I Became A Ghost In A Horror Game-Chapter 105: Red Riding Hood – The Highest Place and the Lowest Place

The room I entered after opening the door was dark, but flames glowed faintly.

Against a black background, colorful lights sparkled chaotically, reminding me of stars in the night sky.

So beautiful.

I want to get closer. I want to understand more.

I stepped forward without hesitation.

To understand the universe, higher, and even higher—

But I could never truly comprehend it. With a gravitational acceleration of 9.8, my soul plummeted, and as the light evaporated it, my mucous membranes dried out, and I began breathing through cracked, torn skin. From the earth rose a swarm of 2,900 kinds of locusts, crushing this body, and I would remain as a subject of the eternal apocalypse’s roadmap.

The necklace shines.

[Survival]

“!”

Realizing my consciousness was slipping, I shook my head immediately to come back to my senses.

Then, without hesitation, I quickly put on the mental protection artifact, the [Foil Hat].

Thud.

After regaining awareness, my feet hit the ground.

That meant my body had been floating just a moment ago.

It didn’t feel like I had been attacked, but just by looking, I became dazed.

It felt like the moment I tried to recognize and understand it, it rejected me, as if refusing to be comprehended.

A sensation beyond perception.

It seemed to be a type that attacks the mind.

I glanced around carefully.

In the room, something even larger than the upper beings I had previously seen was praying.

Its form was still blurry. Even more so than the ones I had met before.

And considering this is what I saw while wearing the [Foil Hat], it meant that without the hat, I likely wouldn’t have perceived its existence at all.

In fact, I hadn’t sensed it at all before I put it on.

From now on, I’ll never take the hat off.

‘Hmph...’ Even while wearing the [Foil Hat], trying to perceive it properly made me feel like I was floating again. All I could gather was that it was “huge,” and that it wore some sort of brightly shining ornament around what might be its neck.

I whispered to Mr. Jack-o’-Lantern.

“Is that it?”

Jack-o’-Lantern replied that it was.

Apparently, it was using the lantern as a necklace.

“That’s right. But it’s probably best to give up.”

“Why?”

“The fact that you even ask ‘why’ after seeing that massive thing tells me you’re not normal either. That one is very strong. If we were on a chessboard, it’d be the queen. It also serves as a conduit, giving power to its master and the winged ones.”

“Gasp.”

“It’s likely been granted authority too... Kid, if you confront that thing, you’ll die in an instant. At the very least, go borrow the full power of the Organization before trying.”

“But you said the lantern is important.”

“That’s my job. Adults might tease kids, but we don’t pass off our responsibilities.”

I didn’t ask any more questions after that.

Instead, I responded with a smile.

Alright, if I want that lantern, I’ll need to divert its attention first.

What I need here is...

I pulled a special mirror from my bag.

It’s the artifact Alice gave me. It’s not just an item—it can summon a ghost directly.

It reminds me of Dora**mon’s spare pocket.

Alice even said it was something similar, so I guess it is what it is.

Ghosts are born from human fear, unsettling thoughts, urban legends, and the like.

If that’s the case, then among the five senses, there must be quite a few ghosts related to hearing.

Even Alice doesn’t know all the ghosts, but if she managed to summon one properly, maybe I could too just by calling out randomly?

“Hey, I need a friend who likes silence. Can you help me out?”

“...?”

Jack-o’-Lantern looked at me like I was watching something absurd as I spoke to the mirror.

I didn’t mind. I waited in silence.

...The mirror shimmered.

A gray, oozy monster crawled out from the small hand mirror.

The hand mirror seemed a bit too small—it looked like it was struggling.

I’ve always thought this, but it’s fascinating that ghosts, which chase us while we try to defeat them, can also become helpful friends.

The ghost I summoned solidified its wobbly form into a human-like shape and formed a mouth.

[Shhhhh]

Then, the air current changed.

An eerily quiet silence settled over everything.

This should let me steal the lantern without being noticed.

The back of the room was filled with so many lights that the disappearance of one lantern shouldn’t stand out.

I put on gloves to avoid sensing the texture, turned my head away, and approached the giant to grab the lantern.

But it was too big—I couldn’t reach the necklace!

What now...

While I hesitated, Alice’s mirror rippled again.

It seems there’s a limit to what kind of ghosts can come out of a hand mirror, so what’s coming this time?

[--!]

A monkey ghost with its mouth taped shut leapt out of the mirror.

I didn’t know what domain this ghost controlled, but it clearly wanted to help with its nimble movements.

When I handed it a pair of scissors from my bag, it climbed up the giant’s body and cut the necklace off, bringing back the lantern.

Thank you!

Really, thank you...

