I'll Just Go With This
“……I'll just go with this one.”
Having finished deliberating, I held out a single proposal to the Boss.
Woo Yeonha Horror Game Stream (With Haptic Suit)
“Hmm…… for real?”
“Yep.”
Truth was, that was the one I wanted to do the least. Unlike the maid café, where I just had to endure a little humiliation for a while, a horror game while wearing a haptic suit meant I would literally have to clear it. And with Yeonha's half-baked brain trying to clear anything, who knew what kind of variables might crop up. Even if they handed me a three-hour game, I might stretch it past twelve. No—I might never clear it at all. And if that happened, even if the Boss and the viewers teamed up later to demand another Yeonha stream, I would have no excuse to refuse. So I had planned to just cleanly settle for the maid café and be done with it.
So why did I offer that one instead? Obvious, right? If I offered the maid café, she would go, Ah, so you're saying you'll just put up with it again this time?—and rip the proposal in half. I had to offer the opposite so the Boss would move exactly as I intended—
“Alright. Let's go with this.”
“……Huh?”
What did you just say?!
“Honestly, between the remaining two I didn't care either way. If you like this one better, Yeonha, then this is the one.”
“Uh……”
“You're the one who said you'd do it, right? Clear?”
“……Ttyuttya?”
……Anyway, that was how it went.
Click!
“Ah……”
Right now, a horror game was up on the screen in front of me. It was a game that had already been out for well over a decade, yet among people who still loved horror games it was still spoken of as an absolute masterpiece. An ordinary journalist receives an anonymous tip and infiltrates a psychiatric ward where secret biological experiments are supposedly underway.
InFirst.
And the long-awaited prologue was unfolding.
“Ugh……”
As if it could read my feelings, a single tear welled up on the Yeonha on the screen.
Plip—!
As though physics actually applied to the character, it rolled down her pale cheek.
“Augh……!”
But looking at the chat, the fear drained right out of me. These lunatics…… in a way, even that counted as a talent, I supposed.
[And to all our dear fans of Woo Yeonha. There's one thing you need to know in advance.]
[No, of course it's nothing like that. Just wait a second.]
The Boss's character briefly disappeared into a corner.
Bam-pa-ra-bam!
A familiar donation chime went off, and then—
A donation alert—opened who knows when—floated up on the screen.
Brrr……
“Uh……?”
The haptic suit the Boss had put on me before the stream started began to vibrate.
But the feeling was somehow……
Wooooom—!
“——!”
A sensation like my entire body was being kneaded hard. A vibration so strong a smartphone's buzz didn't even compare swept through my whole body.
“Kyaaaaaah!!”
[……As you can see, Yeonha is currently wearing a full-body haptic suit.]
[The haptic suit's intensity is of course determined by donation amount and in-game hits, and……]
“B-Boss……!”
At the unexpected pain I hurriedly cut the Boss off and jumped into the conversation.
[What?]
“Th-this hurts too much…… something's wrong……”
I had been told beforehand that it might hurt somewhat, but this far exceeded anything I had imagined. Maybe Yeonha's body was weaker to pain than I thought.
[Endure it. If it's too bad I'll lower the intensity a little later.]
“Hngh hngh……”
After casually finishing that toward me, the Boss looked back at chat and continued.
[Up to one million won, the haptic suit's intensity is set by the amount. After one million, it stays at max intensity and the duration increases.]
[Donations will open once the game starts, and subscription gifts will also count at ten thousand won per two gifts, so please give us lots of love and attention.]
[Then, Woo Yeonha's haptic suit horror game stream……]
“W-wait a second…… I still…… my body doesn't have any……”
Despite my attempts to stop her, the Boss moved the mouse. For reference, under the current setup the only part I could control was inside the game itself.
Click!
[……begins now!]
In that instant, a familiar sound rang from the headset.
Bam-pa-ra-pa-bam!
“Ah……”
What would unfold after that was obvious.
Brrrrrrr—!
“……Yeonha's gonna die.”
Agony crashed over me.
【00:31:49】
A full thirty minutes had already passed since I started InFirst.
“S-start the damn game already! You bastards!!”
For reference, I still had not taken a single step from the starting point.
Reason?
Ba-ra-bam!
Woooom—!
“Kyaaaaah!”
As searing pain swept through my whole body I twisted and rolled on the floor. By now you would think I would have adapted a little, but this trash body of mine apparently did not fall under the category of “animals that adapt,” and it just kept screaming in pain.
“I-it really hurts too much…… this…… something's wrong……”
The haptic suit streams our members had done before had been centered on the sensual side—so why was it only me……?
