An Unusual Life Beginning with Evil Spirits

Volume 1. Let the Game Begin

"Ugh..."

This time, there was no preparation at all.

Unlike earlier when I deliberately crashed into the iron door, this time I completely lost my balance and slammed into the wall.

The impact made me let out a muffled grunt.

No... can't stop!!

There was no time to check the palm that was scratched due to the broken handrail.

I casually threw away the handrail and glanced at the watch.

Still... one point five seconds?

I actually... wasted two seconds!!

Can't wait any longer!!

Without having fully regained my balance, I almost jumped down from the corner without hesitation...

However... because I didn’t have time to adjust my balance, I paid the price for it.

‘Crack!!’

"Ahhh!!!"

At the moment of landing, my barely healed left leg could no longer withstand such an impact.

A crisp snap came instantly from the calf, and searing pain followed!

The momentum forced me to roll on the ground right away.

Fear suppressed all other emotions.

So what if my leg was broken again?

Even if it was completely snapped, there were ways to reconnect it.

But if I stopped here, that would only mean death!

The pain made my vision go black, but I had no time to care.

I forced myself to stand up on one leg, slammed open the iron door of the escape staircase, dashed into the 16th floor of the building, and charged straight into the room directly opposite the stairs!

All of my hopes were pinned on this room.

I didn’t even look at the sign above the door—I just pushed it open.

At the same time, the entire world suddenly let out a low humming sound, and time... started to flow again!

I placed all my hope in this room, but when I pushed the door open, I couldn’t help but raise my right hand to everything in front of me, raise my middle finger, and sincerely let out an exclamation.

"****!!!"

Why did I say that...

Hmm, let’s put it this way.

Many people might not have been hospitalized, but at least they’ve been to a hospital.

You don’t have to eat pork to know what a pig looks like, right?

So here’s the question.

What kind of room is usually placed beside an infrequently used emergency stairwell and located at the very end of a building?

Hmm... that’s right.

Those urinals standing upright, filled with alkaline rust, along with those makeshift wooden partitions and wooden doors... clearly told me, this was a restroom, commonly known as a latrine.

And it was freaking the men's!!

If it were before, maybe I’d still take a leak before dying, at least die feeling a bit lighter.

But... I’m a woman now, damn it!!

How the hell am I supposed to use a urinal?!

Lie on top of it!?

What do you think this is, a scene from a certain hentai!?

Facing the empty, rust-covered restroom that emitted a strange stench, I stood there in a grand pose, raised a middle finger, sincerely praised it with a "****", and turned around to leave.

But... those footsteps had already caught up!

Plap plap plap plap!

So rapid it was almost inhuman, those creepy footsteps with a revolting rhythm had already rounded the corner of the staircase.

I could even feel that malicious gaze staring right at me...

"FML!!"

No choice left.

I placed my right hand back on the watch and pressed that tiny switch.

With a ‘click’, the feeling of being watched disappeared instantly.

At the same time, everything around me froze again.

But... there was no way I could sprint downstairs anymore.

My leg...

Looking toward the staircase from where that gaze just came, I fiercely raised my middle finger.

"**Your grandma! You seriously have it out for me, huh!! If you’ve got the guts, kill me then! If I die, I’ll haunt you on the spot**!"

Alright!

Got that off my chest, time to bounce!

Limping, forcing myself forward with a broken leg, leaning against the decayed wall, enduring the disgusting sticky sensation from the wall seeping into my injured palm, I made my way to the next room over, then pushed the door open and went in, closed the door exactly the way it was, then headed straight to the table in the living room, crawled underneath, and quietly waited for that final second to end.

‘Buzz!!’

The world around me once again let out that eerie vibrating sound.

At the same time, time clearly began to flow again.

The plap plap footsteps also sped by like the wind, and in the blink of an eye, they had already rushed into the adjacent restroom.

And at that moment, I was thinking...

Time wasn’t on my side.

When I had just rushed down, both game time and real-world time had been paused.

But I had already used it twice.

The current time was 12:09, which meant I had fifty minutes left.

However, judging by my leg, even if I moved quickly, getting from the top floor to the bottom would take at least twenty minutes!

In other words, the time I had left to think was only thirty minutes.

This game shouldn’t present something that’s practically unsolvable.

The Honkai APP had assessed that my body couldn’t handle any sudden tasks, so it exempted me from them.

At least until my injuries healed, I shouldn’t encounter anomalies like the city bus incident again.

