Horror Game Developer: My games aren't that scary!

Chapter 763: Gate [3]

Clank!

The classroom door closed behind the second teacher.

Claude remained completely still as his gaze moved between the two identical figures, trying to understand the situation.

‘A… another one?’

All of a sudden, his thoughts drifted back to the documents he had skimmed through.

[Elon Ward had once claimed he’d followed Mrs. Vale through the school despite the real Mrs. Vale being somewhere else at the time.]

[There had also been conflicting accounts surrounding her death, including witnesses who claimed to have heard her voice giving instructions after her body had supposedly already been found.]

At the time, Claude hadn’t thought much of it.

Looking at the two teachers now, he found everything clicking together in his mind.

‘Right… of course.’

Rena and the others seemed to reach the same conclusion. Her eyes briefly met his before moving towards the teacher beside the door, then towards the identical figure standing near the podium.

Claude carefully moved two fingers against the desk.

‘Wait.’

Nobody acted.

That was the first thing they needed to establish.

The second teacher had entered without immediately attacking, and neither of the figures seemed interested in the other. Whatever they were, they appeared to operate under the same classroom rules.

Claude watched them carefully as the restriction around his body continued weakening.

His right leg could move now.

So could his shoulders.

The others were recovering at approximately the same rate, which meant the effect keeping them seated was probably tied to the scenario’s progress rather than the teachers themselves.

That was useful.

More importantly, both teachers were strong, but Claude no longer believed they were overwhelmingly so.

Seth’s death had distorted his initial assessment.

He had watched someone known throughout the Guild die before even lifting a hand, and for several minutes after that, he had assumed the teacher was incredibly strong as a result.

Now that he had time to observe it, however, something didn’t add up.

Its movements were fast.

Extremely fast.

But Claude felt that he could still handle it.

He and Rena were both in the Fifth Order, with nodes suited to close combat. With his Sentinel nodes reinforcing his body, he didn’t need to avoid every blow.

Moreover, he also understood that so long as he followed the rules, the teacher wouldn’t act.

‘In that case, I can ambush it when it gets near me. So what if I don’t follow the rules then?’

In the end, Seth’s death had been a meaningless one. The same went for Markus.

Claude’s expression turned cold.

He had been in this business long enough to shut down his emotions on the fly.

He moved his fingers again, this time giving a more complicated set of instructions to the others.

Rena understood immediately.

The others followed.

‘Two targets.’

‘Simultaneous engagement.’

‘We split.’

‘All at once at my signal.’

Once the restriction disappeared, Claude and Rena would take the teachers separately while the remaining three supported whichever side required it. If they could incapacitate both long enough to reach the door, they could leave the classroom and reassess from somewhere outside of the classroom.

It wasn’t a particularly complicated plan.

Rather easy to follow.

Claude felt the pressure around his chest loosen further.

Rena’s chair moved.

This time, she was able to move it back on her own, no sound following her actions.

‘It’s a pity we don’t have anyone of the Sonorous Decree.’

Would’ve been incredibly useful in their circumstances. Since the teachers reacted to sound, if they were able to remove all sound, things would’ve progressed much more smoothly.

It was just that they hadn’t come to this place with the thought of entering a Gate.

Claude waited until the second teacher had moved several steps away from the door and the other teacher moved near them.

His nodes reacted immediately.

[Body Lightening], as the name suggested, made his body lighter whilst [Reinforcement] tightened a thin protective layer over his skin, concentrating around his fist as his back started to tense.

The floor beneath his chair cracked.

Crack!

Claude disappeared from his seat and crossed the classroom in an instant, his fist driving into the side of the second teacher before it could properly turn towards him.

BANG!

The impact sent the creature through two rows of desks.

At almost the exact same moment, Rena reached the teacher near the podium.

Her hand closed around its arm while the energy from her nodes flared beneath her skin, allowing her to twist the limb behind its back and drive the teacher face-first into the wooden desk.

Pale light tightened around its elbow, her [Light Binding] node turning the light of her Elemental Decree into a narrow restraint that held the joint bent.

