I Became A Ghost In A Horror Game-Chapter 9: The Stepping Stone for Strategy

I materialized my body inside the fourth-floor restroom before stepping out into the hallway and heading up to the fifth-floor staircase.

The calm before the storm. That thing should be waiting for me once I reach the top.

It was a relief that the others stopped at the fourth floor while running from the security guard. If they had gone further, at least one of them might have died.

At the end of the staircase, I saw a figure hanging in the middle of the fifth-floor hallway. A grotesque entity resembling a corpse, as if someone had committed suicide by hanging.

[Suicidal Specter]

As soon as I stepped into the hallway, the entity spoke.

[Let's die.]

[Bullied, failing in school, parents don't care—how could you live in this world? Just die. It'll be easier.]

Countless ropes suddenly descended from the ceiling, slithering like snakes, lunging for my neck.

Swish!

I slashed one of the ropes with my knife and charged forward. There was a time limit on my materialization, so I had to end this quickly.

[You’re at the bottom of the class. How will you ever get into college? If you don’t get into college, you have no future. You know that, right?]

More ropes poured down, enough to block my entire vision. Cutting them all one by one was impossible, but dodging was manageable—I knew the pattern.

The hallway tiles...

‘There’s a gap on the 9 o’clock tile from my position.’

I threw myself toward the 9 o’clock tile, barely avoiding the noose’s wave of death.

So the pattern is exactly the ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) same as in the game. This isn’t even a boss—just a regular monster. One of the most infuriating ones, too. I had to reload my saves so many times because of this bastard.

You're dead.

‘Move to 1 o’clock fast, then immediately to 12 o’clock, watch for the delayed attack—’

As I darted between the ropes like a rat, the entity grew more agitated.

Not that it mattered. I was closing in.

It was about to unleash its final desperation attack—but I had no intention of waiting for it.

Boom!

A deafening impact echoed through the hallway. An impossible sound to come from a girl’s slender legs.

Having absorbed other entities, my enhanced physical abilities let me launch myself straight at the monster, skipping the entire pattern.

I slashed my blade mid-air.

Swish.

The thing I cut wasn’t the entity itself—but the rope strangling its neck.

The creature crashed to the ground, convulsing as it let out a shrill scream.

[I CAN’T DIE! I FAILED! I FAILED! I FAILED!]

“You don’t exist. That’s why you can’t die.”

[No! I’m Choi Mi-young! I was bullied, my grades were terrible, and I committed suici—]

“There is no Choi Mi-young in this school. There never was.”

[Liar.]

“To commit suicide, you have to be alive first. And failing grades? What are you talking about? This is an elementary school.”

[...Lies.]

“Why do you keep saying that? Are you seriously that stupid? I thought you were suicidal, but turns out you’re just a moron. If you’re gonna lie, at least make it convincing. You got exposed and still won’t drop it? Pathetic. Get lost. You’re pissing me off.”

[...]

The entity fell silent.

And then, it dissolved into mist and was absorbed into me.

Again, my time for activity outside the mirror had increased.

A ghost fabricated by a common urban legend—because every school horror story must have a student who committed suicide.

But this one was a fraud. A nonexistent student forced into the role of a vengeful spirit.

The only way to exorcise it was to prevent its suicide and deny its very existence.

Even if I had told the others the strategy, would they have been able to dodge its attacks? Not a chance. Half of my success was because my body was already part monster.

That said, it would’ve been easier if I could use Slender Man’s teleportation. But I still can’t.

Maybe I haven’t fully adapted yet.

I thought absorbing this entity would let me use ropes as weapons, but nothing happened.

Maybe I can’t use abilities from other ghosts.

It makes sense. The game never had monsters fighting each other, so expecting otherwise might have been naïve.

Time will tell.

After the entity vanished, I picked up the talisman it left behind along with a special item, then returned to the mirror.

Now... time to head back to the others.

-----

At the corner of the mirror, Ella had disappeared from sight.

Was she staying nearby to protect us in case something happened?

Ha-rim frowned, uncertain about Ella’s behavior.

