With just about everyone in the lecture hall staring at him, Zack quickly covered and pocketed what he could and grabbed his lunchbox, throwing the sling attached to it over his shoulder. 

He didn’t want to appear too conspicuous compared to the examinees, although there was a fat chance of staying low now that Callow had made such a big deal about announcing his name and his gold mark to the other examinees. 

Ariel, who Zack noticed sat properly and with a mannered posture like a girl who’d been raised her entire life from private schools, appeared more distant than just a moment ago, and others shot jealous looks in his direction, including manager Kim and the other male silver mark Nicolas Abernickel, as well as one of the female silver marks, Sofia Alley. 

Nicolas had an athlete’s build, but it was strange that Sofa and Alicia, both feeble looking female examinees, were able to secure the silver mark, Zack thought. If he ever got the chance, he wanted to ask how they managed that. 

“Ahem! Settle down, settle down,” Callow dictated, carefully slotting the gold index card that he was holding into his front chest pocket. “Now that mark rewards have been distributed, it is time for me to explain the rules of your first examination.” 

“Wait, don’t we get anything?” shouted a man in protest, one of the majority of examinees who had not received a mark. “We just barely survived after that horrible preliminary thing, and now you want us to do it all over again without any items? This isn’t fair!” 

At that, Callow laughed. “If you haven’t even received a bronze mark, it is more than necessary for you to learn the importance of taking risks. Without taking risks, do not expect to be given any aid.” 

“You’re just leaving us to die then!”

“Of course not,” Callow smiled. “I expect at least some of you to survive. Although admittedly that number is not high if I were to be brutally honest. Now, any more interruptions will result in ejection from the lecture hall. Let me explain the objective of your examination.” 

“Your mission is to be in the gymnasium five hours from now. The second floor of the campus floors will be permitted, but you may not leave the campus. Food will be available in the cafeteria for those of you who wish to stock up, and I highly encourage you to do so.”

“The third floor will also be available for those of you who are a bit more daring… and that sums up the explanation of the first examination. Anything else will have to be uncovered by yourselves.” 

Callow reached into his tuxedo and produced a small toy gun, no larger than half of his palm. He raised it into the air and threw his other hand out in a grand gesture. “The clock… starts… now!” 

Bang! 

The pistol went off with a bang. After a puff of confetti accompanied by a brilliant light shot from the toy pistol, Callow Bitterman was nowhere to be found, leaving the examinees alone in the lecture hall. 

[Objective.] 

1. Reach the gymnasium in five hours. 

2. Remaining time: 04:59:59:58 

Right as the timer began, an ominous scratching noise began on the auditorium door. With a sound that seemed oddly similar to long human fingernails digging into the wooden door, the examinees who were closest to the door began to back away slowly. 

Something was out there, and whatever it was, it had taken quite the interest in the door leading into the lecture hall. 

The phone in his pocket buzzed. Zack was surprised to see that his phone was in his pocket, as he definitely did not have it with him when coming through the portal. But that strange phenomenon aside, Zack took it out to see that a black screen with white text labeled Chronicles of Gakuen High had appeared. 

I heard that our old highschool was turned into a university five years after the incidents. My heart goes out to anyone foolish enough to step foot upon that accursed campus after all that had happened. 

…

It was the weekend when my friends and I decided to sneak into school and stay overnight. We had four boys including myself and three girls, and at the time the thought of staying overnight with girls was irresistible. I had heard rumors that the girl with the lip piercing was a whore, adding to the allure of the trip. 

The old gymnasium is where we decided to spend the night, as there were soft gym mats to sleep on. One of the girls brought a planchette board and three candles to create a more haunting atmosphere, as was tradition for communion with spirits. At the time we thought nothing of it, and none of us wanted to show signs of fear in front of the girls. We laughed about the planchette board and used it disdainfully. 

On our third use of the planchette board, it spelled out a word. W-E-L-L. And that was when things started to get a bit disturbing. There was an old folk’s tale that a girl fell into the well at our school many years ago. She cried for help for five days and five nights, but nobody heard her. Her name was Hamagku, and she appeared before us– 

“Oy, oy, oy!” Wallace chanted, a smug grin on the teal haired twenty-five year old man’s face as he approached and interrupted Zack’s reading. “If it isn’t the gold mark himself. Since you’re such a valued and competent guest who has blessed us with his presence, why don’t you go out the door first? Please set an example for the rest of us peasants.” 

“Yeah!” an unmarked man shouted. “You have a mark, don’t you, with all that fancy equipment? Shouldn’t you be the first to go out the door?” 

“That’s not fair to him, he’s just an examinee like the rest of us!” a woman said. 

“Fair? Is it fair that he gets special treatment and all of those extra tools? If he wants to be fair, then he should share his items with us!” the unmarked man retorted. 

Whispers and discussions erupted, and a frenzied mob mentality began to appear among some of the panicked unmarked examinees. Feeling a sense of abandonment and inferiority, they channeled their anger towards Zack, who received the most rewards as the only gold mark. 

“And you, come join us,” Wallace said, pointing at Ariel. A group of about ten examinees had already gathered behind Wallace, congregating around who was perceived to be one of the strongest examinees. “Or do you want to go with him?” 

“I’ll go alone,” the blonde haired university student replied politely, standing up from her chair and walking to the other end of the lecture hall. 

Zack was not surprised. The look that Ariel gave him changed when she saw that he had the gold mark. She appeared more suspicious of him, and for good reason. The qualification for the gold mark was killing the monster in the preliminary examination. No normal person could do something like that. It’d be strange if she hadn’t grown suspicious of him after his mark’s color was revealed. 

Some examinees were about to ask if they could join Zack, but Wallace’s proposal to have him lead by example out the door and into the waiting arms of the monster outside made those prospective teammates back off. Nobody wanted to be first out the door, as the scratching sound only got louder by the minute. 

But at the moment, Zack was completely fixated on his phone screen. He continued to read. 

Her name was Hamagku, and she appeared before us. Crawling on all fours, she snatched my friend. Her long curved nails sank into him, clawing into his skin the same way she tried to claw her way out of that well all that time ago. 

Another one of my friends was grabbed by her, until we found a way to temporarily repel her advances. It was simple, just a line of salt, and… 

The entry ended there. 

Damn. If only there was one more line, and he’d know how to repel Hamagku. 

“Look how arrogant he is, completely ignoring us!” Wallace declared, shooting an accusatory glare at Zack. “Is this the pride of a gold mark?” 

“Send him out the door first!” 

“He’s the strongest one of us, he deserves to go first!” 

Even his former boss manager Kim chimed in. “This lazy bum is my former employee. He isn’t strong at all, he’s spineless. He must have cheated to get the gold mark!” 

“Your former employee?” 

“Yes, the absolute worst kind of employee. Always a slacker, and burdened me so much when he pretended to get into an accident to quit work. He is the worst kind of employee in this country, and a guaranteed cheat in the preliminary exam.” 

“You heard him, he’s a cheat! Send him through the door first!” 

Zack gripped the metal bar he picked up from the broken fence tightly as a mob of angry examinees approached him. He didn’t want to fight the other examinees, but there was no way he’d survive going out the door first. 

But at that moment, a long fingernail poked through the door, digging into the locking mechanism. 

Click. 

The door slid open, and a thin pale arm with flayed flesh reached in through the doorway, grabbing the closest person nearby, a woman. 

“H-help!” she screamed as she was violently yanked out of the classroom by the leg, her screams intensifying until they suddenly stopped. 

Then, that pale and long hand reached in again, as examinees scrambled away from the door.