How a Nuisance Character Survives in a Horror Game

 

[Holloway can’t find you.]

 

[Holloway can’t sense your smell.]

 

My smell? What smell, you bastard.

 

[Holloway is displeased.]

 

What? He’s displeased with my smell?

 

[The hidden feature ‘Anxiety Symptoms’ is activated!]

 

His anxiety is activated when I smell so bad!

 

Did my smell offend you that much?

 

I slowly lifted my arm and sniffed.

 

No, though. I don’t smell to the extent that it’s unpleasant, you know…

 

He makes people really depressed, that guy.

 

[Currently, Holloway’s anxiety level is 0.5%.]

 

[Anxiety Symptoms: The longer he spends time away from you, the less one can guess what Holloway will do.

 

The higher his anxiety level, the more possessive he will be towards you!

 

Please stay close to the pitiful yet beautiful Holloway and lower his anxiety!]

 

[Possessiveness increased by 0.2%.]

 

[Jealousy: 13%

 

Anxiety symptoms: 0.5%]

 

Now that I see it, it talks more than me.

 

I was too busy reading the window to notice the smell coming up one after another without even having time to focus on the monsters approaching me as if they were pressing on me from both sides.

 

“But, anxiety symptoms?”

 

Not only jealousy, but also anxiety?

 

Why does he just open up all his negative feelings?

 

Although it was just a grumble, the eagle-eyed system that didn’t miss even the smallest details quickly opened a window.

 

[Would you like to activate Holloway’s ‘Stress’?]

 

“No.”

 

Go back.

 

I clicked the ‘No’ button one after another.

 

[Cancel the activation of Holloway’s ‘Stress’.]

 

I was just saying this, but is there such a thing as stress? It makes me speechless.

 

The world is too harsh, kids.

 

Please spare me…

 

[‘Future Conqueror of this World’ Holloway’s emotional level!

 

Favorability: 10.5%

 

Attachment: 11%

 

Possessiveness: 12.2%]

 

[‘Future conqueror of this world’ Holloway!

 

Jealousy: 13%

 

Anxiety Symptoms: 0.5%

 

(=Connected emotion: Possessiveness)

 

???

 

???

 

.

 

.

 

.]

 

Tears naturally flowed as I looked at the question marks that followed.

 

Doesn’t that mean those things will be opened someday…?

 

It was extremely difficult to manage one child.

 

What else is that asterisk.

 

Wouldn’t it be better for me without Holloway, I wonder.

 

I desperately hoped that it was my mistake that the level of difficulty gradually increased.

 

I washed my face dry once and listened to the sound.

 

Keeeekh, keeeeekh…

 

I held the nunchucks tightly.

 

Running away from these monsters was more important than Holloway, who wasn’t here right now.

 

Anyway, the only thing I could trust was my body.

 

Just survive like I have done until now.

 

—Krrrkh, khhhh…

 

First, let’s try an experiment, shall we.

 

It was fortunate that I was moved along with the nunchucks. After all, I have a weapon.

 

I muttered quietly, afraid that the monsters would hear me.

 

“H-Hee-yaaah….”

 

[You have no confidence. It has no effect.]

 

No, it’s a monster that snatches people with its hearing, you know, if I excitedly shout out ‘hee-yah’, wouldn’t the monsters chase me with excitement?

 

Give me another weapon!

 

Above all, there were a lot of people there earlier, and thanks to that, I was able to stop thinking about death, which gave me a surge of confidence.

 

But when I was left alone and smelled death, my confidence plummeted.

 

Moreover, the monsters’ cries and the red-lit hallway made my stomach tingle.

 

…Was it always this scary?

 

The sounds of the monsters were getting closer and closer, yet I couldn’t see them clearly.

 

If they were coming from both hallways, the only place I could run into was a hotel room.

 

It was the moment I grabbed the doorknob to support my shaky legs and enter a nearby room.

 

Something sticky stuck to my palm.

 

The moment I took my hand off the handle, the long-running liquid began to swarm. A lot of dark red blood appeared on my palm.

 

“…”

 

The goosebumps all over my body stood up. Terrified, I wiped the blood on my hands on the wall.

 

It’s about this much.

 

Should I say my body was honest even if I tried to stay proud, I wonder.

 

Cold sweat soaked my forehead, and so were my bangs.

 

I bit down on the delicate flesh in my mouth as I swallowed my screams.

 

Since I was alone, the horror game really came to me vividly.

 

Still, I couldn’t just sit here. Though I wanted to grab the handle, I hesitated in front of it without realizing it.

 

I don’t want to touch it with my bare hands…

 

First, I pulled my sleeves around my hands and grabbed the door handle.

