“Hah, hh—”
Having run for so long, he cut across the forest path while heaving ragged breaths.
Perhaps because it was a road meant only for carriages, no other buildings were visible. Dense forest stretched out on both sides of the road, giving off a gloomy atmosphere.
Ten days until the banquet.
Which also meant the manor doors hadn’t been locked yet.
“Who in their right mind would just, sit there, hah, and stay put. Are you insane?”
Meekly following whatever the system told him would lead him straight into the blood-soaked banquet. He had not the slightest intention of letting that happen.
If you can’t clear the game, you can’t return to your original world? Then I just won’t return. Simple.
Where is there a place that wouldn’t want someone like me? Good-looking, good personality, talented. Fainting… happens occasionally, but.
Either way, it means I’ve got a body that can feed and take care of itself no matter where I’m dropped. It’s not like my family or anyone around me is going to pine after me.
After running for quite a while, a cluster of houses finally came into view in the distance. A bright smile spread across his face on its own.
“Ah, found it.”
He was still within the Leveque Dukedom’s territory, but at any rate he’d managed to put some distance between himself and the manor — the game’s backdrop.
Looking at the sky, he realized it was already the dead of night. Normally he wouldn’t have given it much thought, but —
The setting is what it is.
Being inside a horror game, he had to be cautious even about small things.
He glanced back at the forest path he’d just come through.
The forest, packed densely with tall cedars, was so dark it looked like the perfect venue for a party of several ghosts. A chill crawled up his spine.
Right. It’s already late today, so I’ll sleep at a lodging within the Dukedom, and once the sun comes up, I’ll leave the Dukedom behind. Head somewhere far away and build a new life for myself.
He trudged into the village entrance. Glancing around at the buildings filled with warm, bright light, he headed straight for the inn the moment he spotted it.
“Uagh… I’m so tired.”
By the time he washed up and came out, his entire body felt heavy with exhaustion.
It was the result of running nonstop for roughly two hours from the manor. Even for someone with his level of training, that much exertion was quite a strain.
He buried himself in the bed. Through the drowsiness washing over him, the menu bar floating in the air nagged at his vision. He glared at it, and a quiet guide window slid open.
[UI Visible/Hidden: Press two fingertips together and flick twice.]
At least it has the sense to read the room. He followed the instruction, and the menu bar gradually faded to transparency.
Now, what am I going to do with myself. Having crossed worlds already, he had no desire to do the same kind of work here.
Maybe I’ll try being a sailor — that childhood dream of mine. I’ve had offers to be an actor back in the original world too, but… there probably isn’t such a thing as film here. Theater, maybe……
He let his imagination wander for a little while before surrendering to the heaviness of his eyelids and releasing the thread of consciousness.
…And when he opened his eyes.
“…What?”
He couldn’t hide his bewilderment.
Outside the window, it was pitch dark. Despite having slept for what felt like a long time.
He checked the wall clock.
The second hand, which had been ticking away perfectly fine until he fell asleep, had — for some reason — come to a hard stop.
“…….”
He hurriedly got ready and went down to the inn’s first floor.
The surroundings were utterly silent. Despite being an inn, not even the faintest sign of a mouse could be felt.
Goosebumps crawled up from his toes, as if warning him of the danger his instincts had already sensed.
At that moment, a flash burst before his eyes.
The notification window was radiating light. Not blue — a vivid red, like a warning light.
[20 hours have passed since you left the play area.]
[Penalty: Distortion (60 minutes)]
[Survive until sunrise.]
From behind him came heavy, plodding footsteps. Thud. Thud.
He turned his stiff neck to look back. He could see the back of the innkeeper who had welcomed him so warmly the night before.
The innkeeper’s head began to creak as it slowly turned to face him.
The body remained in the same direction. Only the neck rotated 180 degrees to face him.
The places where eyes, nose, and mouth should have been were completely empty. Like a mannequin made of plastic.
“Ha.”
He forced his legs — which had begun to tremble — to move.
