Chapter 5
Chapter 5
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: The Cursed Doll
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In the original story, the doll appeared holding a kitchen knife. When it encountered Rachel, it spoke in a child's voice.
"Let's play hide and seek."
Even if Rachel didn't respond.
"Then I'll count."
The doll began counting numbers. A red number "30" appeared at the top of the game screen and decreased by 1 each time.
It counted normally from 30 down to 11, but from 10 to 1, it sped up to less than 2 seconds in perceived time.
If she didn't leave the area within the given time, the doll stabbed Rachel to death with the kitchen knife.
If she escaped to another room, it wouldn't appear for a while, but the next encounter started a chase instead of hide and seek.
It chased Rachel with the kitchen knife, and upon meeting, the screen went dark for a moment, with "[Found you!]" flashing red across the entire screen. Then, being caught by the doll triggered a "stab" sound effect, followed by the death ending.
The only ways to shake it off were to quickly move away from the second floor or hide somewhere. Despite its appearance, it was a very scary doll.
After one subscriber wrote in the chat, "Anyone who meets the little doll gets stabbed," Rachel started calling that doll the "Knife-Stab Doll."
And that doll was right there in Rachel's room.
In the previous rounds, Rachel had burned the doll. Burning it reduced the Danger Level by 1%.
However, Rachel had always just ordered the maid to burn it without ever thinking to look inside.
But now, the doll's clothes were being removed from Peace the priestess's hands.
"Ha!"
Someone let out a sigh. Rachel looked at the doll's exposed body. It was engraved with a circle and hexagram pattern in reddish-brown, along with small characters.
"It's a Curse Medium."
Peace the priestess murmured softly. Her gaze turned to Evelyn.
"The curse is directed at you, Sister."
"At me?"
"Yes."
Evelyn sounded puzzled at the priestess's words.
"I didn't know."
"That makes sense. This one alone is too weak to have any effect."
Rachel couldn't understand why they would hide something in the mansion that had no effect.
'What was the point?'
But Evelyn was different. As if realizing something, she struck her palm with a new fan she had received from the maid midway.
"Someone targeted me on purpose and used a weak Curse Medium!"
"That's what I think."
The two conversed only with each other. Enoch seemed to understand the situation, but Rachel and Henri just stared blankly at each other's faces, not comprehending.
'To feel a sense of kinship over something like this.'
"Just who is targeting my wife and why?"
Henri finally spoke up. Peace the priestess looked at Evelyn.
"Have you not told your husband yet?"
"Haha, it just happened that way?"
Evelyn covered her mouth with the fan and laughed awkwardly.
"It's nothing much, dear."
"It's not nothing. Mr. Henri, Sister Evelyn grew up in the temple since childhood and is skilled in swordsmanship."
It was now the 14th regression round, but this was the first time Rachel had heard this.
Who does swordsmanship? Rachel swallowed the words that nearly escaped her mouth.
"Sorry for hiding it."
Evelyn apologized with a girlish smile. But Henri pressed further.
"You're not hiding anything else?"
"Nothing else?"
"Really?"
"Actually, Rachel didn't fall down the stairs—she was grabbed by a shadow and fell."
"No, I didn't mean that..."
Henri trailed off and shut his mouth. Evelyn's expression had turned icy.
"Rachel got hurt, and you say 'that'?"
At her drawn-out tone, Henri finally realized his mistake.
"Sorry. I misspoke."
He apologized quickly. Evelyn immediately forgave her remorseful husband.
"Got it. We're both at fault, so no scolding me over this, dear?"
"Got it."
Peace the priestess clapped her hands loudly twice, lightening the mood.
"Anyway, someone is targeting you, Sister. And curses like this use multiple weak Curse Mediums."
"The Curse Mediums stack up, strengthening the curse!"
Rachel finally grasped the situation. It wasn't certain, but there were multiple suspected Curse Mediums in the mansion.
"Yes. Moreover, this kind of curse starts so subtly that no one notices at first, but it grows stronger over time."
"Strong enough to kill someone?"
Rachel pondered. If so, could Evelyn's death two years from now be attributed to this curse?
Rachel couldn't be certain. She would have to eliminate the curse and see what happened after two years.
"But who exactly was trying to kill Mother?"
"For now, we should look for the other mediums and check for traces."
Rachel suspected Paris Emporus. That man who pretended to cherish his niece while killing her.
'Trouble is, does Father know?'
From his expression, he seemed completely unaware. If he knew and was still acting like that, it was masterful performance.
Rachel shook her head. Henri didn't know. Even though he would dabble in black magic two years later, he was not the type to tolerate a curse harming Evelyn.
'If he were that kind of person, he wouldn't have thought of reviving his wife with black magic.'
Peace the priestess purified the doll.
[Danger Level: 88%]
Then the five headed to the well in the courtyard.
Seeing the well, Rachel recalled the 3rd round.
