How to Survive as the Horror Game Villain’s Fake Fiancée - Chapter 81

※ This book contains depictions of coercive/dubcon/noncon acts, violence, and gore. Reader discretion is advised.

It was strange. Originally, even after clearing all the quests in the Moon Flower Garden, the key didn’t just appear. You had to return to the place where you first picked the Moon Flower after blooming them all, and clear a few more quests to get the key to the third floor.

However, since that section had instant-death traps and the puzzles became too difficult, it was possible the developers had simply removed it to smooth out the difficulty curve. In any case, it worked out well for her, so Cynthia quickly let go of her suspicions and glanced at Segleninde, who had carried her all the way here, with an awkward look.

‘I thought I must’ve misheard while half asleep, but he really did carry me here.’

She didn’t know how high his favorability had risen, but he was acting unusually kind. His broad back supported her securely, and the hand under her bottom was palm-down to hold her up. Cynthia had to fight back a smile that kept twitching at her lips.

To avoid recalling what she’d just done with him, she focused only on staring at the back of his shimmering silver hair under the light. Suddenly, a chilling smell brushed past her nose. It was the scent of blood.

Cynthia turned to find the source of the smell.

“……”

The path Segleninde had come through was a total mess.

Just as she’d seen on the First Floor, blood was splattered all over the walls, the floor, and even the ceiling, and in the pools of blood on the floor floated lumps of flesh and bone fragments. The occasional recognizable shapes showed that those things had once been creatures.

The moment you entered the third floor, a random chase sequence would begin.

Among them, the most difficult to shake off were the black-armored knights, but now… only shattered pieces of armor remained.

The man-eating potted plants that would show up to attack the protagonist at random had been completely smashed, their grotesque insides scattered everywhere.

And the monsters in the ducal manor—the servants and maids whose heads were replaced with flower-like clusters of black tentacles—had their limbs hacked off or their head-parts crushed and oozing blood-like juice.

‘…Is the head maid, the third-floor boss, among them?’

The head maid looked similar to the others but carried a massive axe and had other differences. Above all, her mobility was on another level compared to the other creatures.

She was as fast and powerful as the Segleninde clones lurking in the Fourth Floor’s Sky Garden—just one grab meant instant death. She was the main reason every player would give up on ascending to the Fourth Floor and quit the game.

But since Segleninde was leaving that blood-soaked scene further behind with each step, Cynthia had no time to look at it in detail. All she could be sure of was that, upon entering the third floor, he had killed every creature that had started chasing them.

As evidence, his own body was clean, but there were bloodstains on the hilt of the sword at his waist. Suddenly, Cynthia thought of Melissa, who still hadn’t been found, and felt a chill.

“…Huh? Wait, isn’t that a person?”

As the scene gradually receded, Cynthia stretched her neck to look more closely at one last figure she saw.

At the edge of a pool of blood lay a person, clearly collapsed and limp. There was no twisted head or flower attached, nor were they in armor or a pot—she was sure it was a person.

Segleninde, who had turned to look in the same direction, flinched and replied.

“I— I didn’t kill them.”

“I didn’t even ask yet. You’re not just feeling guilty, are you? That’s not the real reason you carried me, right?”

“Why are you making a fuss even when I’m being nice! I told you, it’s not that!”

Segleninde insisted that the person had already been dead and snapped at Cynthia. Though it was suspicious, Cynthia decided not to press further and let it go.

‘Honestly, there’s no reason for Sellie to suddenly commit murder at this point.’

She saw no sign of any missing memories, and if he had, he would have killed her first, so Cynthia decided to believe him.

Saying “Fine, whatever,” she nodded absently, then, unable to withstand her lingering exhaustion, buried her face against his back. Segleninde, who had started to complain, abruptly fell silent. Muttering in a small voice about why she couldn’t trust him, he adjusted his hold to carry her as comfortably as possible.