The Kindly Cutter Knife
Go-Go, I'm playing a horror game…….(4) After somehow clearing the stage, I wiped my tears and steadied my startled body. My heart rate gradually lowered. Confirming that, I placed a hand on my chest and took another deep breath. Then I asked the viewers who had indulged my stubbornness if they were okay.
"E-Everyone, are you alright…? I-I'm sorry for making you watch something scary because of me……."
Replies saying it was fine came flooding in right away.
I felt my tear ducts tingle again at how grateful I was to these people and sniffled.
"Huu… Thank you so much, Jireongis are so brave… I'm the complete opposite… Thank you… Hic! For listening to my stubbornness… Hic!"
When I said that, the Jireongi squad said it was fine and instead started crying themselves.
"Uh… I-I think I need to wipe the Jireongis' tears first……."
Muttering that, I kept thanking everyone and started some small talk to catch my breath before resuming the horror game. No one said anything, probably because they saw my heart rate about to explode.
"I-I cried so much… Huu, I-I'm not sure if I can do a song stream."
"Th-Thank you… D-Do you really think my voice is nice?"
Honestly, I hadn't heard many compliments about my voice while living. Thanks to that, all the praise flying in from everywhere didn't feel real.
"A-As for singing… I don't think I'm bad? I don't know."
I honestly didn't know if I sang well. You need something to compare against to tell if you're good or bad. After exams, instead of going to karaoke with friends, I went to work, so I'd never properly sung before.
'I listened to a lot though.'
The earphones I bought with the first money I ever earned. Those cheap 2,000-won earphones I still felt guilty about toward my siblings—I'd listened to songs on them for years until they were about to break.
"Y-Yeah, I know a lot of old songs. Songs from middle school? Yeah… I haven't sung much so I don't really know……."
People called me Cutter Knife Master and ordered me to slice up the monsters. It was surprising how the same people who had told me to stop playing earlier were now like this.
[98 bpm]
My heart rate had lowered a lot. After finishing my deep breaths, I wiped my wet face and thanked everyone.
"Th-Thank you for waiting until I calmed down… U-Um, now that I'm talking with you all, I-I think I'll calm down?"
My words came out weird because I was nervous, but everyone liked it instead of scolding me.
"Th-That's quite the family tree…… Our household."
When I said that with a slight smile, everyone burst out laughing. Seeing that, I smiled contentedly and held the card key to the exit, moving toward Chapter 2.
* * *
The story that played as we moved to Chapter 2 explained what kind of place this hospital was.
[…Conducted human experiments… So, am I an experiment subject?]
From the protagonist's muttering, it seemed the protagonist wasn't a patient with some illness but just a human being used as an experiment subject. However, it still hadn't been revealed why the protagonist had come here.
"Th-That poor uncle……."
Someone even more pitiful than me. Thinking that, sympathy welled up strongly.
"Huu…? S-Ssalsungi-nim, th-thank you so much…!"
A sudden donation after just saying one thing. Feeling good, I swayed my body left and right, and I could see everyone looking happy.
"E-Everyone, is there something good going on…? There's a corpse here too… Hmm, nothing else."
"Eh… It's just graphics."
Feeling that the Jireongi squad was quite the drama queens, I diligently progressed through the game's story.
"Is there anything else like a cutter knife… It's nice, helps with mental stability too……."
"Hng……."
After realizing I could change the blade on the cutter knife whose durability was almost gone, nothing was scary anymore. Plenty of new weapons appeared in the middle too.
[Pistol: Bang]
[Loud noise]
"Hmm……."
However, amid everyone's fuss, I stubbornly stuck with the cutter knife.
People asked why I insisted on the cutter knife. Crawling between piles of corpses, I kindly answered.
"B-Because I've been hit by all the other weapons except guns once each… Soju bottle, baseball bat, mop, golf club, they all hurt so much… Hic! The only weapon that wounded me of its own will and helped me is… the c-cutter knife."
It was simply because I'd been hit by each one once. Among them, the cutter knife was the least painful and the first weapon that wounded me by my own hand. All the other weapons were terrifying. The memories of being hit came flooding back. But the cutter knife wasn't scary at all.
"…I-I only remember the times it comforted me… The cutter knife."
Only memories of comforting myself surfaced. It was a kind weapon, an object that embodied that.
"I-It's kind… The cutter knife… Uum, it's just like all of you… Heheh."
"Why are you crying again, grr…! Huu. Let's escape."
Having butchered another monster in the meantime, I picked up the card key and moved to the next stage.
* * *
Smooth progress. Before I knew it, my heart rate was stable enough not to exceed 110. Corpses, blood, and monsters couldn't affect me anymore.
"Th-Thank you… Thank you."
Before long, the final stage. After killing a monster that popped out while solving a puzzle and clearing it with leisure, I headed toward the last room.
"B-By the way, it doesn't seem like a normal building… It's huge."
When I entered the last room, a cutscene played. The protagonist still hadn't regained their memories. In that state, the protagonist walked step by step toward the dark room.
[Huu… Please, let there be no one]
"Th-This uncle is crazy wanting to die…!"
Well, it didn't matter what came out now. Zombie flesh lizard monster. Multi-eyed human-skin dog monster. Spider monster with rotten flesh attached to a strangely deformed human head. Even a parrot monster with smooth human skin that awkwardly mimicked my voice. Since I'd come this far by defeating those monsters one after another, I had no worries.
"…Shuk, shushushuk……."
Making those sounds with my mouth, just as I was about to see the end—
[…Son.]
[…?]
The protagonist in the screen heard a human voice and the view flickered as if swinging the flashlight around wildly.
At the same time, my heart rate also skyrocketed like crazy.
[Son]
[Father…?]
"D… Dad…?"
[166 bpm]
"Haa… Huk… Huh? D-Dad? Uh. A person? Huh?"
The final boss was a person. And it was the one I feared the most.
[How dare a failure crawl out?]
"Hik……!!!"
It was my father.