But just because sound is blocked doesn’t mean impact is. The monkey ghost got rough trying to cut the cord, and the giant noticed.

“....”

[Ookki-!]

The monkey scratched its head awkwardly. Looks like sound suppression ended here.

Without looking back, I ran. Behind me, I heard the monkey’s scream as it got crushed.

Jack-o’-Lantern screamed from outside the door like he was going crazy.

“So you had some miraculous plan and ended up doing this?!”

“Not everything works out for humans!”

Ghosts aren’t always perfect allies, after all.

As the giant monster began to chase us, the ground shook with every step. With each impact, space itself tore apart, warping the scenery of the corridor.

Even if we opened the door we came through, it’d just lead back to the storage room. What do we do?

“The number of those moon wolves may have increased, but to think something this powerful was summoned just to deal with them—there’s no solution to this!”

“Are we in big trouble?”

“Pwahaha! This is beyond ‘big trouble’! Not even the corpses will be recoverable!”

“I’ll run no matter what! Stay inside the bag!”

“To think you’d stuff me into a bag filled with trash and junk—what a ridiculous joke... Gah!”

After forcing Jack-o’-Lantern into the bag, I immediately used all the long-range attack items I had prepared in advance.

If close-range attacks didn’t work, I’d be dead instantly, so I didn’t bother using them.

Anything that took too long was out too—I didn’t have that kind of time.

This wasn’t one of Alice’s ghosts.

Rather than solving riddles or matching keywords to fairy tales, this one needed to be hit directly—with force.

A cursed doll, a rusted arrow of resentment, a spider’s mourning cry, a black radio, the shrine maiden’s soap bubble.

All of them were offensive long-range items.

I launched them all while running.

“...Did none of them work?”

Physical attacks, spiritual strikes, purification, curses. As expected, none had any effect.

It wasn’t just a monster—it was on a whole other level.

It wasn’t particularly fast, and a few of the mirror ghosts were stalling it, but every time it attacked, the space itself collapsed.

We wouldn’t last long.

“I forgot to mention, but that thing is protected by Authority. It’s immune to all attacks.”

Wow, thanks for the super timely heads-up—I almost said something rude.

It probably wasn’t intentional. Getting angry wouldn’t help.

If it were Alice, though, she probably would’ve snapped.

“So the attacks are rendered void... like an impenetrable wall between us. The attacks simply can’t reach.

If they’re passing off that level of Authority, then they must be planning to use it as the finishing blow in the battle between the fish and the bird...

Well, considering birds are weaker in number and strength than fish, using a powerful familiar must be a key strategy.”

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

A monster that nothing worked against.

I had felt this sense of helplessness once before.

It was when I had faced the monster summoned by a Dominator called Freeman.

Back then, the only reason I was able to defeat the monster was because I had a means called divine power.

At the time, I had received advice from Sister Maria—drawn in doodles—to use symbolic symmetry to channel divine power.

Thinking of Alice, believing in Alice, and confronting all this terror in some way—

That faith would be answered with divine power.

If I could use that power...

“Mr. Jack-o’-Lantern! Do you think divine power would work?”

“Are you a priest? Or did you happen to pick up a relic? Hm, well, it might work, but I can’t say it’ll be enough to bring it down.”

“What?”

“Divine power is the influence of a god, endlessly high, and in any battle of Authority, it can suppress the opponent’s power and gain the upper hand. But if that solved everything, priests wouldn’t suffer hardships, now would they?”

“Then...”

“What’s the use of landing a hit? What if the hit isn’t fatal? What if, the moment divine power ends, it regains the Authority to restore its body? What if your divine power isn’t strong enough to suppress its Authority completely?”

What Jack-o’-Lantern called the upper hand in a battle of Authority likely meant the ability to suppress the opponent’s laws.

If I used divine power, even the ability to nullify attacks might be overridden and allow my attacks to land.

The win condition...

Suppress its multiple Authorities with overwhelming divine power, and during that same moment, land a fatal, unrecoverable blow.

The issues were that I didn’t have enough divine power—and no weapon capable of piercing its physical defense.

Would the small cross I brought be enough to generate that kind of divine power?

...I recalled how Sister Maria used divine power.

Even if it drove the ghost away and dealt damage, it hadn’t caused fatal wounds.

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“...”

When I had practiced using divine power with the cross, I’d managed to emit a faint glow at best.

‘But I couldn’t produce firepower like when I took down the Ink Monster.’

Because Freeman’s world had the traits of a comic book, I had managed to manifest divine power through a speech bubble containing a sentence with symmetry.

“What could I do to draw out stronger divine power if mine is weak?”

I asked Mr. Jack-o’-Lantern.