In other words... the APP must have judged that with my current condition, I still had a decent chance of survival, which was why it let me participate.

But with this leg and my starting gear...

Right... the doll?

Touched my neck—at some point, a necklace had been hung around it.

The necklace appeared to be made of silver or some other soft metal, and at its top dangled a small cloth doll, barely the size of a palm.

The doll was a creepy little clown.

Though its smile looked normal, it still gave off an eerie feeling.

At the beginning, I had only one substitute doll.

Plus, with my injured leg, the chances of escaping weren't high...

Or rather, physically, the odds of fleeing all the way from the seventeenth floor down to the first and making it out of the building alive were very slim—practically a hundred percent impossible to survive.

So... this game must have some kind of hidden exit point that ends things directly.

And among everything, the only clues I had were those five rules.

Five rules...

Let me go over them again.

There had to be some loophole in them.

‘Rule 3: Players carrying a one-time substitute toy can throw it out to divert the Anomaly’s attention. This gives the player ten seconds. After 1:00 a.m., the substitute toy becomes ineffective.’

‘Rule 4: Players may not leave the hospital room before midnight.’

‘Rule 5: In this game, players must find seven passersby within the scene to join in. Those who survive will become beginner players.’

Rules Five and Four were basically non-negotiable—they were hard rules, with seemingly no loopholes.

No... not entirely.

If players below the fifth floor gathered together, as long as there were more than five people, they would theoretically have a chance to run downstairs within a minute.

If each of those five players had a substitute doll, and each could distract the Anomaly for ten seconds, then four of them would definitely survive.

From this ten-second key point, it seemed like the Anomaly needed ten seconds to reset after attacking one person before it could go after the next.

In other words, if they were below the fifth floor, and five players coordinated perfectly, they could use five substitute dolls to buy a total of fifty seconds.

Fifty seconds... would be enough for five people to run from below the fifth floor and escape.

But that required... five players from the lower floors to meet by chance, coordinate flawlessly, and remain calm the entire time.

That’s an ideal scenario, but in reality, it was incredibly difficult.

Substitute dolls were basically a second life.

Who... would hand over their life to a stranger?

It was a trap—a trap that looked doable, but was actually impossible.

If five people really tried it... they’d probably all die together.

Because if even one person hesitated, the other four would die with them.

No... at least the one who hesitated would survive.

Still, that rule was useless to me.

Even if there were five people, they wouldn’t take a burden like me along.

I didn’t want to admit it, but this was the darkness of human nature.

So... Rules Three, Four, and Five were basically completely useless to me.

Then... were there any loopholes in Rules Two and One?

Wouldn’t open cabinets on their own, wouldn’t crouch down to check under tables or beds...

In other words, even if the Anomaly knew someone was under the bed, it could only...

"Ugh~"

The stabbing pain in my calf interrupted my thoughts, and those plap-plap footsteps didn’t seem to have noticed my presence.

After lingering in the room for a moment, the sound faded—it seemed to have gone downstairs.

But... I didn’t choose to leave right away, because it really seemed like there were loopholes in Rules One and Two.

‘Rule 1: The Anomaly will not open any cabinets or crouch down to look under beds or tables.’

‘Rule 2: Players must escape the hospital before 1:00 a.m. After that, the front world and back world will reverse, and the Anomaly will instantly lock onto the player’s position.’

Why could the substitute doll buy players ten seconds?

Why... couldn’t the Anomaly open cabinets or check under beds and tables?

Why the time limit... what was the reason for that??

What loophole had I failed to notice?

I thought for a long time, but still couldn’t pinpoint it.

Damn... there must be something I missed!

Frowning, I was sure there had to be some kind of loophole in the rules, but I just couldn’t identify it.

And right at that moment, I suddenly heard a scream coming from downstairs—sounded like a man??

"Judging by the sound... it should be from two floors below, which means, that thing went down??"

The sound definitely came from below!

That meant, even though I hadn’t figured out the loophole in the rules, I still had a chance to move on!

Go or not?

Do I even need to think?

Going is better than dying here!

Thinking that, I forced myself to crawl out from under the table with my broken leg.

The scream had already faded completely, and my phone vibrated slightly in my pocket—an incoming text... looked like someone else had died.

I crept to the door, looked both ways, then leaned my ear close to listen.

After confirming it was silent, I leaned on the wall and had just taken a single step out the door when, suddenly—right beside me... came a sound.

‘Clang!’