Chapter 33: Courage Test (2)

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

The WASD control method was something anyone who had played computer games a bit would know.

But Yoo Dahee seemed to know nothing about the controls and had to be taught everything from scratch.

Fortunately, I had Jung-seok as my strategist and teacher.

"Okay. Now try moving. Pressing the shift button makes you run, but be careful because when the stamina gauge drops, you're forced to walk. Also, running makes your footsteps louder. It's okay now because we have the 'slippers' item."

Jung-seok, having roughly explained the controls, spoke to Dahee as if addressing someone who just had their bicycle training wheels removed.

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

"This is interesting. So this is how games move."

"The ghosts roaming the corridor basically often approach by hearing sounds. It's better to move quietly. If you think it's dangerous, hide in places like these lockers before you're spotted."

"I'll give it a try!"

And so the game began.

What will happen now? We all watched Dahee's game with interest, taking a step back.

I thought maybe Dahee had an incredible talent and would blast through that dark corridor-

But that thought was short-lived.

"Ah-. I died."

She was caught and died very easily. It was because she wasn't familiar with the controls.

"Ah. I died again."

She kept dying after that too. Shouldn't we master the controls before proceeding with the game?

"You need to move the mouse and keyboard together. Dahee, right now you're stopping the keyboard when you move the mouse. And when you're controlling direction with the keyboard, you're not moving the mouse."

"Young-won. Should we lower the difficulty more? Or maybe use some cheats?"

Jung-seok and I discussed and pondered how to make the game more enjoyable for Dahee.

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

"Hey. Hey. Leave it. What game? Let's just eat."

It was already lunchtime. We decided to order delivery food through an app.

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

Ding dong-

"That must be the delivery."

And so we all ate hamburgers for lunch.

Why does time pass so quickly on holidays?

Just as I was thinking how fun the day was, just sitting together and chattering away, Dahee, who was wiping sauce from her mouth with a tissue, asked,

"By the way."

There was a certain power in Dahee's voice. It grabbed everyone's attention, you could say.

"Why are you playing a game with scary ghosts in it?"

What's the meaning of this question?

Is she asking why we're playing a game that has similarities to the "Nightmare Corridor"? Or is she just asking why we're playing a scary game because she doesn't understand?

Jung-seok said,

"Fear is a fundamental human emotion. The reason for watching horror movies or playing horror games is that they can serve as training for emergency situations that could occur in reality. This is based on research."

I see.

That's something I didn't know, either. But Dahee raised her clear eyebrows as if she didn't quite understand.

"By emergency situations in reality, do you mean ghosts actually appearing? Honestly, I don't see how a game where you're chased by ghosts serves as training."

I see.

Jung-seok added,

"It's a genre that divides opinions. Horror genres like horror games are in some ways niche. Anyway, if we're done eating, shall we play the game again? What do you want to do?"

I was the leader of this group. Jung-seok asked for my opinion, and I had to think for a moment.

The reason we gathered today was to play and clear the "Abyss Corridor".

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

"I'll play the game now."

***

I decided to play the game myself.

The progress was fast, and I easily found the escape route in stage 1 and moved on to stage 2.

Stage 2 wasn't just a dark corridor, but a place with more ghosts appearing and a more sinister background.

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

"Damn. I keep dying."

As I kept dying, everyone got bored.

Jung-seok was doing something on his phone, and Juhee was watching a variety show on TV. The only one watching my game was Dahee, standing behind me.

"Ah. I've collected all the keys, so I just need to escape. But it's so dark I can't see anything. It would be perfect if I just had a flashlight."

"Young-won. I think there might be stairs if you go right from here. Try going that way."

I'm not sure when it started. Dahee, perhaps finding just watching boring, started giving me advice.

It was surprising to get advice from someone who couldn't even handle the direction keys well.

Still, just in case, I turned right and was surprised to actually see stairs there.

"How did you know?"

"I didn't know well before. But this place looks like somewhere I know. If you go down the stairs, there's probably an exit door."

Indeed, when I went down the stairs, there was an exit door, and I succeeded in escaping. It was time to move on to stage "3", but I returned to the loading screen.

The game was over.

"Hey. Jung-seok. Is there no stage 3?"

"Oh. That's early access."

"Early what?"

"You can think of it as a system where they sell an unfinished game first, then use the budget gained from that to complete the rest of the game."

There really are all sorts of systems out there. The important thing was that the game ended here.

What I learned from playing this game was that Jung-seok isn't good at horror games, Dahee is a complete beginner, and Juhee screams her head off at the ghosts in the game.

In conclusion, there was a benefit. This game really was similar to the "Nightmare Corridor". And it was quite meaningful that Dahee pointed out the escape route at the end.