He seemed to know a lot, so surely he would know things I didn’t.

“Well, I don’t know if it’ll work here, but everyone has their own ‘method’ that suits them, don’t they?”

...A method!

Maybe he was right.

Even if the sentence from the fairy tale Alice wasn’t perfectly symmetrical, it had still produced strong power.

The conditions for divine power manifested by Alice seem to be...

In a crisis—

With ingenuity—

Through a plausible method—

Establishing symmetry.

...That’s my hypothesis!

This time too, I needed a plausible, clever idea.

Something that could both emit divine power and deal a fatal, irrecoverable blow!

Unfortunately, nothing came to mind at the moment.

I had to ask for the help I’d been putting off.

I tapped the mirror.

“...Can you hear me, Alice?”

“You said Alice?”

Mr. Jack-o’-Lantern seemed surprised, though I wasn’t sure what exactly surprised him.

A calm voice flowed from beyond the mirror.

“Oh my. Is that you, Ha-rim? Are you in need of help?”

“Yeah, I need help. How do you fight something that nullifies all attacks and can’t be touched? Can you give me a hint?”

“Eh. What is that, some monster a mentally underdeveloped kid with a missing brain doodled in a notebook?”

No way!

I’d doodled monsters with that exact kind of setting in my notebook too.

Suddenly embarrassed, I shut my mouth.

Alice seemed to pause and think for a moment, then spoke.

“A hint... I could step in myself and handle it easily, but that’s not what you wanted, right?

If I had to say... Normally you’d either run or seal something like that, but if it’s a foe you absolutely must defeat...”

“In that case?”

“...Do you remember the first ghost we ever defeated together? It’s not exactly the same, but you can probably beat it in a similar way.

When you think of ‘me,’ what comes to mind first? It should be really easy.”

...I understood what Alice meant.

The ghost Alice and I had defeated together was Slender Man.

Back then, Alice—still a mirror ghost—couldn’t deal a fatal blow with her blade, so we’d used another method.

I couldn’t replicate that exactly, but an idea flashed through me about what to use to manifest divine power.

Maybe... all my ideas had always come from this.

“All right. If the situation and means are lacking, I’ll send you power.”

“What kind of power?”

“It’s not going to make your muscles stronger.

My power isn’t about brute force. It’s about creating a situation where a human can defeat a ghost.

So that even a little kid like you can solve a problem that should be impossible.”

Honestly, aside from the time she lost her power, I had never seen Alice truly in danger.

It made me wonder if maybe she should just handle it with brute force.

Even so—

If Alice’s specialty lies in helping the weak overcome the strong,

Then maybe, someday when a being even more powerful than Alice appears, we might be the ones to help her.

...A rabbit mimicked the sound of a storm and a girl’s laughter.

That ghost comes around doing strange things often enough that I no longer care.

“Just like the other ghosts had strategies to defeat them—can you create a weakness for this enemy too?”

“It might be that. Or it might be something completely different. Don’t worry. As long as I’m with you, there will always be an answer.”

Alice smiled from beyond the mirror.

I answered with a nod.

“This kid sounds like a child, but don’t their words sound kinda old?”

Mr. Jack-o’-Lantern whispered from inside the bag.

She didn’t hear that, right?

Alice tends to hide her age.

I know Alice has lived longer than us and matured faster too.

Even so, she’s shorter than Soo-ho, who’s just a boy, and if you bring up her age, she gets sensitive and sulky.

“You. Whoever you are. Shut it already.”

Eek.

“Sigh... I’m sending ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ you my power, packed full. We’ll have to wait and see how it works.

Come back as soon as it’s over. I already miss you.”

“Got it!”

Alice combed light with her hand and extended it toward me.

A blinding light filled the corridor entirely.

When I opened my eyes, the monster was charging toward me.

It must have sensed instinctively that the light just now posed a serious threat to it.

“...?”

But nothing had changed?!

“Kid. Look over there! A huge door just appeared!”

Exactly that.

A massive door!

Big enough that even the monster chasing me could fit through it!

If it were just a shelter, why make it big enough for the monster too?

As if—the monster has to enter for it to be defeated.

I scrambled into the gap of the giant door, and it slammed shut.

From the outside came frantic pounding.

Normally, you’d expect fists pounding, but due to the monster’s perception distortion, even the sound was warped—I couldn’t count the beats or the rhythm.

Trying to measure it made my head spin.

Tick.

The sound of a clock.

The space inside the door had a white base, but furniture and objects were scattered everywhere.

Tick. Tick.

Even without a clock, the ticking continued—

It seemed to imply there was a time limit.

I understood intuitively.

This was a puzzle.

