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“First, let’s block the toxic gas. Heave-ho!”

Arriving first at the 5th basement floor, I turned the round valve.

[Starting Air Conditioning System]

Shhhhhh—

The stale, murky air suddenly cleared up.

&@#^$#*&$@!

Then, from the other side of the door, I began to hear the girls chattering away.

“Rock, paper, scissors. Rock, paper, scissors…!”

“Quick, go in!”

“Hey, hey, hey, don’t push!”

Whoosh—

“Hiiiiiik! Uh, Unni?”

“I was in the elevator. Why didn’t everyone get on?”

“Hiiing, there was a perverted uncle stuck to the door. How could we not run away after seeing that?”

– For real LOL

– Almost had a heart attack

– Are there any survivors?

– The Paper Man is so scary even if you know about it

– 130,000 people who left home are coming back lol

– Let’s just watch it with Adella for peace of mind, okay?

– I was a VR viewer, but I got so scared watching in first-person that I got forcibly logged out

In fact, the mission hasn’t even started yet.

“What we need to collect on the first day on the Earth map is a total of four items.”

“Yup.”

“LP record, Ruby Roman seedlings, silver feather pen, and TumbleWitty.”

“And the last one?”

“A monster that doesn’t kill people.”

“That sounds easy. Let’s go. Na-me Unni, let’s move!”

“Huh?”

*Click—*

Saetbyeol placed her hands on my shoulders.

Following her, Kariri and Yudi joined in to form a train-like formation.

“Sisters, you know this looks a bit funny, right?”

“Oops.”

“Haha…”

– One-shot Na-me

– What are fully grown adults doing clinging onto an 11-year-old, lol

– Among us, Na-me looks the most mature

We decided to search our way up from the 5th basement to the 1st floor.

“Yay, treasure acquired!”

I picked up an LP record on the 4th basement floor, where the members were frantically fleeing earlier.

“Wow, look, a baby tree.”

“We decided to call that a seedling.”

“I know, right?”

I gathered a seedling from the 3rd basement floor.

This is going smoother than I thought?

“Sniff sniff. I smell pigeon over here for some reason.”

“The boss is saying weird things again.”

“Huh huh huh! Found it! I think I found the feather pen!”

– Is this for real, lol?

– Amazing

– Riding luck to conquer a horror game

– Just gotta clear everything before scary stuff pops up

Due to the phenomenon of the black fog, the paths leading to the upper floors were in different situations.

We managed to find treasures three times in a row.

But our luck ends here.

Clank clank—!

“Why won’t this open? Grrr!”

Saetbyeol grabbed the doorknob and pushed against the wall with her feet.

The door leading to the 1st basement was firmly locked.

“The existence of a keyhole means we have to find a key, right?”

“Ah.”

Everyone’s faces turned pale.

We had to search again from the 5th basement to the 2nd floor.

– Kya~~~~~~

– Let’s go back

– Feels like being dragged to a slaughterhouse, lol

– Hope the key is safe

“By the way, it seemed like there were a lot of drawers on the 5th basement.”

“Yudi, are you sure?”

“Yeah, maybe it’s there.”

“I know the way to the room directly.”

I guided them to the hallway where the eight-foot ghost had been.

– Oh, it’s coming…

– It’s coming

– ?

– Where did it go?

– Why isn’t it here, lol?

“What was here?”

“Uh? There was nothing.”

“Na-me… you’re acting super suspicious right now…”

“Well, as long as the elevator works well.”

I dodged Kariri’s question loosely.

Ding—

[You are on the 1st basement.]

“Nyaaaah!”

“Gah!”

Suddenly, Saetbyeol tackled me in a wild hug.

Thud—

After hitting my butt, I pointed at the elevator.

“That’s just the Paper Man. It looks scary, but it deals almost no damage, so it’s safe.”

“Seriously, you want me to get on that? Ewwww!”

The Paper Men swarmed around the frameless glass elevator like ants.

The number of them had already multiplied to a dozen.

“It should be safe with Na-me here, right?”

“Then can I just close my eyes?”

“Wow, Della, that sounds like totally irresponsible fun.”

Swoosh—

Something moved inside the elevator.

‘What is that?’

If I wasn’t mistaken, something was wriggling inside the elevator.

The Paper Men were only occupying the ‘outside’ of the elevator.

So what’s inside?

Clank—!

“Ahhh! Spider behind us!”

“Uwaaah! Quick, run to the elevator!”

“Kariri, Yudi, this way! I’ll clear a path with the shovel.”

“Huh? Not the elevator? Urgh, whatever!”

“Eeek, eeek!”

Clang clang clang—!

As I slammed the spider’s head, a clear sound echoed out.

The giant spider, upon receiving precisely five hits, flipped onto its back and struggled.

“Wooow, Na-me, you’re amazing! Kill it, kill it!”

