Jaesung cried out on the floor with snot running down, his cries filled the room as he looked at both of his arms that had turned into ash with blood now surging out nonstop.

  "I?Help me!! Please!" He screamed at the other students observing that spectacle.

  None dared to step forward towards him, their audible gulping sounds rang in his ears, shaking his vision with tears flooding his view.

  Fear emanated from their faces as they stepped back at what they saw with open mouths. A sigh rang, accompanied by light footsteps from the side, he turned his head to find Harin had knelt down next to him.

  "Haa…"

  She leaned towards the screaming Jaesung with bandages she took out of her school jacket’s inner pocket.

  "These are expensive, you know? They're limited supply, after all." She whispered into his ear as she opened the bandage roll slowly, Zzzt? his sad shouts reached out like music to her ears.

  "Help me!" he shouted.

  He frantically moved his arm in her direction, spilling a trail of blood across the room and painting a puddle of blood that dyed the floor as red as his.

  “That won't do, you'll need to repay me for what you've done.”

  She gazed at his eyes as she spoke in a low voice, hair subtly glowing in a red fashion, emanating red mist without a single person noticing.

  "I'll do anything! Please!"

  "Well, I don't need you anymore, though?" She said as she gripped what remained of his arms, ashes, or rather charred skin and flesh, were sticking firmly onto his bones that had turned red.

  Unfazed, she rolled the bandage around his arm tightly as the red mist entered his veins before opening her lips.

  “Wow. I thought you were going to show me how we are a bunch of murderers. Where did that Jaesung go?” She whispered into his ear, his black eyes had been painted over with a new color, a color similar to what the others had.

  +

  [Activating skill ‘Otherworldly Mist’.]

  +

  A blue screen appeared in the corner of her eyes at the same time his veins hardened and became visible through his skin, his face turned dull like a doll’s before he screamed with a cracked voice that almost turned him into a mute.

  “Thank you, Harin-ssi! You are a real lifesaver!! I am sorry for doubting you!!" He said as blood dripped down his arms and onto the floor.

  Whispers echoed within the clump of students watching.

  "We are really trapped…"

  "No… mom… I want to go home, I shouldn't have come to school.…!"

  Jaesung emotionlessly laid on the ground, armless. And similarly to him, the others that had just been scared, stumbling over their words, fear-struck or silent, became like a doll emotionlessly standing within a clump of similar dolls.

  +

  [Your control over your targets has hardened and will not break easily.]

  [Speak out your command. Every target that hears the command will follow through without hesitation as long as your control over it is enough.]

  +

  'Finally… it's over.' She thought as she dragged her gaze across the faces of her fellow students.

  All of them wore the same expression on their faces, dullness expressed itself clearly in such an expression.

  ‘Who knew all of this would happen? Monsters appearing out of nowhere, strange abilities that make no sense whatsoever.’

  Harin looked at the palm of her hand before gliding it across her hair, the feeling she felt wasn’t unordinary but rather something she felt every day.

  ‘Apparently, the mist is coming out of my hair or maybe my scalp… I’m not sure, but all I know is that I’m not feeling anything strange or different. It’s like it’s happening out of nowhere, like… magic. Whatever it is, I’m lucky to have it right now.’

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Harin sighed before getting up.

  ‘The weird windows said that my control over them won't break, huh... then...'

  The fabric covering her legs had been painted the same color as Jaesung's blood, a livelier red than any red she had seen before but her eyes didn’t shake at the sight of it and rather turned uncaring before she let her mouth open.

  “My fellow classmates, new news has reached me, it says that the way to break through the unusual barrier trapping us in this school of death is to combine our efforts and attack it together at the same time, in a condensed area, before it can fix itself!” Shouted Harin at her classmates.

  She didn’t expect any pushback or disagreement after the example Jaesung had made at the cost of his arms, it was a harsh price to pay in the situation they were in for disagreeing with the ‘student council’s way of saving them’.

  And she was right to think that. No one objected to her or even questioned where or who was the source of those news even after a couple of minutes had passed by, the silence resulting from that gave Harin immense satisfaction that she hadn’t even noticed her lips crawling upwards and her eyes sharpening.

  “The key to this working is timing. If we hit at the same time, we’ll be able to generate immense kinetic energy that the barrier would crumble and let us through!”

