Rather Than a Gloomy Atmosphere
Honestly, the number of games I’d actually played wasn’t all that high.
Even League of Champions—if I really dug into why I’d started it—had been because I wanted to get closer with my friends.
It wasn’t that the game itself was unfun, exactly…
It was just that those kinds of fun only felt good because my friends were there with me.
If someone had told me to pick it up alone, I would have failed to adapt to the mountain of champion skills and lost interest before long. My friends would shove me onto the top lane, and the one watching over screen share would tell me what skills the enemy top had and when and how I needed to fight to win. That was the only reason I’d gradually gotten used to the game.
Without a push like that, I never would have touched games much at all. So if I tried to count the kinds of games I’d played, I could probably do it on one hand.
Left 4 Dead 3, League of Champions, some mobile game whose name I couldn’t even remember, and Tetris from when I was little.
Really, only four came to mind.
Ah—if I counted Minesweeper, was that five?
Anyway, even granting all that.
Even in a game with no tutorial, I’d figured something would happen if I walked up close to an object like this.
Nothing happened on my screen at all.
“Um, does this maybe not tell you the pick-up key? Do you have to figure it out yourself?”
E, F, G, H, R, Q, space bar, left click, right click.
No matter what I tried, nothing interacted. I couldn’t even pick up the object sitting on the table in the hallway. I’d at least expected a name to pop up or something, but there was none of that either.
Was it just a prop with no meaning at all?
While I stood there stuck, pacing around the table without making any progress, the viewers finally mixed some laughter into the chat and told me how to play.
“Oh, so it’s a game where you just move around? That was easy. Ah, I’ve heard of this kind of game. Walking simulators, I think they’re called? Like, leisurely enjoy the world the developer made, that sort of thing. But this is a horror game? I roughly get the whole liminal space concept, but the mood’s bright, and I don’t see any monsters or ghosts.”
So I’d casually laid the groundwork, and the viewers immediately bit. I’d seen Jaemin do it and tried it myself, and it worked better than expected.
The more dramatic my reaction when something scary finally showed up, the more the viewers would enjoy teasing me. I wasn’t exactly a masochist who liked being bullied—I just felt happy when the viewers were having fun. I could put up with this much. Like an adult playing the villain so the little kids could have a good time.
The only real worry was that if my reactions came out too flat, the viewers might end up disappointed. Well… I’d worry about that when I got there.
For now, what mattered was steadily talking with chat. They were being pretty kind about explaining how the game worked, but I still wanted to give the impression that I was figuring things out on my own, too.
Even in lectures, if you just sat there listening to the professor, you never made much of an impression, right? You had to jump in with questions about whether you’d understood correctly, and ask about the things you were genuinely curious about, if you wanted a decent grade.
“Ah. Listening to all of you, I think I’ve got the gist. So at some point the lights go out, or a door opens and something starts chasing me, right?”
“But if it’s a game where you just move and hit space… does that mean I have no way to fight back against those monsters or ghosts? Nothing happens when I press space.”
Judging by all the talk about spoilers, the vibe was less “here’s a tip” and more “go experience it yourself.” Everything I saw and ran into was content, basically.
On the surface they were doing it for their own entertainment—but their entertainment was the stream’s entertainment, and that helped other people enjoy watching me more, too. That kind of consideration was something I was more than happy to accept.
So I kept going.
I didn’t know what my character looked like, but there was only one path down the hallway, so I just walked. Naturally I passed the guest room doors lining both sides.
810 and 801. 809 and 802. 808 and 803…
“Ah, this isn’t going to be one of those things where a door suddenly flies open and something chases me, right?”
I’d asked because I was so on edge about something popping out of a door—and the viewers gave me no answer at all.
On top of that, a familiar nickname showed up. Celesti was Jaemin, wasn’t she?
But if I called out Jaemin’s name here, viewers might push back about me giving her special treatment. For now, I’d treat everyone fairly. Just focus on the game, and as much as possible look only at the chat content, not the IDs.
Anyway—focusing on the game.
With that jittery feeling in my chest, I kept walking forward, pausing now and then to admire the famous paintings hung along the walls.
“This is Girl with a Pearl Earring. There was a novel and a movie based on it, right? And on the other side is the Mona Lisa. Wait, is the common thread that none of them have eyebrows? And this is a Van Gogh self-portrait. Ah, I’ve got it. They hung portraits of people who are missing something. Right?”
