Lee Yebin Ends Up Crying
The moment I came back from giving Lee Yebin a proper scolding, the chat started ribbing me without missing a beat.
What the hell did these idiots eat today.
"Hey. Whoever just made those weird comments — you're all banned for a month. Write me a reflection essay."
I wiped them out one by one, and the chat was on the floor begging in no time. I looked out at them with complete shameless confidence and kept going.
"I just scolded her a little and came back. What's with all the ehehehe nonsense."
"Ehehehe? Who even said that?"
"Right?"
"Those people are seriously unhinged. Our Vini Squad doesn't have creeps like that, right?"
Oh, they do. They absolutely do. Some of them come over to my chat and pull the exact same crap.
"Maybe your eyes are just too bad to find them."
"What are you talking about, are you crazy?"
"I'm not the crazy one here — you are. You're so slow you can't even keep up with the chat scrolling by and just sit there going uh-uh-uh."
"Oh my god."
Yebin looked like she was about to get irritated all over again and start throwing a fit, so I cut her off and got ahead of it.
"Anyway. What do you think."
"About what."
"The difficulty. You good?"
"The difficulty… hmm… it's actually not that bad?"
Not that bad, huh.
Then we could bump it up a little.
"Let's go Intermediate. Beginner's way too easy."
"Uh… uhh…."
"What, you scared?"
"N-no? I'm not scared? Not even a little bit?"
She was completely terrified.
Absolutely certain she was losing her mind on the inside, I switched the difficulty up to Intermediate — and made sure to leave her with one very clear warning.
"Hey. If you ditch me like you did just now…"
"If I ditch you! What!"
"…You're playing solo horror games on loop until you see the ending."
"No! Why would I have to do that!"
"You should be grateful I let you off with just Ghost Phobia, huh?"
We bickered back and forth until we both realized that if we kept going, we wouldn't get any streaming done at all, so we agreed to drop it. Instead, we decided to jump straight into the next round.
Of course, there was something we had to take care of first.
"Alright, go grab more items."
"More items? All of these?"
"Normally we can buy a full set of everything, but thanks to a certain someone who ditched me, our insurance money got wiped and all the evidence I collected vanished."
"I already said I was sorry!"
"Be even sorrier."
We started the next game still sniping at each other. Thankfully, this time Yebin actually listened to me way better than I expected.
"Here, isn't this a Ghost Orb?"
"Ooh, nice find. Let's log that as evidence… Hey, I kinda want a ghost photo. Mind if I trigger a ghost event?"
"…If you're gonna look, do it alone. I'm scared, okay?"
"I'm scawed, okay~"
"Oh my godddd…."
The second Yebin started whining, the chat went weird again.
"Don't start acting cute with me before I force-trigger the event."
For the record, I knew full well that wasn't her acting cute. I'd already seen it — the girl was a bigger coward than I ever imagined. Honestly, I was starting to feel a little bad for making her play a horror game. That's how scared she was.
But there was nothing I could do about it. We had a job to finish. I'd already used a wish ticket to make her play horror, and the chat was eating it up. We couldn't just stop now.
"Then go wait by the truck first. I'll watch the event alone and catch up."
"What if you… y'know, die."
"I'll keep my radio on the whole time. If I die, just drive."
"O-okay."
"And take all this evidence with you while you're at it."
I handed Yebin every piece of evidence I'd collected. Losing all that money a second time was not an option. So giving it to the one person guaranteed to make it out alive seemed fine enough.
"I'm… really leaving…?"
"Just go already. Stop being a pain."
"I try to worry about you and I still get yelled at…."
"You started the yelling first."
We sniped at each other right up to the end, and then Yebin actually ran off ahead like I'd told her to. Once I confirmed she was far enough away, I deliberately walked into a room with a ghost and started tanking my sanity. Dropping your sanity was simple — just stand in the dark. It drained itself.
Before long the ghost appeared. I snapped a photo, flipped the lights on, and bolted out of the room in the same breath. The lights were so my sanity wouldn't drop any further and tip me into a hunt, which would get me killed.
Anyway, photo secured, I—
"Taxi! Taxi! Double fare! Double!!"
—immediately hopped into Vini Taxi and got the hell out of there.
Yebin, to her credit, hit the gas the second I made it back. And just like that, for the first time, we both made it out alive with the money in hand.
"See? Not that scary once you try it, right?"
"Yeah, it's actually pretty doable."
"Good."
Yeah. Good. Ghost Phobia wasn't actually that terrifying once you got past the grotesque ghost designs and the jump-scare sound effects. It was a genuinely fun game. And the fact that Yebin was starting to feel that fun for herself — that was a real, genuine relief.
Exactly ten minutes after I thought that.
…A new trial began. And what was that trial, you ask?
The next ghost we ran into. That was Yebin's trial. Of all people, why did it have to target her. It could've gone after me instead.
"I'm gonna check over there real quick!"