"Dahee. You said the background in this game looks like a place you know? Where is that?"

"Huh? Don't you know, Young-won? This is Yeongji High School. No... you might not know. To be precise, it's the old school building now. The corridors and staircase positions are exactly the same."

"Have you been to the old school building?"

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

It bothered me a bit that Dahee had been to the old school building.

"It was probably when I was in elementary school. I went there once with the police. I think they were looking for something... Young-won, can you turn the game on again? I might remember more if I see it."

"Hey! Yoo Dahee! Stop lying!"

Just then, someone shouted loudly.

When I turned my head, Juhee, who I thought was watching a variety show, was fuming with her face bright red. She was so heated that I thought you could fry an egg on her forehead.

Jung-seok and I were both startled. We couldn't have imagined the atmosphere would suddenly turn like this.

Jung-seok and I, both having been bullied by tough delinquent girls, could do nothing but tremble in this situation. Soon, Dahee frowned.

"It's not a lie. What lie did I tell?"

"You're lying!"

Whoosh-!

After throwing a big fit, Juhee stormed out of the house. We could hear the sound of her quickly going down the stairs.

"Young-won. I didn't lie."

Dahee spoke as if asking me to believe her.

Juhee 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 Juhee first.

When I hurriedly ran down the stairs, Juhee was crouching in front of the villa on the first floor.

What on earth is going on?

"Hey. You. Why are you suddenly acting like this?"

I asked about Juhee's sudden outburst. Juhee seemed really angry, but it didn't look like she'd open up easily.

"Juhee. Yang Juhee. I need to know what's going on to understand. You did have something with Yoo Dahee, right? What was it? Talk to me. I can't know if you don't say anything."

At first, I thought Juhee was simply jealous of the pretty and rich Dahee.

For commoners like Juhee and me, friends like Jung-seok and Dahee sometimes become objects of envy. But Juhee's anger seemed to be misaligned with my guess somewhere.

"Did Yoo Dahee lie to you before? You kept saying she's lying. 'Kept' implies continuity. It means she lied this time, and she lied before too."

Take that!

I asked Juhee like a turnabout lawyer interrogating a suspect. I thought it was an excellent deduction, even if I say so myself.

Perhaps thinking there was nowhere to run from my perfect objection, Juhee finally opened up.

"When my sister went missing, there was a witness. It was a girl the same age as me at the time. That girl's testimony was the only evidence that could help find my sister."

"......"

"The police and our family believed only that girl's words and investigated for days. We heard that she saw my sister at school late at night, so we even searched the school thoroughly."

"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, but she really didn't know."

"No... So a kid who knew nothing was helping the investigation with lies?"

"That's the kind of person Yoo Dahee is. I knew as soon as I saw her in high school. That it was her."

I see...

Juhee and Dahee had met when they were in elementary school. They had such a bad history.

"Why did Yoo Dahee 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 in the investigation with false testimony?

If possible, it was a kind of malice. However... at least from what I could see, I couldn't feel any malice from Dahee.

Rather, doesn't she seem to feel goodwill towards us?

"That Yoo Dahee is a liar."

But what Juhee is saying must also be a fact. It's truly a contradiction. A case of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object.

"I'm leaving. Honestly, I've been putting up with being around Yoo Dahee a lot for your sake. I think I've done enough at this point. If you're going to be with her from now on, don't call me."

Pat-

Juhee stood up. And as she disappeared into the distance, I couldn't bring myself to stop her.

If during the three days my mom was missing, a witness had appeared, and various investigations were conducted based on that testimony, only for it to turn out to be a lie in the end...

And if we never found mom after that?

I learned recently that there's something called the golden time in missing person cases.

24 to 36 hours. If you can't find the person within that time... the probability of finding the missing person drops exponentially.

In other words, Juhee's family lost that golden time due to Dahee's lie.

"She has every right to be that angry."

Because of my experience with a missing family member, I empathized with Juhee's feelings, and that's why I couldn't bring myself to call out to her as she left.

Ah, damn. If I had known about this earlier, I would have just sent Dahee away.

Swish-

I went back up the stairs to the house. Jung-seok and Dahee were waiting for me.

I asked Dahee,

"Can you tell me about what happened in elementary school?"

Cross-checking with Dahee's story would help verify things. That's when Jung-seok called me.

"Young-won, wait a moment."

At the front door, Jung-seok said to me,

"I don't think it's good to ask easily about what happened in elementary school. I know well because I went to the same private elementary school as Dahee at the time... There was a big incident then..."

"An incident?"

"Anyway, I can't say this with my own mouth. You'll have to hear it from Dahee herself. I don't know if she'll talk about it, but..."