- I’m the Nuisance Character in the Horror Game Chapter 1
Rumble… Kaboom!
A thick bolt of lightning crashed down, and a woman convulsed in a fit, letting out a scream.
“Kyaaah!”
“It’s okay, it’s just lightning.”
A man carefully held the startled woman, soothing her.
In the strange atmosphere, perhaps feeling embarrassed, she gently pushed him away with an awkward smile.
“S-sorry. I just got so scared.”
“It happens.”
I was half-dazed when she looked at me with a face full of concern.
I tore my gaze from her and stared at the abandoned hotel in front of us.
“Miss Evelyn, are you alright?”
This woman shook me gently as she asked, gazing vacantly at the gray derelict hotel through the pounding rain.
Even drenched to the bone, she possessed a charm like sunlight.
With her long sky-blue straight hair and eyes, her pert nose, and pink lips, she trembled in the furious downpour yet still worried about me.
She had such a striking presence that anyone could tell who she was at a glance.
She was the heroine of Child’s Secret.
And I was Evelyn.
The ultimate nuisance character in a horror game, delivering frustration like sweet potatoes from the very start.
Right from the beginning, she throws the heroine and hero into peril, using others as bait to survive.
She does every single thing she’s told not to, killing off characters who didn’t need to die, while clinging to life until the very end.
Then, as if receiving karmic retribution for all her deeds, she meets the most brutal and agonizing death among them all.
And if that nuisance character was me?
Only after beholding the massive abandoned hotel—its former glory still etched into its very being—did the memories of my past life flood back, and I realized where I was. There was only one thing I had to do.
“I absolutely cannot go into that hotel.”
Even the sign was unrecognizable.
The letters spelling “HOTEL” at the end were eerily ominous.
A chilling dread crept over my entire body, a sinister energy pricking at my skin like needles. I swallowed hard.
My body trembled from pure terror.
I was the only one here who knew the hotel’s savagery, having played the game.
“I’ll die.”
If I went in there, I’d die without a shred of hope.
❖ ❖ ❖
“I knew it felt familiar…”
Of all places…
I bit my lip to stifle the scream rising in my throat.
An abandoned island reeking of desolate gloom.
Towering on it, a massive, once-glamorous luxury hotel.
Its presence was unparalleled, a testament to its past splendor, but it had long faded into tarnished infamy.
There wasn’t any particular reason for it.
It was just the classic tale that haunted horror genres.
Stories of how the entire island’s population was sacrificed as an offering to lure someone in.
Or how some madman slaughtered all the island’s visitors.
Or how the hotel owner secretly imprisoned guests in the basement for live experiments…
Rumors abounded, but none had ever been proven true.
Or rather…
Even those horrific rumors had vanished one day, as if nothing had ever happened.
Countless years had passed since then, and now, no one was left who remembered the island or the hotel.
But I alone knew, having played the game where this setting appeared.
I knew how dangerous this island was.
Especially that hotel—the most perilous of all.
That luxury hotel was the main stage of the horror game Child’s Secret.
The bizarre incidents and accidents that unfolded there, where once you entered, you never came out.
The place stank of death, plagued by ceaseless misfortunes.
Just stepping inside was enough to erode a person’s sanity and ignite their deepest fears.
Given that setup, it was only natural it carried a rating barring teens.
Accordingly, the game was infamous for its brutality, and at the same time, renowned for its breathtaking illustrations.
It was a horror game where over half the players were drawn in by the art, only to quit in terror.
“And the most dangerous of all are probably the five demons living in that hotel.”
The derelict hotel, the story’s central stage, housed five demons too powerful for any human to withstand.
True to their reputation, the demons were unspeakably cruel, showing no mercy to humans whatsoever.
Sealed on the island for some reason, these five treated intruders as unforgivable trespassers in their domain.
“Like us.”
Undeterred by the demons’ threats, the game’s key characters relied on and grew fond of each other within the massive, terrifying abandoned hotel.
But sometimes, there were betrayals and nuisances.
Survive all the trials and tribulations, and you’d face the final boss—the strongest of the five demons.
Yet no player had ever defeated the boss and escaped the hotel alive.
Everyone tasted despair in the bad endings.
