Ch.33033 – Courage Test 2

# 033 – Courage Test # 2

“W is for moving forward. A is for left. S is for backward, and D is for right. And if you turn the mouse like this, you can change your view as if turning your head.”

The WASD control scheme was something anyone who had played computer games would know.

But Yu Dahui seemed completely unfamiliar with the controls and needed to be taught everything from scratch.

Fortunately for me, I had Jeongseok as my strategist and teacher.

“Now try moving. Press the shift button to run, but be careful because when your stamina gauge drops, you’ll be forced to walk. Also, running makes your footsteps louder. ‘Slippers’ item helps with that right now though.”

After briefly explaining the controls, Jeongseok spoke to Yu Dahui as if addressing someone whose training wheels had just been removed.

Yu Dahui soon placed her white, slender hands on the keyboard and slowly pressed the buttons.

“This is fascinating. So this is how games work.”

“The ghosts roaming the corridors basically approach you when they hear sounds. It’s better to move quietly. If you think you’re in danger, hide in places like these lockers before they spot you.”

“I’ll give it a try!”

And so the game began.

What would happen now?

We all watched Yu Dahui’s gameplay with interest from a step back.

For a moment, I wondered if Yu Dahui might have some incredible talent that would allow her to easily navigate through that dark corridor.

But that thought didn’t last long.

“Ah-. I died.”

She died very easily because she was caught.

It was because she wasn’t familiar with the controls.

“Ah. I died again.”

She kept dying after that too.

This seemed like something where we needed to master the controls before proceeding with the game.

“You need to move the mouse and keyboard together. Dahui, right now you stop the keyboard when you move the mouse. And when you use the keyboard to control direction, you’re not moving the mouse.”

“Yeongwon, should we just lower the difficulty? Or maybe use some cheats?”

Jeongseok and I discussed and deliberated on how to help Yu Dahui enjoy the game better.

Of course, Yang Juhui, who was watching this process, clicked her tongue as if something displeased her.

“Hey. Hey. Give it up. What game? Let’s just eat.”

It was lunchtime already.

We decided to order delivery food through an app.

We used a ladder game to decide the menu, and Yang Juhui got picked, so we ordered hamburgers.

Ding-dong-.

“That must be the delivery.”

And so we all ate hamburgers together for lunch.

Why does time pass so quickly on holidays?

Just as I was thinking how fun the day was, just sitting together and chatting, Yu Dahui, who was wiping sauce from the corner of her mouth with a tissue, asked:

“By the way.”

There was something powerful about Yu Dahui’s voice.

It grabbed everyone’s attention.

“Why play a game with scary ghosts in it?”

What did this question mean?

Was she asking why we were playing a game similar to “Nightmare Corridor”?

Or was she simply asking why people play scary games at all?

Jeongseok said:

“Fear is a fundamental human emotion. The reason people watch horror movies or play horror games is that they can serve as training for emergency situations that might occur in real life. This is based on research.”

Is that so?

That was something I didn’t know either.

But Yu Dahui raised her clear eyebrows as if she didn’t quite understand.

“By emergency situations in real life, do you mean actual ghosts appearing? Honestly, I don’t see how being chased by ghosts in a game serves as any kind of training.”

I see.

Jeongseok added:

“It’s a genre with mixed reception. Horror games and the horror genre in general have a somewhat niche appeal. Anyway, if you’re done eating, shall we get back to the game? What do you want to do?”

I was the leader of this group.

Jeongseok asked for my opinion, and I had to think for a moment.

The reason we gathered today was to play “The Abyss Corridor” and try to clear it completely.

Even though the atmosphere had become a bit strange, it seemed right to stick to our purpose.

“I’ll play the game now.”

# # #

I decided to play the game myself.

Progress was quick, and I easily found the exit in stage 1 and moved on to stage 2.

Stage 2 wasn’t just a dark corridor anymore; more ghosts appeared, and the setting had become more sinister.

It was like a hellish place, and it was so dark that even I had difficulty finding my way.

“Ah, damn. I keep dying.”

As I kept dying, everyone started to get bored.

Jeongseok was doing something on his phone, and Yang Juhui had turned on the TV and was watching a variety show.

Only Yu Dahui, standing behind me, was still watching my game.

“Ah. I’ve collected all the keys, so I just need to escape. It’s so dark I can’t see anything. A flashlight would be perfect right now.”

“Yeongwon, if you go right from here, I think there’s a staircase. Try going that way.”

At some point, Yu Dahui seemed to find just watching boring and started giving me advice.

It was strange getting advice from someone who couldn’t even handle the direction keys properly.

Still, curious, I looked to the right and was surprised to actually find stairs there.

“How did you know?”

“I didn’t know well before, but this place resembles somewhere I know. If you go down the stairs, there should be an entrance door.”

Sure enough, when I went down the stairs, there was an entrance door, and I successfully escaped.

It was now time to move on to stage “3,” but the game returned to the loading screen.

The game was over.

“Hey, Jeongseok. Is there no stage 3?”

“Oh, that’s early access.”

“Early what?”

“It’s a system where they sell an unfinished game first, then use the budget they get from that to complete the rest of the game.”

There really are all kinds of systems out there.

The important thing was that the game ended here.

What I learned from playing this game was that Jeongseok wasn’t good at horror games, Yu Dahui was a complete beginner, and Yang Juhui would scream hysterically at the ghosts in the game.

In conclusion, there was some benefit.