“Let’s hurry up. We don’t have time to kill it.”

“Why, why, why? What’s behind us? Aaaaaah!”

– Uh, what is it, lol?

– What? Why are we suddenly running?

– Spiders are so scary, wtf

– Is this Na-no-name’s bluffing, lol?

– But the physicality of killing the spider though, lol

We turned through the winding and dark hallway multiple times.

“But, why were we running?”

“Just because Na-me told us to.”

“Kahah! So Na-me is scared of the elevator too! Yay!”

Kariri was scratching her chin in glee.

I glanced at the team’s status screen.

[Adella – Dead]

“Adella’s dead.”

“Eh? When did she die?”

* * *

“Yikes, spider! I really hate spiders! Spiders!!!”

Adella dashed towards the elevator at full speed.

My legs trembled, tangling up beneath me.

But being with Na-me gave me courage.

Paper Man?

They can’t get into the elevator anyway.

I could just consider them bugs.

[The door opens]

But the moment the elevator door opened—

“Uwaaah…?”

A black shadow filled my view.

A massive silhouette crawled down from the ceiling to the floor, scraping the walls.

Over a hundred sharp teeth clicked together, drooling thick saliva splattered.

As steam flowed between the teeth, a rotten smell pierced my nose.

“Ugh!”

In my terror, I screamed, but my own hands muffled my voice.

And then—

The tar-like black muscle and skeleton began to writhe.

“Yaaaaaaah!!!”

The monster’s arm shot out like lightning and grabbed Adella by the head.

[Death]

– Wowwwwwwwwwww!!!!

– I was scared to death, lol!

– King Della

– Really opened the door like this, huh, lol?

– S-class disasters are a whole different level

– Such a pity, Na-me should’ve seen this

– Didn’t she already see it and bolt?

– Huh? Where did everybody go?

Ding—

[▶Discord: ‘Cheon Saetbyeol’ has connected.]

“Where did everyone go! Why did you guys leave me behind! Sob…”

“Sorry. We couldn’t keep up…”

“Our Na-me cleared the way. The Phobia Museum turned out to be more fun than scary, huh?”

“Hmph! Hmph hmph! Let’s see how well you do without me! I’ll be watching closely.”

In the meantime, Adella hovered around the three girls in her ghostly form.

S-class monster Nightmare.

Instant-death attack.

In its growth process, light was its only weakness, but thanks to being spawned among the Paper Men, it evolved into its complete form.

– Nightmare vs Na-me, d-d-d-d!!!

– What’s its health?

– Surprisingly, the health is only five. But if you touch it, you die instantly.

– To shake off aggro, you have to lead it more than 30 meters away, which is super hard given that it’s a straight distance, lol!

– Na-me, you got this!

– If everyone dies on the first day, game over, lol!!!

– But the Earth sector did have a danger level of S

– Should we move to Na-me’s stream?

– No Name, what are you doing?

Meanwhile, No Name.

“Oh, you might be curious about that part. So, why it’s advantageous for me to make you conscious of the sub-mission attempts. This can be referred to the competition of aura; transferring aura from the head to the legs takes about a basic delay of 0.2 seconds. Likewise, it would also take 0.2 seconds to convey it back, right? Plus, if you add the fundamental human reaction speed of 0.1 seconds, we’re looking at around 0.5 seconds of delay in the competition. If you look at the game time of 5 minutes and 38 seconds, you’ll understand—”

“Na-me! Can you stop explaining while we’re running!?”

“Where! Where should we go? Left? Right?”

“Not left… right!”

“Why didn’t you say that earlier! We’re so close now!”

[Kaaoooooooo—!]

The Nightmare charged, smashing the ground as it roared.

The nightmare couldn’t control its speed at the two-way fork and slammed its head into the wall.

“Did we take it down?”

[Kaaooooooo!]

“Uwaah! How are we losing it? It’s terrifying!”

Kariri was hugging the monster TumbleWitty, which looked like a fluffy haystack.

The stairs leading to the ground felt impossibly far away.

The Nightmare’s speed was nearly equal to that of the Player.

In other words, someone had to sacrifice themselves at the intersection to shake off the aggro.

Swoosh—

Na-me stopped her running legs and slid to a stop.

And aiming one shovel straight ahead,

“Go ahead first. Then bring Na-me and Adella back to life.”

“…Okay! I’ll definitely protect you!”

“Na-me Unni…”

Watching this incredible scene as a ghost, Adella felt moved.

“But Na-me, to resurrect it costs money… we can’t meet our quota.”

At that, Na-me jumped a little.

Hearing that, Adella connected to Discord and said.

“Hey guys, you can carry on without me. I’ll just chat with the viewers, so revive me next turn.”

“No way.”

Na-me firmly dismissed it.

“?”

“Your reaction is the tastiest, Adella. So, all I need to do is survive here, right?”

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