Chapter 009: Defiance of Death

“Let go.”

Su Cheng stared straight into Yamazaki’s eyes, his expression so cold it seemed water could drip from it.

“You bastard, what did you say?” Yamazaki was startled by Su Cheng’s icy gaze, but he didn’t let go immediately. He didn’t have the guts to confront the Butcher, but he dared to pick a fight with Su Cheng because he knew the latter wouldn’t kill him. Besides, he wasn’t the only one who found Su Cheng disagreeable.

But in the next instant, something struck his stomach with tremendous force, bending him backward like a boiled shrimp and sending him flying. He crashed heavily onto the ground.

“It hurts... Damn it, that bastard actually hit me.”

Yamazaki howled in pain and was about to curse Su Cheng when he looked up and met a ruthless gaze, causing him to shiver involuntarily.

Su Cheng walked over to Yamazaki, bent down, and lightly slapped his face twice. In a deep voice, he said, “Do you really not know who’s responsible for Masako’s death? Isn’t it clear in your heart?”

At Su Cheng’s words, Yamazaki’s face twisted uncomfortably. He forced himself to shout, “What do you mean? I wasn’t the one who got Masako killed—it was an accident!”

“No, you know well that most of the blame for Masako’s death lies with you. You just can’t face that fact. You’re afraid your companions will blame you, so you deliberately picked a fight with me, hoping to shift everyone’s focus onto me.”

“But even if you could make everyone forget Masako’s death, there’s someone who never will—the very person you pushed in front of the Butcher with your own hands… Masako.”

Su Cheng’s words, dark and heavy, rang in Yamazaki’s ears, each one a dagger to the heart. Yamazaki’s face turned ashen, clearly struck in his most painful spot.

The players, who had been misled by Yamazaki and Harano Shio into believing Su Cheng had let Masako die on purpose, suddenly awakened. Their gazes toward Yamazaki were now full of disgust.

“No, it wasn’t me...”

Yamazaki clutched his head in terror, curling into a ball and trembling uncontrollably.

“What a useless piece of trash,” Harano Shio sneered. He had hoped Yamazaki would help him undermine Su Cheng, but hadn’t expected him to mess things up so quickly.

“Everyone, calm down. For now, let’s think about how to get out of here. Su Cheng, do you have any suggestions?” Reiko Sato looked to Su Cheng. After Harano Shio’s display, she had no more hopes for him. Now, it seemed only Su Cheng had the ability to lead everyone out of this game.

“Actually, the mission already provided plenty of clues. As long as we find the key to the escape route before dawn, we can get out of here.” Su Cheng took out his phone and pulled up the floor plan of Sakura High School he’d downloaded earlier.

“We’re currently at the central field. The most efficient way is to split into groups of three and search the four classroom buildings surrounding the field. But while searching, we must avoid the Butcher—the killer—at all costs.”

“Also, there are over a hundred classrooms in these buildings. We don’t have much time left.”

The short-haired girl clinging to Reiko Sato timidly raised her hand. “What if we run into that terrifying killer from before inside the classroom buildings?”

“Run! The Butcher’s attacks are fierce but he isn’t very fast. If you keep moving, you should be able to shake him off.”

Despite this, Su Cheng felt a sense of unease. The game couldn’t possibly be this simple—surely there were more dangers lurking in the classroom buildings.

No one opposed Su Cheng this time. With only six hours left until dawn, there was no time to waste.

They quickly divided into groups, and over a dozen players dispersed into the fog-shrouded buildings.

Due to one player’s death, Su Cheng’s group consisted of just him and Reiko Sato, tasked with searching Building B.

There were many classrooms in the building, and a thorough search would take a while. Reiko Sato was meticulous, showing no impatience at all.

“Su Cheng, you seem very familiar with this kind of horror game. Are you a veteran player?” Reiko Sato asked curiously.

Su Cheng came out of a classroom and shook his head. “I’m a newbie just like you, but I’ve already experienced one of these horror games before.”

Despite so many new players in this scenario, the difficulty was even higher than the zombie cafeteria. Su Cheng guessed the system might have raised the difficulty because of his participation.

To his surprise, Reiko Sato wasn’t a total novice either—she’d been through a horror game once before.

But that game was at beginner difficulty. Aside from the zombies being a little scary, there wasn’t much real danger. She muddled through, blindly following the questline, and escaped the scenario. Though her final evaluation was only grade D, she was lucky enough to draw a useful skill.

“Death Denial! That’s the skill you drew?”

Death Denial was a healing skill, able to heal teammates. Such recovery abilities were highly sought after among horror game players but extremely rare.

Su Cheng’s face darkened; it felt like he and Reiko Sato were playing two different games. He’d barely survived the zombie cafeteria and, with an S-rank evaluation, drawn Sword Mastery. Meanwhile, Reiko Sato wandered through her scenario and emerged not only unscathed but with a rare recovery skill.

Was this the difference between the perpetually unlucky and the naturally blessed?

Still, having a healer like Reiko Sato by his side eased a lot of Su Cheng’s tension.

In the corridor of the classroom building, a cold, eerie air began to spread. Reiko Sato heard strange noises behind her.

When she turned around, she found herself face to face with a grotesque pig’s head, one eye blind, its snout nearly touching her face. The mouth was stretched to the ears in a sinister grin, emitting a chilling, guttural laugh.

“Heh heh heh heh heh…”

Reiko Sato screamed. As she turned to flee, the pig-headed man brought an axe down on her shoulder, carving a deep wound that exposed bone and stained her clothes with blood.

The agony nearly made her faint, but she managed to stay conscious, pressing a hand glowing with green light to her wound and activating Death Denial.

Before her eyes, the wound on her shoulder began to heal at an unbelievable rate. However, the injury was too severe to be fully cured so quickly.

As the pig-headed Butcher raised his executioner’s axe to deliver the killing blow, a dark figure dropped from above. Hearing Reiko Sato’s scream, Su Cheng had rushed over, katana in both hands. He landed squarely on the Butcher and drove the blade downward with all his might, the sharp steel piercing straight through the pig-headed man’s neck and out his throat.

The Butcher, impaled through the neck, didn’t die immediately. He thrashed violently, crashing into the corridor’s glass wall.

Su Cheng leaped off his back just as the glass shattered, sending the Butcher tumbling from the second floor.

“This time you won’t get away,” Su Cheng’s eyes turned cold. His instincts told him that the Butcher held a clue crucial to this horror game—he had to uncover it.

He told the wounded Reiko Sato to hide in a nearby classroom and wait, then vaulted from the second floor in pursuit of the Butcher.

Meanwhile, in Building C—

Three furtive figures were searching a music room on the fourth floor.

“That Su Cheng is getting way too cocky. Harano, you don’t like him either, right? Any ideas how we can deal with him?” Yamazaki still fumed over earlier events, wanting to teach Su Cheng a lesson.

“He won’t be smug for long. As long as we find the key to escape before he does, he’ll be the one begging us,” Harano Shio sneered. Though reckless and arrogant, he wasn’t foolish enough to confront Su Cheng directly—the guy could go toe-to-toe with the Butcher, and even if they all teamed up, they’d have no advantage.

“When the time comes, I’ll make sure he’s properly humiliated,” Yamazaki replied with a vicious glare.

Drip.

A cold droplet landed on Yamazaki’s face and slid down his cheek.

“What was that?”

He instinctively wiped it away with his palm. When he looked, his hand was smeared with thick blood.

Terrified, Yamazaki looked up at the ceiling—what he saw would haunt him forever.

Masako, her head severed by the Butcher, was clinging to the ceiling like a gecko, her eyes wide open, staring straight at him.