Chapter 2
Chapter 2
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: I've Entered the Horror Game
-----------------------------------------------------------------
People go through all sorts of things in life. Among those countless events, some are utterly incomprehensible.
But if those inexplicable phenomena keep happening not just once, but over and over, they stop feeling special.
"Dead again."
A beautiful blonde girl sighed on the bed. Her large blue eyes were as clear as a cat's.
Most people would think of a kind angel upon seeing her, but a curse starting with "sh" slipped from her lips.
It was a curse utterly unfit for a fifteen-year-old girl, yet the tone in which she spat it out was all too natural.
She had no other way to vent these intense emotions without swearing.
And that was because she had died twelve times already, and this was the thirteenth day.
***
Jung Yu-ri was an ordinary horror game live streamer. Not hugely famous, but steadily gaining subscribers until one day, she received an email.
The sender was an indie game developer who sent her a game file, asking her to play the horror game he'd made.
Judging by the title "Hello, Daddy," she thought it would deal with paternal love, but upon opening it, it turned out to be about the daughter saving her father, not the other way around.
Sudden jump scares made Yu-ri watch the daughter die like a flatfish over and over.
Each time the blonde girl named Rachel died, Yu-ri vowed to see the ending no matter what.
Dodging killer dolls that stabbed out of nowhere and zombie-like monsters that chased her relentlessly, collecting traces left in the mansion revealed the cause of everything: the father the daughter had desperately searched for.
In truth, the father was the root of all evil, having botched black magic that caused the whole disaster, and he was even a mad scientist.
But such twists weren't surprising in a horror game. Gripping her mentality tight, Yu-ri played on, and on the seventh day, she cleared it.
She hadn't seen the hidden ending, just the normal one where Rachel survived, but satisfied, she ended the stream and closed the game.
Yet even after the ending credits finished, pressing X did nothing—the game wouldn't close. Instead, the Rachel inside the game suddenly rambled about finding someone to save her.
Soon, black hands burst from the monitor, grabbing Yu-ri's ankle and body.
When she opened her eyes, she was in an unfamiliar place. At the same time, several blue windows popped up before her.
[You have inherited the Witch of the 13th Month, Rachel.]
[Danger Level: 100%]
[You are under a curse of death due to tampering with causality.]
[By the witch's wish, regression ability is amplified for 3 years. You will return to the checkpoint upon the death of the witch herself or her family.]
[The curse dissipates after 3 years. We hope you survive safely.]
As the messages scrolled up one by one, she tried to assess the situation.
But the situation clarified itself in a way she didn't want.
Leaning by the window, lost in thought about what had happened to her, a servant repairing the roof dropped materials, and she died from one hitting her neck.
-You have died. Returning to checkpoint.
That was the first loop.
Waking with neck pain, she found herself in the exact same situation as when she'd just awakened, which raised questions.
The maid's back as she ran out shouting "Miss!" The family appearing behind her. The same diagnosis from her doctor father. Her mother's identical worried voice. Even her younger brother standing blankly behind their mother—it was all the same.
Later, avoiding sticking her neck out the window, a board fell through the open one instead.
Screams rang out. Yu-ri looked out. The maid on the first floor had her head crushed by the wooden plank, dead. The maid looked just like the head-smashed monster from the game.
Only when repair work halted due to the accident did Rachel understand the meaning of the blue window that had appeared before her.
But the next day, past the first day, while walking the hallway, a rat jumped from a hole and met her eyes.
"Eek!"
Startled, she twisted her ankle, her body tilting and colliding with a statue in the hall.
The statue wobbled then tipped toward her as she fell.
-You have died. Returning to checkpoint.
The same message from the first loop played. That was how the second loop ended.
Third loop: drowned after falling into the well while strolling the garden.
Fourth: heard divine power could lift the curse, died heading to the temple when the carriage wheel broke and plunged off a cliff.
Fifth: tripped on an apple tree root in the garden, disturbed a wasp nest, stung to death by a swarm.
Sixth: made it to the temple successfully, but regressed when younger brother Deyner got shot by an arrow on the way back.
Seventh: fell over rose bushes in the garden, died from unknown causes.
Eighth: went to check the annex storeroom, crushed by a hammer falling from a shelf.
Ninth: died descending the stairs to the basement of the main building.
And so, nine regressions from trivial reasons.
Upon regressing again, Yu-ri judged this wasn't something she could handle alone and told the whole family right away in the tenth loop.
But her doctor father diagnosed it as mental delusion from a concussion, and she was confined to the second floor. All dangerous objects vanished from it.
Fortunately, as Rachel, Yu-ri could read the letters here and read Rachel's diary found in the room. She holed up in her father's study on the second floor, reading books. About two years later, someone in the family died, triggering regression.
Eleventh loop: recalling the previous one, she decided to keep it secret from the family. Avoiding all the dangers she'd faced before, no accidents happened, thankfully.
She first tried to figure out why her mother died. But nearing two years one day, shortly after her mother left by carriage, regression hit.
Twelfth loop: suspecting the carriage again, she warned the coachman to maintain it well.
With experience from prior loops, she survived two years carefully, but when her mother's side of the family was executed for treason, her mother vanished the next day. Then regression.
Thus, Jung Yu-ri—no, now Rachel—reached the thirteenth loop.
By calendar time alone, she'd lived as Rachel for over six years and a month. She desperately wanted to make it past three years.
The maid ran out of the room the moment she awoke. The thirteenth time seeing this scene. The family would come next, obviously.
As Rachel predicted, her family rushed in.
"Rachel!"
A blonde woman who resembled her hugged her tight. Evelyn, Rachel's mother.
A character absent from the game, dead a year before the original story, probably the one who'd caused three regressions for Rachel.
Whenever Rachel awoke, she always embraced her. The orphan Yu-ri always felt warmth in that embrace.
"Are you okay? Does your head hurt?"
Before Yu-ri possessed this body, Rachel had fallen from the staircase railing.
"Yes, I'm fine."
"No major issues, it seems, so rest for the time being."
A black-haired man now checked Rachel's condition. Rachel's father, Henri Emporus.
A doctor who treated only nobles, he stayed mostly in the capital, so in over six years, the time Rachel had seen his face didn't even reach a month.
Even so, Henri got along well with his wife, Evelyn. He was cold only to his daughter. To his son, he was gruff but kind; to his wife, a good husband. Rachel still didn't know why.
'I tried so hard to act cute, too.'
He never fell for his lovely daughter's charms.
But there was one time he'd been kind to Rachel. In the sixth loop, when they'd gone to the temple together.
Cold in the carriage, afterward at the temple, he'd oddly tried to get closer. She couldn't say for sure because Deyner died to bandits right after, causing regression.
Whatever their relationship, Henri was someone Rachel had watched closely from the start.
After Evelyn's death, to save his beloved wife, he turned to human experiments and black magic.
Black magic was power borrowed from demons; botch it, and disaster strikes.
That disaster was exactly the events in the mansion where Rachel lived.
In short, the monsters, corpses, dolls, and statues coming alive to harm people in the game were results of black magic.
Had she not regressed when family died, that would have been Rachel's future.
'I can't clear that future barehanded.'
Even recording the original plot vanishes on regression. So she had to memorize it, but over six years in, only the broad strokes remained, and she was fuzzy on where ghosts and monsters jumped out.
One conclusion: keep Henri from ever touching black magic. And saving Evelyn was essential.
***