He swept his gaze around rapidly, searching for anything he could use as a weapon, but the first-floor hall was completely empty apart from the mannequin and himself. The chairs and tables that had filled the space the night before had all vanished without a trace.
He swallowed dryly and stepped backward.
One step. Two steps.
With every step he took back, the innkeeper closed the same distance toward him.
Eight.
Nine.
And on the tenth step —
“Son of a — !”
He spun around in one motion and broke into a run.
Bang, bang, bang! The savage noise close behind him made his heart lurch.
In his work as an operative, he’d always been dealing with humans, so as long as he steered clear of blood, he could manage somehow — but no matter how he looked at it, that thing was not human. The terror of facing something so uncanny left him unable to think straight.
He barely made it out of the inn, but the streets showed no sign of people either. He ran blindly along the main road. Every time he passed a building, the doors rattled and clattered loudly.
The banging noise echoed endlessly against his ears. His legs were shaking. He made a desperate turn around a corner and plunged into an alley.
What the — !
Another figure blocked his path. Likewise featureless — eyes, nose, and mouth all absent, like a mannequin.
He twisted his body to barely dodge the mannequin’s hand as it lunged aggressively toward him. Its fingernails grazed his shoulder with a scraping sound as they sliced through his clothes. He swallowed the scream threatening to burst out.
His mind went completely blank. He flailed his arms on survival instinct alone. By some miracle, a single brick barely clinging to the alley wall came loose and fell into his hands.
He gripped the brick hard and swung it down onto the mannequin’s head.
Crack — the mannequin-person staggered with the sound of flesh splitting. It seemed to have landed properly. He seized the gap that opened for just an instant and bolted, putting distance between them.
Did I get it. The moment he was about to allow himself a breath of relief —
From behind him, the plodding footsteps began again.
He glanced back sidelong. The mannequin that had just been struck by the brick was lurching toward him like a zombie, shambling but closing in steadily.
It didn’t die.
“…You’ve got to be—”
He kept moving his numb legs without stopping.
He ran, and the mannequin merely walked, yet somehow their speeds were strangely matched. No matter how much distance he put between them, they always drew close again.
The alleyways twisted like a maze. Every time he changed direction, another mannequin’s body lurched out at him. White arms and legs reached up from the ground and grabbed at his ankles — he nearly fell countless times, stumbling and righting himself again and again.
With no gun or blade, the only thing he had was a brick — an extremely close-range weapon at that. And his opponents were mannequin creatures that kept walking even with their skulls caved in. It was a situation not much different from being told to just die.
He racked his brain furiously for a way out of this, and the text from the notification window surfaced in his mind.
[Penalty: Distortion (60 minutes)]. If this world operated on the game’s rules, that meant he just needed to hold on somehow for that duration.
I need to hide and wait for the time to pass. Running to evade them for several dozen minutes without knowing the layout of these streets was close to impossible.
Buildings felt risky. There was no telling when or where a mannequin might spring out. He needed somewhere a little more — narrow, somewhere he could hunker down and stay still…!
It was then.
A person?
At a fork in the road some distance away, he spotted the silhouette of a tall figure.
The distance made it hard to see clearly, but eyes, nose, and mouth were unmistakably there.
The first intact person he’d found. The situation, however, was not great.
From behind the man, a mannequin with a bleached, hollow face was approaching him with a twisted, lurching gait. The man seemed not to have sensed the mannequin — he stood motionless, facing forward.
A conflict flashed through him for a split second. In a situation where my own neck is on the line, am I really in any position to help that man?
But all of this had broken out because of him. More precisely — because of the ‘game system’ that had taken root inside him.
Damn it. He clenched his back teeth hard.
He wrenched his body, which had been about to turn right at the fork, and swung it left instead. He stretched his legs as far as they would go and ran toward the man.
And then —
“Duck!”
He hurled the brick he’d gripped with every ounce of strength in his body, sending it flying straight at the head of the mannequin behind the man.
