I Became A Ghost In A Horror Game-Chapter 39: Jabberwock

After the party, I had to have a meeting with James.

However, since James had stepped out for a moment, I had to sit and wait.

Maria was sitting next to me, and I just stared blankly.

"You seem to really like that."

Maria spoke to me. I tilted my head in confusion, wondering if I had done something.

Noticing it now, I realized I was fiddling with the necklace I had received from the children.

I felt a little embarrassed.

"Well, I don’t dislike it."

Maria looked at me as if she found it cute.

I cleared my throat with a "hmph!" and turned my head away.

Even so, I didn’t stop stroking the necklace.

Creak—

"You seem to be doing well."

James entered, opening the door.

Now we could start the meeting.

We needed to share the information we had gathered and hear the opinions of James and Maria, who knew quite a bit about demons.

It would be good to have the children join in, but since they were still considered civilians, it would be difficult to hold a meeting with them involved... Though at this point, it felt meaningless.

"Alright, let’s start with the radio-headed demon."

"Good idea."

The radio-headed demon.

A creature that had never appeared in the game before.

We had managed to defeat it with our combined attacks, and Piero had finished it off, but its strength had already reached boss level.

In other words, it was an enormous threat.

And there was no guarantee that similar enemies wouldn’t appear again.

From what we could tell, the radio-headed demon seemed to have been sent by the "half-formed demon" that Piero had mentioned.

But it was strange that a demon could create another demon.

Was it a form of reproduction?

And then there was what the radio-headed demon had said about its "father"—that was particularly ominous.

...Who was this grandfather figure?

"From the circumstances, it seems like the radio-headed demon was sent by the half-formed demon that attacked us."

"For now, that’s the most reasonable assumption. But it looks like the half-formed demon was in a hurry."

"What do you mean?"

"It was a hastily made demon."

"A hastily made demon? That makes it sound like it was just thrown together."

James nodded.

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"Yeah. It was definitely a demon, but an incomplete one. A demon without a soul, one that can barely be considered 'born.' The fact that the half-formed demon sent something like that means it must have felt a serious threat from the artifact."

Yeah... the radio-headed demon had mentioned something like that when we first encountered it.

How did it go again...

"As long as the story and context are fulfilled, and the sacrifice is prepared, a demon can be born..."

So, the half-formed demon had used anomalies as materials to create an incomplete but functional demon.

Maria added her explanation:

"Remember how the radio-headed demon called itself junk? It gathered anomalies that took the form of miscellaneous objects. Their souls were empty, which perfectly fit the context of 'worthless junk.'"

"Sharp observation."

That meant anomalies were frighteningly efficient materials for creating demons...

What could we deduce from all this?

The half-formed demon’s goal...

"Hmm..."

I sucked in a breath... but no ideas came to mind.

It seemed like James was in the same boat, as he made a suggestion:

"Let’s stop here for now and find more clues.

Now then... that clown-like monster. Who is it?"

It was my turn to speak.

Of course, I couldn’t just blurt out that this world was a game, so I had to choose my words carefully.

"Piero is also a resident of this world.

There are four exceptionally strong anomalies in this world, and among them, Piero possesses the greatest power."

"Four strongest anomalies, huh..."

"The first is Ella. The second is Mary. The third is Madame Spider. And the last is Piero.

They are incomparably stronger than the ones wandering around outside."

At the beginning, Ella was just a tutorial boss, so weak it was laughable.

But now...

Now, she had grown strong enough that including her in this group didn’t feel out of place.

She really had gotten stronger.

"Then where do you rank among them?"

Ah.

That hit a sore spot.

The confidence I had started to build up crumbled in an instant.

I scratched my cheek and reluctantly answered.

"Unfortunately... I’m the weakest."

James stared at me for a moment before scratching his head.

"Doesn’t seem like this will be easy."

I decided to ignore whatever new image James had formed of me and moved the conversation along.

"According to the information from Piero... Hmm... The half-formed demon has a reason it can’t reveal itself completely, and that somehow connects to both the radio-headed demon and Ha-rim."

"Connects? You mean the fact that the half-formed demon created the radio-headed demon is a clue?"

"Maybe it has something to do with the concept of being 'half-formed.'"

The key clue...

If demons could be created by fulfilling a 'story' and 'context' while using sacrifices...

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

The half-formed demon is incomplete.

Ha-rim is at the center of it.

