How a Nuisance Character Survives a Horror Game Chapter 12

Uaaaaagh!

The dance of my entire soul!

“Pfft!”

“M-Miss Evelyn, please stop! Why are you doing this?!”

Why do you think, Moran?!

Because of you!

This incident had firmly taught me that another person’s interference could cause me to click the wrong system option.

Next time, I would never press the wrong one……

Unable to stop my dance filled with resentment, the two of them could only stare at me in disbelief.

At least at first.

Moran desperately tried to stop me, while Holloway covered the lower half of his face with both hands, apparently trying very hard to keep his laughter from escaping.

My eyes remained fixed on the rising gauge.

The more violently I danced, the faster it filled.

I had to finish within a minute, which meant I had about thirty seconds left.

[Gauge ■■■■■■■■□□]

Just two more……!

“Hnnngh!”

“Pfft…….”

My violent dancing continued.

With fourteen seconds remaining, the gauge finally filled completely.

[Gauge ■■■■■■■■■■]

[Gauge fully charged!]

I-I burned completely white……

[Distracting the tagger!]

“I-Is anyone there?! Is anybody there?!”

Alhulf’s frightened, tearful voice suddenly came from nearby.

The tagger immediately reacted and snapped its head toward the sound.

……Wait.

‘Distracting’ it means using someone else as bait?

I hadn’t expected this.

For the first time, the system window—the only bright thing in this horror game—gave me chills.

It hadn’t actually turned into a comedy.

……At its core, this was still a horror game.

The problem was that those idiotic choices had made me lower my guard inside this grotesquely gloomy hotel.

The cruel nature of the horror game itself hadn’t changed.

“Wait. Was that voice just now……”

Moran turned deathly pale.

The tagger rushed out like an excited child.

―Found a human!

―Found one, found one!

Two different voices suddenly overlapped as one.

―Now we can rip them apart!

Moran and I sucked in a breath at the gruesome declaration of murder.

After the tagger left, silence settled over the room.

Moran was the one who broke it.

“Miss Evelyn, let’s go save him!”

“Not yet.”

“Alhulf has never harmed you, Miss Evelyn. Being stubborn right now isn’t good!”

My brows drew together sharply.

It sounded as though she were asking whether I intended to leave Alhulf to die just like Friedel.

I opened the wardrobe and stepped out, glaring at Moran.

“Moran, perhaps you should watch the way you speak. And it might be better if you listened until someone finishes talking.”

My voice was filled with irritation.

Moran’s eyes sharpened as though she had no intention of backing down either.

“Then what? What do you want to say? Do you realize this, Miss Evelyn? While we waste time having this pointless argument, Alhulf’s life is still in danger.”

“Then go ahead first. I’ll find something that might serve as a weapon before I go.”

Apparently she hadn’t expected that response.

Moran, who had been sharply criticizing me, stared blankly.

“……What?”

“If you’re that worried, go first. Without preparing anything. You keep criticizing me, but why are you standing there doing nothing? If it’s that urgent, you can go ahead, can’t you?”

Her tone and expression were gentle and calm, as though she were merely trying to advise me.

But the more I spoke to Moran, the more irritating her way of talking became.

It sounded like everything was somehow my fault.

As if she were constantly blaming me.

“What are you doing? Why aren’t you moving already? Coldhearted me, who couldn’t care less whether other people die, will stay here.”

I grabbed Holloway’s hand and tried to leave the room, but Moran grabbed his other hand and firmly shook her head.

“Leave the child here. I can’t let him go with you when he might be influenced by your bad attitude!”

……What is wrong with her?

Is she possessed?

At first, I had assumed this was simply part of the heroine’s characterization.

But now that she was practically throwing a tantrum, she seemed somewhat different from the heroine I remembered from the game.

“Moran……. You seem very different from the Moran I knew.”

“I could say the exact same thing.”

Then I have nothing to say to that.

……Wait.

I carefully studied Moran.

There was no guarantee I was the only player in this horror game, was there?

What if Moran also……

“Aaaaaagh! S-Save me……!”

Alhulf’s desperate scream snapped me out of my thoughts.

“Alhulf!”

Moran urgently called his name, grabbed Holloway’s hand, and rushed from the guest room.

Because of that, the loose grip between Holloway and me broke far too easily.

“Big sis!”

“……Huh?”

I stared blankly at Holloway as Moran helplessly dragged him away.

If she was going to rescue Alhulf from the tagger, shouldn’t she at least have left behind the child she kept insisting needed to be protected?

I couldn’t understand why she had deliberately taken Holloway with her.

Anyway, without me even doing anything, I had suddenly ended up alone.

Which made all the determination I had just built up about raising Holloway’s affection feel pointless.

When I desperately wanted to be alone, escaping him had been nearly impossible.

Should I be happy about this?

Or should I follow them?

If I followed, Holloway’s affection might rise a little more.

But chasing after them completely unprepared would be practically suicide.

The best solution would have been to find the goal point, but there wasn’t enough time for that in such an urgent situation.

“I need a weapon.”

Something that could hold the tagger back, even briefly.

***

He had become separated from Evelyn.

The way she had simply released his hand and stared blankly as he was dragged away looked rather stupid.

‘Hmm.’

She’ll probably take this chance to run away now that she thinks she’s finally free.

Her words about protecting him had been somewhat reassuring, but humans could change their minds at any moment.

So Holloway didn’t trust Evelyn simply because she had said such things.

The affection creeping upward little by little was so faint that even Holloway himself had yet to notice it.

“My hand hurts.”

Holloway shook the hand Moran was gripping harshly.

“Ah, sorry. Did it hurt a lot?”

Moran looked embarrassed and loosened her grip.

