Rumble……. KABOOM!
A thick bolt of lightning split the darkened sky and struck the ground with a deafening crash.
Startled by the explosion that shook the earth, a woman screamed as though she were having a fit.
“Aaah!”
“It’s okay. It’s only lightning.”
A man carefully embraced the trembling woman and soothed her.
Embarrassed by the strange atmosphere, the woman gently pushed him away and gave an awkward smile.
“S-Sorry. It startled me so much.”
“That can happen.”
Whether they were filming a romance scene beside me or whatever, I was standing there half out of my mind when the woman, apparently worried about me, leaned in close and examined my face.
I tore my gaze away from her and stared straight ahead at the abandoned hotel.
“Miss Evelyn, are you all right?”
She gently shook me as she asked, while I stared blankly at the gray abandoned hotel through the pounding rain.
Even soaked from head to toe, she possessed a charm as bright as sunlight.
With long, straight sky-blue hair, matching eyes, a high nose, and pink lips, the woman still worried about me even as she shivered from being drenched by the rain.
She had such an overwhelming presence that anyone could tell who she was at a glance.
She was the heroine of the horror game, <The Child’s Secret>.
And Evelyn.
A nuisance character indispensable to any horror game, one who delivered the most spectacularly frustrating moments imaginable.
True to the title of nuisance character, she caused trouble for the heroine and male lead from the very beginning and survived by using other people as bait.
She did every single thing she was told not to do, got people killed who never needed to die, and survived until almost the very end herself.
As though receiving punishment for all the karma she had accumulated, she suffered the most gruesome death out of everyone who died.
And what if that nuisance character happened to be me?
It was only after seeing the enormous abandoned hotel before my eyes, with traces of its former prestige still intact, that the memories of my previous life returned and I realized where I was.
There was only one thing I had to do.
I clenched my fist so tightly that all the color drained from it.
‘Under no circumstances can I go into that hotel.’
Even the sign was so damaged that its original shape could barely be recognized.
Even the letters at the end spelling ‘HOTEL’ looked unbearably ominous.
The eerie sensation creeping over my entire body and the sinister energy that seemed to prick my skin made me swallow dryly.
The trembling of my body was from fear.
The only person here who truly understood how vicious that abandoned hotel was—
was me, the one who had played the game.
‘I’ll die.’
If I entered that place, I would definitely die, without even the faintest glimmer of hope.
‘I knew this place looked familiar…….’
Of all places…….
I bit down on my curled lips and barely managed to suppress the scream threatening to escape.
An abandoned island steeped in a desolate atmosphere.
And a huge, luxurious hotel standing tall upon it.
Its presence remained overwhelming, as though displaying the grandeur it had once possessed, but that glory had long since faded into nothing more than a relic of the past.
There was no particularly special reason for that.
It was simply one of those stories that appeared all the time in the horror genre.
Stories saying every human on the island had been sacrificed to summon someone.
Stories saying some lunatic had murdered every traveler who visited the island.
Stories saying the hotel owner had secretly imprisoned guests underground and conducted human experiments on them…….
There had been countless rumors, but not one of them had ever been proven true.
No…….
Even those horrific rumors had one day disappeared completely, as though they had never existed.
So many years had passed since then that no one remained who remembered the island or the hotel.
But I knew.
Because I had played the game in which this place appeared.
I knew how dangerous this island was.
And among everything here, the most dangerous place was that hotel.
That luxury hotel was the main setting of the horror game <The Child’s Secret>.
Strange incidents happened inside the hotel, where anyone who entered could never leave.
Misfortune followed misfortune, and the stench of death seemed to saturate the entire place.
It was a terrifying horror game where merely entering the building slowly ate away at a person’s sanity and provoked their deepest fears.
Considering that ‘gore’ was included among its keywords, it was hardly surprising that the game had received an adults-only rating.
‘And the most dangerous things of all are probably the five demons living in that hotel.’
Inside the abandoned hotel, the main stage of the game’s story, lived five powerful demons far beyond anything humans could contend with.
Living up to their reputation, their cruelty was indescribable, and they knew nothing of mercy toward humans.
For some reason, the five demons had been sealed on the island, and they never forgave the intruders who entered what was essentially their territory.
‘Intruders like us, for example.’
Despite the threat posed by the demons, the main characters of the horror game relied upon one another inside the enormous, terrifying abandoned hotel and gradually developed affection.
Of course, the course of a horror game was never going to be smooth.
Human selfishness, betrayal, cruelty, cowardice, and lies meant to deceive one another ran rampant inside.
Throughout that process, the beliefs they had held collapsed, and their trust in each other gradually disappeared.
If they endured all those hardships and trials, they would eventually come face-to-face with the most powerful of the five demons—
the final boss of the horror game.
And no player had ever defeated that boss and successfully escaped the abandoned hotel.
Everyone had met despair at one of the bad endings.
‘I heard there were normal and happy endings too, but…….’
No one had ever seen an ending other than a bad one.
Even among the bad endings, the manner in which you died at the end differed depending on how you progressed through the story.
If it hadn’t been for the illustrations, half the players probably would never have touched a horror game boasting such vicious difficulty in the first place.
They cursed the game and abandoned it in droves.
