<The Great Mage’s Mansion>.
It was a horror game created by a horror game company based on a romance fantasy setting, and it became a massively successful famous title.
Every character had bright and sparkling high-quality illustrations.
The maps and background structures perfectly recreated the mansions and imperial palaces of romance fantasy nobles.
Various ending combinations depending on the player’s choices.
The player could choose to play from the perspective of either the heroine, “Yeniel,” or the villainess, “Evelyn.”
The story itself was fairly simple.
Welcome to the Great Mage’s Mansion.
The doors of the long-closed Great Mage’s Mansion open.
The mansion was the great legacy of the Great Mage, who had aided the Empire’s first Emperor and the four founding retainers before ultimately sacrificing his own life.
Imperial nobles and distinguished guests led by the Crown Prince hold a splendid party inside the Great Mage’s Mansion.
While everyone is celebrating the Empire’s endless future prosperity—
The world flickers, and cursed words are written across the banquet hall walls in red blood.
<The Emperor, and the four whom I believed were my comrades.
They betrayed me.>
<I will never forgive you who murdered me. I will surely kill even your cursed descendants who inherited your blood.>
As the hidden truth is revealed, the once beautiful Great Mage’s Mansion twists into a horrifying and grotesque place.
Those carrying the blood of the first Emperor and the four founding retainers are dragged into the hidden world, where they are brutally killed and toyed with inside the Great Mage’s memories.
Heroine <Yeniel Jenes>
A baron’s daughter from the Imperial faction.
Hints are provided during puzzles. Suspicion rises slowly. You can enjoy romance and collection elements. (Recommended for beginners)
▷ Villainess <Evelyn Devnoir>
A duke’s daughter from the Noble faction.
Puzzles proceed without hints. Suspicion rises quickly. (Not recommended for a first playthrough)
Will you choose?
[YES]
[NO]
After that, both the heroine’s side and the villainess’s side work to escape the mansion, but—
“Uwaaaah! Kyaaaah!”
A scream loud enough to tear apart the room echoed everywhere.
As soon as the scene where the mansion twisted appeared in the prologue, I looked at my screaming older brother in disbelief.
“Hey. Are you insane?”
“Aagh! Blood! Handprints! Aaaagh!”
I was the one actually controlling the game, but my brother sitting next to me was the only one terrified out of his mind. The sight of him wrapped in a blanket while clutching a cushion was ridiculous.
The scene showed blood-soaked hands pounding simultaneously against the banquet hall windows from outside.
“You said you already completed all 100 endings. What the hell are you so scared of?”
“I’m scared, okay?! Aagh!”
“If this scares you, how did you even clear the later parts?”
I didn’t particularly like games. Especially not horror games where the protagonist spent the entire time running away trying to survive.
The only reason I played horror games at all was because my cowardly older brother, who had zero talent for gaming, would beg me to clear them for him because they were too hard.
Unlike my brother, I was actually pretty talented at games. My so-called “physical skills” were good. Whenever my brother made me take visual reaction tests or reflex speed tests, I always ranked in the top 1%.
But honestly, <The Great Mage’s Mansion> was a relatively easy game even without reflexes like mine.
It just had an absurd amount of jump scares and devices designed to create fear.
As long as you didn’t make mistakes, the player’s faction could usually escape alive.
Fortunately, April—the foolish noble lady who lightened the gloomy atmosphere—appeared on screen.
[Lady April: Lady Yeniel!]
[Yeniel: Lady April…?]
She appeared with brilliant light surrounding her like a halo.
New players supposedly became mesmerized by her first appearance illustration because it was so beautiful.
Even among <The Great Mage’s Mansion>, famous for its high-quality illustrations, the foolish lady April was considered the number one beauty.
Platinum-blonde hair, long platinum eyelashes, pomegranate-colored eyes, mysteriously parted red lips. Wearing a white dress, she looked almost like an angel, but—
[April: April is going to put flowers in her hair. Father says I look like a baby deer when I do this.]
[Sian: ……. Lady, are you incapable of reading the mood?]
[April: Sir Sian, does April look like a baby deer?]
[Sian: …….]
[Yeniel: …….]
My brother, who had been trembling moments ago, finally seemed relieved and started grinning.
“As expected, only April can save me! April! You are my light!”
“What are you even saying?”
April’s family, the Sharon Marquisate, was a swordsmanship family. For generations they possessed outstanding physical abilities and combat power, but unfortunately their intelligence was said to be a bit questionable.
April, the family’s only daughter and precious youngest child, had also inherited the family trait of being simple-minded and pure.
Thanks to that, April provided small comedic scenes and breather events that eased the player’s tension.
But once the game entered its darker middle and late sections—
April always died.
With my brother alternating between trembling and laughing beside me, I continued through the latter half of the game.
Since the true ending route couldn’t be seen on the first playthrough, I had to clear it a second time as well.
Finally, after defeating the final boss and sending the character through the mirror—
Congratulations! You escaped the hidden world.
Achievement Unlocked!
Cleared the game without dying once.
Clear Time 29:37 (New Record)
“Wow, this is insane. Thank you! Seriously, thank you so much!”
“That’s enough now, right? Buy two chickens. I only eat seasoned chicken, so make sure one is seasoned. And add a large cola.”
A hidden story popped up on the screen, but I didn’t really care about the game’s lore, so I moved aside and let my brother watch it instead.
The reason my brother had suddenly brought back this game, which had been released over three or four years ago, was because the official developers of <The Great Mage’s Mansion> had recently announced that Hard Mode would be released soon.
Could my brother even handle Hard Mode when he struggled with the normal mode?
That was my final thought.
‘I wish the chicken would get here already.’
Before I knew it, <The Great Mage’s Mansion> and the foolish noble lady April were slowly fading from my mind.
…Or so I thought.
How would you explain waking up after sleeping and finding yourself inside the body of that beautiful-but-empty-headed noble lady?