Chapter 113

The game Two Heads are Better, created by developer MONSTER, is a 2-player cooperative adventure game.

So even if the theme and concept of the first chapter was horror, it definitely wouldn’t be a proper horror game.

If a horror game is meant to instill fear in the player.

Setting the concept as horror also includes just using a plausible old castle as the background and not putting in a single element meant to startle you.

Would you feel fear just because kids at school dress up for Halloween and walk around with their native English teacher during after-school English class?

Well, if the teacher played a horror movie on TV there, that would be scary, but that would be because of the horror movie.

You would have been just as scared watching the movie in an ordinary house or room instead of a spookily decorated classroom.

Of course, that’s the theoretical side of it, and considering that the development company had directly asked if he was good at horror games before, there would definitely be some horror game elements.

Even so.

‘Pfft.’

Seo-jun barely held back the laughter that was about to burst out.

First, the viewers didn’t know this chapter’s concept was horror, so if he laughed and revealed the reason, it would become a spoiler.

Second, it was just because.

“……”

“What, what!”

Even just staring at him steadily like this was enough to make Tae-woo panic.

“Why are you grinning like that!”

The guilty dog barks the loudest.

Tae-woo got unnecessarily angry, and Seo-jun shook his head with a peaceful expression.

The place where Tae-woo needed to explain himself wasn’t to Seo-jun, was it.

Wouldn’t this kind of reaction make the viewers even more curious?

Seo-jun’s gaze shifted to the left, toward Tae-woo’s chat window.

-Why though?

-Tae-woo, what’s with you making noise! Lol

-What kind of spoiler does the rat have?

-Did you forget to turn off the gas valve or something…?

-Looks like he discovered something!

Seo-jun held back another burst of laughter.

“Haha, no. I thought I forgot something, but after thinking about it carefully, I hadn’t.”

That seemed like the wrong answer.

Who would believe that?

-Suspicious

-Looks like you really did get startled by the rat lmao

-Were you chicken-hearted all along

-The rat is pretty big though

-For real, disgusting

-Come on. Let’s just get on with it

“Yes! I’ll proceed quickly!”

Squeak!

Another rat appeared.

It really was disgustingly large in size.

About the size of a nutria, which is a bit smaller than a small dog.

It seemed like their bodies had gotten a bit smaller.

Tae-woo kicked the newly appeared rat for no reason.

Seo-jun spoke sternly from behind.

“I think I’ll have to report this for animal abuse.”

“That’s a data fragment, you know?”

“Then promoting violence…”

“You go around hitting people with a sword all the time—isn’t that violence?! Hey! You’re the most violent bastard in this world!”

Tae-woo reacted more irritably than usual.

In contrast, Seo-jun, who was becoming increasingly relaxed, recalled the past.

Was this guy timid?

Thinking back, he realized he’d surprisingly never confirmed this.

Well.

‘If we’d been elementary school classmates, I might have found out.’

When you go to elementary school, you go on many training camps and inevitably do courage tests at least once.

But starting from middle and high school, camps change their name to school trips and those kinds of programs almost disappear.

He’d met Tae-woo in high school.

But he thought he might found out today?

“Hey. Stop laughing like that.”

“……”

“I said stop laughing!”

“Alright, let’s go.”

Tae-woo looked at Seo-jun with an expression that said he was anxious about what this crazy bastard might do next, and Seo-jun surveyed the surrounding terrain they had climbed up.

“Is this still the secret passage?”

Seo-jun looked at the dark tunnel-like path ahead and said.

It was hard to see this as the interior of a building.

Seo-jun displayed the virtue of yielding.

“You go first.”

“Ah. Damn it…”

Tae-woo frowned.

The path ahead was dark like before, but it wasn’t cramped. Rather, it was spacious.

Not just the two of them, but even five people could walk through holding hands in a line.

Even so, the reason he specifically told him to go first?

That bastard definitely caught on.

