I Became A Ghost In A Horror Game-Chapter 103: Red Riding Hood – Where the Monster Lives

“Carol! You interfered with my experiment again, didn’t you?!”

Ugh, seriously...

Carol nearly spat a string of curses at the damned pumpkin-head yelling at her since morning but swallowed them back.

Though she’d been with the Organization for a while now, there were still plenty of things she wasn’t used to. Having not slept a wink the night before, the presence of Jack-o’-Lantern—who always got on her nerves—was especially unwelcome today.

“Shut up! Who even gave you a permit for that experiment?! And all your so-called research is just screwing around with death row inmates!”

“Tsk, tsk... A bit of sacrifice is necessary for refining this body’s sense of humor, you know. Besides, I didn’t even kill them, since you told me not to!”

No matter how many times Carol pointed things out, Jack-o’-Lantern just kept going, saying whatever he wanted.

As much of an eccentric as he was, Carol—who struggled with people—and Jack-o’-Lantern—who simply was a weirdo—shared a special kind of bond within the Organization.

Sure, most of it consisted of Jack-o’-Lantern annoying Carol to no end, but Carol also couldn’t deny that he brought her a strange sense of psychological comfort.

“Ugh, just get lost already!”

“You disrespectful brat! This is revenge! I'm going to grope your boobs!”

Squeeze.

“Did you seriously just grab me?!”

Carol had never built close bonds with her subordinates or even coworkers of equal rank.

Part of that was because the Organization had a rigid chain of command...

But truthfully, most of it was due to Carol’s eccentric personality, which often showed in subtle but unmistakable ways.

Whatever the case, Jack-o’-Lantern was the only one Carol could truly open up to.

And this damned pumpkin never missed a chance to tease her about it.

“Anyway, tormenting death row inmates for inspiration? That’s banned. And so is snooping around other containment rooms.”

“My dear friend! Are you saying you still don’t understand my heart? Empathy is a function of intelligence! That’s why you’ve got no friends except me. Tsk tsk.”

“Ha! Who says I don’t have any friends? What about you?!”

“I’m locked up, remember?!”

Despite how immature they looked bickering like that, the two were actually top-tier agents who had resolved multiple cases within the Organization.

Carol’s knowledge and imagination—

And Jack-o’-Lantern’s inhuman, bizarre perspective—cut straight through the core of anomalous phenomena.

Every time Jack-o’-Lantern’s theories turned out to be correct, he’d exclaim, “What a wonderful world!”—and Carol, while never admitting it aloud, was always satisfied with the results.

“Ugh... I need coffee. Why does talking to you always give me a headache...”

“Did you lose sleep again, Carol?”

“Yeah. I’m going insane with all this work.”

“Hmm... It’s not just the work, is it?”

Jack-o’-Lantern stroked his chin thoughtfully as he spoke, and Carol paused.

She looked at him—like she was asking, How did you know?

“You think I wouldn’t notice something like that?

You’re like a little girl. Whenever you see something horrific, you can’t sleep that night.

Even if you were the one who created the corpse in question.”

Just the day before, there had been a containment breach.

As with most of the anomalies kept here, the escapee had been an incredibly dangerous parasite to humans.

Normally, it took the form of a piece of candy.

Its instinct was to lure a host and escape by fusing with them.

It didn’t work on humans who had never tasted candy—so the agent assigned to it was someone who’d never eaten any.

But a week prior to the incident, a coworker had accidentally popped a candy into that agent’s mouth, giving him just a taste.

As a result, the agent entered the containment room and... ended up as a candy-zombie, with half his internal organs transformed into sugar.

Carol was the one who noticed and shot him dead—before he could get out.

“You didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.

So what exactly are you so afraid of?”

“You were laughing at the time, weren’t you?”

“Bwahahaha! Come on, a human piñata?! That’s hilarious!”

Jack-o’-Lantern always claimed he was once human, but Carol could never believe that.

His entire sensibility was far removed from anything resembling human emotion.

Even when monsters were slaughtering people, if the method of killing was funny, he’d laugh without a care.

Carol could never understand it—and knew she never would.

“...I hate this goddamn world.

I hate the monsters that kill people every day.

I hate the Organization that throws people into meat grinders looking for solutions.

And most of all, I hate how I’m slowly getting used to all of it.”

Whether Jack-o’-Lantern’s attitude had pushed her over the edge or not, Carol began to vent with bitter words.

Jack-o’-Lantern just nodded casually.

“Well, well. Who doesn’t have complaints?

Everything’s absurd in its own way.