“I became anxious because I thought Alhulf would be in even more danger if we were too late……”

Holloway looked up at her with a clear, innocent expression.

“She’s not the Miss Evelyn I knew anymore. Honestly, I wish she’d just throw tantrums like before. Doing something like that in front of a young child like you…… Even if Friedel did push you and Miss Evelyn, as a human being……. Sigh.”

Moran muttered quietly and released a long sigh.

But Holloway heard every word clearly.

He couldn’t understand the human woman in front of him.

She kept going on about how precious life supposedly was, yet she was dragging him directly toward a monster.

Wasn’t that contradictory?

She pretended to be kind.

Pretended to act for others.

But in the end, she always placed herself first.

Moran didn’t seem particularly different in that regard.

And humans like that belonged to one of the types Holloway despised most.

She spoke as though she herself embodied justice, yet she hadn’t personally stepped forward and solved a single thing.

Holloway diligently continued pretending to be a good child.

“Big sis was trying to save me! That man was the bad one. Big sis didn’t kill him. The monster did!”

Even after he clearly explained that, Moran had already decided Evelyn was responsible for Friedel’s death.

“……Holloway. No matter what happened, doing something like that is wrong. The right thing would have been to keep him alive and make him pay for what he did.”

Holloway sneered internally.

How many humans actually paid for their crimes while still alive?

Being locked inside some pathetic prison wouldn’t make them change their hearts.

If human hearts could truly be changed so easily, the world wouldn’t be this disgusting.

“For now, let’s go. We’ll save Alhulf, meet up with the others, and find a way out. Big sis will protect you.”

As though telling him not to worry, Moran gently stroked Holloway’s cheek.

Disgusted by her touch, Holloway coldly moved away.

There were countless humans who made pretty promises.

And countless humans who failed to act upon them.

‘Evelyn actually protected me, though.’

Would Moran do the same?

If she ended up in the same situation, Holloway wondered whether Moran could really save that man and herself exactly as she claimed.

Either way, he didn’t even need to personally create the situation.

The stage had already been set.

The same thing would happen again.

And then Moran would have to make the same choice Evelyn had.

Whether she would save him—

or not.

‘Either way, it would be nice if both of them died.’

As for Evelyn, if she survived well enough in this place, they could always meet again later.

At that moment, Alhulf came running toward them from straight ahead.

Would this woman truly behave according to all that righteous nonsense she preached?

“There! The monster!”

“Call me Moran!”

Holding Holloway’s hand, Moran ran toward Alhulf.

When Alhulf spotted her, he waved frantically.

“L-Lady Moran!”

“Alhulf! Are you all right?!”

“Y-Yes……!”

Moran gestured urgently for him to come toward them.

“We need to find somewhere to hide first!”

“Did you come to save me?”

“Yes……! We have to make sure even one more person survives!”

“……Lady Moran!”

Alhulf, his face streaked with tears, looked overwhelmed with gratitude.

Holloway watched him.

His reaction was completely different from Friedel’s, but there was no telling how someone who looked that grateful might stab them in the back.

―Lots of humans!

―There are two!

“……Two?”

Moran tilted her head in confusion.

Holloway gave the monsters a cold glance before speaking.

“Maybe they don’t count me because I’m a child.”

“That might be it. The monster itself resembles a child too……”

Moran accepted the explanation easily.

It never crossed her mind that there might be something unusual about the child beside her.

“Th-Thank you, Lady Moran.”

Panting heavily, Alhulf had already reached Moran’s side and was running beside her.

Apparently the monsters had caught him several times.

His entire body was covered in blood.

One arm had been wrapped in strips torn from his clothes, and there were numerous smaller cuts all over him.

“Alhulf, you’re hurt!”

“Hah, hah……. Something caught me while I was running. Sniff. But I’m okay……”

Alhulf gave a faint smile.

Then he ran slightly ahead of Moran and abruptly stopped.

“Alhulf?”

He turned to face the approaching Moran.

“You came all this way to save me, didn’t you? I won’t waste this opportunity!”

Alhulf thrust out both arms and shoved Moran.

Because she had been holding Holloway’s hand, the force sent Holloway falling as well.

‘Of course.’

Humans would use any method available if it meant surviving.

―Human in front first!

―Human in front first!

The tagger’s target instantly changed to Moran.

Stunned, Moran desperately reached toward Alhulf.

“Wait! Alhulf!”

“Kind Lady Moran, please sacrifice yourself for me! I-I’m too scared!”

Sobbing, Alhulf fled without ever looking back.

Moran remained frozen in shock as his back gradually disappeared into the distance.

“W-What do we do?”

When Holloway called her, Moran flinched as though burned.

The frightened expression on the face of the woman who had been preaching about the sanctity of life was rather entertaining.

The tagger drew closer every second.

Moran jumped to her feet and ran, but because she had fallen, the distance between them was already small.

The closer the monster came, the more Moran’s body stiffened.

She panted roughly.

Her head spun.

What can I do here?

What do I need to do to survive?

Should I fight?

It’s going to catch me soon!

Even if she fought, she had no weapon.

At that moment, Evelyn’s irritated words flashed through her mind.

‘If you’re worried, go first. Without preparing anything.’

Without preparing anything……

She should have prepared.

She should have brought at least something capable of distracting the monster for a little while.

Moran bit her lip.

She had said all the right things, but in truth, this hotel itself terrified her so badly she could hardly endure it.

Tap.

“Aah!”

Distracted by her thoughts, Moran tangled her feet and fell hard.

At last, the monster reached her.

Whoosh.

The monster thrust its face close.

Moran’s vision went black with terror.

―Let’s hit her!

At the monster’s voice, Moran instinctively rolled aside.

BOOM!

The tagger’s palm cleanly smashed apart the floor where Moran had been lying.