Tae-woo wasn’t very resistant to horror.

To be precise, he’d never had the opportunity to test it.

His MCN boss, a streamer, was predominantly evaluated as an evil streamer who constantly tried to feed horror games to his affiliated streamers.

But he hadn’t recommended horror games to Tae-woo, saying they’d just be boring.

The reason?

The boss had a preconception that goofy kids like him who laugh constantly were unexpectedly solid inside.

The boss had prejudged that it would look boring.

Tae-woo himself had thought so too.

So he’d lived without ever having occasion to play horror games.

But now, entering this game and walking down a dark path, Tae-woo realized.

It wasn’t the first time he’d walked down a dark path.

He’d played so many games up to this point.

However, the difference between knowing and not knowing that there would be scary things.

Just that difference made his words fewer, made him hesitate slightly, and made him startle a bit more than usual.

In other words, he was quite timid.

Seo-jun grasped this immediately.

“Come on, let’s go.”

Tae-woo tried hard to hide his emotions as he led the way through the cave-like passage, and Seo-jun followed behind.

[That secret passage, it wasn’t originally designed like this, was it?]

[Yeah. Why is it so messed up? Like it was half-built.]

When a cliff appeared, the characters had a conversation.

The secret passage that had been partially damaged from the start had become completely messed up by now, to the point where they’d have to jump across.

The length of that crack looked like it was easily over 5 meters.

Of course, with the game’s jumping power, it would be sufficient.

“Hup!”

Tae-woo couldn’t jump properly due to tension and fell into the cliff.

“Pfft.”

“That was a mistake.”

The revived Tae-woo jumped properly this time and landed.

-That easy thing lmao

-Will the streamer die once too?

“I’m good at this.”

The crack that appeared next was far enough that a regular jump wouldn’t reach it.

Instead, there was a marking above where you could hook a grappling hook.

Jump, fire the grappling hook, then land on the other side via the rope.

Really simple.

“You’ll do well this time, right?”

“Of course.”

Tae-woo steeled himself and tried to release the tension from his body.

No matter how much the game assistance made it not too difficult to hook the grappling hook even with a casual throw.

What made him fall off the cliff earlier wasn’t because it was difficult.

‘I can’t show weakness anymore.’

For now, Seo-jun hadn’t revealed that he was scared, so Tae-woo decided to hide the fact that he was weak against horror as much as possible.

Because the moment that fact was revealed, he couldn’t even guess how many horror game collaboration requests would come in.

In the end, the reason Seo-jun was keeping this secret was probably to use it to request something later, but that might come cheaper.

Tae-woo jumped first.

Whirrrr!

Clank!

The grappling hook caught well and Tae-woo used the rope to land on the other side.

‘I did it!’

Tae-woo grinned with tremendous achievement.

Now the tension in his body was starting to loosen.

Seo-jun followed behind.

[Then the end of this secret passage probably isn’t where you designed it to be either!]

[Probably not.]

[Then don’t we have to go back?]

[Let’s see for now.]

Next, they had to hook grappling hooks twice in a row to get to the other side.

Tae-woo succeeded at this without a mistake too.

His confidence was gradually building.

This is an action adventure game, not a horror game.

The scary stuff was just needless worry!

“Oh, what’s this?”

“Looks like the end.”

Something like a pirate ship’s steering wheel was laid horizontally to greet them.

The steering wheel was hanging from a rod connected to a groove in the ceiling above, and when he traced that groove with his eyes, he could see the other side.

“It looks similar to that zipline bar from earlier.”

“Hang on this?”

“Yeah. You try it first.”

“Why me?”

“You scared?”

Scared?

Ha, seriously.

Tae-woo cleared his throat as if it were ridiculous.

“Fine! I’ll go first! You’re the chicken!”

Seo-jun thought what a simple friend he was as he watched the process.

Tae-woo took a running start, jumped, and hooked his grappling hook to one of the steering wheel’s handles.

