Chapter 1
My biggest problem is that I sleep too well. So well, in fact, that I can be thrown into a survival horror game and still be dead asleep in four seconds flat.
A blood–drenched little girl stood at the foot of my bed, but my snores were loud enough to shake the walls.
The corpse of a hanged woman in a painting opened its eyes at midnight, only to see me grinding my teeth in my sleep.
When I got too hot in the middle of thenight, I rolled over and wrapped my arms around something cool and firm to the
touch. It felt nice.
The final boss whispered, “… Are you going to open your eyes? Or are you just using me as a body pillow?”
[SYSTEM: Game “The Haunting of Crestfall Manor” has finished loading.]
[SYSTEM: Player “Eva Nightingale” has entered the game.]
[SYSTEM: Player Rank: C]
The moment I materialized in the game, the other players seated around a long, mahogany table erupted.
“Are you kidding me? We’re all A–rank players, and the system throws a C–rank noob in here?”
“Some people will do anything for a few XP, even risk their lives. This one’s got a death wish!”
“A C–rank, in Crestfall Manor? I’ll bet she doesn’t even last the night!”
Nine men and women sat at the table, all seasoned A–rank veterans who had clawed their way out of countless digital hellscapes. They stared at me as if they’d just seen a ghost, probably horrified that they were now stuck babysitting a
rookie.
A young woman with a kind face couldn’t take the bickering anymore. She stood up. “Everyone, calm down. For a C- rank to be teleported into an A–rank instance, she must have a secret weapon, right?”
“Bullshit! What could a C–rank possibly have?”
“Exactly! How many instances has she even seen? She’ll probably piss her pants at the first sign of a ghoul!”
The woman looked at me, urging, “Well? Do you have one?”
A secret weapon?
I actually did.
I thought for a moment, then answered earnestly, “I’m an excellent sleeper.”
The players fell silent.
Then, in unison: “…Are you fucking with us?”
The live–stream chat exploded.
[Streamer, it’s okay to not have a skill, you know.]
[LMAO, you don’t have to embarrass yourself with a skill that lame!]
[Can the streamer just go home? Please just go home.]
I sighed internally. They had no idea just how powerful a good night’s sleep could be.
Chapter 1
06.19
Once the players recovered from their shock, a man in a leather jacket swaggered over to me, looking me up and down with contempt. “You’re late. We’ve already assigned the rooms.”
He pointed downwards. “The one in the basement is yours.”
The manor had three floors. The A–rank players had, of course, claimed the prime real estate on the first and second floors. The room they’d left for me radiated a palpable chill, a coldness I could feel from ten feet away.
The door was smeared with bloody handprints. Pale moonlight streamed through a grimy window, illuminating a large bed in the center of the room.
[CHAT: Damn, even I’m getting scared just looking at this through my screen.]
[CHAT: Everyone knows the ghosts in this instance start spawning from the basement. They’re totally screwing her over.]
[CHAT: Look, she’s scared. She’s gonna turn around and beg the A–rankers for help!]
I turned back to the man in the jacket and gave him a bright smile. “Goodnight.”
The chat feed filled with question marks.
The man, let’s call him Jax, was stunned into silence by my calm reaction.
1 shut the door in his face.
Then, in one smooth motion, I kicked off my shoes, changed into my pajamas, and dove onto the bed.
A king–sized bed! A single room! And the pillows were velvet!
Did anyone understand what this meant to a college girl who’d spent four years crammed into a tiny dorm room? This
was heaven!
I rolled around ecstatically under the covers.
[CHAT: Youth is wasted on the young. Falls asleep in a second.].
[CHAT: Wait, she’s actually sleeping? Where does the system find these weirdos?]
[CHAT: If she’d just looked up for a second, she would have fainted from fright.]
Because I fell asleep so quickly, I completely missed the painting hanging over my bed: a portrait of a woman who had hanged herself.
This horror instance, The Haunting of Crestfall Manor,” was based on a real–life murder–suicide that had wiped out an
entire family years ago in this very mansion. A family of five, all dead under mysterious circumstances. Ever since, the
house has been haunted.
As midnight struck, the woman in the painting’s eyes snapped open, bleeding pupils rolling downwards to look at me.