What makes her different from the other kids...? Could it be because she is the protagonist of this game?

...Game?

"Wait a second!"

The "story" required to give birth to a demon... Could it also include the "story" of this game"?

This place is inside a game. There is an original storyline that exists.

In that story, the demon appears after all the other kids die. Ha-rim barely survives, but the demon emerges, dragging its massive body forward, bringing with it an overwhelming sense of despair.

By fulfilling the story of "breaking Ha-rim’s spirit into despair" and using certain sacrifices that exist in this world, the demon is born.

That is what the half-formed demon is aiming for...!

In the outside world, demons can only be born this way. The same applies to the demons in this world.

Why hadn’t I realized this sooner?

It exists, and yet, it cannot fully exist.

Because it’s a being that only appears at the end of the game or if a certain time limit is exceeded.

Because it hasn’t satisfied the story requirement of appearing as the final, despair-inducing entity, it has been unable to be born yet!

It’s just a fragment of the game, a part of the game’s settings that exists in theory but has not yet manifested.

The creation of the radio-headed demon might have been an experiment.

Because the half-formed demon itself would have to be born in the same way.

"...."

Now, I finally understood.

The reason it had sent so many anomalies was that, in order to break Ha-rim’s spirit, it needed to kill the other children first, weakening her mind.

This entire world is one giant story.

And within it, a demon is trying to be born.

"I’ve... figured it out."

If the demon had successfully killed the kids and shattered Ha-rim’s will, wouldn’t it have become the Bad Ending Demon?

I smirked.

James looked at me with intrigue.

Ah—right. I had to explain this to them.

But I couldn’t mention the game element.

"Hmm..."

I took a moment to organize my thoughts.

This was the best way to explain it.

"A while ago, I was trapped in a dream by an anomaly called ‘Monkey’s Dream.’ In that dream world, I saw something strange—multiple timelines, filling the entire space."

That was the place where Piero had gone to meet Ha-rim.

Maybe the clue Piero was trying to deliver to Ha-rim had something to do with this.

"Timelines, huh... You mean ‘timelines of this world,’ not the ‘outside world’?"

James didn’t seem to question it too much, which meant he had knowledge of dream-related phenomena.

Well, it made sense. In secret government agencies, cases involving dreams are practically a staple. There’s so much material to work with!

"Exactly. The common point in all those timelines was that the kids were always dropped into this world.

One by one, they died.

And in every single timeline, Ha-rim was the only one left alive.

At the end of her desperate survival, she encountered the giant demon, bringing her nothing but despair.

A merciless, hopeless story."

"Does that mean... she was fated for such a tragic end...? Those kids... how pitiful."

Maria murmured bitterly.

"In the other timelines... were you not there to protect them?"

That was what made this different.

Because of my existence, the outcome had changed.

"Hearing the word ‘fate’ makes it sound even more serious... But yeah, this is the first time Ha-rim has had Ella by her side."

"There are always extremely low-probability timelines that exist...

So what you’re really trying to say is—"

"This world has its own fixed timeline.

The ‘flow’ of this world acts as a story.

And the demon is attacking because Ella and I have disrupted that story."

"You mean... for the half-formed demon to fully manifest, the story of ‘Ha-rim losing her friends and breaking down’ must be completed first?"

"That’s exactly it! You both got it!"

"There have been demons who grew stronger by fulfilling certain stories to gain more power, but I’ve never seen something like this before. This is incredibly complex."

"Hah... The more I learn about this world, the more I want to meet whoever created this inefficient, stupid system.

This place was definitely made intentionally.

There has to be a purpose behind it."

...The half-formed demon couldn’t have been the one who created this world...

Which means the real culprit is—

The Developers!

Just you wait, developers!

This goddamn game—I’m going to destroy it and get back to my original world!

"Our objective hasn’t changed.

Before the demon pulls any more tricks, we need to install the artifacts and activate the ritual.

If the ritual shatters the world itself, then the ‘story’ will no longer matter."

We have three artifacts left.

They need to be placed in Mary’s, Piero’s, and Madame Spider’s stages.

Piero should be easy to convince.

...The only problem is, I have no idea where he is.

He left his boss stage and has been wandering freely.

But there is one way to call for him...

"I need to meet Mary."

Things were [N O V E L I G H T] about to get more complicated.

But if I could convince Mary, it would be killing two birds with one stone.