 

The muddy feeling was even more vivid through the thin negligee. Gritting my teeth, I turned the doorknob.

 

Click, click, click.

 

The door doesn’t open.

 

Click, click!

 

“Shit.”

 

The same was true for the other doors.

 

The moment the monsters became more and more intimidating, I ended up approaching the stand (a device that serves as a support for supporting or placing objects) on which decorations were placed in each hallway to pretend to be decorations.

 

Squash.

 

“…Ah. Please.”

 

Let’s not do this.

 

The goosebumps running down my feet let me know that I had stepped on something soft.

 

Furthermore…

 

“I’m barefoot…”

 

It was then.

 

Wiggle, wiggle.

 

Something that I could clearly feel under my feet made its presence felt on the soles of my feet.

 

Not just one or two, but many.

 

My whole body became stiff as if it had been turned into stone. I was so shocked that I couldn’t even scream.

 

They were bugs whose name I didn’t even want to utter.

 

I hated it to the point where my hands and feet were shaking and I was trembling, but I pulled away with as much patience as I could.

 

And when I put my foot on the bare floor, I froze at the sound and feeling of the soles of my feet popping in succession.

 

“I’m gonna kill you, I won’t leave the system that brought me here alone. It’s real. I’m serious about this.”

 

Since I couldn’t relieve my anger by cursing, I decided to take a moment to say a prayer of gratitude to the system that created this ordeal.

 

I prayed to be able to have only one among the jobs that need no expert that everyone envied. Questionable death, sudden death, dying-in-a-foreign-land death, and so on…

 

(it’s a pun, i think. jobs in korean ended with ‘사’ (sa) such as ‘의사’ (doctor); ‘요리사’ (chef) etc. meanwhile she mentioned ‘의문사’ (questionable death); ‘돌연사’ (sudden death), ‘객사’ (die in a foreign land))

 

As I was praying, I suddenly heard a clear sound from below.

 

—Squeak.

 

“Huh?”

 

—Squeak!

 

“Yeah, that’s not it. Don’t do that. Don’t do ‘squeak’s. Be quiet.”

 

I hate rats. Don’t do that.

 

However, this rat seemed to hate it when I told it to shut up, so it suddenly screamed as if it was having a fit.

 

—Squeaaaaak!

 

“Kyaaaaaaaaak!”

 

I screamed involuntarily and covered my ears at the long sound of the rat, which sounded like an ultrasonic wave.

 

[You were defenseless and attacked by an ‘ultrasonic’ wave of the murderous rat.]

 

[You feel dizzy due to shock to the semicircular canal.]

 

The semicircular canal, which is responsible for the sense of rotation, went crazy without my command, and my body stumbled around without being able to keep its balance.

 

[The attack that invades your brain makes it impossible to maintain sanity.]

 

[Your sight goes dark.]

 

After the system finished, I fainted.

 

***

 

Flash!

 

“…”

 

I opened my eyes and jumped up from my seat.

 

The hallway full of butcher shop lights was still the same.

 

As I wiggled my toes, the hardened crust fell off. I got goosebumps.

 

I would rather fight against monsters.

 

No, I just wanted to leave them all alone.

 

I had to live, even though the terrible sensation was still clearly visible in the soles of my feet.

 

I listened, paying as much attention as possible to the soles of my feet.

 

Just before I passed out, the cries of monsters and rats that had been oppressing me disappeared completely.

 

“The rat… What about that murderous rat?”

 

Where is the rat that made my semicircular canal go crazy?

 

Could it be that it ate my body?

 

I groped my body urgently, but there was nothing unusual.

 

I was lying down in the middle of the hallway as if it were my own home, but why do I have no injury?

 

If they attacked like that, shouldn’t they have done something?

 

Even though I had these questions, I didn’t even know what those monsters were thinking.

 

Whatever it was, I was fortunate, so I decided to quickly complete the quest.

 

So, where was Suriel’s collection in the horror game?

 

In the horror game, I didn’t know any information because I died before I could find it.

 

There wasn’t any helpful information.

 

F*ck, the damned game where the balance is ruined!

 

Even though I cursed and swore like this, the system didn’t respond in any way and kindly showed me Suriel’s room.

 

[If you follow the arrow, there is a space with Suriel’s collection.]

 

The holographic arrow literally caught my eye.

 

Although I was anxious, it never gave me the wrong information, so I had no choice but to follow the arrow carefully and stop midway.

 

Slosh, slosh…

 

I clearly heard the sound of water in my ears.

 

A fishy smell stung my nose, also my feet felt wet, thus I looked down and before I knew it, there was cold water beneath my feet.

 

The foul odor that had been present since I first arrived at the 5th floor was coming from this water.