Chapter 7
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But before any answer could come to that question, Friedel’s body, which had been caught in the monster’s hand, was lifted into the air and then mercilessly slammed downward like a whip.
Thud!
“Gugh…!”
With a choked cry, blood burst from between Friedel’s lips.
Collapsed on the floor, Friedel’s body twitched faintly. A dark red stain slowly began spreading around him.
“……”
The unfamiliar air of the hotel wrapped around me.
The stench of blood brushing past the tip of my nose was a brutal reminder that this was reality, making my previous thoughts of this being merely a “game” seem utterly hollow.
My entire body seized up on its own.
No matter how gruesome the illustrations had been, seeing it in real life was completely different.
Human blood. An agonizing scream soaked in human suffering. A body bent the wrong way.
It was so brutal that it made me sick.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Friedel’s body.
My heart lurched into a frantic rhythm.
It’s still the beginning.
He can’t die already... right?
As if mocking my thoughts, Friedel’s movements gradually slowed before coming to a complete stop.
I wasn’t sad since I had no attachment to him, but the brief silence that followed made chills run down my spine.
I didn't know what to say about what I had just witnessed. There were no words for it.
The monster slowly turned toward us.
Its eyes met mine dead-on. They were deep, abyssal, the kind that felt like they could swallow you whole.
“Hic!”
F*ck! Have I lost my mind?!
Out of sheer terror, a hiccup escaped me before I could stop it. I pressed my hand firmly over my mouth, but there was no way to stifle it.
“Sister...”
“Hngh,hic!”
The hiccups kept slipping through my fingers as I covered my mouth.
The monster perked up its ears and began walking toward us.
I backed away alongside Halloway, neither of us making a sound.
As long as we don’t make any noise...
“Hng!”
—Creeeak?
……
I’m dead.
I’m seriously going to die this early.
I’m about to get sent to the afterlife because of a single hiccup.
Just as my hands were turning ice-cold and my face was draining of all color...
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[Ah! You found a weapon that can be used against the monster!]
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What?
As my eyes lit up, another window popped up.
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[Sharp Spear
Characteristic : Sharp.]
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Wow, what an incredibly helpful explanation!
I swung my fist at the system window in frustration.
Shouldn’t you tell me where it is?!
As if it had read my thoughts, a holographic arrow appeared and pointed beneath a table in the hallway.
Sure enough, a long spear lay there.
I hurriedly grabbed it.
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[You have obtained “Sharp Spear”!]
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[Find the monster’s weak point and stab it.]
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[Attempts remaining : 5]
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...There are a limited number of attempts? What happens if I fail all five times?
But there was no further explanation.
I stared at the monster.
I could also see Friedel beside it.
My body trembled at the gruesome sight, but an even greater fear consumed me, the fear that I’d end up just like him if I couldn’t kill the monster in front of me.
Suppressing my nausea, I forced myself to calmly examine the monster.
Its weak point was nowhere obvious.
The area where its heart should have been and its solar plexus were completely hollow, and its eyes were deeply sunken in.
Its philtrum was too small a target...
No, wait, do human weak points even work on monsters in the first place?!
Gripping the spear tightly, I backed away while shielding Halloway.
“Sister, will you be okay?”
“With what? Hic!”
“The spear... What if you miss the monster?”
“Then... I guess we die?”
“……”
Thankfully, Halloway didn't say anything in response to my unhinged answer.
I kept my eyes fixed on the monster.
For now, I had no idea where I was supposed to stab it.
There was no guarantee I’d win even if I fought, so instead of attacking with the spear, I was trying to escape as we continued backing away.
Then Halloway, who had been moving backward, suddenly stopped.
He wouldn’t move.
“What are you doing? Keep mov—”
“We can’t go any farther, Sister.”
“Huh?”
“B-behind us...”
No way...
I slowly turned around and fell into despair when I saw another monster, identical to the one in front of us, standing behind us.
Our escape routes were completely blocked.
“……”
The final boss is here.
Why the hell is it here?!
My silent scream reached no one, and I understood with grim clarity that I would have to break through one of them to have any hope of escape.
I tightened my grip on the spear.
I was about to aim for the monster that wasn’t near Friedel, but then I heard another round of monster cries coming from the hallway in that direction.
I quietly redirected the spear and aimed it at the monster standing near Friedel instead.
Because if I went the other way, the chances of running into even more monsters were much higher.