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This world is full of constraints, and breaking out of those constraints usually ends badly.

Just like when I made fun of some high-ranking official and got my head chopped off!”

“You threw yourself into the flames of hell...”

Carol retorted, but without much energy in her voice.

Her stress had clearly piled up more than expected, and Jack-o’-Lantern could tell his usual jokes wouldn’t be enough this time.

So he played his trump card—and brought up her favorite topic.

“Hey, Carol.

Something just crossed my mind.

That Alice you’re always going on about—what kind of person is she?”

“Oh! You want to know about Alice?”

“That’s right.”

The moment the name “Alice” was mentioned, Carol visibly brightened.

Jack-o’-Lantern smiled bitterly.

Because he already knew—liking something too much rarely led to a happy ending.

That was the conclusion he’d come to through experience.

Still, he was curious: just what kind of person was this Alice that Carol adored so much?

The words that came out of Carol’s mouth next were not what he expected.

“...To be honest, I don’t know yet.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean it literally.

I don’t know what kind of girl she is—because she doesn’t exist yet.”

Jack-o’-Lantern’s pumpkin head tilted.

“What does that even mean, she doesn’t exist?

Are you saying she’s going to be made?”

To that, Carol nodded.

And Jack-o’-Lantern gave her a cold, withering look.

“You’re not just infatuated with someone who doesn’t exist—

You’re pretending to know her?”

So this Alice Carol had always been talking about... was just a figment of her imagination?

A delusion born from her own mind?

Jack-o’-Lantern shook his head.

But Carol had one more thing to say.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

“I don’t completely not know her. Alice is the protagonist of a story I created.”

“What...?”

“Hehehe. She’s the main character of my story, but I don’t even know what kind of base she’ll have—or what kind of personality she’ll be born with. I only know that she’ll be created as one of the Story’s Demons.”

This Alice might end up being completely different from Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking-Glass.

Rather than a character popping out of a book, she’d more likely resemble a parody of one.

...Parody.

Thinking of that word, Carol’s cheeks flushed slightly as she murmured quietly.

“...It really suits me.”

“So then, who creates this Alice demon?”

“Oh, that’d be Mephistopheles—the one I constantly trash-talk. I accepted the terms he gave me and came back... from death.”

“Hoho. What a fascinating tale! But... this Alice you’ve been talking about all this time—has she really just been the protagonist of your story?”

“Hmm... I suppose you could say that?”

“What’s with that vague answer... Well, in any case.

If I ever meet that demon, it should be quite entertaining...”

“Of course it will!”

Carol’s confident response suggested her mood had finally recovered.

But Jack-o’-Lantern, of course, brought it crashing back down with his next comment.

“Hey, Carol. You’re getting your hopes up a bit too much.

All the demons I’ve seen so far haven’t exactly had... appealing forms.

Alice might end up with hundreds of hands, or crawling on tongues instead of legs.”

“Don’t say gross stuff like that!!!

And even if she does look like that... I’ll still love her!”

...Probably.

Carol muttered the last part under her breath.

Even for Carol, it seemed like she preferred Alice to be a girl.

She once mentioned her type—and it was suspiciously innocent, favoring small, pure-looking women. When Jack had teasingly asked if she had a “certain kind of preference,” he’d had his lantern confiscated for a week.

Anyway.

“That’s not what I’m trying to say. Carol—

The Alice you’re imagining and the Alice who is born could be completely different.

Even if she looks the way you want, what’s inside her might be terrifying.”

“...”

“Lewis Carroll... that Mephistopheles you mentioned?

He doesn’t exactly seem like the kind of guy who does favors for others.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying your plan—no, your escape—might end up completely shattered! Hahaha!

How pathetic! You’ve become such a naive little girl, thinking everything will go your way!

What’d you do, leave part of your brain behind in the afterlife?”

“...If that was supposed to be a joke, let me just say—it’s the worst one you’ve ever made.”

Jack-o’-Lantern had deliberately lifted Carol’s spirits, only to slam them right back into the pit.

But it wasn’t because his sense of humor had degraded.

It wasn’t a joke.

It was a warning.

Jack-o’-Lantern fled back to his containment chamber, dodging Carol’s now-glacial expression.

If he lost his lantern again, he’d have to shiver through the cold of death once more.

As he made his way back, he found himself deep in thought.

A demon becomes a concept only after fulfilling a proper narrative structure and consuming massive energy...

Even for small demons, gaining something that represents them is rare—

And now one’s supposed to fulfill the complex structure of an entire ‘story’ and become its protagonist?

