Chapter 4

“Mmh…”

When on earth did I even fall asleep?

Cynthia awoke, shaking her oddly dizzy head. She remembered hearing the notification sound that meant the game had finished loading and she’d logged in, and she recalled looking at her laptop… But after that, nothing at all came to mind.

What was even stranger was that even with her eyes open, everything around her was dark.

“What the… Where am I?”

Flustered, she tried to move her body. But it was as if she were trapped in a cramped space. Her elbow bumped against a hard wall, and her knees wouldn’t straighten out.

Ding—

A peculiar sound effect rang out.

When Cynthia lifted her head, something wholly unexpected appeared before her eyes.

“What is this?”

Cynthia nearly fainted when she saw the letters floating on the semi-transparent hologram in the pitch darkness. Such a phenomenon, invisible to ordinary people, could only mean she’d either gone mad or was facing a reality even more severe than that.

She no longer cared where she was trapped. Her gaze was glued, tense with anxiety, to the newly changing messages.

Please, please, let it not be what I’m thinking.

But Cynthia had always been rather unlucky compared to others.

So far, things were already deviating from Cynthia’s expectations. After all, the game she was thinking of didn’t have any kind of kind tips like this. Besides, maybe because she was still in shock, she couldn’t even properly take in the content of the tips.

Still, perhaps thanks to having survived so fiercely since losing her parents in an accident as a child, her quick adaptability to sudden changes shone at just the right moment.

Thus, Cynthia was able to calmly sort through her current situation.

First, she was inside a game. Cynthia had transmigrated as a character in the game.

Second, the familiar look of that message window matched exactly with the one from the game she’d played before.

And third.

As she’d suspected, this was indeed ‘Coffin of the White Rose’. Which meant, for Cynthia, she was quite definitely f****d.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

If this is a dream, please wake up, please!

Cynthia, convinced she was in the middle of a nightmare, thrashed about in a panic. As she did, the mysterious space confining her groaned and rattled, and finally, the wall directly in front of her—like a door—burst open under the force of her flailing fists.

“Ack!”

Cynthia tumbled out.

It was only after landing hard on her rear that she looked around and realized she’d been trapped inside a tiny wardrobe. The now wide-open wardrobe doors spilled out colorful dresses, shoes, bonnets, and more, tumbling out alongside her.

Staggering to her feet, she squinted, her eyes narrowed against the light like a fawn just emerging from darkness. Her tailbone still throbbed from the impact. With all her senses so vividly alive, it didn’t feel like a dream, so had she really possessed a character in that insane slasher horror game?

At that moment, another message window appeared.

It was the character status window. Cynthia urgently searched for any sign of ‘Logout’ or ‘Exit Game’, but nothing of the sort was to be found. Same for ‘Settings’ or ‘Menu’.

At this point, Cynthia felt like crying.

‘If it’s the Wincastle Ducal Manor, then this really is the setting of Coffin of the White Rose’.

The place where everything began, and ended. The mansion where the villain lured the victims to a banquet disguised as a ritual.

This was that very place.

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