Dispatches from the Graduate School of Ghost Stories - Chapter 15

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Urban Legends and Graduate School (15)
Beethoven wept.
Yu Jong-hwa stepped into the hallway and ran into his seniors, who were already engaged in serious conversation.
“Seniors! I’m finished!”
“Yeah! We’re done too!”
“It’s fine. We’ll take our time with this. We came prepared to spend days on it, after all.”
So Hui-yeong and Lee Ju-ho both came away empty-handed. They answered casually, as if unsurprised by Jong-hwa’s failure.
“No, actually I did get a reward. It was candy. But the kids stole it from me.”
“That’s a different problem, you idiot!”
So Hui-yeong’s demeanor shifted abruptly—he grabbed Jong-hwa by the collar and shook him violently.
Jong-hwa thrashed his hands in protest, crying out.
“I almost lost all my hair!”
“So you lose it! Hair grows back!”
“What if it doesn’t?! The snacks I brought weren’t enough! Just give me one more!”
“Wear a wig then. But that’s strange. The numbers should’ve matched exactly. You gave one to each person, right?”
Each class had twenty-five students. All classes were the same size. Hui-yeong brushed past the inconsistency, assuming Jong-hwa had simply made a mistake somewhere.
Hui-yeong checked his wristwatch. The hour hand was racing toward two o’clock.
The advantage of this paranormal phenomenon was that time flowed the same as the outside world. In urban legends where time perception warped, keeping track of external time became nearly impossible.
“We should stop here for today and set up a Base Camp.”
“Hui—I mean, Jong-hwa. Is getting materials only possible through attending class?”
“That’s the surest method. Otherwise, there’s a small chance of getting something from the Principal’s Office. For now, let’s move before dismissal time.”
“We’re going to the Music Room.”
The moment So Hui-yeong finished speaking, Lee Ju-ho took the lead down the stairs. As she moved, her eyes swept sharply over their surroundings, and she explained the plan ahead to Jong-hwa.
“Keep your Name Badge safe. You’ll need it to attend class again tomorrow.”
“I will. The teacher won’t say anything, even though he saw my face yesterday?”
Hui-yeong, who had been struggling to keep up with their pace, answered Jong-hwa’s question.
“Their memories seem to reset every day. Some researchers who spent a long time here told us about it—past midnight, they treat you like a stranger.”
“So it doesn’t matter if we stay for several days. But this school gets dangerous at night, so we need to choose our shelter carefully.”
“Dangerous? Dangerous how?”
They arrived at the old Music Room. There was only one Music Room in the school, and it was sealed shut with chains, barred from use.
Lee Ju-ho grasped the chain with both hands and wrenched it free.
It was hardly a sight you’d see in everyday life.
“From the urban legends people tell about the school, it seems like specific entities always appear in specific places, right? But there are never cases where multiple legends overlap at the same time.”
“So we’re going to clear out one of the easier Seven Unsolvable Mysteries and set up camp there. We don’t want to run into something terrifying like the Library.”
“So… this Music Room also has a ghost that appears here?”
“That’s right.”
So Hui-yeong answered Jong-hwa and pulled salt from his bag.
Not a seasoning shaker—a full bag of Sea Salt.
The moment Lee Ju-ho saw him struggling to extract it, she rushed over and set the bag down on the floor.
Hui-yeong drew a sharp Axe from his bag and handed it to her.
“It’s not a ghost—it’s Beethoven. The Unsolvable Mystery about the portrait: you die if your eyes meet his. Pretty common.”
“When night falls, the eyes in the portrait turn red, and a piano no one’s playing starts performing ‘Für Elise’ three times. And then someone dies.”
“Are we… safe staying here?”
“Of course. The piano won’t exist anymore once we’re done.”
Bang! Crunch! Crash!
Today, Yu Jong-hwa acquired new knowledge.
‘When a piano gets smashed, it makes an incredibly loud noise!’
The discordant shriek of crumbling keys, the crack of splintering wood, and Lee Ju-ho’s rhythmic axe strikes shattered the quiet of the Music Room.
Jong-hwa opened the windows to ventilate the dusty space. He peered outside, worried that angry paranormal residents might come running, but there was no one.
As the piano crumbled halfway, a large Beethoven Portrait hanging on the wall began to shudder and sway.
So Hui-yeong approached the portrait and tapped the frame lightly.
“Hey, Jong-hwa. Help me with this. Let’s see if we can pry it off.”
“Really? He looks angry.”
“Beethoven deserves better than ‘he.’ Show some respect.”
“It’s fake!”
Jong-hwa grabbed the picture alongside Hui-yeong and tried to peel it from the wall.
But the portrait clung to the wall as if glued on with adhesive.
As Jong-hwa stared at the unmoved, serene face of Beethoven, he shook his head at So Hui-yeong.
“Do you have a scraper or something?”
“It’s supposed to be an Unsolvable Mystery—you think a scraper’s going to work? Everyone who’s come here before tried to take it down. They all failed, naturally.”
“Then shall we at least drape a blanket over it? To cover the eyes.”
“That won’t be enough.”
Whoosh!
