Chapter 015: The Murderer

A piercing, harrowing scream rang out, laced with terror, evoking the chilling flavor of a horror film—its fright factor maxed out.

“That voice sounds like Dahe’s. Did he run into the killer?” Satou Reiko, deeply unsettled, followed behind Su Cheng as they left the infirmary, which felt more like a torture chamber.

In the lobby downstairs, Dahe cowered in a corner, trembling like a frightened hamster. He’d suffered a fright no one could imagine; one of his legs was broken, and he shrieked hoarsely, desperately trying to call for help.

Standing before him was a grotesque figure, a person whose skin seemed almost entirely flayed, not a single intact patch of flesh remaining. The figure resembled the blood-drenched corpses seen in horror films, his gaze twisted in fury and madness.

In the monster’s hand was a baseball bat, caked with dried blood. It was clear that Dahe’s leg had been shattered by this very bat.

At that moment, the monster lunged like a hyena catching the scent of prey, raising the baseball bat and bringing it down with a brutal force toward Dahe’s skull.

“No—please, don’t kill me!”

Dahe’s pleas were abruptly silenced as the bat crashed down, caving in his skull with sickening force, blood streaming out in torrents.

A look of savage delight and bloodlust flickered in the monster’s eyes as he repeatedly smashed Dahe’s head, again and again, until it was nothing more than a ruin of flesh, brain matter, and blood.

“What’s happening? Who just cried for help?”

Nearby, players in the horror game, searching the area, rushed over at the sound of Dahe’s desperate screams. But by the time they arrived, Dahe’s skull had been pulverized—he was irrevocably dead.

“There’s a dead body!”

A few female players, wholly unprepared for such a scene, went pale with terror and nearly fainted.

Satou Reiko, who already harbored a deep fear of corpses, retched uncontrollably at the sight of Dahe’s mangled remains, nearly vomiting up bile.

“Something’s not right. That creature looks oddly familiar.” Maruyama Koutarou, searching in a nearby classroom, had rushed over at Dahe’s first cries, but he’d been too late to stop the killing.

“Harano Shio!” Su Cheng’s mind raced, piecing together scattered clues—the blood-soaked bed in the infirmary, the hints he’d seen. The monster before them was not the butcher, but rather Harano Shio, who had joined them in this nightmarish game.

“This monster is Harano Shio? How did he end up like this, and why did he kill Dahe?”

The other players, who had been invited to play the game by Harano Shio, finally recognized him. What terrified them most was the thought of what could have happened to transform Shio into this inhuman thing.

Satou Reiko recalled the illicit drugs she and Su Cheng had found in the infirmary, her face full of shock. “Could it be Harano Shio was injected with some kind of neurological agent to become like this?”

“An overdose of this kind of drug can cause hallucinations, madness, and permanent neural damage. Judging by his state, Harano Shio doesn’t have much longer,” Su Cheng said solemnly, gripping the hilt of his sword and drawing it from its sheath.

Seeing the murderous intent in Su Cheng’s eyes, Maruyama Koutarou and several other players quickly blocked his way. “What are you doing? Shio is our friend—you can’t hurt him.”

Su Cheng shook his head, his expression steady. “The neural damage Harano Shio suffered is irreversible. Now he’s no different from a wild beast—if we let him be, more people will die at his hands.”

He left unsaid that, even if everyone’s wounds would heal when they left this scenario, Harano Shio wouldn’t survive until the end of the game. In other words, he was beyond saving.

The others hesitated, torn by doubt and fear. Just then, the monstrous Harano Shio, driven by bloodlust, lunged forward and seized the throat of a short-haired girl standing beside Satou Reiko.

The girl screamed and struggled, but the mutated Shio’s strength was monstrous, far beyond what any normal person could resist. Within seconds, her eyes rolled back; she was barely breathing.

The players who had tried to stop Su Cheng stood frozen in terror, none daring to intervene and rescue her from Shio’s grasp.