To meet such complicated requirements would demand deliberate design, violent emotion, and layers of conflict.

That’s what a story is, after all.

Yes.

...There’s no way around it. Human material will have to be used.

But even if they were once human—can a demon still share human values?

Especially one with a self-righteous faith like Carol’s—it’d be even harder.

Jack-o’-Lantern wasn’t sure exactly what Carol believed about Alice.

But he knew one thing: she didn’t have the mental space for error—and she was obsessed.

It wasn’t just affection. It had grown into something else.

I’d like to help... but there’s still too much I don’t know.

And there are too many things she won’t tell me.

...Guess it’s time to leave, Carol.

When I come back... I hope you’ll have grown to like this world a little more.

Because running away isn’t the answer.

Jack-o’-Lantern escaped the Organization a week later.

Just like that—cracking jokes one moment, and gone the next without warning.

His disappearance shocked Carol.

Was it because a containment-class anomaly she’d never expected to flee had suddenly broken out?

Or was it because someone she’d secretly considered a companion had vanished overnight?

Only Carol would know the answer.

-----

Previously on:

Alice, tasked by the Organization to stop Red Riding Hood, was investigating in Troyes with the children.

While there, she met a man in a plague doctor outfit who seemed to be researching a cure for the wolf transformation.

Alice and the children followed him, while Shin Ha-rim broke off to explore elsewhere...

We followed the man in the plague doctor uniform.

He asked about Ha-rim’s absence, but I brushed it off with a vague excuse.

That girl, seriously...

Walking around alone in a place like this is dangerous, but I can’t exactly hover over her either.

Finding that middle ground isn’t easy.

Should I put more trust in myself—as Alice, someone who can turn fear into play?

“Alice. Are you worried about Ha-rim?”

Eun-jung asked.

“Sigh... I trust her, but that doesn’t mean I don’t worry.”

I sighed, and Soo-ho chimed in.

“That’s why people say you act like a mom.”

“Shut it.”

With that bit of teasing out of the way, I focused back on the present.

Since the Organization couldn’t get us any intel, we had to gather it ourselves.

How should I coax something useful out of this suspicious guy?

Should I just hit him?

As my internal annoyance started to lean toward violence, Kyung-min casually asked the man:

“Hey, what’s that sealed room over there?”

He pointed at a door with a “Do Not Enter” sign.

The keyhole looked completely sealed—like it had been welded shut.

My senses, sharper than a human’s, picked up a pungent scent.

It had the fishy stench of the sea—mixed with the iron tang of blood.

The combination of the two, similar yet distinct, was revolting.

This is suspicious.

I can’t not open it.

The man replied to Kyung-min’s question, and the translator spoke:

{That area houses the critical patients.}

“Critical? You mean they’re worse than the regular wolves?”

{Precisely. They’ve gone beyond feral—they’re consumed by madness.

They bare fangs and claws and try to attack anything that moves.

I call them ‘Moon Wolves.’}

“Moon Wolves?”

Then why the fishy smell?

Guess I’ll probe a bit.

“By the way, why does it smell so fishy over there?

Kind of like blood too...”

The man twitched—just slightly.

But I could tell.

I’m sensitive to emotions.

That was the scent... of fear.

{They were eating something. It was a horrific, horrific sight. I was overcome with fear. Probably the scent of a sacrifice.}

He didn’t seem to be lying.

A sacrifice, huh. He was probably referring to a colleague devoured by the wolves.

“I see... That must have been terrifying. Was it someone you knew?

If they were Moon Wolves, they must’ve been stronger than the average kind.

I bet you couldn’t even touch them before your companion was killed.”

{That’s right. Seeing a comrade die... it fills me with sadness and fear.}

“You’re scared. Yeah... but here’s the thing.”

Fear radiated from the man.

But it wasn’t human fear.

I conjured a mirror to reflect his terror.

And what the mirror showed was a scene of his comrades being torn apart by Moon Wolves.

But the ones being killed weren’t humans—they were monsters with the faces of fish.

“So, you call fish-heads your comrades now?”

I immediately kicked the man.

He doubled over like he’d been shot, folding in on his side.

Maybe it’s just my nature—to be endlessly cruel to those who are neither human nor familiar.

The children flinched for a moment, but then instinctively pulled out their tools and weapons.

“Tch. I was going to coax the information out of him, but if there are more like him, then that changes things.

They could be stalling for time or leading us into a trap.

Even hiding their fishy scent—that seems like it was intentional.”