I had a feeling I’d completely missed the mark—but the viewers were enjoying themselves, so wasn’t that enough?
While I was at it, I threw in a carefully prepared joke.
“I’m missing an eye and a foot, so I feel like I could hang on this wall too. Ah, but I’m only blind in one eye—it’s not actually gone—so maybe they wouldn’t put me up.”
Apparently my joke was a little too early for the viewers of this era. A shame, but what could I do? I’d just have to keep making jokes like this until they got used to them and started laughing.
“That was a joke, but now the mood’s gone weird. What a pity. Huh? Wait, is that it? Do I just go down the stairs?”
At the end of the hallway, a cleaning closet sat on the left, and a brightly lit stairwell opened on the right. There was an elevator straight ahead, but a paper sign stuck to it said it was out of order and under repair.
The second I stepped onto the stairs, something was going to jump out—wasn’t it? Steeling myself, I set my foot down.
The screen went black.
“Huh? What? Did I die?”
I flinched and muttered it out loud—and the screen brightened again just as fast.
What filled the display was exactly what I’d seen when I first booted the game. A long, straight hallway. An elevator visible at the far end. Guest room doors set at regular intervals along both walls.
“Did I actually die? It feels like I messed up somehow and have to start over from the beginning.”
Right—I still hadn’t fully figured the game out. Standing still wouldn’t get me anywhere. So I checked my surroundings as I moved forward.
Right in front of me, a potted plant sat on the table. I’d mashed every key imaginable trying to pick this thing up earlier, so I remembered it clearly. Three pretty pink blossoms in bloom.
I walked past them without much feeling and stopped in front of the nearest doors.
Between 710 and 701.
“Ah—I just came down a floor, didn’t I? Oh, right. The screen going black wasn’t death. It was just loading.”
The moment I shared that realization, a flood of praise poured out of chat. Ah—this was going to go to my head for no good reason.
In League of Champions there were plenty of people better than me, so staying humble was easy. But with something like this, there was no one nearby to compare against, and my mouth started itching. Even back in school, whenever someone praised me I’d get so flustered I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. So I fidgeted, fingers squirming, and kept playing.
I was only using my left hand on the keyboard anyway; my right hand just sat idle on the mouse. That got me another round of “cute” messages in chat.
Anyway, I kept moving forward—and when I reached the stretch between 708 and 705, a door suddenly rattled open.
On pure instinct I snapped the mouse around and spun the camera backward, then bolted straight ahead. Behind me, a bizarre sound drew steadily closer. A grotesque gurgling mixed with wet squelching, and that sticky peel-and-slap of something adhering and then tearing free.
“Umm, I think something’s chasing me from behind… Ah, the stairs are open back there. If I go that way, can I live? Does the monster follow me there too?”
If whatever was chasing me caught up, the character would die and the game would restart from the beginning—that much seemed obvious. Honestly, the sudden noise had hit me while I was already wound tight from it being a horror game, so I’d reacted instantly. And knowing from the start that I had no way to fight back, running had been the only move.
It just… didn’t feel particularly scary.
“Umm, I’m not great with gross stuff either. And I do jump when something suddenly pops out. But this isn’t scary. Even if that thing catches me and kills me, all that happens is the game starts over, right? It’s not like it’s actually coming to hit me or anything. Getting dragged out from under the bed and beaten is way scarier.”
I’d explained, without much thought, why I wasn’t feeling much fear at the moment—and somehow the chat’s mood had gone excessively solemn.
“Ah, I didn’t mean it like that… Anyway, it’s just a game. This is exactly why I said my reactions might not be that entertaining—!”
Mid-escape, my character suddenly stopped, and the camera whipped around.
What filled my vision was a monster of jumbled human flesh from every body part, jaws yawning open—and then the screen slammed to black, accompanied by the wet crunch of meat and vegetables being chewed together in a wrap.
By the time I realized I’d flinched hard enough to let go of the mouse and keyboard and curled my arms in around myself like a shield, the viewers’ laughter was flooding the chat.
It was still mortifying.
Well—better they had fun teasing me than sit in a gloomy atmosphere.
…But still. Embarrassing was embarrassing.
Ugh. My face was burning hot enough that the room itself felt warm.