It was a humiliation.
The fact that I couldn’t even breathe and was gasping due to the sudden appearance of a ghost, and that it was broadcasted directly through the microphone.
Not being able to say anything in the face of the viewers’ laughter and ridicule was all a humiliation.
This game had a high difficulty level from the start.
Before I began, I reminded myself of the explanation given earlier, stating that very few people cleared the game without reaching a game over.
But the term “very few” means there’s at least a couple of them, right?
It was frustrating to realize that I wasn’t one of them.
What do I have to be ashamed of?
But what can I do now that I’ve already died? I just have to continue.
I’ve played this far; I can’t just give up.
I decided to aim for the ending and end the broadcast today, so I grabbed the mouse again.
[Starting again from zero, Terrified ㄷㄷ]
[??? : Look over there, it’s Taechom village!]
[I can hear this screeching sound all the way here.]
The viewers were spinning me around excitedly.
Since it had come to this, I decided to go bold.
“Welcome to Mollu’s high-class broadcast! Today, I will be playing a horror puzzle game called Terrified, recommended by one of our viewers.”
As the opening screen of the game appeared, I applauded myself and raised the tension.
[What?]
[Dormammu on]
[Your throat sounds a bit hoarse today ^^]
[How’s the moderator’s throat…?]
[Current broadcast time: 2:03:11]
[What’s this nonsense?]
[Oh ho]
[Pick up on the cues.]
Yeah, pick up on the cues.
I’m a BJ, the moderator. I’m the owner of this room.
If you don’t want to be kicked out, behave yourself.
Thus, the horror game continued again from the beginning.
Since I had already played through this section, I quickly skipped ahead.
“Here in the hallway, there’s a clue by the shoe cabinet, so let’s grab that. As soon as we take it, the BGM changes and the ghost appears, right? If you circle around about three times, it will disappear. I’ll move on.”
[Why are you so good?]
[Are you really starting this for the first time?]
[You must have prepped in advance.]
[For real, lol, it seems like prep work.]
[This scene looks familiar.]
[Ugh… my head…]
As I made smooth comments, it felt like I was doing a speedrun broadcast.
I bypassed the boring section of looking for clues, safely reaching the previous location.
Classroom 2-A, I opened the lock without hesitation.
“Ugh, I need to grab the notebook quickly and get out.”
[It only took 30 minutes to get here…!]
[As expected, it’s Mollu ㅇㅇ]
[Do these guys not know, or do they genuinely not know?]
[I’ve lost my memory.]
Roughly around here, right?
After finding the clue at the desk where I had gotten the notebook earlier, I was about to head outside.
“I came out the back door earlier, so I’ll go out the front door.”
[Earlier?]
[Was it earlier?]
[The concept has been broken.]
[Just go with it, lol.]
My character approached the front door and opened it.
However, contrary to my expectations, that guy was there at the door.
“Why is he here?”
This time, I wasn’t surprised.
Just a slight hiccup, maybe?
I understand that finding clues triggers the appearance of the ghost.
But was the front door and back door pattern random too?
Classroom 2-A was quite spacious, so there’s a considerable distance between the front and back doors.
Even for the ghost, moving from one to the other in an instant would probably be difficult.
Or maybe I opened the front door while he was already there?
[A highly developed AI cannot distinguish between human and ghost.]
[I was playing in the ghost’s palm, lol.]
[Seems like it’s programmed that way? They always encounter each other.]
“Looks like that’s the case. It must be how it works.”
Leaving behind the ghost that stumbled and attacked, I climbed the dark stairs.
There was a man.
In a dim room without illumination, only the face of the man sitting in front of the desk was revealed by the light of the monitor.
The voice of a woman came from the screen he was staring at with a serious expression, as if something important was being discussed.
-No clue again… It seems like this game takes longer to find clues than to avoid the ghost. Is it because of the mixed puzzles?
“Real ha, hehe…”
In an instant, the man’s face twisted into a ghastly grin, murmuring as he tapped on the keyboard, immediately sending his message into the chat.
However, drowned among the numerous messages, his chat was swept away like a wave.
“I…Iik…”
For a moment, anger welled up inside, but it was okay.
He no longer needed to be fixated on such trivial matters.
‘I’m special.’
What is chatting?
