Ch. 41 - Interlude - Levelling Up The Club To LV.5

"Bye bye."

"See you again tomorrow."

In the afternoon, after parting from the members of my club at the school entrance, I went back inside the school. I had only pretended to go home but the truth was, I had intended to go to the club.

After listening to Dukhun's advice, I planned to use the points to raise the level of the club for now. And because of that, I needed to be alone in the club while I would be updating it.

‘It would be a hassle to explain everything if they know.’

I couldn't explain the bizarre occurrences that had been happening to me for the last month nor could I explain from where I got the game-like system to them. The same goes for Sunah, Gyeongwon and Hayoon, who had accepted some of the mysterious phenomena that happened to us to some degree. Even if they had accepted the incidents, they must have thought that it was only a coincidence, so they had no idea about this game-like system.

I would have to tell them sooner or later. But for now, until I understand the purpose of the system and the mysterious phenomena, I couldn't tell them lest I get them in trouble.

So, I was heading to the clubroom alone. I was planning to update the clubroom when there would be no one around and no one to disturb me.

The school was very quiet unlike the all buzzing school time. Except for a few seniors preparing for late-night study and the teachers to supervise them, no one could be seen or heard around.

Before my regression, the school where I studied before the Demon King revived was forceful to the students regarding self-study. Compared to that, the authorities of Nakseong High School seemed more lax, so there weren't many students in the self-study session.

It seemed there weren't many students who were interested in late night study in school here in Nakseong High. They would rather attend cram schools, like Gyeongwon, than staying at school till late night. According to them, the reading atmosphere of cram schools was much better than the school.

Of course, the students would need their parents’ consent to skip the self-study session that had been organized by the school authority. Therefore, the seniors who could not reach an agreement with their parents had to attend the self-study session and study till late at night.

'That's terrible. I'll surely lose it if it's done to me.'

I had already taken the college entrance exam in my previous life and graduated from high school. There was no way anyone could force me to go through the torturous study session again.

I had still been holding out for a month because it was the new semester. But it was not in my character to study like a nerd.

I didn't have the confidence to prepare or sit for the boring standardized test in this life again.

Thinking how nice it would be if the system had the ability to alter the reality when I skip classes so that I wouldn't need to attend them, I went up the stairs to the clubroom.

Creak-

As I opened the door to the clubroom, the view of the far away city where the sun was setting could be seen through the window. However, I couldn't help but frown seeing the wide open window, holding the scenery of the evening sun.

‘Who left the window open?’

I entered the clubroom and closed the window before looking around the semi-dark room slowly.

The table, chairs, and the whiteboard.

It was a simple but cozy space for our Ghost Story Club.

"No one is watching, right?"

Before I started, I poked my head out into the hallway and looked both ways. Since the clubroom was on the 5th floor and at an odd angle, there wasn't anyone around at that time.

Fortunately, it was quiet and devoid of any human beings.

"Club Status Window!"

Pop.

[Ghost Story Club LV.2]

《Club Status Window

Manage Club

Manage Members

Store (LOCKED)

Club Setting》

"Number one. Manage Club."

Pop.

[Ghost Story Club LV.2]

[You may spend Ghost Story Points to nurture your club]

[Points until next level up: 0/100]

[Ability: Space Expansion LV.1]

The last time when I raised the level of the club, I had done it as a test to see how the system works. At that time, I had chosen to expand the space and increase the size of the room.

Other abilities that I could have selected other than Space Expansion were probably ‘Ghost Story Acquisition Skill’ and ‘Manpower Capacity’.

The names of the abilities were so confusing that I couldn't comprehend what kind of abilities they were simply by name. For that reason, I had decided to try out those skills as well as leveling up the club.

“Today, I'll raise the level of the club, unlock the Store and try those skills one by one.”

I remember that I was able to raise my ability level by one each time the level of the club went up.

"Now, level up!"

I put my finger on the ‘Level Up’ button floating in the air in front of my eyes and pressed it down.

Then, the points began to decrease and were added to the ‘Level Up’ panel in front of my eyes.

[Points until next level up: 19... 28… 52… 75… 99…100/100]

Ding!

Ping~♬

[The club has levelled up!]

[Ghost Story Club LV.2 -> LV.3]

[Current available ability points: (1)]

"Okay, let's go all the way to level 5! I'm going to unlock the Store today!"

As I was continuously pressing the ‘Level Up’ button, the points began to disappear with the speed of light until I reached level 5.

[Points until next level up…]

[36… 57…]

[83… 100/100]

Ding!!

Ping~♬

[The club has levelled up!]

[Ghost Story Club LV.3 -> LV.4]

[Current available ability points: (2)]

"Good! Let's go!"

Although the system was a lot like a game-like system, it took a lot of effort and time to gather the points and raise one level.