This game really did resemble “Nightmare Corridor.”

And it was quite significant that Yu Dahui had pointed out the escape route at the end.

“Dahui, you said the background in this game resembles a place you know? Where is that?”

“Huh? Yeongwon, don’t you know? This is Yeongji High School. Well… you might not know. To be precise, it’s the old school building now. The corridors and staircase positions look exactly the same.”

“Have you been to the old school building?”

We first-year students had classes in the new school building right after enrollment.

I was a bit concerned that Yu Dahui had been to the old school building.

“It was probably when I was in elementary school. I went there with police officers. I think they were looking for something… Yeongwon, can you turn the game back on? I might remember more if I see it.”

“Hey! Yu Dahui! Stop lying!”

Someone shouted loudly.

When I turned my head, Yang Juhui, who I thought had been watching a variety show, was fuming with a face flushed red.

She was so heated that I thought you could fry an egg on her forehead.

Both Jeongseok and I were startled.

We never imagined the atmosphere would suddenly change like this.

Both Jeongseok and I were guys who had been bullied by tough female bullies, so in situations like this, all we could do was tremble.

Soon, Yu Dahui frowned.

“I’m not lying. What lie did I tell?”

“You’re lying!”

Whoosh-!

After making a big fuss, Yang Juhui stormed out of the house.

We could hear the sound of her quickly going down the stairs.

“Yeongwon, I didn’t lie.”

Yu Dahui spoke as if asking me to believe her.

Yang Juhui was getting further away.

I felt like two choices had appeared before me, and I needed to pick one quickly.

“Ah, damn.”

I decided to chase after Yang Juhui.

Rushing down the stairs, I found Yang Juhui crouched in front of the first-floor villa.

What on earth was going on?

“Hey. Why are you suddenly acting like this?”

I asked about Yang Juhui’s sudden outburst.

Yang Juhui seemed genuinely angry and didn’t look like she would open up easily.

“Juhui. Yang Juhui. I need to know what’s going on. You and Yu Dahui had some history, right? What happened? Talk to me. I can’t understand if you don’t tell me.”

At first, I thought Yang Juhui was simply jealous of Yu Dahui for being pretty and rich.

For commoners like Yang Juhui and me, friends like Jeongseok and Yu Dahui sometimes become objects of envy.

But Yang Juhui’s anger seemed to be directed at something else entirely.

“Has Yu Dahui lied to you before? You said she keeps lying. The word ‘keeps’ implies continuity. It means she lied this time and she lied before.”

Take that-!

I questioned Yang Juhui like a defense attorney cornering a suspect.

Even I thought it was an excellent deduction.

Perhaps feeling cornered by my perfect objection, Yang Juhui finally opened up.

“When my sister went missing, there was a witness. It was a girl my age at the time. That girl’s testimony was the only evidence that could help find my sister.”

“…”

“The police and our family believed that girl and spent days investigating. We heard that she saw my sister at school late at night, so we thoroughly searched the school.”

“And then? What happened?”

“After about a week, that girl suddenly said she couldn’t remember anything. She changed her story as if she knew nothing about the incident. They even used a lie detector, and she really didn’t know.”

“Wait… So a girl who knew nothing was falsely helping with the investigation?”

“That’s the kind of person Yu Dahui is. I knew it was her as soon as I saw her in high school.”

I see…

Yang Juhui and Yu Dahui had met when they were in elementary school.

They had such a bad history.

“Why did Yu Dahui tell such a lie?”

Is it possible for an elementary school child to interfere with a missing person investigation out of simple mischief or curiosity, causing confusion with false testimony?

If possible, that would be malicious. However… at least from what I could see, I couldn’t sense any malice from Yu Dahui.

Rather, wasn’t she showing goodwill toward us?

“Yu Dahui is a liar.”

But what Yang Juhui was saying was clearly factual.

It was truly a contradiction.

Like the spear and shield paradox.

“I’m leaving. Honestly, I’ve been very patient being around Yu Dahui for your sake. I think I’ve done enough. If you’re going to be with her from now on, don’t call me.”

Pat-!

Yang Juhui stood up.

And as she disappeared into the distance, I couldn’t bring myself to stop her.

If during those three days when my mother disappeared, a witness had appeared, and various investigations were conducted based on that testimony, only for it to be revealed as a lie…

And if my mother was never found afterward?

I recently learned that missing person cases have a “golden time.”

24 to 36 hours.

If the person isn’t found within that time… the probability of finding the missing person drops exponentially.

In other words, Yang Juhui’s family wasted that golden time because of Yu Dahui’s lie.

“She has every right to be angry.”

Because of my experience with a missing family member, I empathized with Yang Juhui’s feelings, which is why I couldn’t bring myself to call out to her as she walked away.

Ah, damn. If I had known about this earlier, I would have just sent Yu Dahui home.

Swish-.

I went back up the stairs to the house.

Jeongseok and Yu Dahui were waiting for me.

I asked Yu Dahui:

“Can you tell me about what happened when you were in elementary school?”

Hearing Yu Dahui’s side would provide cross-verification.

That’s when Jeongseok called me.

“Yeongwon, a moment.”

At the front door.

Jeongseok said to me:

“It’s better not to ask easily about what happened in elementary school. I know well because I attended the same private elementary school as Yu Dahui at that time… There was a big incident then…”

“An incident?”

“Anyway, I can’t talk about it. You should hear it from Yu Dahui herself. Whether she’ll tell you or not, I don’t know…”