When we pulled off his mask, the stench flooded the room.

Disgusting.

I didn’t bother hiding my revulsion.

“With your lack of strength—you’re being hunted by wolves—how are you still alive out here?

How did you subdue those powerful wolves and trap them?

And how are you treating occult phenomena with medicine?”

...Maybe “neutralizing” is the better word.

“You know what happens if you don’t start talking.”

I tapped my head with a finger—my usual warning.

He’d understand what that meant, at least.

“...”

“Even if you stay quiet, it’s not going to help you. But first, I need to focus on this.”

I left the collapsed, silent man behind and walked toward the sealed door.

I inspected it carefully.

This door was far more fortified than it looked.

It was sealed with sorcery—some otherworldly power.

Even artillery wouldn’t break it down.

If it’s locked this securely, then whoever’s inside must be high-priority.

I placed my hand on the surface and pressed my power into the door.

Waves and thunder clashed in my ears, but I ignored them and forced it open.

The door turned black, then melted down like liquid.

That’s when it happened.

Everything around us—me included—turned pitch black.

“!”

The darkness surged like waves.

Seagulls flew in the sky while bats fell into the sea, and only the deep abyss remained.

In an instant, we were swallowed by the darkness and dragged deeper—into an even darker, deeper abyss.

“Alice, my body...”

“This feels gross... Something’s wrong...”

Blub-blub-blub...

An external curse attack.

The kids were all afflicted with confusion, auditory hallucinations, and physical mutations—scales began to grow across their bodies.

Judging by the circumstances, the man I kicked must’ve been transformed into a monster in the same way.

And from the feel of it, if the infection completed, they’d never return to normal again.

[Enough.]

I called upon the power inside me, driving away the darkness and halting the children’s corruption.

Then, with a fist full of that very darkness, I struck a hole straight through it.

Beyond that tear, I saw the thing watching us.

Scales protruded at odd angles, reeking of the sea.

Its head was that of a fish, but its eyes were unnaturally large—and inside them, parasitic tentacles undulated like waves.

I tried to gauge its power.

That same dense, overwhelming pressure—on par with Freeman or the Machine God.

A Dominator-class entity.

“So it’s you? The one who tried this crap on my kids.

Fish... no—so your Authority lets you turn others into kin without condition, just like yourself.”

That probably wasn’t its only power.

But of all the things it could do, this one—instantly, irreversibly transforming someone into a monster without resistance or choice—was what I found most detestable.

That’s why I focused on it.

The Queen of Hearts in my head was raging: Off with its head!

“Enough with the power games.

For some reason, my Authority has never lost to yours.

Especially in the realm of ‘overwhelming beings crushing humans without giving them a chance.’

That’s never beaten me.”

Because if it did, there’d be no fun in the game.

Even as I spoke, ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) the fish-creature kept cursing the children from afar.

When someone talks, you’re supposed to listen.

I wanted to run up and beat the hell out of it right then and there—but this was a long-range curse.

It wasn’t physically present—it was a projection.

With transcendent patience, I held back the urge to punch the illusion and spoke to the creature:

“Frustrated that your conversion isn’t working?

Tough luck. With me here, you’ll have to think a bit harder.”

Even if you try to manipulate people from afar and turn them into your minions, how far can that big fish brain of yours really go?

I almost pitied the Organization’s agents.

Trying to fight a monster they couldn’t even locate—feeding it humans only to see them converted instantly—it had to be soul-crushing.

If they dumped enough firepower on it—assuming it didn’t have some special resistance—a fish like this should roast easily.

But then again, maybe it was precisely because the Organization couldn’t touch it that this thing posed such a threat to all humanity.

...But wait.

Something doesn’t add up.

If the Organization can’t stop this thing...

Why is it staying locked away here?

If it can’t be stopped, why not go out and wreak havoc?

“Hey. You.

Why are you holed up in here, anyway?”

Does it even understand speech...?

That worry didn’t last long—soon, a sound came from the creature’s mouth.

It wasn’t a language—not in any human tongue—but like a brainwashing curse, the meaning settled directly into my mind even without understanding the words.

[To descend to the lowest depths.

This place borders that realm.

To become the king of the world, one must travel to the darkest and lowest point.

As is the fate of all low-tier parallel worlds, I crawl toward the most sinful among them.

I shall truly become a ruler.]

These types always talk in riddles.

Or they speak plainly, but we lack the context to understand.

Either way, those who speak in ambiguity never end well.

Because I, in my rage, will crack their skull open and make it end badly.

