Chapter 57
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 57
Chapter Title: A Change in Perspective
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The school basement at dawn.
Back then, the devil had surely died. I defeated it with the holy water, Dayeon's last resort.
I saw its body melt like ice cream with my own two eyes.
So why is this thing standing right before me, alive and well?
I was frozen in place, unable to move. The thing I was facing was…
[It's been a while.]
...the devil.
A ticklish, alluring voice licked at my ear. Goosebumps erupted all over my body.
The mental shock wasn't that severe, though. Probably because of its appearance.
A cat doll spouting serious words was more comedy than horror.
Still, it felt bizarre, which made it creepy all the same.
Isn't this how modern horror works?
Instead of overtly scary ghosts, you get uncanny valley-inducing things like dolls or toys chasing you down to kill you.
The cat doll before me was exactly that. A fluffy black thing was standing there, holding a knife.
It wasn't particularly scary.
Instead, it was so bizarre it could put most horror games to shame.
[Have you been well while I was gone?]
The devil grinned. At the same time, the stitches around the stuffed doll's mouth snapped open.
I remained silent, not dignifying it with a response. I had nothing to say to this thing.
[Oh my, giving me the silent treatment? How naughty.]
The true nature of this strange phenomenon wasn't something like one-man hide-and-seek.
It was the work of a devil that had grown stronger by devouring ghosts through one-man hide-and-seek.
“You son of a...!”
I died by Ju-hee's hand in the last playthrough. And I got a bad ending.
I finally understood why the Ju-hee from the last playthrough had killed me.
The Ju-hee from back then was the devil.
She had been killed by the devil, which had grown stronger through one-man hide-and-seek, and had her body stolen.
The scene from the last playthrough flickered before my eyes.
Ju-hee had plunged a kitchen knife deep into my body, her face filled with ecstasy.
...Just like a devil.
The devil had performed one-man hide-and-seek from the very beginning with the goal of taking Ju-hee's body.
Since when, exactly?
This was something I could have noticed sooner if I'd just been a little more careful.
I'd been too complacent. My minor carelessness had created an innocent victim.
If I had been just a little more cautious, Ju-hee would have never gotten caught up in this phenomenon.
“...Damn it.”
Self-loathing and guilt slid stickily down my throat. I was largely responsible for Ju-hee's house turning into this mess.
Anger at myself welled up. The devil seemed to find my state amusing and cackled.
[This is it, this is it! Do you have any idea how stressed I was while living as a doll? But it's all gone in a flash! Kyahahat!]
Come to think of it, Ju-hee always had that cat doll with her.
And it was from that point on.
That Ju-hee started acting differently.
The devil must have done something over the past few days.
I glared at the devil, my eyes filled with malice.
“...So it was all your fault that Ju-hee's been acting strange for the past few days.”
[You knew? That's right! I did it. Thanks to a certain someone, I lost all my power. So I just ate a little bit of nourishment.]
The cat doll tilted its head with a cute gesture. This thing had no concept of guilt.
[But don't worry, her life isn't in danger. Well, she might have to spend the rest of her life in a hospital, but what's that to me? Kyahahat!]
“This bastard...”
The devil walked with light steps. The cat doll was now waist-high.
It had devoured the ghosts from one-man hide-and-seek and grown stronger.
In other words, the thing inhabiting the doll wasn't a ghost. Using salt water, a method for exorcising ghosts, wouldn't work on the devil.
And on top of that, I didn't have any holy water right now.
There was no way to exorcise the devil in this house.
The devil, well aware of this fact, laughed as if the world were ending.
After cackling for a while, its expression suddenly changed.
[Now die.]
It rushed at me with incredible speed. I couldn't dodge with Stamina like last time.
Having absorbed spirits, the devil was far beyond what I could handle alone.
“Bullsh—!”
My words were cut short. A kitchen knife had pierced my upturned chin.
The doll had, in an instant, thrust the kitchen knife toward my neck.
*Shunk.*
The cold blade pierced through my chin and stabbed my tongue. My mouth filled with the blood that trickled down.
The foul, metallic taste of iron filled my mouth. It was a taste to die for, literally.
“Kh, kkhuk... kegh!”
But the kitchen knife didn't stop there; it kept moving. The crimson-stained blade hammered against the roof of my mouth.
*Crack.*
The roof of my mouth shattered, and bone fragments rained down. The knife, digging ever deeper, showed no signs of stopping, and…
“K-khuuuugh...”
My vision faded amidst the horrific pain that left me unable to even scream.
[You have died.]
[Restarting from the last checkpoint.]
**
“Whoa!”
I shot up from the brink of death. I frantically checked my chin and tongue.
They were still attached. My eyes wide, I gasped for breath.
“Haa...”
I broke out in a cold sweat and looked around. I was in the master bedroom.
...Am I back?
I had died yet again. And I was back to the moment just before leaving the master bedroom.
I felt an inexplicable sense of déjà vu. Dayeon was bewildered by my sudden scream.
