The Heavenly Demon Plays a Horror Game (2)
“Fox. Can’t you slow down a little?” Enry clung to my arm, sounding half-dead. She had screamed nearly a hundred times already; it was a miracle she hadn’t collapsed from exhaustion.
“Wouldn’t it be better to get out quickly?”
“Well, that’s true, but…”
“Let’s go.”
I still couldn’t understand why Paris Toy Factory was classified as a horror game. The atmosphere was gloomy, sure, but that was all. Occasionally a doll would pop out and play a prank, yet every single one of them looked adorable. The only thing I wished they would change was the sound they made. Their appearance was fine, but the noise they produced sounded like someone having their throat slit.
More entertaining than the game itself was watching Enry’s reactions. Every time a doll appeared, she threw a fit—screaming, falling over, running away, or bursting into tears. From the middle of the game onward she had glued herself to my arm, trembling nonstop. That frightened-child look was surprisingly cute. I finally understood why people wanted to see Enry scared; it was the same impulse adults feel when telling ghost stories to children just to watch their faces.
Exploring the factory with her was fun, but we couldn’t enjoy it forever. If we dragged it out any longer, Enry really might faint. No matter how reluctant I felt, it was time to head for the exit.
The documents we had been told to collect were already in hand. All that remained was finding the way out. Enry’s face lit up at the thought that the game was finally ending.
“Isn’t that the exit over there?”
A metal door bore a sign written in Western letters. The pictogram of a person walking through a doorway suggested it was either the exit itself or the path leading to one.
“It looks that way.”
“Let’s hurry!”
As I stepped forward, a strange feeling crept over me. When someone wants to deliver despair, the cruelest method is to dangle hope right before dropping them off a cliff. The same principle applies to horror. So that green sign was… bait.
Tap.
Footsteps echoed from beyond the door. When I stopped, Enry shot me a glare. She was so desperate to escape that she hadn’t noticed the sound.
“Something’s coming.”
“…What?”
The footsteps grew louder and faster. Enry slipped behind me, her hands shaking as she gripped my arm.
“What is it this time?!”
“A doll, probably.”
“Why do the dolls keep tormenting us?!”
How would I know?
With a thunderous crash the iron door burst open. The figure that appeared was the bear doll we had seen earlier.
“What are you staring at?! Run—run away!”
“Why? It’s cute.”
“Cute my ass! That thing belongs in a slasher movie!”
Now, now, Enry. A little blood on its stomach, hands, and mouth didn’t automatically make it evil. It might have had its reasons. Look—if we just cleaned it up a bit, it could star in a children’s program.
“Can’t you see its teeth?!”
The bear smiled, revealing rows of razor-sharp fangs that filled its entire mouth. All right, children’s programming was out of the question. Unless we sewed its mouth shut, of course. If no one could see the teeth…
“Seriously! Let’s go already!”
Apparently we didn’t have time to debate. Judging by the way it was licking its lips, the bear’s target was us. Bears are omnivores, after all.
I grabbed Enry’s arm and ran. Where to? While sprinting, I glanced back. The bear was slightly faster than a human. If we kept running in a straight line, it would catch us in seconds.
“Where are we going?”
“Anywhere we can hide!”
I was about to ask where exactly when an obstacle appeared ahead. Without asking permission I hoisted Enry onto my shoulder and used light-body movement. Not quite Void Walking, but something similar. Without internal energy I couldn’t actually step on air, so this was the best alternative.
After lightly vaulting over a desk, I checked behind us. The bear was smashing through obstacles with its bare hands, still in pursuit. So all those barriers we had passed were meant to slow it down.
“Let’s go to the generator room! The door there is sturdy!”
Enry shouted from my shoulder, her voice tight with panic.
“I’m heading there now. There are too many obstacles.”
“Stop talking and run! It’s catching up—it’s coming!”
We reached the generator room, slammed the door shut, and held our breath. Soon the slow footsteps caught up and stopped right outside.
