly scanned his surroundings.
This was a locker room.
2 rows of red metal lockers, the floor covered in bloodstains and scattered clothing.
It looked very much like the gym locker room of a Sakura Nation school he had seen in anime.
"So this is the interior of that Sakura Nation middle school?"
Guo Shuai muttered to himself as he began checking each locker one by one.
Name tags were stuck to the locker doors:
【Natsuki Tanaka】…
【Yekaterina】…
【Masaya Mikami】…
"All female names—seems like the girls' locker room."
Guo Shuai walked to the doorway and carefully poked his head out to survey the situation outside.
However, the moment half his head cleared the doorframe, he yanked it back in like a turtle retreating into its shell.
Because out in the hallway beyond the locker room.
A group of male students in black stand-collar uniforms, their eyeballs rolled back, were clustered on the ground.
They were frantically gnawing on the corpse of a girl in a sailor uniform.
The sound of their chewing made his scalp crawl.
‘Of all the rotten luck.’
Guo Shuai pressed his back against the door, the corner of his mouth twitching: "Step outside and walk straight into a feeding frenzy?"
He clenched his fists, weighing whether to fight his way through or lay low.
Right at that moment.
A large, broad hand suddenly clapped down on his shoulder from behind!
Smack!
"Ahhhhh!!"
Guo Shuai's nerves were stretched to their absolute limit—his body reacted on pure instinct before his mind could catch up!
He spun around, seized that wrist, pivoted from the waist, and executed a shoulder throw!
"Let's go!!"
Whoosh—crash!
A heavy figure was hurled hard onto the locker room floor, sending the metal lockers ringing with a reverberating clang.
"What the hell is that?!"
"Is it a Wandering Corpse?!"
Guo Shuai gasped for breath, instantly dropping into a combat stance, ready to deliver a finishing blow.
But the next moment, in the flickering lightning from outside, he made out the face of the "monster" on the ground—and froze completely.
It wasn't a Wandering Corpse.
It was a chubby guy in a black stand-collar uniform that was clearly one size too small, wearing an expression of utter agony.
"What the…?"
"Wang-bro?!"
Guo Shuai was dumbstruck: "How is it you, Wang-bro?!"
At that moment, Wang Meng was stuffed into that noticeably undersized uniform like a meat dumpling wrapped too tight in bamboo leaves.
He clutched his lower back, grimacing in pain as he hauled himself off the floor, and pointed at Guo Shuai with a stream of curses:
"What the hell? Guo Shuai…you moron!"
"Owww, my poor back…I genuinely can't with you!"
"I've been here risking my life waiting for you, worried you were in trouble! And you open with an attack on me?!"
Wang Meng rubbed his lower back, his face a picture of aggrieved fury.
"If it weren't for my severe fatty liver protecting me, that throw would've snapped a bone for sure!"
"I—I'm sorry, Wang-bro!"
Guo Shuai rushed over to help him up, his face full of guilt.
"I thought a Wandering Corpse had slipped in from behind! Nearly scared me to death!"
"But Wang-bro, what did you mean just now?"
"Why were you waiting for me? Was I really that late?"
Wang Meng wasn't genuinely angry—after venting for a moment, his expression turned serious.
"Yeah!"
"The boss and the others regrouped ages ago, they're in Class 3, Year 3 right now!"
"Just earlier, a male teacher and a female student came to receive us—counted the group once through, and you were the only one missing!"
"The boss was worried you'd gotten lost or run into trouble, so he had me stand guard here at this chokepoint to wait for you."
"I had nothing to do at first, so I wandered around nearby looking for anything useful to get my hands on."
"Then a pack of Wandering Corpses showed up carrying a weakened female student for their little picnic, completely blocked the path, and trapped me in this locker room."
Wang Meng jabbed a finger at the countdown on the back of his hand.
"None of that matters right now! The key thing is that rule!"
"We have to check in at 【Class 3, Year 3】 before the countdown ends—they're calling it morning study!"
"If we don't show up or arrive late…"
"I don't know exactly what'll happen, but it's probably bad. The boss said we might get wiped out on the spot!"
With that, Wang Meng picked up a set of black male-style school uniform that had clearly been discarded and tossed it to Guo Shuai.
"Hurry! Put this uniform on!"
"Those 2 NPCs handed these out—said they're 'admission passes.' If you're not in uniform, you'll be flagged as an intruder and the entire school's monsters will go after you!"
Guo Shuai took the uniform and grasped the gravity of the situation.
It seemed highly likely that he'd arrived late because Albert—that old codger—had pulled some trick when the Ghost Domain descended.
Or perhaps transmitting that new ability had cost him time.
"Got it, Wang-bro!"
Guo Shuai didn't waste any more words. In a few quick movements, he pulled on that musty-smelling uniform.
Once dressed, he rotated his wrists and spoke with confidence:
"Wang-bro, in that case, let's just cut right through!"
"I'll take point and clear out those Wandering Corpses! You lead the way once we're moving—let's go find the boss in Class 3, Year 3!"
This was also the perfect chance to test just how strong the "new ability" Albert had left him before going to sleep really was.
"Deal! I trust you!"
Wang Meng looked at the confidence in Guo Shuai's eyes and broke into a grin.
He turned and walked to the row of lockers that had been warped from the impact, gripped them with both hands, and wrenched hard.
Screech!
Two heavy metal locker doors were ripped clean off!
Then, with practiced efficiency, he bent and folded the doors, working with the hinges and metal wire attached to them.
In an instant, he fashioned 2 crude but sturdy makeshift arm guards.
"Here—put these on."
Wang Meng handed the arm guards to Guo Shuai.
"Don't let yourself get bitten."
"In the movies they always make it look good, but these zombies carry venom in their mouths—if you get infected, I can't save you."
"Thanks, Wang-bro!"
A warmth spread through Guo Shuai's chest.
Truly worthy of a Grade B Mechanic—that move of improvising equipment bare-handed was absolutely incredible.
He strapped on the arm guards, drew a deep breath, and picked up the cleaver that had fallen to the floor earlier.
"Let's go!"
The two of them, one in front and one behind, walked out the door and faced the horde of ghoulish figures feasting in the hallway.