I've Got Connections in the Horror Game - Chapter 2

The rich kid started shouting again. He actually sounded excited.

“What invitation? Does eliminated mean actually killed? So is this a murder mystery game where we risk our lives, or an escape room with actual ghosts?”

The officer sighed. “Keep your voice down. The invitation must be somewhere on you. Look properly.”

The rich kid eventually pulled an invitation from the inside pocket of his suit and opened it to admire it.

“Oh, it’s handwritten. Something, something, the count invites you…”

He closed it and started looking around.

He even had the nerve to joke. “So what century is this castle from? Is it like those stories where there’s shit in every corner?”

My palms were already sweating.

Because I’d realized…

I was the only one without an invitation.

I didn’t dare rummage around too obviously, either.

The others might notice.

All I could do was look around as casually as they were.

Before us, a luxurious staircase covered in purple carpet led to the second floor.

A huge portrait of a young man hung on the wall directly opposite.

Judging by his clothes, he was probably the count named in the invitation.

The owner of the castle.

Possibly the person we were supposed to find.

Except the count’s face in the painting was blank.

No features at all.

A couple of extra glances made the hairs on my body stand up.

I had to look away and raise my eyes to the ceiling.

An intricately designed crystal chandelier hung overhead, elegant as well as extravagant.

Exactly my taste.

We had a splendid chandelier like that at home, too.

That realization gave me the creeps all over again.

I hurriedly shifted to one side.

Just then, a girl standing behind me—the student—asked in a tiny voice, “Didn’t the system just say there were ten players?”

She looked around, her voice trembling as though she were about to burst into tears.

“But there are… eleven of us.”

Crack.

No sooner had she finished than the chandelier snapped loose overhead and came crashing down.

The next second, hot blood splashed across my face, smearing one eye socket.

“Aah!”

At the student’s scream, I turned my head.

Someone had been pulverized right where I’d just been standing.

Shattered flesh and bone mingled with the glittering crystals. There was no way to tell who it had been.

Only a pool of blood spreading fast across the floor.

That death seemed to break the seal on the livestream.

A flood of comments suddenly poured in.

[Whoa. Just squeezed into the stream and someone’s already dead.]

[Are you kidding me? It was the murderer. I thought he’d seen enough shit to be hard to kill, so I bet on him. Dead on arrival.]

[The girl who looked up at the chandelier and stepped aside has one hell of a sixth sense. Saved her own life.

She must have insane luck. I’m staying in her stream. Betting on her to win!]

“I’m terribly sorry. So very sorry, miss.”

I was still standing there, stunned and covered in blood, only just realizing that the supposedly lucky girl was me, when a maid suddenly appeared.

She kept bowing and apologizing, reaching up with a towel to wipe away the blood.

Looking at her face, blank where her eyes should have been, I somehow felt that inexplicable familiarity again!

But there was no way I was letting her do it!

I quickly took the towel. “Thank you. I’ll do it myself.”

Despite having no eyes, the maid managed to look disappointed.

After looking hurt and dejected at me for a few seconds, she suddenly slipped something into my pocket and murmured, “All right. You can have his invitation by way of apology.”

It took me a couple of seconds to realize “his” meant the dead murderer’s.

Huh?

Getting an invitation was… that easy?

The maid turned and stood beside the stairs, every trace of her earlier gentleness gone.

She grinned, baring a mouthful of pointed teeth, and told the other survivors, “Hee-hee. Now there are ten players.”