Had it noticed us?
After a long silence—
BOOM!
Something began pounding on the door. Each blow bent the metal; it wouldn’t hold for long.
“Aaaah! What do we do?! What should we do?!”
“Is there another way out?”
“I don’t know!”
We split up to search, but found nothing. We were cornered.
“Fox, isn’t there anything we can do?”
“What else is there? Just die.”
“I don’t want to die!”
It wasn’t like we would actually die. We would just respawn. Besides, as an Apis user, Enry must have been killed by other players plenty of times already. Why was she so worked up?
BOOM!
Both doors shattered. The bear stepped through, smiling broadly and holding an axe it had apparently picked up somewhere. Quite the dental hygiene problem. If its teeth were cleaner, it might have been called a beautiful bear. Still, it needed to brush.
“It’s over. We’re done.”
Enry sank to the floor, trembling like someone who had already accepted death. Maybe telling her to just die had been a bit harsh. She looked pitiful.
I had only wanted to enjoy the game normally, but if things had come to this, I might as well use a little strength.
“Fox? Where are you going?”
I walked straight up to the doll. I had no intention of being bait. Even if I risked my life to take it down, I doubted Enry would clear the game that way.
“Fox?”
A martial artist only has one job: when an enemy appears, break it.
The bear swung its axe in a clean arc, like a seasoned lumberjack. Not the movement of a martial artist, though.
Child, if you use power like that…
It’s far too easy to redirect.
I caught the bear’s wrist mid-swing and threw it over my shoulder. The doll was heavy, but weight meant nothing when you used the opponent’s own force. Even a mountain could be flipped that way.
THUD!
The moment the bear hit the floor, the ground shook. Even without internal energy, the martial principles etched into my body remained. No matter how large the opponent, if it knew nothing of martial arts, playing with it was simple.
The bear stood up again, still gripping the axe. I had hoped for at least a little confusion, but there was none. So it really was just an AI. A shame. If it had been human, it would have been much more fun to toy with.
The one who was shaken was Enry. She peeked out from behind the generator, eyes wide and trembling harder than the floor had moments ago.
“Wait in the corner.”
I didn’t know how durable the thing was, but it was a machine. If I kept hitting it, it would eventually break. It wouldn’t take long, so she could just wait a little.
“You guys think so too? I’m scared as well.”
Baek Ara was using the bear doll like a judo partner. It might have been another martial art, but among the techniques Enry knew, what Baek Ara was doing looked most like judo—tripping the bear by hooking its leg, then throwing it with its own momentum. She was treating the massive doll like a toy.
“That’s true, but… what exactly is happening?”
THUD!
The bear hit the floor again. How many times was that now? The chat said twenty-two.
“Fox, can you explain?”
“It’s nothing special. The opponent’s moves are obvious, so using its own power against it is easy.”
Baek Ara explained that because the bear was unskilled, she could toy with it, but Enry didn’t understand a word. Judging by the flood of question marks in chat, Enry’s reaction was the normal one.
“Fox, I don’t get it, so just beat it to death already.”
“Understood.”
THUD!
This time Baek Ara rolled the bear like a ball and slammed it into the generator. Chat was now posting messages of pity for the bear.
“By the way, everyone—does the doll actually die?”
“The direction feels pretty different now. Since we’ve basically cleared it, just explain.”
According to the viewers, the bear was ultimately crushed in a press machine. The process was so grotesque that some people got nauseous watching it.
“In short, you can win by beating it physically.”
Good heavens. A person who instilled fear into a horror-game boss.
Enry found herself nodding unconsciously. All the fear she had felt earlier had fled far away. Even if the bear chased her again next time, she felt she would laugh first, remembering this scene.
“Everyone, should we open a channel-point bet? How many minutes until Fox destroys the bear?”
“Let’s say roughly fifteen minutes. Whether she catches it within fifteen minutes or not.”
The majority bet that she would. Every single viewer was expressing sympathy for the bear.