On the floor, along with scattered objects, there was a thick line drawn as if splitting this six-faced space in half.

This was the centerline.

There were one to three objects in each area, but furniture came in pairs.

And the placement of some pieces of furniture was subtly off.

There was a reference line.

And that line cut straight through the middle of the door.

...I think I get it.

“Aha...”

“...Oh? You’ve thought of something? Then hurry, kid. There’s no time!”

I know that too!

I hurriedly ran around, arranging the furniture and objects.

I placed the scattered books back on the shelf and rearranged the piano keys.

I pushed the bed to mirror the location of the other bed on the opposite side and split open the belly of the intact teddy bear.

I scribbled on the painting, lit the extinguished brazier.

Back and forth across the reference line, I scrambled in chaos to match everything.

There was a problem.

There were still a lot of leftover objects.

The ticking sound grew faster and faster. Time was almost up.

Ah.

Then...

I shoved all the remaining objects into the wardrobe or threw them into the brazier to burn.

Then, I completely stuffed Mr. Jack-o’-Lantern into the bag and closed it.

“Is it done now, kid? Have you done all you can?”

“No. There’s one more thing.”

I rubbed the mirror and summoned a ghost.

A black figure oozed out of the mirror and eventually took on my own shape.

A doppelgänger. Another me stood in this place.

Tick tick tick tick!

Time’s up.

Facing my doppelgänger, I aligned our hands together over the centerline.

Kuwoong—!

The moment the monster opened the door and stepped in, the condition was fulfilled.

This room—

Had to be made into a mirrored scene on both sides, based on the centerline.

Each furniture piece came in twos and was placed symmetrically.

Their forms and states were matched, and the ambiguous objects were destroyed entirely.

Now, the only thing that wasn’t a mirror image—was me. So I summoned the doppelgänger.

Now this room was a perfect “symmetry” and a “mirror.”

The moment that truth was established, the doppelgänger’s once warm hand turned cold and solid like glass.

From this symmetry, divine power was manifested.

A violent burst of light filled the room.

All of these happened simultaneously—

And when I slightly opened my eyes again, it was already over.

On the opposite side of the now fully mirrored room,

The monster had collapsed with only half of its body remaining.

Exactly bisected, the creature scorched by divine power turned to ash and vanished.

“Mr. Jack-o’-Lantern. It’s over.”

“Hahahaha! So that’s how it worked! What an amusing method! Hahaha! This is insane. A monster that couldn’t be defeated even with an army, taken down by a mere little brat!”

I dug the lantern out of the ashes and handed it to Mr. Jack-o’-Lantern, who was still laughing.

“Well, damn. I owe you one, kid. You’re really something.”

“So, why were you here anyway? And what’s the truth behind the wolves, the fish, and the winged monsters running around this place?”

“One question at a time! But I’ll answer them all.

I was, quite literally, tricked.

A long time ago, a man tried to summon a demon from hell to cure his son’s incurable disease.

But what came out from the gateway connecting to hell weren’t demons,

They were monsters that resembled sea creatures.

Hahaha! The look on his face was priceless. Anyway, neither he nor those performing the demonic ritual knew—

Hell had long ceased to be the hell humans imagined.

There weren’t even demons anymore.

Instead, fish and birds were fighting over territory—not in the depths of hell, but right at the entrance.

I was investigating something personal in hell when I got caught up in the summoning.

I was stranded, my lantern stolen.”

“Hell... really exists?”

That it truly existed...

...I should live a good life.

Still, something felt off. Why were those kinds of monsters in hell in the first place?

“Aren’t demons supposed to live in hell? Why are monsters like that there instead?”

“Well, even the angels have all left this world. It’s not so strange if demons are gone too.

Whoever’s left just takes the empty throne.

Anyway, I’ve still got more to investigate, so I’m heading back to hell.”

Mr. Jack-o’-Lantern used the power of the lantern to recreate his body.

He was now taller than a grown adult and began preparing to leave.

“Then what about the wolves?”

“No idea. How would I know what Red Riding Hood aboveground is thinking when I was stuck in hell?

But one thing is certain—this wasn’t the first time the wolves appeared.

And Red Riding Hood has been relentlessly chasing after those who corrode humans and control them like livestock.”

“In that case.”

“I suggest you start seeking out information on your own from now on.

I have my suspicions, but no proof.

Now, I’ll be off!

...Ah. Tell Alice to take good care of Carol for me.”

“Carol?”

Mr. Jack-o’-Lantern vanished with some kind of mystical technique.

Almost simultaneously, the space I was in began to collapse as well,

So I knocked on the mirror.

“...This is getting complicated.

For now, should I go back to Alice?”