Compared to the usual online MMORPG games where I could level up by jumping a few dozen steps in a day with no-go, it was a bit frustrating.

Therefore, as the level increased continuously as time passed, I felt the thrilling pleasure and excitement of waiting to try something new rushing through my body.

[Points until next level up: 36… 57…]

[83…100/100]

Ping~♬

[The club has levelled up!]

[Ghost Story Club LV.4 -> LV.5]

[Current available ability points: (3)]

At that moment, a holographic firecracker effect exploded in front of my eyes, and a message appeared.

[Congratulations! Your club has reached level 5!]

[You have unlocked the Store!]

[Ghost Story Club LV.5]

《Club Status Window

Manage Club

Manage Members

Store < NEW!! Click to open

Club Setting》

[Current available ability points: (3)]

[Each time the Ghost Story Club levels up, you may distribute one ability point to your members. Please choose an ability.

Current available ability points: (3)]

• Ghost Story Acquisition Skill LV.0

• Manpower Capacity LV.0

• Space Expansion LV.1

“Huu, it's finally done."

Finally, I had managed to unlock the store. Also, as the level increased, three ability points were given to distribute among the club members.

"Status Window. Status Window... Hmm."

I tried to go back to Manage Club and open the Store function to take a look, but the screen hovering in front of me didn't change according to my will at all.

"Is the system trying to indicate that I have to distribute the ability first?"

It was behaving like a typical old classical game where you have to perform the activities presented by the system to move on to the next window panel.

"Three... Let's see."

Since there were three ability points that were given and I could choose three different abilities.

Then it would be fair to use all the three points one by one and choose all the three different abilities.

"But Space Expansion…”

Previously, when I had gotten my hand on the clubroom for the first time, it was too small and narrow for all the members to accommodate. Therefore, even when I expanded the room a bit, I didn't get caught.

However, the room was much more spacious now and the expansion would also double by size. If I expanded the room again, it would be too obvious.

“Hmm?"

I thought about it for a while, but as I made up my mind, I couldn't help but feel it was a good opportunity.

Sooner or later, I had to explain everything to them anyway. It didn't matter how they would accept, but since I've decided to drag them into the mess with me, I would have to explain everything to them.

The clubroom suddenly expanded overnight!

It could be used as an evidence that I could use when I would be explaining the game-like system to them later.

So far, I had been hiding about the existence of the system because I was worried about the reactions of the members. But thinking about it now, I didn't think hiding the facts from them was helping me or anyone.

Why should I keep it a secret from them when we would be fighting with the Demon King and bringing peace to the world?

There would certainly come a day when I would have to share the information of all these strange incidents with the members.

I didn't know if it would be tomorrow or next month, but for then, I had decided to gamble and see the outcome.

"Okay. I'll unlock all the three abilities one by one."

Click.

[The Space Expansion ability has been added to the club.]

[The Ghost Story Acquisition Skill has been added to the club.]

[The Manpower Capacity ability has been added to the club]

Apart from the existing ability of Space Expansion, two other abilities had been added to my club.

[Ability:

• Space Expansion LV.1 -> LV.2

• Ghost Story Acquisition Skill LV.0 -> LV.1

• Manpower Capacity LV.0 -> LV.1]

All the three abilities were added at the same time. Now, I could choose which ability to use.

Again, like several internet pop-ups, another window popped up in front of me, overlapping the previous window.

The message that surfaced was about enabling Space Expansion ability.

[LV.1 -> LV.2]

[The clubroom expansion will begin soon. In order for it to begin, please leave the room and close the door.]

"Do I have to go out like this every time? Can't I just stay inside?"

Just as usual, the system was unresponsive. It seemed it had no intention to answer my grumbling.

Come to think of it, I never knew how the Space Expansion ability worked and what happens to the clubroom during loading.

“I'm curious.”

To know how the Space Expansion ability worked, I thought I should leave my phone inside and record the process with my phone.

"Let's see."

I carefully put my phone on the desk and opened the clubroom to leave. But thinking about something, I couldn't help but go back.

“The angle is not right. I should put it in the corner of the floor for a better view.”

The moment I closed the door of the clubroom again and headed to the table to take my phone.

[The clubroom is reloading. Please wait for a moment.]

"Huh?"

The clubroom expansion began although I was still in the room.

It seemed that the system was practically blind, and opening and closing the door was the trigger to start the loading.

"I was curious anyway. This is great."

Well, it was not that I was gonna die or anything.

As I stood inside the clubroom, it began to load.

I stood close to the door with my arms folded and began to observe the loading.

For a moment, nothing happened. But soon the floor began to tremble violently as if a high frequency earthquake had hit.

Whish-

As if the entire room had become an elevator, I could feel the entire space was being moved somewhere along with the continuous vibration.

The scenery outside the window changed rapidly as the feeling of weightlessness washed over me for a moment. I felt like the room was ascending then descending from somewhere as my body was thrown left and right.