If you’ve got something to say—say it clearly, dammit.

“Oh? So you can talk?

A talking monster’s way less scary.

Too bad! You just flunked out of the Lovecraft category!”

[Move aside.

Heading deeper is the instinct of our abyssal kind.]

“Nope. I don’t know where you think you’re going,

but I do know you’re up to something shady.

And if you’re just gonna keep throwing fake images at us like some kind of virtual YouTuber,

then get lost already.”

I lifted my skirt slightly, raised my leg, and slammed it down hard onto the darkness enveloping me and the kids.

CRACK—a golden light split through the black.

When I opened my eyes again—

“Whoa... I almost turned into a fish, didn’t I?”

“Blub blub blub.”

“Eun-jung, you’re human again. No need to blub. Just breathe like normal.”

We had returned to normal.

“Why are you being so cold about it now?”

Eun-jung pouted.

In the past, she would’ve cried in fear—she’s grown up a lot since then.

“Alice. What just happened?”

Kyung-min asked, so I gave a concise answer.

"To put it simply, I stopped you from becoming subservient to a fish-headed boss."

“Whoa. You can do that too?”

“Of course. I command monsters and kin alike—why wouldn’t I be able to do this?

You’re my kids. No one touches what's mine.”

Eun-jung, seeming to realize something, suddenly spoke up.

“Oh, this is like that! If you steal someone’s X-kémon, you’re a thief!”

“Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say we’re Alice’s apostles?”

“Hm. Apostles, huh... What a fun idea.”

As we were chatting, I felt a shift—multiple presences began to stir.

Looks like, with no luck converting us directly, it was sending in its kin for a frontal assault.

Fish-headed monsters, faces exposed beneath their masks, slithered out from ceilings and floors...

From gaps that looked physically impossible to crawl through.

Even the monster I’d kicked aside earlier got back on its feet.

“Everyone get ready. Looks like it’s going for a straight-up attack now.”

I was just about to summon a monster to massacre them all—

Grrrrrrrrr—

“Hm?”

A growl rang out—and in the blink of an eye, even I lost sight of what came next.

A wolf shot forward so fast I nearly missed it.

It must’ve emerged from the door I had broken earlier.

Unlike the other wolves, this one stood on two legs like a human and wore a fedora.

Its eyes were brimming with madness—

But within that madness, there was something else. A clear, focused gaze, locked onto something.

It was immediately obvious this one was different.

Before I could even lift a finger, the wolf cleaved the fish-men in half and smashed through a wall, fleeing as if it had already identified its next target.

What was truly odd was that, unlike the others, this wolf didn’t attack us.

Not me, and not the kids.

It was acting like a hunter—differentiating prey.

“That thing’s about as strong as the Beast of Gévaudan.”

“Is that the Moon Wolf they were talking about?!”

“The fedora... That’s Uncle James!”

Just as Kyung-min said—the only one we knew who wore a fedora was James.

We couldn’t be sure, but it felt right.

Sometimes your gut just knows.

“Should we go after him? Are we supposed to subdue Uncle James?”

“No. Doesn’t look like we need to subdue him.

He was fierce, and clearly not in his right mind, but he didn’t attack us.

There was intent in his movement.

Let’s just follow, for now.”

He was fast—we’d need a mount.

I reached into the mirror realm to summon a creature that could serve as transport.

Several monsters tried to appeal to me, asking to be chosen.

Say what you want, but these guys really do like me and the kids.

Since we were dealing with another wolf, the Beast of Gévaudan was getting worked up, so I summoned it from the mirror and had the kids ride on its back.

I climbed up too, preparing to set off—

When I caught sight of the man I had kicked aside earlier.

He was getting back up, blood-soaked and torn open by claws.

That bluish fish-skin of his was stained red.

My eyes fell on the necklace still hanging from his neck.

The photo of his son inside.

But when I’d reflected his fear in the mirror earlier, there was no fear for his son’s death.

So that’s the price he paid for selling his soul to something inhuman.

My power can expel the flames of a curse, but I can't bring back what’s already been reduced to ash.

There was no way to turn this thing back into a human.

A monster too far gone, whose fear didn’t even belong to him anymore.

For humans, fear is sometimes the only thing keeping the self intact.

If he’d just held on to that fear...

Maybe—just maybe—my power could’ve brought him back.

“That necklace you wore even after becoming a monster...

Was that just another part of your deception?”

No answer.

I don’t know.

And probably... neither does this monster anymore.

Leaving that bitterness behind, we raced after James—through the city, now swallowed by forest.