A generous handful of sea salt flew through the air and struck Beethoven’s eyes dead-on.
Had it been a living person, they would have cried out from the sting.
The portrait couldn’t endure it either—the entire wall bearing the Beethoven Portrait shuddered.
“Listen well, Beethoven. This place is under our management now. If you promise to behave quietly, we won’t do anything rough to you anymore.”
“Senior. Isn’t it possible that Beethoven can’t hear you?”
Beethoven had been a great composer who created music despite losing his hearing—a basic fact that even Yu Jong-hwa knew.
“I’m done with the piano.”
Lee Ju-ho, having swept her disheveled hair back, announced this with a satisfied expression.
Worried that the keys might move, she’d stamped on them indiscriminately—black and white alike—grinding them into dust.
So Hui-yeong pulled out a lighter and began repeatedly flicking it on and off, continuing his threats toward the portrait.
“If you try any tricks to open your eyes even slightly, I’ll salt you down and burn you to ash.”
“I think it’s better to solve this through conversation. Beethoven is getting angry!”
“Jong-hwa, what can a painting actually do?”
From his pale gold backpack, a bright blue Basin emerged—fresh from the market.
A painting that kills people—couldn’t it do quite a lot? Yu Jong-hwa, his face clouded with worry, took the basin and followed his senior’s lead, scooping out a large handful of sea salt from the bag.
So Hui-yeong was also filling a red basin with salt.
“Keep pouring until it closes its eyes.”
“Yes, sir.”
Before long, white salt had piled up beneath the wall where the portrait hung, forming a small mountain.
Beethoven held out as long as he could.
But when three more bags of sea salt emerged from So Hui-yeong’s backpack, the portrait finally gave way, weeping tears of blood as it shut its eyes.
Yu Jong-hwa and Lee Ju-ho carefully flipped the portrait over.
The Beethoven Portrait, no longer stubborn, meekly revealed its back.
Lee Ju-ho tore off Clear Tape and firmly secured the reversed portrait to the wall.
The Music Room underwent a complete renovation—albeit one with zero aesthetic sense, courtesy of excessive tape coverage. And So Hui-yeong kept pouring salt the entire time Lee Ju-ho unrolled the tape.
“Stubborn bastard. If it had just given up sooner, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“……Senior. Beethoven had hearing problems in the first place. Losing his sight too must have been distressing.”
“This one’s salty. It’s heard everything we’ve said.”
“You said to show respect.”
“Fine. It’s all done now, so shall we eat?”
Having finished their “measures” against the Music Room’s unsolvable mystery, the seniors naturally cleared out one corner and prepared a space to eat.
From So Hui-yeong’s backpack came Gas Burners, a Frying Pan, a Pot, and ingredients—all tumbling out in sequence.
Yu Jong-hwa decided he would stop questioning what common sense even meant anymore.
“What’s for dinner?”
“Ritual offering rice.”
“Pardon?”
“We need to prepare an ancestral offering table later.”
Watching Lee Ju-ho peel an apple with absolutely terrible knife work, Yu Jong-hwa politely volunteered to do it himself.
He carved the top of the apple into a round shape and asked his seniors a question.
“Since it’s in an urban legend, this is the work of appeasing a restless soul, isn’t it?”
“No, we’re making an offering to King Sejong the Great.”
“Why?”
“Make some pancakes.”
So Hui-yeong handed him the Frozen Pollack Pancakes from the insulated bag.
It seemed he’d decided to entrust the task entirely to Yu Jong-hwa after witnessing his skill with a knife.
He even kindly pulled out a red apron and wrapped it around the youngest member.
Lee Ju-ho pulled out bowls like a mountain while murmuring to herself.
“I’d prefer to put my bets on Admiral Yi Sun-sin, but if King Sejong the Great can’t win, the school might be destroyed.”
“Would you mind explaining that in more detail?”
Lee Ju-ho made an effort to explain more clearly, but ultimately just elbowed So Hui-yeong.
Not that So Hui-yeong’s explanation was any gentler.
“You know that rumor about statues fighting each other on the School Courtyard at midnight? That’s it.”
“Ah, so they’re not actually great historical figures, just statues? That actually sounds interesting.”
“You’ll understand right away when you see it later.”
While Yu Jong-hwa worked in the corner frying pancakes, his seniors warmed Instant Braised Ribs in a pot and brought out Instant Rice.
“Thank goodness it’s an old school. Nowadays if you used fire in a classroom, the fire alarm would go off.”
“Right. Oh, Ju-ho! Let’s set some of the braised ribs aside separately. For the offering table.”
“So King Sejong the Great—he was fond of meat?”
“That’s what they say.”
In the half-ruined, dust-choked Music Room, an air of unexpected festivity had settled.
Yu Jong-hwa ate a late dinner, anticipating a pitched battle among the statues of Korean historical figures.
Though the smell of grease clung to everything, the rice tasted good.
Thirty minutes before midnight.
The Korean-Style Paranormal Investigation Team climbed through the window and departed.
To present an offering at the ancestral rite to whichever was stronger—the figure worth a hundred won, or the one worth ten thousand.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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