“Halloway, the moment I hit that monster, run straight ahead. Got it?”
‘And keep running all the way home.’
I wanted to add that last part, but I had enough sense not to.
“What about you, Sister?”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
At my words, which were the complete opposite of what I truly meant, Halloway gave a strained nod.
“When I count to three, I’m going to run and throw the spear.”
“Yes, Sister.”
The distance was still a bit too far, and I wasn’t confident I could hit it, so I needed to get closer.
I swallowed dryly, gripped the spear tightly, and ran forward.
Just as I hauled my arm back with everything I had, angling for a clean throw straight at its head—
Thunk.
My foot caught on a chunk of rubble from the wall the monster had destroyed, and I slipped.
“You’ve got to be kidding me...!”
The shock knocked the spear right out of my hand, and I hit the floor hard.
And that spear...
—”Kieeeeeek!”
It struck dead center of the monster’s legs.
“…Ah, the beloved has departed.”
The words slipped out of my mouth unconsciously, and instead of running, Halloway burst into loud laughter.
A window appeared over the writhing monster.
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[You have struck its weak point! The monster will be incapacitated for approximately 5 minutes.]
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Five minutes? That’s plenty!
I jumped to my feet and held out my hand to Halloway.
“Halloway!”
Quit laughing and get over here!
Halloway finally ran over and grabbed my hand, and I immediately sprinted past the monster.
It would’ve been great if we’d managed to escape its line of sight just like that...
But a hand suddenly grabbed my ankle, and I was sent crashing face-first into Friedel’s pool of blood.
“Sister!”
“Urgh!”
Splat!
The metallic stench of blood hit me all at once.
Madness gleamed in Friedel’s eyes, the very person who had grabbed my ankle.
“Urgh... I can’t be the only one who dies...!”
Still gripping my ankle, Friedel got to his feet and dragged me along.
For someone badly injured, he was absurdly strong.
“Wh—!”
“Shh!”
There was still a chance.
We had five minutes, and shaking off an injured person shouldn’t be difficult.
“Halloway, you run first!”
“B-but!”
Halloway hesitated even though every second mattered, so I gave him a dose of reality.
“Your legs are short, so you need to run first! That’s the only way you can put even a little distance between yourself and the monster!”
“……”
Halloway looked at his own legs once, then at me.
His eyebrows twitched as if he was offended, but soon he turned and started running.
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[Halloway’s mood has worsened.]
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Is that really what matters right now?
“Let go!”
“Hah, hah... F*ck, I asked you to save me and you didn’t even help. Hah...”
“Let go of me!”
When I struggled, Friedel looked down at me with a slow, nasty smile.
The sight of him smiling while blood dripped from the corner of his mouth was deeply grotesque.
“Why should I?”
“You...”
“Goddamn it, hah...”
He chewed out a curse and breathed heavily. Then he glared down at me, grinding his teeth, unable to contain his rage.
“Even if I die, I’m taking you with me. How dare you refuse to help me?”
I stared at him, completely incredulous, and shot back without missing a beat.
“Do you not remember that you were the one who tried to use Halloway as bait first?”
“That was unavoidable...!”
“Then so was mine!”
“You little bitch!”
When I refused to back down and talked back, he must’ve completely lost it because he clenched his fist and punched me straight across the face.
Thwack!
The impact was so strong it felt like my skull rattled, and all the strength drained from my body.
“Heh heh...!”
For some reason, Friedel laughed viciously.
“You son of a bitch...”
“Keep running your mouth! Let’s see if you can keep talking like that after the monster gets a turn at you!”
It was painfully obvious what he was planning.
He’d been badly injured by the monster and couldn’t escape, so he was trying to use me as bait to buy himself time. Either that, or he genuinely meant to drag me down with him.
I bit down on my lip and ignored the sharp, stinging throb spreading across my left cheek.
I can’t die because of a piece of trash like this.
“Can’t you see the monster isn’t moving right now? If we run now, we can survive!”
“You think I don’t know that?!”
Friedel twisted his face into a vicious scowl as he glared at me.
“I can’t just let this go after what you did to me. I won’t be satisfied until you’re dead.”
Muttering through gritted teeth, Friedel staggered while dragging me toward the monster.
He’s completely lost it.
There was no reasoning with him.
“F*ck, I should’ve followed Sir Werner back then... Shouldn't have bothered pushing Moran out of the way...”
