The Walking Hour of the Mutilated Corpse

With Shiratama Manatsu, the “detective” whose mere presence oppressed their hearts, now gone, the class felt a palpable shift. The “committee chair,” seemingly adorable yet undeniably “black-bellied,” was also absent. Even the entirely harmless “passerby” Zhuge Yinglang was no longer there. Consequently, the entire classroom plunged into a state of unrest.

“Today is truly interesting. Look at the teacher’s frustrated expression… Shiratama-kun is so cool~”

“Indeed….”

“If… Shiratama-kun could resolve that library rumor… that would be wonderful.”

The speaker was a girl with short, gray hair.

“That rumor? You actually believe it?”

“But didn’t someone capture it with a camera? So, I couldn’t help but…”

The two girls in front of the gray-haired girl turned their faces. One of them immediately slammed a heavy physics textbook onto the gray-haired girl’s face.

Slam!

“Ugh, you’re bullying me again…” The gray-haired girl clutched her head in a gesture of defiance.

“I keep telling you, this rumor about ‘Golden Fairies battling Headless Monsters’… it’s absolutely a lie! Even ghost stories should have some limits, right?”

“Exactly! I even heard something about eerie laughter appearing in the school bathhouse… People nowadays are getting really good at joking around…”

“Eh? But…” The girl in front of the gray-haired girl suddenly began to move strangely. She raised both hands above her head, mimicking a demon’s horns. “Have you heard of it? The recent rumor about ‘The Walking Hour of the Mutilated Corpse’?”

“Hmm, it’s just a rumor. I haven’t heard any specific details…” The gray-haired girl scratched her head, expressing a hint of confusion.

“Well then, let me tell you… It was one early morning….”

****

Aozaki, a student from Class 3-E, was known for his restless, wandering nature. After a night of heavy drinking with a biker gang, Aozaki and his three companions began to lose their minds. At midnight, they arrived at a place called Mikazuki Elementary School.

It was said that Aozaki had once been a student there. However, due to his unruly behavior, he was punished by a morally questionable teacher at the school when he was very young. Aozaki frequently defied his teachers’ “orders.” Furthermore, his parents were merely ordinary citizens, possessing no influence or power. Ultimately, after a teacher reported him, Aozaki was forcibly transferred to an elementary school in a neighboring town.

“Wait,” the gray-haired girl interrupted the person at the front desk, who was telling the story. “Isn’t corporal punishment a crime? So Aozaki…”

“Yes, it was corporal punishment. But… given Aozaki’s age at the time, even if he wanted to report it, he wouldn’t have been able to provide evidence, would he?” The person at the front desk waved a hand dismissively.

“How unfortunate, to have such a teacher…”

“Exactly, so just let me finish.”

….

Aozaki, harboring deep resentment, decided to stealthily infiltrate the school at night. With monthly exams approaching, they reasoned that burning an elementary school’s test papers would surely cause significant disruption to the entire institution.

As the alcohol steadily clouded their judgment, Aozaki and his disoriented companions, that very night, forcibly squeezed through the narrow gap in the school’s locked main gate, making their way inside. The school’s back gate, secured only by a chain lock, had a wider gap. This allowed the rather slender group to slip through with ease, going completely unnoticed even by the school’s security guard.

Inside the teaching building was the teachers’ office, where the test papers were stored. Since their memories were already hazy, the group decided to split up and search for the test paper storage location.

“What happened?” The gray-haired girl seemed to have piqued her interest.

“Well~ it’s just… My information also comes from Aozaki, who’s still in the hospital now, but the details I got aren’t entirely complete…”

However, Aozaki had indeed been rambling about things like “mushrooms,” “paper figures,” and “giant moving dolls”… Yes, at that time, Aozaki saw those things.

The teaching building was no longer a teaching building at all; it was “another world”…. Aozaki claimed that all he could see there was… a deep, profoundly dark starry sky. And constantly crashing to the ground… like perishing meteors… were “Hats”…. “Teapots”…. “Tables and Chairs”…”Playing Cards”… and such things….

According to him, these objects were not inherently frightening. Yet, they were all extraordinarily decayed and terrifyingly enormous.

Aozaki recounted: ‘A teapot the size of a building… shattered… a flood of blood… inside the teapot…’

However, Aozaki ultimately managed to evade these bizarre phenomena. Finally, after climbing onto a dining table the size of a tennis court, Aozaki encountered a “person.”

“A person?”

“Hehe, are you feeling a bit scared? Should I continue?”

“Not scary at all, actually… quite cute, Aozaki-kun.” The gray-haired girl clapped her hands, indicating it was perfectly fine.

“No, the story isn’t over yet… A hat. Yes, a hat…..”

A gentleman’s hat, resembling an awning, spiraled down from the sky. With a speed utterly impossible for a human to evade, it trapped Aozaki and the man together. Although the inside of the hat should have been dark, Aozaki could still see the purple nebula outside through it. Furthermore, the interior of the hat… it was like a colossal room.

Perhaps due to the previously dim environment, Aozaki hadn’t noticed that sofas, chairs, and even boxes had suddenly appeared around him. It was almost like a meticulously tidy room.

Once they were enclosed together, that “person” suddenly began to behave erratically…..