Chapter 117

For thirty minutes, Seo-jun and Tae-woo solved the puzzles created by the game company and moved forward in a standard manner.

The puzzles were cleverly designed and fun, and the viewers’ reactions were positive.

Sometimes there was chat asking him to show the Tang Clan’s secret hidden weapon technique again, but he did not show it again.

Because it was a dangerous forbidden technique, he had to seal it away, at least during the sponsored stream.

“Ah, damn.”

Rustle!

From below, a dark figure scaling the wall stealthily revealed its presence and then vanished.

As if it were monitoring them.

Although there had been no jump scare elements yet, the game made them feel dread through these minor details.

Only to Tae-woo, that was.

“Here is the last room.”

“Really?”

After solving the last puzzle, they arrived at the room they had come from earlier.

-How do you know that?

-Have you perhaps been here before?

-Heol. Streamer, please refrain from spoilers.

-Lolol everyone has gone crazy.

As they crossed the threshold, a wide staircase stretching in a straight line welcomed them, and ascending the stairs, a normal indoor space unfolded before them.

“We just need to find the protagonist.”

Seo-jun judged that this was the end of this chapter from here on.

Because this was the very room where they had looked through the ventilation shaft gap to find where the protagonist was.

Therefore, he had an intuition that they had to go to the empty box they had seen earlier, and headed there.

“Follow me.”

“Ugh. It feels like the toys are all watching us.”

The packaging boxes set up on both sides were neatly displayed so their contents could be seen at a glance.

And Seo-jun found the place he had noted earlier and went toward that box.

“This is it.”

“Look closely over there. There’s a note inside.”

[If you want to find me, you’ll have to do my job in my stead.]

The job the protagonist had to do?

He had a hunch.

It was probably to deal with the entity that had been moving along the walls since earlier.

-Omg

-What are they telling us to do?

-But why is he so rude? They are his mom and dad.

-True lol

The facts he realized while playing the game were that the genre of the game-within-a-game was action-adventure, and this world was a toy world.

And that the parts the developers failed to make properly were strangely filled in.

That meant…

Thud.

Suddenly, something dropped from the ceiling.

The head of the doll they had seen earlier came into view. The doll’s hair was sparsely grown.

Lowering their gaze, they saw a cylindrical torso attached right below the head.

Claw arms, and spider-like legs attached underneath came into view.

The doll, which was chilling just to look at, began to slowly approach them.

while baring teeth similar to a shark’s.

Clearly, because they hadn’t made it properly, the rest of it had turned out like that.

“Ah. Wow… I really hate this.”

Tae-woo seemed to have fallen into panic.

[Run away!]

Running away was the objective this time.

Did the difficulty not matter?

Seo-jun first ran straight toward the entrance.

“Movement speed limit has been applied.”

When he tried to run, his feet would not lift. A quick trot was the maximum speed.

-Omg

-It looks fcking scary.

-A chase scene? Omg

Rattle.

The entrance door was locked.

Seo-jun climbed back up the stairs.

As he looked around,

“There is a hole open over there.”

Seo-jun pointed to the entrance of a conveyor belt on the wall that was openly open, inviting them to enter.

“Hey, come over here.”

He called Tae-woo, who was somehow dodging the doll with a quick trot.

Seo-jun waited for Tae-woo, and then they entered the conveyor belt together.

“I think we shouldn’t stop.”

Clang, clang, clang, clang!

That movement sound was bothersome.

Fortunately, the passage was not large enough for the doll to enter, but its length was short.

The place they arrived at after the passage ended was the massive space they had passed through earlier.

The conveyor belt they had seen above them when looking up from the path they took while solving puzzles had now become the path they were escaping on.

“Keep going straight!”

Clang, clang, clang!

A certain sound kept echoing, and Tae-woo looked back before screaming.

“Arghhhhh! It’s approaching! Hey, it’s coming! It’s coming, I say!”

Seo-jun also glanced back slightly as he moved forward.

Grinning.

Behind them was the doll, smiling as it menacingly narrowed the distance.

-Ah, I flinched.

-Fcking scary.

-Omg

-I got scared.

Fortunately, the passage to the next room appeared right before they were caught by the doll, and they entered it.

Clang, clang, clang!

However, they could not rest easy.

The sound of the doll moving continued to ring out urgently.

And that choice was correct.

“Maybe it can’t follow us up to here? How about we just stop and stay here?”

Clang, clang!

Seo-jun smirked and pointed behind.

“I don’t think so. Don’t stop.”

“Argh!”

With its head bent at 90 degrees and tightly squeezed in, the doll was approaching them inside the passage.

This fit perfectly.

“The front is blocked! What do we do! Argh!”

Tae-woo placed his hands on the front wall and pushed with all his might, while his head was turned to look behind.

He put more strength into his arms as he watched the gradually approaching doll.

There was no way the door would open just because of that.

-Lolol

-His reaction is delicious lol

-His reaction is seriously so delicious lol

-Right now, nothing but the doll is visible in Tae-woo’s sight lol

It was because what Tae-woo was pushing was not a door, but a wall.

“Left turn. You idiot.”

The viewers loved his panicked state, where he couldn’t see anything.

When Seo-jun left Tae-woo alone and went to the left, Tae-woo followed him, perhaps because his survival instinct was still active.

The passage ended, and they entered the next room.