She had asked for Ella’s cooperation, but she hadn’t expected her to actually help so willingly.

This was nothing like how she had lied and deceived them inside the mansion.

When Ha-rim read the diary in the mansion, she had considered the possibility that Ella genuinely wanted friends. Now, she was half convinced.

But if that were true... why had she tried to kill them?

Did she see murder as... a game?

Maybe Ella had considered hunting them down to be just another way to play. After all, she was both a vengeful spirit and a child.

If that were the case...

“Ha-rim, why are you spacing out?”

Soo-ho’s voice snapped her back. He was looking at the mirror warily, as if expecting something to crawl out of it.

“Oh... I just felt like Ella was watching us.”

“...That’s possible.”

Kyung-min muttered grimly.

If any ghost would excel at spying from the shadows, it was her.

To Kyung-min, Ella was nothing but a horrifying presence.

Every time her name was mentioned, he reacted the most strongly.

Ha-rim understood why.

He had been personally tormented by Ella.

And he was the one who threw the wine bottle at her.

If she snapped, he was definitely first on her kill list.

“If she really was watching, it could’ve been a warning to hurry up and deal with the other ghosts. We should move.”

Ha-rim and the others agreed.

None of them believed Ella had the patience to wait forever.

“The next location is the livestock shed.”

Another oddly specific place.

Kyung-min had no objections, but there was one ghost that only Ha-rim hadn’t encountered yet. The others decided to fill her in.

“There’s another place where we saw something.”

“Huh? Where?”

“When we tried going down the opposite stairwell, we saw a horrific corpse monster. You must’ve missed it... but it was seriously disgusting. Ugh.”

In the heat of the chase, Kyung-min hadn’t fully registered it.

Now that he recalled it, he felt sick.

The others looked just as uneasy.

If they reacted like that just remembering it, Ha-rim figured she’d rather be chased by Ella again.

If Ella only pointed out two locations, why not the third? There were three talismans left—now two, since I just got one.

That means... that thing must be one of the last two entities.

“Let’s figure out a strategy before we head there. Did anything stand out about the corpse?”

“It looked like small animals had been eating it. But we were running from security at the time, so I didn’t get a good look.”

Soo-ho answered in place of Kyung-min, whose face was still pale.

Small animals eating a corpse...

One creature immediately came to mind.

“‘Small animals that gnaw on things...’ You think it’s rats?”

“That... would make sense. But are there any ghost stories about rats?”

Soo-ho asked.

Kyung-min adjusted his slipping glasses and flipped through his notebook.

But as he skimmed the pages, his expression grew more uncertain.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

“...Nothing really comes to mind this time. Rabbits spreading disease, the Pied Piper, or that legend about a rat turning into a human after eating fingernails... but none of those really qualify as ghost stories.”

That’s vague.

After a brief silence, when no one came up with an idea, Ha-rim made a suggestion.

“We’ll just have to see it for ourselves this time.”

The others nodded.

I followed them to the opposite stairwell on the second floor. This was where they said the entity appeared.

“Be careful, Ha-rim.”

Eun-jung gave her a worried look. Ha-rim gestured that she’d be fine and quietly descended the stairs.

Then, she heard something muttering below.

Peering around the corner, she saw it—

A corpse, horrifically mauled beyond recognition.

Riddled with gaping holes, gnawed and torn apart, like a lump of flesh barely resembling a human.

Urk. Ha-rim barely held back her nausea.

Looking closer, the corpse was about her height. It had a name tag, though the blood obscured most of it—except for one word.

"Duty."

[To-soon-ah... Sandol-ah... It’s time to eat... I snuck out a carrot from the garden today... If I get caught...]

“...?”

Before she could react, something burst out of the corpse’s mouth.

A rabbit.

A rabbit with a mouth stained red.

Its eyes met hers.

[KIEEEEEEEEK!!!!]

Rabbits started pouring endlessly from the entity’s gaping maw.

Screeching, shrieking, charging.

“Run!”

“AAAAAAH!”

Drooling, snarling, the rabbits swarmed after them.