The podium broke beneath it.

BANG!

Seth’s severed head rolled across the surface before dropping to the floor. It stopped with one cheek against a desk leg, its eyes still open.

Claude paused for a moment, his gaze drifting to the head before he looked away.

“Now!”

He dashed to the teacher once more.

The remaining members followed, one helping Rena restrain the first teacher while Alric joined Claude.

For the first time since entering the Gate, the situation started to turn in their favour.

BANG!

Claude struck the second teacher again, forcing its burned body backwards as Alric attacked from the opposite side. Those from the Hoarding Department were combat specialists, with their Decrees more suited for close combat.

Alric’s [Motion Reading] node followed the turn of its shoulders, letting the Fourth Order recruit drive his elbow into its exposed side between Claude’s strikes.

The teacher tried reaching for him, but Claude caught the wrist before it could complete the attack. Burned skin moved beneath his fingers, loose enough that he felt it slide against the bone.

His expression changed.

‘We can do this. It’s easy…’

He felt a sudden surge of confidence.

Whatever had happened to Seth, it was all due to his lack of skills rather than the teacher’s skills.

He was simply not good enough.

‘Right, he… means nothing when compared to us.’

Claude tightened his grip.

Then someone giggled.

It was soft, but it rang loud inside his ears as his expression changed.

That laugh…!

“Hehe…”

It was as if his strength sapped away. The moment the giggle sounded, his nodes stopped responding and his strength vanished.

For the briefest instant, he couldn’t feel his nodes at all.

His body suddenly became heavy, and the strength reinforcing his grip vanished so completely that the teacher tore its arm free without resistance. Both the lightness in his limbs and the protection over his chest were gone before he could pull back.

Claude’s eyes widened.

“What—”

The back of the teacher’s hand struck him across the chest.

“Ukeh!”

He flew through a desk and rolled against the floor.

BANG!

Across the classroom, Rena suffered the same problem. Her expression changed as her nodes abruptly stopped responding, and the teacher beneath her immediately twisted free. The pale restraint had vanished from between her fingers.

One of the other members wasn’t fast enough.

A long hand drove into his shoulder and tore through the flesh before he could start using his nodes.

SPURT!

“Uekh!”

He managed to pull away before the teacher could grab his neck, staggering towards Rena while blood ran down his arm.

Then…

As if nothing had happened, they all felt their nodes once more.

Claude’s expression stiffened.

He pushed himself upright, breathing harder now as he stared at the teacher, who remained still, not even looking at them.

‘What happened?’

The others looked equally confused. Claude forced himself to think through it despite the sharp pain running across his ribs.

Their nodes had failed simultaneously.

Only for a moment.

That meant the teachers possessed some form of interference ability, or there was another entity inside the classroom capable of affecting them.

‘Right, that laugh…’

Claude looked around, his gaze shifting across the room. More specifically towards the children.

It hadn’t been the first time he had heard that laugh.

Each time, the same thing.

His eyes narrowed as he continued to look at the children. They remained seated, their hands resting on their books as though nothing had interrupted the lesson.

Staring at each of the children, Claude’s breathing grew heavier and heavier as the air around suddenly felt colder. The more he looked at the children, the less he felt at ease.

And soon, a thought struck his mind.

‘What if…’

What if… there was another anomaly?

Claude raised his hand, stopping the others from pursuing. Taking several deep breaths, he stared at the two teachers.

Neither teacher moved.

This bothered Claude, but he didn’t have the time to think too much about them.

But soon⎯

Step! Step!

The teacher began to move again, forcing everyone’s body to tense, their nodes ready to engage at any given moment.

But just when they thought the teacher was about to fight them, they unexpectedly watched as it reached for Seth’s head, blood dripping to the ground, and brought it back to the desk.

The teacher turned the severed head, Seth’s head facing their direction. It adjusted the angle twice before letting go, arranging him with the same care it had given the attendance register.

In that moment, everyone lost their breath.

No sound filtered across the room.

Until⎯

Seth’s lips slowly pulled into a smile.