Chapter 805: The Protagonist’s Love Story (Part 12)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 805: The Protagonist’s Love Story (Part 12)
"You want to try staring at me again?"
Despite the spine-chilling supernatural phenomenon occurring before her, Ariel was anything but polite.
She stared straight into the eyes of the woman in the painting, seemingly inviting the lurking malevolent spirit to step out for a "passionate interaction."
Naturally, the woman in the painting did not respond; she looked like nothing more than an ordinary portrait.
"Boring."
After waiting a moment and confirming that nothing was going to happen, Ariel pursed her lips in dissatisfaction.
"I thought it would be more exciting than this."
"...Who plays a game like this?"
Muen let out a helpless, wry smile.
Once again, the haunted house wasn't working as intended.
In a place like this, shouldn't a delicate young girl be terrified by the eerie surroundings, screaming as she threw herself into your arms? Then, you could seize the opportunity to display your courage and masculinity, leading to a romantic sublimation of feelings amidst the creepy atmosphere.
But Ariel... the way she acted, it was more like she was telling him, 'If you're scared, you can lean on my shoulder.' Which one of them was supposed to be the "delicate girl" being wooed here?
Then again, thinking about it, this was to be expected. She wouldn't be Ariel if she were easily frightened. Muen realized he had been slightly influenced by the stereotypical image of haunted houses from his previous life, much like with the roller coaster.
In his old world, horror and the supernatural were truly terrifying because, in the subconscious, they were dangerous entities that could easily take your life.
In this world, being afraid of ghosts was simply a sign that you weren't strong enough.
For a powerhouse like Ariel, what should she do if a ghost scared her? Punch it back, obviously. She wasn't about to let it get away with scaring her for free.
"Is there anything else interesting?" Ariel’s eyes sparkled with anticipation.
While it wasn't the kind of "excitement" Muen had envisioned, this haunted house was indeed full of novelty for her.
She was bored of high-difficulty ancient ruins; playing through a "low-difficulty" haunted mansion offered a different kind of fun.
"We have to keep going forward..."
Before Muen could finish, he heard a faint sound.
It sounded like the turning of gears, hidden behind the floorboards and walls. Simultaneously, a thin mist drifted in from nowhere, making the already dim corridor even harder to navigate and the atmosphere significantly more ominous.
With her senses sealed, Ariel didn't hear the mechanical sounds. She only saw the environment becoming more to her liking.
"Let's go."
"Mm."
The two felt their way along the corridor. Since they were holding wrists, they wouldn't get separated.
They hadn't walked far when Ariel suddenly felt a chill on the back of her neck.
It felt like the fingers of a corpse brushing lightly against her skin. The cold, clammy sensation was enough to make one's hair stand on end, accompanied by a low, raspy whisper...
"Intruder... die..."
"Die? Die your mother's big-headed ghost!"
Without a moment's hesitation, Ariel spun around, ducked, and twisted her hips, throwing a beautiful lead punch straight into the stomach of the thing trying to ambush her.
"Oof!"
It was a bloody, terrifying figure covered in dense, stitched-up scars. Blood seeped continuously from the wounds, and one eyeball hung loosely outside its socket, swinging with his movements—utterly revolting.
A textbook zombie look from a horror story.
But after taking Ariel's punch, this "zombie" actually let out a pained groan, his body doubling over like a shrimp.
"Huh?"
Ariel looked at her fist. "The feedback felt pretty good."
With all her power sealed by the restriction, she was currently just an ordinary girl in terms of combat strength. Yet, that punch gave her a sense of satisfaction, as if she had momentarily returned to her peak state.
This feeling made Ariel naturally want to throw another one.
"Wait... this isn't what we agreed—"
Seeing the girl lunging at him again, a flash of terror appeared in the zombie's lone eye. He wanted to shout a protest against this unethical behavior of attacking an NPC, but as soon as he looked up, he saw the blond man behind the girl making a "pay raise" gesture.
Hmph, a mere pay raise? As if I'd sell my body for—
Ten times.
"Ah, you wretched intruder!"
Having been "attacked," the zombie immediately let out a furious roar. "Die!"
"You're the one dying, you weakling zombie!"
The zombie was met with Ariel's fierce boxing. Though her strength was gone, her techniques were still ingrained in her muscle memory. Consequently, the zombie—whose combat power was roughly a five—was quickly beaten into a pathetic state by Ariel, scurrying away into the shadows in disgrace.
"Intruder! Die!"
Not long after the zombie fled, a dilapidated door was kicked open. A bloated, obese figure that looked like a mass of rotting meat—a Pig-Headed Man—stomped out, wielding a massive, blood-stained cleaver, his eyes glowing with a malevolent red light.
The Pig-Headed Man charged with the momentum of someone intending to hack Ariel into pieces and boil her into soup. Eerie background music kicked in at just the right moment, cranking his fear factor up several notches.