“I heard there are normal and happy endings…”
But no one had ever seen anything but bad endings.
Among them, the bad endings varied in how you died at the end, depending on how you navigated the story.
The game’s hellish difficulty led half the remaining players to curse it—“I wouldn’t have touched it without the illustrations”—before abandoning it en masse.
Thus, Child’s Secret became a forgotten tragedy of a horror game.
All that lingered were the stunning illustrations of the five demons and the key characters who entered the hotel.
The reason I dwelled on this game so needlessly was simple.
“Because that hopeless hotel of nightmares and despair is right in front of me now.”
My body tensed instinctively.
“I’m not dying.”
As if it knew I had no intention of entering, the thick raindrops pounded even harder, as if to pierce the ground.
Whoosh—
In this deluge, the best choice was to take shelter in the abandoned hotel.
We were on an island, shipwreck survivors after all.
But, but…
“I don’t want my limbs severed!”
I tried to flee from that hotel first, but someone grabbed my wrist and yanked me back.
The grip was so strong I couldn’t shake it off, laced with clear irritation.
Released without mercy, I tumbled backward, my entire body splattered in mud.
“Aaack!”
Pain shot through my back and hips, my body screaming involuntarily.
Instead of apologizing, the jerk who flung me glared with a furrowed brow and snapped at me.
“Enough already, Miss Evelyn!”
That bastard!
The curse nearly slipped out, but I straightened up instinctively.
We were nobles on a yacht party when a sudden typhoon wrecked the ship.
Miraculously, we survived the storm and awoke on this island—the main stage of the horror game.
Many of the nobles we’d sailed with were missing, but the point was, including me, there were only seven of us left.
As befitting a horror game, no other humans were on the island. We’d never seen anyone else while wandering.
Everyone was puzzled, even devastated, to realize it was just us.
That marked the story’s true beginning.
And from the moment I met them, I’d been the perfect nuisance, whining incessantly.
How much? I’d collapse midway crying about sore legs, snatch food from Moran and devour it, then wail that I was being nagged when called out.
I’d sob that I couldn’t walk anymore and get piggybacked, whining so pathetically even crybabies would pale in comparison.
It was only natural they were fed up with me after enduring it since the shipwreck.
“And yet they hadn’t ditched me because of that kind-hearted heroine.”
Even as tensions flared because of me, the heroine kept her calm, bright smile, soothing them and comforting me.
She was an angel, enduring my incessant yammering that would drive even demons mad.
“I’m sick and tired of dragging around a crybaby like you!”
The man in front of me grimaced viciously, at his wit’s end.
It was a miracle curses didn’t fly from my mouth.
Given what I’d done, I couldn’t retort…
Sure enough, sprawled there in the mud, not a single hand reached out to help.
They just clicked their tongues with looks that said we knew this would happen.
As I scrambled for the right words, a system window suddenly popped up before my eyes, shimmering.
Werner looks down at you with a contemptuous expression.
➤What should someone like you say?
- Wh-what did you do that for! I’m so scared! (.·´¯(>▂<)´¯·. )
- H-how dare you speak to me like that?! Look at this! My dress is ruined! ((╬▔皿▔)╯)
- Wh-what’s “sick and tired” mean? ((⊙_⊙)?)
You think I don’t know what “sick and tired” means? This choice window—is this really the best it can do?
10-second limit.
If no choice is made, one will be selected automatically.
The system itself was desperate to turn me into the game’s nuisance character.
More importantly, what was with this window?
Where was the horror game’s signature gravity, replaced by this bubbly nonsense?
Tick-tock, the seconds flew by. I reached out a trembling hand to the system window first.
I swear I’ll resist this itchy system that wants me as its nuisance.
I firmly pressed the least bad option—number 3.
Ding!
You have selected 3: “Wh-what’s ‘sick and tired’ mean? ((⊙_⊙)?)”
As if waiting, my mouth opened slowly on its own.
My eyes widened just like the emoticon, my face the picture of innocence, and the words of option 3 spilled out automatically.
“Wh-what’s ‘sick and tired’ mean?”
The air grew heavy in an instant.
The rain sounded louder because of the downpour.
…Right?
It couldn’t be that everyone was at a loss for words?
