The student attempted to flee to a nearby lakeside park, where he jumped into the lake, but was apprehended just 12 minutes after the initial report, according to Cheongju police.
The 18-year-old was taken to a hospital as he suffered minor injuries.
“We are trying to determine the details and motive,” a local police official told AFP.
Police later confirmed they confiscated four different weapons, including a box cutter, from the student.
“In this case, the student had the items in their bag from the time they arrived at school, so it seems that others (the teachers) were not aware of it,” a high school official told a media briefing.
Yoon Geon-young, superintendent of education for Chungbuk province, told reporters that the “incident was unpredictable and should never have happened”.
“Fortunately, the students remained safe and were neither direct witnesses to the situation nor traumatised by it,” Yoon said.
The case comes just months after a teacher fatally stabbed an eight-year-old student at an elementary school in South Korea.
However, South Korea is generally a very safe country, with a murder rate of 1.3 per 100,000 people in 2021, according to official statistics – below the global average of six homicide deaths per 100,000 people.
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