  ‘It may sound believable, or even insanely convincing if you’re under the effect of my mist, but every word I said was an absolute lie.’

  +

  [System note: due to the situation at hand, targets under the influence of your skill will have absolute faith in your words and will even develop hallucinations and reasons to support it and back it up.

  But absurdly outrageous statements will be hard or even unable to be accepted by them, stay mindful.]

  [Warning! Blood levels are halfway into reaching a dangerous threshold.]

  +

  Harin glanced at the system prompt that had appeared once again, seemingly encouraging her. Her eyes didn’t take in more than a few words that brought her even more confidence; ‘absolute faith in your words’, ‘develop hallucinations to support your words’, it seemed like the system wanted her to go through with her actions.

  ‘I don’t know who you are, be it the cruel god that let this happen to begin with, or satan, or buddha, or whatever you are, thank you. Thank you for helping me!’ inaudibly monologing a ‘thank you’ in her head towards the sky before she spoke, positioning her empty arms like she was holding a weapon, she finally opened her mouth.

  “Look! Even I will help, unafraid! Forget your fears, have trust in your fellow classmates, follow my word to strike and I will make sure we break through!” She screamed at her classmates that had begun hallucinating a sledgehammer in her grasp, a sight followed by words that took the fear out of their minds.

  Stepping backwards little by little while inciting them to move forward, she left their sight unnoticed and shouted excitedly.

  “We’ll need everyone’s all! At my word, strike with every ounce of energy your bodies have in store!”

  ‘What I figured from what Jaesung did…’

  “Three!!” She shouted.

  ‘The stronger your strike is…”

  “Two!!” Their veins showed all across and their muscles flexed themselves under the heavy winter uniforms, patiently waiting for her to speak out the third and final number.

  ‘The worse your injury will be after attacking the barrier. Say goodbye to your limbs, and hello to death by blood loss!’

  “Mmm?!!”

  A muffled voice came out instead, going strictly by what she said, not a muscle moved. They stood still gathering strength in place that eventually some of them had passed out from forcefully over-exerting themselves.

  A blinding light came into her view as she realized she was no longer able to speak a word out. Someone had held her from behind that no matter how much strength she put in, she wasn’t able to set herself free.

  ‘I can’t move?!’ She thought to herself. She who helped her parents on their family-owned farm, carried the heaviest items that needed carrying, and did the toughest jobs that her muscles eventually became refined much more than a normal person’s, was unable to get out of a bind by someone from their school?

  “Hemp?!!” eventually an incomprehensible sound went past her captor’s hand, and as a result, some of the classmates under her control turned to face her.

  Attempting to let out more of a noise and notify her classmates that were under her control to come and help her, she tried to scream. But this time, absolutely no sound was let out and she was only met with a tighter grip.

  The blinding light shook in front of her eyes, only then did she realize it was a phone that let out this amount of light inside of a building that almost had no light whatsoever.

  ‘Who has their phone on this level of brightness?! Are you a fakebook mom or something?!’

  Her captor shook the phone in their hand but due to high the brightness was set, her eyes took a second to register what was in front of her, it was a picture of someone dear to her.

  “Does this picture remind you of someone?” the voice of someone familiar, someone who she had interacted with not that long ago, came to her ears from behind.

  ‘The transfer student?!’ she tried to say it out loud, but like before, no sound was let out past his hand.

  “Don't even think of letting a sound out before deactivating your skill, that much shouldn’t require you to talk, would it now?” He said while shaking the phone as he let out a sneer.

  Harin’s eyes shook while looking at the picture on his phone, she couldn’t lie to him out of fear, and she couldn’t fool him due to the visible visual effects someone under her control harbored.

  Without a second thought, she deactivated her skill, and every student that had been waiting for her signal to strike at the barrier fell unconscious, their muscles were still flexed out and stiff and on the verge of exploding of sheer pressure.

  “Woah, what a scary effect. To think your skill can make others rapture their own muscles. But that doesn’t matter.” he said as he let go of his grip before pushing her away, making her stumble and fall face-first onto the ground.

  But harin didn’t take a second to express the pain she felt after such an impact on her head but rather shouted at him with a knife in her voice.

  “Where is she?! What did you do to Yurim?!”