Having died too quickly in the 1st and 2nd rounds, she wandered the mansion to confirm if it really was like the haunted house from the game.
The layout was identical. She truly had become Rachel and entered the game. Unable to accept it, she screamed in front of the well.
At that moment, a passing hawk dropped a frog. Seeing the green frog falling from the sky, she dodged it and fell headfirst into the well behind her.
After that, she had avoided the well area, but now here she was.
Rachel glanced at Peace the priestess's back. Was there really something in this well? In the original, a well ghost appeared and dragged Rachel in.
"It's here too."
The priestess felt around inside the well. Then she pulled out a stone. It came out easily, as if inserted later.
[Danger Level: 87%]
The area hidden by the stone bore the same pattern as before.
"Not just one, but already three. No, there will be more ahead. No one suspicious visited just once or twice to do this—has there been anyone suspicious?"
At that moment, Henri and Evelyn's expressions turned awkward. Someone came to mind. But voicing it would make it irreversible.
Reading the mood, Peace the priestess didn't press for an answer.
"Then shall we check the hornet's nest next?"
They stood before a tree blooming profusely with white apple blossoms.
In the 5th round, Rachel approached this tree, tripped on a root, and accidentally disturbed the hornet's nest, causing a swarm to attack.
Searching under the apple tree for the hornet's nest, they found a black box.
[Danger Level: 86%]
'It wasn't the hornets!'
Unlike when she avoided it, Rachel realized as she saw the Danger Level drop.
In the original, there was no ending where she died to wasps. Instead, there was only an event where helping honeybees got her aid.
On the other hand, there was an apple tree ending. In the original, the apple tree bloomed with red flowers instead of white ones like now.
Approaching it triggered the line [These are marks from when I measured my height as a child]. After checking the scale, [The tree seems to be moving] appeared, followed by choices: [Examine the tree] [Fall from the tree].
Choosing the first had red roots bursting from the ground, leading to death. She had to pick the second unconditionally.
'The Danger Level relates to things that cause danger in the future, at the original story's point!'
Of course, there were still parts she didn't understand, but Rachel felt relieved having found an answer.
Simply avoiding dangers wouldn't lower the Danger Level. The Curse Mediums would remain.
Next, they took the gardener pruning branches and headed to the rose thicket. The flowers hadn't bloomed yet, leaving only thorny stems and fresh green leaves.
Standing before the thicket, Evelyn pinched her nose. Peace the priestess and Enoch's expressions hardened too.
"It's here this time."
Rachel pointed to the spot where she had tripped in the 7th round. She had scratched her skin on thorns, but it wasn't severe bleeding. Yet she fell ill and died.
"Why didn't I notice this? Hans, dig here."
Evelyn ordered the gardener, and Peace the priestess pinpointed a spot in the rose thicket.
While the gardener cleared the thicket with a shovel, Rachel recalled the original's rose ending.
The original roses were vicious and tyrannical. They asked to pluck the granny flower for envying their beauty and nagging, or to kill an ugly frog that came due to heavy rain.
Even fulfilling all requests, they spat poison, saying any beauty rivaling theirs must vanish.
Reject their requests from the start? They pierced the eyes with thorns, declared to become their fertilizer, and sucked all the blood with thorny stems.
She couldn't even avoid them. Trying to bypass the roses in the courtyard caused rose thickets to sprout blocking the path, displaying [The roses seem to have a request].
'I died over ten times because of those damn roses.'
Rachel called the roses that caused over ten death endings "Poison Roses."
"What is that?"
Henri's uncharacteristically agitated voice snapped Rachel from her thoughts.
The gardener had dug up a pile of rat corpses. The gardener panicked and glanced at his employer.
"W-what should I do?"
"Dig more."
The rat corpses with undecayed skin seemed recently buried. The top ones were relatively fresh, decaying more toward the bottom. At the sight of wriggling white maggots, Rachel dry-heaved.
"Burn them all."
At Evelyn's command, the gardener fetched a bucket and collected the rat corpses.
Rachel estimated the number with her eyes and turned away when it exceeded thirty.
Counting them was pointless. There were so many it seemed suspicious if they had gathered mass-died rats from elsewhere to bury here. The bucket filled multiple times, requiring several trips to the fire pit.
"Ugh, I hate this. This is where I fell before, right?'
Rachel's face paled. Then something gray came rushing from the mansion. It was a rat carrying an injured one. The rat dropped the bleeding, wounded rat into the hole dug by the gardener.
"What did I just see?"
But the rat, seeming to head back to the mansion, suddenly changed direction and charged at Rachel.
"Eek, you crazy rat bastard!"
Rachel panicked at the approaching rat and stepped back. But her shoe caught on a stone. Her body tilted toward the cleared rose thicket.
'I was being careful, this is unfair.'
Rachel cursed the rat, thinking she'd die again. Vowing to exterminate the rats first next round, she squeezed her eyes shut.
But something solid touched her back. Before her body fully fell, two arms caught her.