201 Game of Courage 2

The place was dark and along the hallways, creaking sounds of who knows what accompanied the eerie and unceasing whooshing of the wind could be heard. All of it was seemingly amplified by the silence reigning all around them.

It had been some time since they started exploring the place. Her friend Yuki began to live stream their walk, from time to time talking with her followers through the platform's chatroom to update them of their progress and also fill in some stories regarding the place.

"... So before I forgot, I remember mentioning a grandma ghost haunting this place aside from the white lady nun."

And then the girls braved the chilling atmosphere of the dorm's interior, trying to make fun of each other's reactions to some spooky noises and passing wind.

"They said the old lady will show up somewhere in the garden seated on an old wicker chair.... and will start to talk to you about her husband whom she buried alive in that garden when she was younger due to cheating...."

'Hmm?'

While everyone else joked about the cheating part, the part-time lady detective scrunched up her nose and furrowed her brows. Footsteps resounded from the distance, most likely half a dozen meters away from their location. Her companions might have missed it since each other's voices were preoccupying them, but not Wendy. She barely restrained herself from looking that way.

All this while, she didn't believe that ghosts were what they should watch out for.

And it seemed her wariness did not prove to be tomfoolery.

'As expected, somebody has made it his lair.' The girl mused to herself with a dark expression, thinking some prankster or criminal lurked somewhere in the cluster of shadows. Her right hand grasped the phone inside her jacket's pocket, powered it on and clicked another button thereby depending on her memory.

'The station is fifteen minutes away from here...' She was not a local but before they entered the premise, she checked her map how far the police station was from here. That was how she came up with that estimate.

No matter if those footsteps were from a ghost or not, better be safe than sorry. It was still not attacking them, but who knows when it would lose its patience or sanity.

'We have to leave this dorm now.'

With a smile on her face, she said, "Guys, I think we should leave now. Half exploring it should be good enough."

"Eh? We haven't been to the bathrooms yet."

"Also the gardens. All we explored are the vacant rooms and corridors. We found nothing there so far."

Her eyes met Anda's, seemingly asking,

'... What else is there to find in this godforsaken dorm?'

The live streamer laughed.

"Lol, one of my commenters said the greatest beauty is scared. They want to come here to cheer for you." And then the woman laughingly flashed her phone's camera to Wendy's delicate but expressionless face.

"It seems our Wendy is not as tough as we thought her to be."

The girl in question: "..."

... When she genuinely only wanted to bring them out of danger zone... Why did she get this kind of replies?

She inwardly sighed.

Didn't this bunch know that if she was only not worried about their safety, she would have simply stayed at home, sleeping? Who the effin' muffin wants to come to this dangerous place and play a game of courage against loose criminals disguised as ghosts or spooky beings?

She lamented.

For some reason, she missed that mute wannabe who did not give her real headaches as these girls did. At least that guy was only pissing her off with his face subconsciously.

She picked up her phone and thanked the deities in heaven that this abandoned dorm at least had some signal. After typing a bunch of words on it, she meaningfully looked at the scared expressions of the real scaredy-cats who also looked down to their phones to check what she group-messaged them.

A second later, they began exchanging inexplicable gazes. Their faces paled.

"I-I think it's indeed time to go. My parents texted me to go home already. S-sorry guys."

"Me too..."

"R-right, let's go out now. Miss noble, end your live stream now."

Wendy nodded in approval as she watched their interaction. At least this group knows when to stop and take things seriously.

Their acting was quite bad though...

The girl held the end part of her ponytail and played with it, sporting an expression of nonchalance as she lowered her head. The girl called Yuki was nervously ending her live stream to the point that her speech was barely coherent. Her viewers must be wondering now what pushed her to end the session prematurely. Wendy didn't pay her much attention, her eyeballs rolled to the left side, alert to that whoever person who she spotted hiding in the dark only about six meters away from them.

When she made the others go to the opposite direction, Wendy bravely chose to be at the rear end, all while wishing the damnable and ominous lurker to not be someone in possession of firearms. She also hoped this person was at least reasonable enough to let the innocent trespassers them to just depart from the 'haunted' dorm.

...

Seven minutes later...

Wendy's hope shattered when continuous sounds of gunshots suddenly tore through the silence of the place.

"Damn! Run!" She loudly shouted to the others who subconsciously began to scream and crouch down with their hands covering their ears.

It would have been such a bad move to run and expose one's self in this kind of situation, but Wendy could hear that the sounds came from deep inside the dormitory. It only meant one thing - they must get away fast from that place to not get caught up in the ongoing crossfire!

"Quick!" The girl pulled up the nearest one to her and led everyone else to run outside the fence.

Another gunshot reverberated. Shocked, the shortest girl of the group, who probably had trouble running as speedily as the others due to her short legs, stumbled and fell face-first on the ground. Wendy didn't have the heart to leave her hence she ran back and helped the other girl up.

"Hic!"

That short girl gasped when she raised her head sideways only to see a masked man emerging from the corridor there rushing towards them. She let go of Wendy's hands then started sprinting for her dear life, not bothering to look back to the other girl who stayed there grimly inspecting the shadowy figure.

'He'll reach us in ten seconds.' Wendy looked back briefly, squinting through the darkness to her friends clamoring to crawl out of the hole in the fence. She was at the doorway, her distance to the hole was diagonally around seven meters.

'... Me and my sad life.' She sighed as she steeled her resolve.

From the wide staircase leading to the second floor, a man unmasked and as charismatic as the luminous night sky watched from the opening of the double doors as his last target dashed unhesitatingly towards the direction of the exit, which happened to be where a girl he didn't expect to see there was at.

After recognition, a bit of surprise and dread appeared on his face.

It was Ver chasing after the man who fled towards Wendy.

The host unknowingly jumped down from the three meters high and ran to intercept the man. Deep down his heart, he didn't want harm to come to the girl who accompanied him and showed him care for the past few days.

Yet a couple of seconds later...

"... The f*ck."

He had to pause his steps.

Six yards from him, the girl was there, huffing for breaths, but still standing tall and confident. While the masked man he thought would send her to the afterlife if he didn't move fast to save her was currently under her feet. Groaning while holding his badly dislocated shoulder.

Time seemed to have stopped for the host watching silly how she slowly turned her head. Wendy faced him with dumbfoundedness that lasted for only three seconds before turning dark and violent.

...

...

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Link to the original:

https://www.webnovel.com/book/12734433505930905/The-Sinners'-Queen