It’s an indirect means of communication connecting streamers and viewers.
Until now, he had communicated with her through that indirect channel, but not anymore.
The man shifted his gaze to another monitor next to the one he was watching the broadcast on.
On the screen was a woman, clad in ragged pieces that seemed crudely stitched together.
Her upper body was in a short-sleeved shirt, and on her thighs were dolphin pants.
Her left hand was making a peace sign, but inappropriately, the sleeves of her black coat fluttered, and her jaw was partially revealed as if she were speaking something into a headset mic.
The faceless woman was the object of the man’s obsession.
He fell for the streamer named Mollu as if it were destiny.
However, not much was known about Mollu compared to her fame.
So he gathered information about her.
Her upper and lower halves appeared in broadcasts during tournaments with half-cam on.
He pieced together snippets of her lower face from brief moments seen in the streams.
And the left hand making a peace sign showed up in a team dinner stream with Jackie.
Every time he gathered parts of Mollu, the man felt he was getting closer to her.
He cut ties with the family that bound him and created an environment where he could focus solely on her.
Now it was time to reap the rewards.
-Tex and Ryu-a are the only ones not from Seoul.
-There are many university areas nearby.
-It’s a studio apartment, right? What’s the point of living alone in such a large place?
As he combined the clues he had heard earlier, the man opened a mapping app.
He had saved several candidate locations in his favorites.
Places where the probability of finding Mollu was high.
“Just a little longer… I’ll be there soon.”
The man murmured with a sly grin.
“Have I almost cleared it…?”
Humans are adaptable creatures.
There is nothing new in the world, and even what was once entertaining fades into familiarity the more you experience it.
The terrifying atmosphere formed by the dim screen and eerie BGM became familiar after facing it for hours.
I had gotten used to the frequent scares.
Maintaining a constant state of tension helped me endure with just slight shakes of my body.
As I got closer to clearing the game, the ghost’s attempts to attack started becoming more frequent.
Could it sense death approaching?
“Oh, Bongsun, welcome.”
[Bongha]
[I’ve gotten attached to Bongsun after watching her.]
[Can we bring Bongsun along?]
[If she’s alone at school, it might feel lonely.]
“What is there to feel lonely about? Bongsun lives here! I’m leaving now.”
I named the female ghost Bongsun.
She had a messy hairstyle that caught my eye, and her cute actions made me want to befriend her and even name her.
It seems the viewers who initially wondered what was going on also started liking Bongsun by now.
Seeing comments like that made it evident.
However, that’s that, and this is this.
People need to distinguish between work and play.
Unfortunately, it was time to finish the game.
I was feeling a bit tired too.
“It’s time for us to part ways~ Let’s meet again next time.”
As the unique BGM that played when Bongsun appeared started, the movement speed of my character began to slow down.
When I first got caught in this, I thought I would be caught and panicked.
But the design was set up cleverly so that if you run with everything you’ve got, you wouldn’t get caught easily even though it explicitly told you to die.
This game was well-made.
Considering I had rushed to find a game out of desperation, it exceeded my expectations.
But now it was coming to an end.
“Die! Take that!”
-Kiaaaaah!
As I plunged a nail, dripping with the blood of a chicken, into the middle of the suspicious shrine, Bongsun let out a desperate scream.
This was indeed the right answer. I had confused this place with the auditorium, but this was correct.
Finding such a thing behind the school was very suspicious.
[Bongba]
[Bongsun ㅠㅠ]
[Are you not friends?]
[How dare a lowly ghost go against a great human.]
[This is the moderator’s style, right? If I had spared her, it probably wouldn’t have felt right.]
“I should let Bongsun rest; it must be difficult for her. How long will she be in that state?”
Thus, Bongsun was set free.
Having uncovered the secrets of the school, I cleared the game.
Now that I finished the game, should I end the broadcast?
“Alright then… Shall we head out?”
[Don’t go!]
[No no no no no!]
[I just got here!]
[You streamed for over 8 hours during Dragon Lord!]
“Why are you being so clingy? We aren’t that close.”
[What kind of relationship are we in?]
“Hm… That’s a good question. Let’s figure it out before the next broadcast.”
The broadcast screen transitioned offline as countless chats rolled in.
I stood up from my seat with a comfortable heart.