“Out of the way!” Su Cheng shoved Maruyama Koutarou aside, leaping forward in a flash. With a flick of his wrist, he severed both of Harano Shio’s hands with his sword.

The short-haired girl, snatched from the jaws of death, promptly fainted dead away.

But even with his hands cut off, the nerve-damaged Shio felt no pain. He let out a demonic howl and lunged at Su Cheng, sinking his teeth into his wrist.

A wave of searing pain contorted Su Cheng’s face; he nearly lost a chunk of flesh. His sword clattered to the ground, but in one swift motion he drew his dagger and drove it straight into Harano Shio’s heart.

Blood sprayed across Su Cheng’s windbreaker. Though transformed, Shio was still only human; the instant the dagger pierced his heart, he died.

The violence and madness faded from Shio’s eyes as he collapsed, lifeless, in a pool of blood.

He was dead.

Su Cheng drew a deep, icy breath to steady himself. This was different from killing monsters in the game. Despite Shio’s transformation, he was, in essence, a fellow player—an ordinary human being.

In other words, Su Cheng had just killed a man.

Yet, oddly, he felt nothing special—no guilt, no remorse. It was as if he’d slain another in-game monster.

“Am I a born killer?”

The thought startled Su Cheng. He shook his head, banishing it from his mind.

“You killed Harano Shio. Murderer! I’m calling the police,” Maruyama Koutarou stammered, clearly unhinged by what he’d witnessed.

Those around him, swayed by his words, looked at Su Cheng with new fear, edging away from him.

“Cheng only acted to save someone. If not for him, Shizuko would have been strangled by Harano Shio,” Satou Reiko protested, coming to Su Cheng’s defense.

“No matter the reason, he killed Shio. That makes him a murderer—nothing can change that,” Maruyama Koutarou retorted, clearly not expecting Satou Reiko to speak up for Su Cheng.

Satou Reiko wanted to say more, but Su Cheng stopped her.

“There’s no point explaining to an idiot like that.”

“But—”

Just as Satou Reiko thought Su Cheng intended to let the matter drop, he strode straight over to Maruyama Koutarou.

“What are you doing?” Koutarou’s sense of foreboding grew as Su Cheng approached.

Su Cheng grinned, flashing his white teeth at Koutarou. The latter thought Su Cheng was about to bow and admit fault, and was just beginning to gloat when a sickening crunch echoed through the air.

Koutarou’s mouth filled with the taste of blood. He spat out a molar, his face burning as if scalded by hot iron.

“Bastard! You dare strike me!” Koutarou roared, clutching his face and preparing to charge, but the cold blade pressed to his throat instantly subdued him.

“Say one more word and I’ll cut out your tongue,” Su Cheng said coldly. For a teammate this selfish and stupid, only harsher measures would suffice.

Koutarou’s face turned ashen. He opened his mouth, ready to retort, but Su Cheng’s icy glare silenced him. His instincts told him Su Cheng wasn’t bluffing; one more word and he’d lose his tongue.

“We’re all in this together—don’t act like enemies. Let’s give Koutarou a break this time,” said a man named Okubo Toyota, trying to play peacemaker.

Seeing Koutarou back down, Su Cheng didn’t pursue the matter. The pressing need was to uncover clues about the game; time was running out.

He then had the others report what they’d found in the teaching buildings, gradually piecing together the clues like a jigsaw puzzle.

“Who turned Shio into that? Was it the pig-masked killer’s accomplice?” Okubo Toyota asked anxiously, picking at his nails. Shio’s death had cast a pall over everyone.

“The killer is probably the female teacher from the infirmary. But when we checked, she wasn’t there. The next clue must be with her,” Su Cheng deduced.

At that moment, the short-haired girl’s face twisted in terror, and she pointed behind Su Cheng. “The killer you mentioned—is she wearing a white nurse’s uniform and a mask? She’s… right behind you.”

A chill shot up Su Cheng’s spine.