Getting caught was not an option.

They ran for their lives.

But running wasn’t a solution. They needed a way to stop this.

“Are there any ghost stories about rabbits?!”

“No! But I heard they used to keep rabbits in the livestock shed!”

That was news to me. As expected, Kyung-min knew a lot.

The livestock shed.

The place Ella mentioned.

Rabbits and the livestock shed.

There was a connection.

“We’re going there!”

“Got it!”

We changed course, running straight for the shed.

It was supposed to be empty.

But strangely, I remembered it having a lot of security cameras.

And why did they stop raising rabbits?

We made it outside the school.

But the rabbits were faster than expected.

Even if we reached the shed, could we even fight them off?

“Cafeteria! Let’s block them inside the cafeteria first!”

The shed was right behind the cafeteria—it wouldn’t mess up our route.

And I’d heard they left the cafeteria unlocked for teachers who worked during summer break.

Ha-rim kicked the cafeteria door open, diving inside.

The others followed, slamming it shut behind them.

[BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!]

“Ugh...! We can hold it! Ha-rim, find a way to stop them!”

“On it!”

Just as she was about to slip out the back door, Eun-jung called out.

“I don’t know if it’ll help, but there’s a box of name tags outside! For duty shifts—cafeteria duty, garden duty, all of them!”

“Got it!”

Ha-rim burst outside.

The livestock shed was in sight.

But the shed that was supposed to be empty—

Was crawling with rabbits.

Swarming like cockroaches.

For the first time in her life, Ha-rim hated rabbits.

“...What are they eating?”

She glanced at their feeding trough.

Inside was a pile of unidentifiable meat.

Stay calm.

This is a puzzle. A ghost story.

Like the Red Tissue/Blue Tissue ghost, if I find the flaw in the logic...

She pieced together the clues.

Rabbits.

The mauled corpse.

The food.

The duty shifts.

The abandoned livestock shed.

The excessive number of security cameras.

“......”

Why so many cameras?

If there’s no visible danger, but cameras are everywhere—

Then there was a danger in the past.

And it involved the duty shifts?

“...Ugh.”

This wasn’t a generic urban legend.

It was school-specific.

What’s unique about our school?

The principal.

He always preached, “Safety first. Safety second.”

Every classroom had safety posters.

Even during morning announcements, he would drone on about it, making us groan from boredom.

Our teacher once told us—

He became this strict after a student went missing years ago.

“...That’s it.”

The missing student was assigned to the livestock shed.

That explains the security cameras.

The principal would’ve shut down the shed entirely afterward.

Now, think about the kids’ reactions.

Rumors spread like wildfire.

A student vanished while working in the shed.

What if the kids started saying—

“The rabbits ate them.”

And the ghost formed to match the story.

It’s stupid. But stupid things work.

Ha-rim grabbed a duty name tag from the box.

She picked up a discarded broom and swept the meat out of the feeding trough.

The rabbits stomped and shrieked in fury.

Then, something new appeared.

A carrot dropped to the ground.

As if rewarding her for figuring it out.

“...Here! Eat this!”

But the rabbits didn’t touch it.

What now—?

She thought for a moment—

And then, she spoke.

“To-soon-ah, Sandol-ah, time to eat. I snuck out a carrot from the garden today.”

[...]

Updat𝓮d from frёewebnoѵēl.com.

One by one—

The rabbits vanished.

Until only two remained.

Just two ordinary, gentle rabbits.

They hopped toward her and quietly nibbled on the carrot.

Now—there was no more flesh-eating rabbit.

No devoured duty student.

“It’s over...?”

A white talisman fluttered down.

She picked it up—

And when she looked back—

The last two rabbits were gone.

“...Only one talisman left. But—wait, is everyone okay?!”

If anyone got hurt—

She rushed back to the others.

And found—

A broken door.

The others huddled together.

And Ella—

Casually wiping what looked like rabbit blood from her hands.

Their eyes met.

Ella grinned.

“You’re back~”

For some reason—

Ha-rim thought Ella’s red eyes looked pretty.