And so <The Child’s Secret> became an unfortunate horror game that faded into obscurity.
All that remained were the illustrations of the five demons with their dazzling beauty and the principal characters who entered the abandoned hotel.
There was one simple reason why I had spent so much time pointlessly reminiscing about the game.
‘Because that hopeless hotel with absolutely no dreams or hope is standing right in front of me.’
My entire body automatically tensed.
‘I refuse to die.’
As though ordering us to hurry into the abandoned hotel, the thick raindrops came down even harder, pounding the ground as though they would pierce straight through it.
Shhhhhhh—
In the middle of this downpour, the most reasonable choice was to enter the abandoned hotel and at least shelter from the rain.
After all, this was an island.
And we were stranded.
But.
But…….
‘I don’t want to be dismembered!’
My body moved before I could even think.
Completely ruled by fear, I understood the desperate instinct driving my body to escape this place.
Whatever happened, I needed to get away from that abandoned hotel first.
But before I could even run very far, someone grabbed my wrist and pulled me in the opposite direction.
There was irritation in the powerful grip, far too strong for me to shake off.
It caused me to lose my balance and stagger.
Before I could properly steady myself, the person holding me coldly released my wrist.
I lost my balance and fell backward, landing on my rear in a puddle of mud.
Splat!
My entire body was covered in muddy water.
“Aagh!”
Pain shot through my back and backside, making my whole body scream in protest.
The bastard who had thrown me down showed no hint of apology.
Instead, he frowned deeply and snapped at me.
“Enough already, Miss Evelyn!”
Why, that bastard!
I nearly cursed him aloud, but since I knew I was at fault, I immediately shrank back.
We were nobles attending a party aboard a ship when a sudden typhoon struck and wrecked it.
Fortunately, those of us caught in the storm had survived and awakened on the island that served as the horror game’s primary setting.
I had no idea what had happened to the other nobles who had been aboard the ship.
But one thing was certain.
There were only seven of us here, including me.
Considering this was a horror game, there probably weren’t any other humans on the island.
We had actually wandered around for quite some time without seeing anyone other than ourselves.
Everyone had found it strange while simultaneously falling into despair upon realizing we were apparently alone.
That was also the part that marked the beginning of the game’s story.
And ever since meeting the others, I had behaved exactly like the nuisance character I was supposed to be and done nothing but cry.
How badly had I cried?
I had sat down midway and bawled because my legs hurt.
I had complained that I was hungry, snatched Moran’s food and eaten it, and then cried when someone scolded me for doing so.
I cried because I couldn’t walk anymore and even forced someone else to carry me on their back.
I had whined so disgustingly that even a professional crybaby would have told me to tone it down.
Considering the group had been putting up with that behavior ever since we became stranded, it was only natural that they were completely sick of me.
‘And the only reason they haven’t abandoned me yet is because of that kindhearted heroine.’
Even when the atmosphere became hostile because of me, the heroine never lost her smile.
Whenever someone struggled, she encouraged them.
She had also tirelessly comforted me whenever I complained.
The heroine, who endured whining so terrible even a demon might have gotten fed up with it, was practically an angel.
“I’m getting sick and tired of dragging you around while you do nothing but cry!”
The man standing in front of me grimaced as though thoroughly disgusted.
It was almost impressive that he hadn’t used a single vulgar word when insulting me.
Honestly, considering what I had done, I couldn’t exactly argue with him…….
In fact, despite the pitiful way I had fallen, not one person offered me a hand.
They merely clicked their tongues and looked at me as though they had expected exactly this.
Just as I was trying to carefully choose my response, a system window suddenly appeared in front of me and glittered.
[Werner is looking down at you with an expression of contempt.]
[➤What should you say?
- W-Why are you doing this to me?! I’m so scared!
(.·´¯(> <)´¯·. ) ▂
- H-How dare you speak to me like that?! Look at this! My dress and my hair are completely ruined!
((╬▔皿▔) ) ╯
- W-What does ‘sick and tired’ mean?
(( _ )?)] ⊙ ⊙
You think I don’t know what ‘sick and tired’ means?
Selection window, is this really the best you can do?
[Time limit: 10 seconds.]
[※If you do not choose within the time limit, a selection will be made automatically.]
The system itself clearly seemed desperate to turn me into the nuisance character from the game.
More importantly, what was with these choices?
Where had the serious atmosphere of the horror game disappeared to, and why was I suddenly being given such ridiculously cheerful options?
Hearing the ticking of a second hand, I hurriedly reached toward the window with a trembling hand.
I swore to resist the system, which seemed positively eager to turn me into a nuisance character, as much as possible.
I firmly pressed option 3, which was—
very, very marginally—
the least awful.
Ding!
[Option 3, ‘W-What does “sick and tired” mean? (( _ )?)’ ⊙ ⊙ has been selected.]
As though it had been waiting for this, my mouth opened on its own.
My eyes widened exactly like the emoticon in option 3, and my face transformed into an innocent expression as though I knew absolutely nothing.
Then the words I had chosen burst out of my mouth regardless of my own will.
“W-What does ‘sick and tired’ mean?”
The atmosphere sank.
The sound of the rain was only so loud because it was pouring.
……Right?
Surely it wasn’t because everyone had been rendered speechless.
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