The second we loaded into the next map — the abandoned mansion — Yebin, apparently riding a wave of newfound confidence, grabbed an EMF detector and started darting from room to room. I watched her tear off at full speed and decided I should probably do my own job too.
Click.
In Ghost Phobia, starting from Intermediate difficulty, the fuse starts flipped off and you can't power anything on. Power mattered a lot — you needed the lights on to keep your sanity from dropping, and light was also essential for finding clues. So the plan was for me to flip the fuse and restore power while Yebin went off hunting for evidence on her own.
Honestly, it felt a little like leaving a kid by the water's edge, and I was nervous about it. But she'd manage. Probably.
I don't know how long it took — the mansion was bigger than expected and I couldn't find the breaker box for a while — but I eventually managed to track down the glorious little thing.
Clack.
I flipped the fuse, restored the electricity, and radioed the news to Yebin.
"Power's on. Lights are good, over."
"Got… it, over."
Oh, she actually used radio protocol? Good girl. I'd have to give her a head pat later as a reward. She might bite me for it, but still.
I headed back to find her and check on her — and the moment I did, Yebin pulled out the Ouija board I'd bought her.
"Excuse me, Miss Vini?"
"Yes, what is it?"
"Why did you take that out?"
"I wanna try it once!"
A Ouija board — a spirit board printed with Yes and No, the letters A through Z, the numbers 0 through 9, and Goodbye. You could use it to talk to the ghost. The important part was that using it drained your sanity….
"Umm… Are you here?"
Yebin didn't consider any of that and just fired off a question.
The chat was losing it over Yebin's English pronunciation, but that was not the priority right now. Her finger slid over to Yes. Meaning the ghost was here.
"Hey, if you ask any more questions…"
"Don't wanna~ How do you feel?"
To the question of how it felt, the planchette pointed to L, O, N, E, L, Y.
Lonely.
"…You need to stop. Your sanity's gotta be getting wrecked."
"I said no~ One more~ What do you want?"
No doubt about it — she was only doing this because the chat kept praising her pronunciation. She was being so unbelievably childish.
Whether I liked it or not, the ghost answered.
Y, O, U.
You.
It wanted Yebin. Okay, I had to make a joke out of that.
"…Everyone, I'm single now. Vini just got NTR'd by a ghost."
"A ghost might honestly be better than you?"
"What are you talking about, I'd rather—"
And then.
Click.
The lights I'd just turned on went out.
Creeeeak…
Clack!
The doors slammed shut.
"……You absolute idiot."
"Ah, what, wh-what is it!?"
"I told you to stop using the Ouija board…!"
The ghost that appeared in that moment was none other than a Banshee. A Banshee's defining trait could be summed up in one line: it picks one person and hunts them to death.
Normally, a ghost starts hunting when the party's average sanity drops below fifty percent. A Banshee, though, starts hunting the second its chosen target's personal sanity falls below fifty percent — and it only goes after that one person.
And who had just been sitting there draining her own sanity on the Ouija board?
That's right. Our dear, deeply appreciated Vini, who had so thoughtfully volunteered herself as the Banshee's personal snack in my place.
Which meant—
"Hey. Good luck."
"Wh-wh-what are you talking abouuut…!!! Help me, ah, aaaah, help me, help meeeee!!!"
Yebin threw the door open and bolted, and the Banshee blew right past me to go kill her.
And me?
Click.
I took a photo. Nice — ghost photo acquired.
And then—
"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!"
—I ran toward the sound of Yebin's scream. There was her corpse, lying on the floor. My sanity was still above fifty percent, so the hunt should have stopped by now.
Now's the time.
Click.
I snapped a photo of Yebin, murdered by the Banshee, and ran out of the mansion without looking back. Once I was outside, I climbed into the truck and left. Nothing else to do there.
I'd correctly identified the ghost, gotten a ghost photo, and even a corpse photo of Yebin — so the payout was generous. Great. We were rich now. We could buy more items.
I immediately started praising Yebin over the reconnected mic.
"Nice work. We identified the ghost, got the photos, made a ton of money. Alright, next item is…"
The more I talked, the more something felt off. This was about the point where Yebin should have started getting annoyed or angry. Why? Because I'd taken a photo of her corpse and run. Even if it was just from feeling abandoned, she should have been yelling by now.
No way. No way.
I stopped talking, pressed my ear to the headset, and checked the chat.
Sure enough.
The entire chat was scolding me.
"Hic… huu… huuugh… hwaaaah… hic… hihk…."
Yebin was crying.
The only thing I could do right now was—
"Everyone, uh… I'm sorry, but I'm ending the stream a little early today. Hey, Vini. Turn off the stream."
"Hic… huuu… okay… okay…."
Yebin quietly did as I said and ended her stream. I apologized to the chat one more time and shut mine down too.
Then I grabbed a strawberry milk from the fridge and went straight to Yebin.
I really didn't think she'd cry over something like Ghost Phobia.
If I'd known, I never would have made her play it.
Never.