Creak creak creak.

The sound of gears turning could be heard.

Tae-woo rotated together with the steering wheel like riding a swing ride, moving forward along the groove.

That’s how it works.

But before long, the steering wheel stopped.

It looked like it didn’t have enough power to continue.

The steering wheel soon began turning in the opposite direction, returning to where it originally was, and Tae-woo rotated along with it.

“You came back?”

“We probably need to do this together.”

“Right.”

“Then I’ll go back now, so get ready to jump.”

Tae-woo swayed his body back and forth like riding a playground swing.

Since jumping directly while hanging from the steering wheel wouldn’t reach where Seo-jun was standing, he was gathering power to leap.

Seo-jun suggested an easy method.

“Just drop down.”

“Why should I?”

“You scared?”

“No.”

Tae-woo let go.

And respawned next to Seo-jun.

-The magic word works lmao

-Tae-woo, just admit you’re scared at this point

-Just being scared would be less embarrassing LMAO

Fortunately, Tae-woo, who had been pondering what to do, didn’t see Seo-jun’s chat window.

He needed to extract more fun from this.

“I think we need to hang on exact opposite sides—180 degrees apart—so that steering wheel won’t stop and will keep going.”

Seo-jun, who had been thinking the same thing, said.

“Then I’ll have to jump second.”

The first person to jump could hang anywhere, but the second person had to time it well.

The difficulty looked quite high, and it would be more convenient for him to do that kind of thing.

“What are you talking about, I’m not scared, you know?”

That’s not it.

“Skill, idiot.”

“Aha!”

-No lmao

-What kind of pride is this lol

-Scared?

-But it’s kind of interesting

Tae-woo took a running start and jumped.

The grappling hook caught the steering wheel and it began spinning rapidly.

Next, Seo-jun, who had timed it right, leaped into the air.

Clank.

The second grappling hook caught the moving steering wheel, and the steering wheel, now with added force, began spinning more vigorously.

With the weight balanced properly, they arrived at the end and got off the steering wheel, which then spun in the reverse direction and returned.

-Nice

-Good job

-That ride looks fun!

“That was fun.”

“Agreed.”

Seo-jun, who had landed on the floor, went toward the place with green light.

There was a hole in the floor there.

Looking down into the hole, he could see a ventilation duct with a hole in the middle.

“Let’s go in.”

When they entered the ventilation duct passage, some kind of dreamy bell tolling could be heard, as if the tutorial was over.

Is this where the horror starts?

“The back is blocked.”

“Looks like it’s one-way.”

Seo-jun and Tae-woo walked straight ahead and discovered green light again.

The marked spot was a crack in the ventilation duct where light was leaking through.

When Seo-jun and Tae-woo looked down through the crack, they could see the interior through the gap.

Seo-jun said.

“There are tons of toys, everyone.”

“Kind of creepy.”

The interior had all kinds of toys displayed in their packaging.

It didn’t seem like a display for customers.

Without display cases, they were just stacked in boxes so you could only check the contents.

After confirming this, the characters’ dialogue began flowing again.

[Huh? Isn’t this where the protagonist is?]

[Are you sure?]

[I drew it and implemented it, so wouldn’t I be sure? If you look at the wall over there, that’s Area B-2.]

[Really? Then why isn’t the protagonist there?]

[What?]

[Look there. It’s empty.]

“Which place are they talking about?”

“Look carefully.”

While the two were concentrating on examining the interior.

Bang!

With a loud crash, something suddenly appeared right in front of them beyond the ventilation duct.

The identity was the head of a bizarrely shaped doll.

“Hmm. That would be the ceiling from his perspective, but he’s stuck to it.”

-Ugh, seriously

-Scared the shit out of me lmao

-I just screamed out loud lol

-The streamer is calm here too

Of course, Seo-jun was also slightly startled by the doll that suddenly popped out.

But that was it.

However, Tae-woo, who should have been the loudest, was quiet.