Looks like I’m not the only victim of this bastard’s crimes.
No wonder I’d been wondering how he managed to reach this floor so quickly on his own...
I frantically darted my eyes around, searching for anything I could use, but there was nothing.
As we got closer to the monster, a notification window appeared.
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[2 minutes remaining.]
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Just as Friedel was putting strength into his arms to throw me at the monster, he suddenly clutched his chest.
“Urgh!”
I should’ve realized it when he kept moving around just fine after getting attacked by the monster.
That really had been his limit!
Clutching his chest, Friedel coughed up blood through his lips.
“Cough!”
I didn’t miss the opening while he staggered.
With the leg he wasn’t holding, I drove a kick straight into his ankle.
“Argh!”
Friedel lost his balance and crashed to the floor, and the impact made him release my ankle.
The moment he let go, I shot to my feet and ran.
A desperate voice from behind clung to my ankles.
“W-wait...! Don’t leave me behind...! I-I was wrong!”
“Shut up! I’m not kind enough to show mercy to someone who tried to kill me.”
There was still time left, so if he really wanted to live, he could crawl his way out himself.
I knew very well that saving someone like him wouldn’t earn me gratitude.
More than anything, he had genuinely tried to kill me.
He’s especially dead set on getting revenge on me.
If he survived, he’d find some way to throw me to the monsters.
Ignoring Friedel, I kept running.
If I naturally got separated from Halloway, that would’ve been perfect.
I pretended I was heading toward him, intending to break off in another direction, but he was faster.
“Sister, over here!”
No, I’m supposed to go the other way.
But there was no time left to argue. I grabbed Halloway, and we put as much distance as we could between ourselves and the monster, ducking into a room and locking the door behind us.
At this point, hiding was the smarter choice than continuing to run.
And a few minutes later, the monsters’ cries could no longer be heard.
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Was it because of favorability?
That was the only explanation I could come up with that made any sense.
No matter how many playthroughs I’d done, the early story in the horror game had never changed.
The only thing that had changed in this horror game was the favorability between Halloway and me.
Could the game's entire opening sequence really change this drastically just because it had gone up by a mere 0.1%?
But if that wasn’t it, nothing else made sense.
Originally, the monster only appeared because the in-game Evelyn screamed at the sight of everything and woke up the sleeping monster.
But I hadn’t screamed, and I’d acted as quietly as possible.
Yet out of nowhere, janitor Halloway suddenly started cleaning because there were supposedly too many people, which was what summoned the monster.
On top of that, we had all been scattered from the very beginning.
At that moment, a faint touch tapped against the back of my hand.
“Sister, is your cheek okay?”
“It throbs, but I’ll live.”
Even without looking, I was sure it had swollen badly.
Halloway reached out to touch my cheek, but I tilted my head away.
“It hurts if you touch it.”
“I’m sorry. Did that man from earlier hit you?”
“No.”
Of course, that was a lie. There was no reason to tell him the truth.
“Then what happened?”
“I fell and landed on my cheek.”
Halloway looked at me with an odd expression, and I didn’t avoid his gaze.
“Really?”
When I nodded, Halloway stared into space for a moment before curling his lips into a smile.
“I see.”
Why is he acting like that? That’s creepy.
Just then, I heard a snapping sound come from somewhere, like fingers clicking together.
In response, another window appeared.
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[Friedel Akrotic has died.]
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[There are 6 survivors remaining, including you.]
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So he finally died.
I didn’t feel even a shred of pity. He was the one who shoved me first and tried to kill me.
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[Sub Quest Activated!]
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There was not even a moment to rest.
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[Sub Quest ⟨Friends, Gather Here!⟩]
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[Objective : Find at least 2 members of your group. If 3 or more people, including yourself, gather together, it leads to a linked co-op quest!]
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[However, Halloway is not included as a “companion.”]
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[Time Limit : Until you die
Completion Reward : Sword
There is no penalty for failure.]
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The endless stream of windows popping up was making my head spin.
A co-op quest?
I wondered if I really had to do it, but my eyes lingered on the sword listed as a reward.
The problem was... I couldn’t use a sword.
Did I really need to complete this quest?
Even if I found the others, there were probably still villains like Friedel among them, and I was still conflicted when another message appeared.
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[The tutorial has ended.]
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[The survival horror game ⟨The Child’s Secret⟩ is now officially beginning.]
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This was only the beginning...?
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