“Are you okay?”
“No...”
“Look at your face. You look like you've come back from the dead.”
Dayeon lightly tapped my pale cheek.
Back from the dead, she says.
She wasn't wrong, so I couldn't argue. I didn't respond and simply collapsed where I stood.
“Want me to hold your hand?”
“That would be nice...”
“Hee, you sly thing.”
Dayeon smiled faintly and grabbed my hand. I could clearly feel its warmth.
“Your hand is cold.”
“There's a reason for that.”
I took a moment to rest, still dazed from the shock of my recent death.
The pain from before hadn't quite faded. A phantom stinging agony left my jaw feeling numb.
I had come out knowing this might happen, but when it became reality, I couldn't handle it as I'd hoped.
And from that experience, I knew for sure. You can never get used to dying.
Death is something one should only experience once in a lifetime.
But I was different. I had died repeatedly, consistently.
By this point, one might think I'd be used to death, but that wasn't the case at all.
It was agonizing every single time. I never wanted to taste this pain again.
Whether you die once, ten times, or a hundred times, it's all the same. You can never get used to death.
This was the conclusion I had reached based on my experiences so far.
In a way, it was a miracle I could maintain my sanity.
Let's assume an ordinary person, not me, had this regression ability.
I can guarantee it, they would've gone insane the moment they stepped into the school store. I, a death expert who has died many times, can vouch for that.
You may have multiple lives, but your body and mind are one.
If you let your guard down for even a moment, the thread of your sanity is bound to snap.
That was true for me as well. That's why I always tried to collect my thoughts and stay calm.
I held onto my sanity for dear life.
To stop my mind from wandering, I brought to mind the target of my vengeance.
‘...The devil.’
Just thinking about it made anger surge to the top of my head. The devil I had defeated at school had crawled back from the dead.
My head throbbed as I wondered how on earth I was supposed to catch this thing.
There was no way to catch the devil in this house.
At this rate, this playthrough was bound to end in another pointless death.
‘Damn it all.’
It was then, as I was despairing, that I saw Dayeon gently holding my right hand.
From my last death, I had a hunch.
I couldn't get through this strange phenomenon on my own.
I needed something to rely on to finish this arduous journey. And seeing Dayeon in that moment made me hesitate.
Should I be honest and tell her that I can regress?
What should I do?
As I wavered, wrestling with the decision, Dayeon seemed to notice the change in my demeanor.
“You look worried.”
Dayeon brought her fingers to the corners of my mouth. Then she pulled them up, forcing my face into a smile.
“You should smile more. That's much better.”
Was it when we were roaming around the school?
I think something like this happened before.
“Jeez...”
A laugh escaped me. All my worrying felt foolish.
No matter how I thought about it, there was no reason not to trust Dayeon.
We had a relationship built on more trust than anyone else, didn't we? In that case, telling her about my regression was only natural.
Still, it would be better to explain it indirectly rather than being blunt.
To lessen the shock she'd feel.
“Come here.”
“Okay.”
“...Not too close.”
Dayeon subtly perked up her ears.
She seemed to have an inkling that I was about to say something important, though she didn't know the details.
“Is there something you want to say?”
“There is, but I'm just saying it in passing, so don't worry about it too much. Think of it as a sort of psychological test.”
“Okay.”
After laying all this groundwork, I finally began in a low voice.
“Remember the devil we met at school?”
“...Vaguely.”
“What would you think if that devil was wandering around this house somewhere?”
“Hmm...”
Dayeon fell into deep thought.
Despite the rather random question, she chose her answer carefully.
“What state is the devil in?”
“It's inside a doll.”
A somewhat unbelievable conversation followed. Dayeon accepted my words without question and answered seriously.
“So you're saying the devil is possessing a doll, devouring ghosts to get stronger, and you don't know how to exorcise it because you don't have any holy water?”
“...Exactly.”
Dayeon had roughly grasped the situation from my absurd story.
That was so like her.
What kind of worldview did one need to have such an unprejudiced imagination?
I was inwardly amazed.
Dayeon thought for a moment, then came up with a solution I had never even considered.
“Then let's summon a ghost.”
Of course.
It was such an easily refutable answer that I didn't even have a comeback.
“I told you, even if we summon a ghost, the devil will just gobble it up and get stronger.”
“Then let's summon a stronger ghost.”
What on earth did that mean? I couldn't grasp the intention behind Dayeon's words.
“What do you mean, a stronger ghost?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.”
“So, what is it...?”
“We summon a ghost that's stronger than the devil and make them fight.”
My head grew even more muddled after her explanation.
What is this, Pokémon? The conclusion was so far beyond the realm of common sense that I was dumbfounded.
“In the first place, how are we supposed to summon a stronger ghost? There's no way, even if we wanted to.”
“There is.”
“What?”
Dayeon slowly lifted her head. Her eyes were, for some reason, filled with conviction.
“One-man hide-and-seek.”