Whish.

Whoosh.

0%.

8%.

My ears began to hurt as the feeling of ascension stayed for a long time. Seeing no other way, I held my palms over my ears and swallowed dry saliva.

13%.

21%.

Click.

"Ugh, what is it?"

All of a sudden, all light were removed from the room as sunlight completely disappeared from outside the window.

The inside of the room was plunged into pitch darkness. I fumbled my hand around in a panic and tried to turn on the light.

Click.

The room was once again filled with bright light.

Only then did I notice how the clubroom was changing and ‘Loading’.

Crack, Crick, Crack, Creeck.

I watched with great astonishment as the tiles stood up from their positions like dominos and were turned into new tiles in the blink of an eye before going back to their previous positions. All the walls were divided into squares, and one by one, they began to stretch on both sides as the room expanded.

35%.

47%.

The bizarre scene made me remember the movie called Transformers.

Like the gears of the cars flipped and folded and the cars transformed into robots, the room was going through a similar transformation.

The table dived down into the tiles of the still changing floor. However, a short time later, it burst up into the space and was set in what was thought to be the centre of the newly expanded clubroom.

Smack!

"Oh, f*ck!"

I approached the table and stood at the edge of it to take a look. But then I was struck by the corner of the table and thrown to the floor.

As I rolled on the floor, the whiteboard fell from its position and hit me directly on the top of my head.

Smack!

"Ah! F*ck it!"

Is this why the system asked me to go outside?

It seemed the system was being considered for its user. And I, the idiot, threw the consideration out the door and landed myself in a difficult position.

55%.

63%.

After gathering myself, I staggered to my feet and approached the window.

I looked out the window while the room was still loading.

Before the loading started, I remember that the sunlight suddenly disappeared out the window and everything was plunged into darkness.

It bothered me why it became dark all of a sudden. Not to mention, the feeling of weightlessness as if the entire room was ascending was also suspicious.

Was the entire space moving somewhere?

Before the loading was finished, I wanted to check the place where I was.

"What the hell is this? It's dark."

I looked out through the closed window, avoiding the tiles that were floating up and turning into new tiles.

However, there was nothing but pitch-black darkness out the window.

In that darkness, I could see something glistening in the distance. They were sparkling and twinkling like a thousand fireflies.

"Stars?"

But it was definitely afternoon when I entered the clubroom. I had clearly seen the sun setting in the west. Then what the hell was I seeing outside?

I rubbed my eyes and looked out again.

Where was I?

Where was the club room being moved and loaded?

"What's that?"

Then, I saw something shiny far beyond the corner of the window. But I couldn't decipher the shape properly because the angle wasn't right.

Thinking that I could see it well if I stuck my head out, I tried opening the window. But the tightly closed window didn't move.

84%.

91%.

Seeing no choice, I pushed my face to the glass on the window until my cheeks were smashed against it. Only then I could see clearly what that sparkling thing was.

It was a nebula, a collection of very strange-looking stars shaping a nebula.

"The outer space?"

The nebulas depicted in science textbooks passed in my mind.

Like the majestic Pillars of Creation or the enigmatic Horsehead nebula... A collection of interstellar matter, each adorned in diverse shapes, drifted through the profound darkness of space, radiating their bright glow. They were shining like a beautiful creation of the universe that glows in the vast darkness.

Was I with the presence of vast cosmos?

But the shape of the nebula was quite strange.

"Oh, is it upside down?"

As I turned my head sideways, squishing my cheeks against the glass while trying to discern the shape of the nebula, the whole appearance was finally revealed to my eyes.

'… The Demon King.'

In the middle of the dark, vast space.

The molecular cloud of the nebula, which had an unimaginable size, was in the shape of the Demon King, gleaming among the vast cosmos.

100%.

Swish.

Before I could decipher the reason why the nebula had the shape of the Demon King, the landscape outside the window changed in an instant. All of a sudden, bright light burst into the room, making me frown and close my eyes at the sudden appearance of light.

As I slowly opened my eyes, I could see the playground of my school over the window as usual. The afternoon sun was still setting on the west, glowing everything in a warm orange light.

After the loading was done, the clubroom had returned to its original space.

Plop.

I almost crashed down in a nearby chair.

What the hell was that?

That thing among the cosmos... Was that a living thing?

Why did the nebula have such a strange shape?

And where was that place just now? Was it the universe? The outer space of our dimension?

If there had been a nebula of that shape, it would have already been in the magazine, raging a storm among the scientists. But so far, I haven't heard anything about it.

Was that place in outer space, somewhere far where humans couldn't reach with our level of science and couldn't observe therefore?

"Huu."

Again, I had witnessed something beyond my comprehension. The sudden appearance of that Demon-King-shaped nebula was enough to tell me I had much more things to figure out about the bizarre situations and there were many things I didn't know.