But Ariel was fearless. Ignoring the fact that she was wearing a skirt, she lunged forward with a stylish flying kick that knocked the Pig-Headed Man down. While he was still dizzy, she snatched the cleaver from his hands.
"Wait... you, what are you doing?"
The Pig-Headed Man crawled backward in terror.
"Hehehehe."
Ariel toyed with the cleaver, her pretty face looking strangely bewitching under the red light.
"Don't be afraid. I won't do anything to you. I just want to play a little game~"
"Ah! No! Don't come over here—!"
The Pig-Headed Man scrambled away on all fours in a panic, with an excited Ariel hot on his heels.
As she gave chase, a bandage-wrapped mummy, a female ghost in white, a werewolf with glossy fur, and a cackling Jack the Ripper... these monsters from urban legends appeared one after another. It was as if they had received word from the zombie and, lured by the promise of ten times the pay, abandoned their hiding spots to launch the most "terrifying" supernatural assault on Ariel.
...And then they were all promptly pummeled into the ground by her.
"Too weak! Way too weak!"
Ariel laughed "boisterously" as she used Jack the Ripper's shears to give the werewolf a trim.
"You guys are so pathetic, and you call yourselves villains? Don't make me laugh!"
"..."
Indeed, at this moment, Ariel looked much more like the villain.
Muen massaged his temples helplessly.
Although he had long been aware of Ariel's personality, the vibe really shouldn't have been like this. Is this how you play a haunted house? Is a haunted house supposed to be a Dynasty Warriors-style slaughter? Have your roles and the ghosts' roles been reversed?
But... whatever.
Looking at Ariel's excited silhouette, a smile tugged at the corner of Muen's mouth.
Even if the "damsel in distress seeking a hug" plot didn't happen, making this girl happy was good enough.
Isn't that what a date is? All the advance planning, the painstaking design, the investment of time and money... the story might not unfold as expected, but when the other person shows a genuine smile, it all feels worth it.
*
"Is that it? Is that all? Is that it?"
Ariel chased the monsters until the entire mansion was "awash with blood" and "filled with wails." Soon, not a single demon or ghost dared to show its face before her.
By the time she snapped out of it, she had even lost track of where she had left Muen.
The area around her was empty, leaving her alone in the shroud of the eerie mist.
"I told him to hold onto me. Now look, we're separated."
Ariel glanced at her empty wrist and pursed her lips for some reason.
But whatever, she wouldn't hold such a small mistake against Muen for now; after all, she’d had a lot of fun.
Ariel swung the cleaver in her hand. It was huge, nearly half her height, yet she could lift and swing it with ease.
Normally, this would be expected—she could swing a sword twice this size without effort—but Ariel hadn't forgotten her current state. Just a moment ago, in the heat of the moment, she had tried to rip a cabinet apart to drag out the white-clad ghost hiding inside, only to fail.
She was still just an ordinary girl.
It wasn't that her strength had returned; it was that the blade was simply that light. Despite looking incredibly realistic, the weight in her hand revealed it was just a prop for a performance.
The same went for the monsters. No matter how hideous they looked or how excellent their disguises were, one punch was enough for Ariel to realize they weren't monsters at all, but NPCs played by staff members.
The mist, the sounds, the eerie phenomena—they were likely all produced by some sort of mechanism.
"He really... put a lot of heart into this."
Ariel kicked a stray eyeball on the floor. Looking at it closely, even she couldn't tell if it was real or fake, which spoke volumes of the craftsmanship involved.
She wasn't angry, nor did she feel cheated. She knew that, far from being a "deliberate deception," every prop, every disguise, and every design here reflected Muen's meticulousness and effort.
For a Duke's son like Muen Campbell, it would have been far easier, faster, and cheaper to simply capture a real evil spirit and put it here than to create all these fake things.
But he chose the hard way.
Because the person he was on a date with right now wasn't the Ariel Bugard who could crush anything in her path with peerless strength, but just a powerless, delicate girl.
Everything he did was centered around that girl.
"Hmph, meddler. Do you really think you can win me over like this? How naive."
Ariel huffed dismissively, tossed the cleaver aside, and prepared to head back to find Muen.
She was going to point out every flaw and weakness in these props and mock him mercilessly.
"Huh?"
But as she took a step, Ariel suddenly frowned and rubbed her arms, shivering.
She felt cold.
The temperature in the mansion had been low from the start—it was hard to create a horror atmosphere in a place as warm as spring.
But she had been running around for so long, and she still felt cold. That meant the temperature had dropped significantly.
And as the temperature fell, a strange premonition began to flicker in the depths of Ariel's heart. It felt as if something had been watching her from a short distance away for some time now.
Based on Ariel's experience...
"This is the omen for a Boss appearing, isn't it?"