“D-dammit……”
From the continuous haptic suit massage, strength would not enter my body. I was newly impressed by the people who had gotten their adult content censored with this thing—they were seriously amazing.
[Yeah! That's it! Woo Yeonha!]
“Boss, don't join in!!”
I barely managed to straighten myself in the gaming chair and pressed a key for the first time.
[Hup!]
The journalist protagonist slipped in through the dog flap under the door.
“S-stop!”
I hurriedly stretched out a hand and shouted. I had used government-certified scam magic, so surely—
Buuuoom—!
“Kieeeeeeek!!”
“Sh-shit……”
I barely fixed my posture and was about to press the keyboard again when—
[She doesn't need to worry about getting off work. She's doing this at our place.]
“……You're not serious, right?”
The moment I asked that while looking at chat with a bit of hope—
“……Eo-nim?”
“You little sh—”
Before I could even finish speaking—
Buuuuuoom—!
“Kyaaaaaaaaaah!!”
As if telling me to shut up, the full-body suit mauled my entire body.
“P-please stop…… I-I wanna play the game……”
Horror game this, horror game that—who cared. The donations that could hit at any moment were way scarier!!
“Like hell I will?!”
……Trusting these guys had been my mistake. Logically, they should at least let me play the game!!
Ziiing—!
“Augh……!”
Even a thousand won—the weakest intensity—still made my whole body ache. I no longer had any sense of how weak this damn body actually was.
“I-in that case……!”
If I waited for the viewers' wallets to run dry, Yeonha would pass out first, so I just blindly sprinted forward.
[Hyaah!]
Thud!
I raced up the stairs and jumped to the other side.
“Guhnnngh……!”
Even through the full-body suit's agony I squeezed my eyes shut and never took my hand off the W key. Then a broken window appeared to the side. I immediately hit space and threw myself through it.
“Hoo……”
At last the character entered the psychiatric ward—the real start of the game. A triumph achieved a full forty minutes after starting.
“……Huh?”
The room I had entered was extremely dark. No lights, not even a scrap of light—I literally could not see a thing.
“……What am I supposed to do here? I can't see anything?”
“No, if it's like this I can't progress……”
I was pressing keys at random and wandering the invisible room when a message popped up.
<Right-click the mouse to use the camera>
“Aha?”
When I right-clicked, I could faintly make out the terrain through the camera. Apparently the camera replaced the lighting of other games.
“Hmm…… this seems doable?”
It was dark, sure, but looking through the camera it was not that scary. Well, maybe that was because only the game was dark and I had left the lights on in my room.
“? Why would I turn the lights off?”
Was I crazy? Turn the lights off while playing a horror game? Just to make it scarier for no reason?
“Well, that's because I'm not a streamer?”
I did not understand why they were saying something so obvious. Anyone watching might think Woo Yeonha had officially debuted as a VTuber at Star Live.
Ziiing—!
“Gyaaah……!”
Y-you lunatics…… don't throw a hundred thousand won for a one-second penalty……
[Hmm……]
The Boss looked at chat and seemed to be thinking something over.
“B-Boss…… I truly believe you wouldn't do that.”
Honestly it was not like I was not scared even now. If you turn the lights off on top of this, I have zero confidence I can progress even a little.
[Still, turning the lights off is too much. Then Yeonha can't play the game.]
“Hoo, hoo……”
“Heh, heheh……! So what are you gonna do about it? The Boss is on my side?”
What method do you have to turn off the lights in my room, huh! This is a bulletproof room, you bastards!! If you're that mad, climb up with grappling hooks like them!
Ding!
At that moment a familiar sound effect rang through the headset.
“Huh?”
This was not a donation sound. Definitely……
“Nooo……”
Seriously, where did our Star Live fans keep getting this kind of money? Maybe South Korea's economy was actually being held up by Star Live fans?
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
The mission amount kept climbing. Eye-watering numbers piled into the mission box one after another, until—
Whoosh—!
The Boss's character stopped moving in the corner.
“……Boss?”
No way, right? Come on, no way……
“It's settled. Yeonha.”
Not through the headset—through reality, the Boss's voice reached me.
Click!
Every light in my room went out.
……Darkness arrived.
“I've turned off all the lights in Yeonha's room.”
Beyond the cheering chats celebrating that my room lights were off—
“Don't sneakily turn them back on. If you close the door, you're dead.”
“……”
After warning me, the Boss went back to her room. I poured everything rising inside me into a full-powered shout.
“……Did you really need to take all of it to feel better?!”