I shook my head and looked around the room slowly. As I looked around, I couldn't help but notice that the clubroom had definitely gotten wider than before.

In the past, it was about the size of a small studio, but now it was about the size of a living room of an apartment.

There was enough space for two groups to sit around each other and discuss.

One group of people could sit at a side and have a meeting at the table, while the other group could watch TV and relax on a sofa on the other side. We just had to put a partition in between and it would be perfect.

[LV.0 -> LV.1]

A message flickered in front of my eyes as if urging me to click it quickly.

"Haaa. Yeah, yeah, I get it. Click."

Then, another bunch of messages popped out in front of me one after another.

[The Ghost Story Acquisition Skill has been added to the club]

[From now on, members will be facing ghost stories individually and help you collect and bring the ghost stories to you with their abilities on a regular basis.]

[Adding C-rank ghost story...]

"What? No! Stop!"

[A C-rank ghost story has been added to Jang Hwaeun - Psychology Test]

Thud.

The Ghost Story Acquisition Skill was literally the ability to collect Ghost Story Points with just a different name. I understood it only after the system announced what it was.

Obviously, the ghost stories weren't the ordinary ghost stories that we hear from others but the kind of ghost stories that I had been fighting with for the last month.

"How did this come to be…”

Although it was me who had done most of the work with the help of other members, I still had to be close to death's door at least 10 times in a month. But from now on, not only me, the other members of my club would be also facing the same life and death situations individually.

"How can this happen... you son of a b*tch!"

Even knowing that the system wouldn't reply, I couldn't help but curse it out loud.

Letting out a tired sigh, I began to focus on other messages.

Desperately hoping that the other messages would be at least a little bit useful.

[LV.0 -> LV.1]

[The Manpower Capacity ability has been added to the club.]

[As the level of the club rises, the system would search for and add the best person with an extraordinary talent as extra manpower for the club. Current Manpower Capacity Points: (1)]

[The person searched and added by the system as extra manpower are not considered as a member of the club. However, they are people who would work with the Ghost Story Club as a partner and assist you outside of school.]

[Searching for extra manpower…Please wait…]

"Oho!"

Manpower Capacity!

It seemed like another ability that I could use in case of emergency.

Compared to the Space Expansion ability that expanded the size of the room and the Ghost Story Acquisition Skill that would perhaps drive my members to death's door more often than I like, this ability was much more helpful. After all, the last ghost story that I faced, the 'Song of Resentment' made me realize that I would be needing the help from outsiders in the future.

[The search for extra manpower is complete.]

[Detective Park Gangwoon has been added as extra manpower for the Ghost Story Club.]

"Detective!"

A detective is on our side!

That seemed like a very good news.

Not only did I have to face life and death situations every time I encountered a ghost story, I also had to go through many absurd situations.

Now that a detective was on our side, it would be easier to gather information from the police or any other sources, which would make my work easier.

After reading all the messages, I sat in a good mood, deciding that I would wait to meet with the detective.

However, even as I sat idly waiting for a while, nothing really happened.

Hmm.

"Where's the detective?"

Send me the detective right now you f*cking b*stard.

Again, the system was unresponsive to my unholy words.

Seeing that nothing was happening, I understood that the detective would be brought in front of me in time. It seemed that although the system could alter reality, it didn't have much grasp over humans’ destiny. Perhaps just as I got the clubroom out of nowhere, something unexpected would happen which would lead me to the detective.

"Haa, alright, alright. It's time for me to go home anyway."

All that was left was to check the Store!

I stood up and began to stretch my sore muscles when my eyes landed on the small window on the door and my movement immediately stopped.

As I approached the door with narrowed eyes, I realized that someone was standing outside, staring straight inside.

The person had her face pressed against the small window, staring through it like a creep.

And it was none other than Teacher Hwaeun.

'From when?'

Teacher Hwaeun stared through the window inside the club without blinking or moving. I couldn't help but freeze at her sudden appearance.

My head began to run at the speed of light as my heart began to pound like it would burst out of my chest any moment.

Did I do anything suspicious?

I quickly fumbled through my memory as the question arose.

From an outsider's view, I had been poking my fingers in the air.

Although I knew I had been clicking the button of the system since it was visible to me, for others, it was invisible.

It was a relief that she couldn't see anything while the clubroom was loading and expanding as I remember I couldn't do so as well.

'As long as I don't get caught doing anything in the room that seemed suspicious, I don't think it will be hard to explain the situation.'

As I fumbled through my memory, checking all the things I've done so far, I realized that there wasn't anything that I did that looked particularly suspicious.

Nodding to myself, I approached the small window and naturally greeted the teacher.

"Hello teacher! I was surprised to see you! What are you doing there?"

However, Teacher Hwaeun still didn't reply and continued to stare inside with her eyes wide open.

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