Death Games? Aren't Those Just Losers of the Era?
Meanwhile, if we rewind to exactly one day before the Virgin Ghost started chatting with our protagonist...
A small argument was unfolding at the table of the old and great ones.
Except even a petty squabble at that level carried enough fallout to manifest back in the real world as a typhoon or a low-intensity earthquake.
These beings were less like monsters and more like gods — or evil gods, if you prefer.
To them, the world was nothing more than a fun lump of clay to poke and prod, or a plate of food sliced up into convenient, bite-sized pieces.
And among those old and great ones, of course, sat the host of the death game itself.
Before anyone could even ask him to take it back, the host was buried under the pure, unadulterated violence of undeniable facts.
It was true. Death games, once beloved by so many eldritch beings for so long, had been bleeding popularity lately and posting dismal viewership numbers.
People might assume beings this ancient and powerful wouldn't keep up with trends, but it was exactly the opposite. Their tastes were as discerning as their power and wisdom were vast, which made them more trend-sensitive than anyone.
And so, despite absorbing years of operating losses, Shock! Horror Escape Show — the program the host had broadcast on Weirdness TV... man, even the name is dated.
Anyway, after getting fact-bombed by beings on his own level and having his feelings thoroughly hurt, the host decided to end the show's decades-long run, with the 'Chain Keeper vs. Han Doyun' arc as its grand finale.
"Huh. So that's what happened. Sounds like you eldritch folks have your own problems."
With the death game canceled and forced into retirement, Ghost Widow — Virgin Ghost on furlough — and one Han Doyun, a young man likewise on furlough, were sitting outside a convenience store, cracking open a bottle of Chamisul Red and sharing drinks... and trading life stories.
She was weaker now than in her Pursuer days, back when she'd been juiced up on the host's buffs. And she knew perfectly well that even if she tried to come after me, all she'd get for her trouble was a relentless BMing session — so the Virgin Ghost didn't bother attacking me at all.
See, she's one of those spectral entities among the eldritch, which means when she gets stressed out from being BM'd, her actual existence genuinely starts to weaken.
"Tsk tsk. A young man drinking cheap rotgut alone like that... You should be out job hunting, son."
An old man passing by clicks his tongue at the cozy little drink I'm having with the Virgin Ghost. To everyone around, of course, it would just look like Han Doyun drinking alone.
"Pops, mind your own business and keep it moving."
"Elders? How many of the Pursuers are actually younger than me, you think? Just look at you — you're straight out of the late Joseon dynasty. You're not seriously expecting me to have 'manners' at this point, are you?"
Technically speaking, that old man was probably the great-great-great-grandson of this curvy, top-heavy Virgin Ghost sitting right in front of me.
"Speaking of which, why hasn't the host kid taken my abilities back?"
If I'd been the host, I wouldn't have bothered with a prize for the guy who tanked my show — I'd have respawned him at three thousand meters over the real world on the way out and let physics do the rest.
A game needs a winner, after all, and this one was already near-impossible to survive. So apparently there were certain clauses in place specifically to prevent anyone from pulling extra dirty tricks on the poor soul who managed to win it anyway.
Cheogyu was just a low-rung Pursuer, though, so she didn't know any more than that.
What she did know was this: the items I'd stockpiled over my death game career were 'nominally' mine as the champion, but the host had left the entire warehouse sitting untouched in his own domain.
You could call it exploiting a loophole in the contract to screw me over. Something like: Go ahead, try collecting your prize — if you can actually set foot in my domain. Yeah. That kind of move.
"Ugh, figures. What manners could you possibly expect from the guy who built that game? Let's just drink."
Clink!
I clink glasses with the Virgin Ghost and knock back another shot. Must be the strong stuff in that red cap, because the buzz is rolling in fast.
"Ahh... first alcohol in ten years. I've had what, two shots? Why am I already tipsy."
Out of nowhere, the Virgin Ghost starts patting my shoulder and pouring out her grievances.
See, most of the other Pursuers, the moment they caught a survivor, would jump straight into a gore dissection show straight out of a horror movie. Cheogyu, on the other hand, handled it like a professional — a clean snap of the neck, quick and painless.
Not that I ever got caught by her, so I never experienced it firsthand.
Anyway, judging by that slurred tongue, she's genuinely drunk.
"You're a ghost. How are you getting drunk?"
"Hm... that actually tracks. So there really was a reason behind the old traditions, huh."
Gotta bring a nice bottle next time I visit the family graves. Wait — I haven't gone in ten years. Do you think my angry ancestors have turned into eldritch horrors and are trying to crack my skull open?
Well, if my ancestors are on that level, then I'll just have to do some explosive filial piety myself.
If they try anything, I'm dumping industrial-grade alcohol all over their graves.
And then I'll visit every single year and blast them a 24-hour medley of the Lord's Prayer and the Heart Sutra.
"Funny, I distinctly remember someone telling me to call her Ghost Widow." — I wisely kept that to myself.
"Employment... employment, huh..."
I mean, I have to eat too. But with a ten-year résumé gap, am I not just thoroughly cooked as a human being?
Lost in that grim thought, I looked up — and there was the Virgin Ghost, with her Western proportions that clashed horribly with traditional Korean sensibilities, deep in her cups and drinking like there was no tomorrow.
"Hmmmm...."
The Virgin Ghost suddenly shields her chest with her arms. It's absurd, but I don't bother denying it.
Because yes, I am absolutely planning to exploit her to do something along those lines.
"Let's do a little business together, you and me."
"Think it through. You're an eldritch being, so you have to live off human fear. And I need to make money, right?
But things aren't what they used to be — back in your Pursuer days, the host had you buffed to invincibility.
You're now a third-rate ghost who could get slapped with an exorcism talisman and booted out the door by some two-bit shaman if you're not careful. And I'm a thirty-year-old with a ten-year résumé gap."
Back when she appeared in the death game, she had a gimmick where throwing talismans at her could stun her briefly.
I know this well because I once took that gimmick and ran with it — braided sixty-four talismans into a rope, built a trap out of it, tied the Virgin Ghost up tight in one go, and then spent three full minutes performing a flyswatter-on-the-butt smackdown show.
After that, Cheogyu refused to speak to me for a while.
If she'd gotten that treatment in the real world, she'd have been fully exorcised, honestly.
"Simple. I'll be the exorcist. You slip into private homes, hide the scissors a little when people are sleeping, peek out from door cracks now and then, and maybe whisper to the kids in their mom's voice when mommy's out of the house. That sort of thing."
"See, that's why I like you. Quick on the uptake."
Cheogyu gets to feast on fear without any risk of getting exorcised, and I just mumble a few dramatic incantations for show, then walk off with a fat wad of cash. Win-win!
After a few minutes of deliberation, the Virgin Ghost nodded and accepted.
And so was born a two-person crime syndicate spanning both humanity and the eldritch.
...Though, on second thought, I suppose it's not actually a crime syndicate.
'Because there's no legal statute anywhere that can press charges against a Virgin Ghost, Batman.'
Nobody can stop us.