And the doll also squeezed out of the passage and began to approach them at high speed once more.

It was indeed a chase.

Hearing the clanging sounds, Seo-jun felt that the doll’s speed was extremely fast.

To the extent that it should have caught up with them long ago.

Tae-woo checked behind again and expressed his confusion.

“It disappeared?”

“Hey, look ahead.”

“Argh!”

It seemed that the doll had moved through the walls beside or under the conveyor belt, caught up with them, and climbed back onto the conveyor belt where they stood.

It was fitting for the guy who had been crawling around the dark walls here and making its presence known.

Tae-woo froze with his mouth wide open at the doll that suddenly appeared in front of him.

The doll lunged from the front with a bizarre smile.

And Seo-jun grabbed the collar of Tae-woo, who had ceased all movement, and ran down the path branching off to the bottom right.

-Lol this is seriously so funny lol

-The streamer flinches every time he makes eye contact with the doll, but as soon as he looks at Tae-woo, he relaxes.

-How can someone be that easily scared lolol

-Ah, delicious lol

Tae-woo’s survival instinct worked well this time too.

After Seo-jun pulled him, he miraculously did not lose his balance and began to run in a quick trot again.

Passing through this passage, yet another room appeared.

Seo-jun quickly made a judgment and shouted.

“From the left first!”

In the back, the doll was trying to exit the passage, but it could not emerge immediately, perhaps because it was slightly stuck.

And the entrance visible ahead was closed. There was no side path either.

That meant they needed something to open that entrance, and the only suspicious things were the screens hanging in midair a short distance away, blocking their view.

Tae-woo’s help was needed.

Tae-woo operated the air gun immediately with trembling hands, and the screen rose due to the wind’s power.

Seo-jun, who had loaded his nail gun, hit all four buttons, two on each side, while moving, and the door ahead opened.

The last room also had its door closed.

This time, a puzzle came up where Tae-woo had to go first and change the trajectory.

However,

“This is my specialty.”

In the urgent situation where they had to finish before the doll emerged from the narrow passage again, Seo-jun knew a faster way to end it.

-Ah, I tried not to bring this out.

-The streamer said he wouldn’t bring it out, but brought it out in 30 minutes lol

-He’s using a shortcut again lol

-If you don’t like it, you Teusus should use it too.

There was no need for Tae-woo to move first; once Seo-jun loaded, it was over.

They entered the final passage leisurely, exited it, and reached a certain indoor area.

Was the chase over?

“Wow, fck. Seo-jun, thank you so much. Seriously.”

Tae-woo relaxed his tension.

-The streamer hard carried lol

-True lol

-He carried him because he felt sorry for his friend.

-Is it over like this?

-Wow, but it was fcking scary, seriously omg

It certainly was full of suspense.

The sound of footsteps that made them realize they were being chased, and the dread of seeing the scary-looking doll approaching when they looked back, must have been considerable.

Indeed, Tae-woo screamed in surprise every time he saw it.

But was this the end?

Right then.

Clang, clang, clang, clang.

-Huh?

-??

-Omg, this isn’t right?

“Ah, please.”

Contrary to Tae-woo’s wishes, the doll burst out of the passage they had come from in an instant and shoved its face forward.

***

They died.

They respawned in the place where toys were piled up.

Tae-woo despaired at this fact.

“You want me to do this again? I’m not doing it. No, I can’t. It’s seriously fcking scary.”

Meanwhile, Seo-jun thought about what had gone wrong and realized it.

They should have closed the door next to the passage.

He thought there had been a control panel. As if.

Actually, he had known, but he deliberately did not close it just to make Tae-woo do it once more since he was so scared.

Seo-jun spoke with a wicked smile.

“Now, now, let’s do it again and finish it.”

“Sigh… fine, let’s go. Ah, I really hate this.”

They went toward the protagonist’s box to start the chase again.

Thump!

The doll dropped from above, and though Tae-woo flinched slightly, since he had some composure now, he took a deep breath and walked slowly toward the conveyor belt.

However, looking to his side, his friend was doing something strange.

“Seo-jun, what are you doing?”

Seo-jun was currently standing in the opposite direction and walking backward.

To explain, he was facing the doll.

“Ah. The viewers are too scared, so I’m going to try escaping while watching it the whole time. The speed seems manageable.”

So, right now,

he was planning to run away while facing backward, right?

“The path?”

“I memorized it all.”

“The, the gimmicks?”

“Same.”

Seo-jun smiled leisurely.

“Why, you want to do it too?”

“Seriously… you crazy bastard.”

***

Before long,

-Is it possible to do something only veterans do after seeing it just once? Yes, it is lolol

-Walking backward, holy shit lolol

-Why are you throwing nails when they don’t even deal damage lol

-Suddenly it turned from horror into comedy lol

-Looking at it face-to-face like this… maybe that doll is kind of cute?

Clang, clang, clang, clang!

“Tae-woo. I told you not to look back.”

“I can’t help it!”

A glance.

“Argh!”

Tae-woo, constantly bringing it upon himself, looked back for no reason and screamed.

In contrast, Seo-jun walked backward, waving whenever they made eye contact, and even embedding nails into the doll’s head when he had spare time as he performed the gimmicks.

This chase, where the two contrasted so starkly, was uploaded to the community under the title ‘A Newbie and a Veteran in a Game Released Less Than Three Hours Ago.’

And it became a massive hot topic.