I Became A Ghost In A Horror Game
Chapter 121: Lewis Carroll The Bellman

The sound of a ship’s bell rings out.From a giant ship floating above the branch, a strange song flows.

This marks the beginning of a joyous and mad Snark hunt.

The crew sings as they infiltrate the Institution’s building, and they accelerate the hunt, pouring attacks onto the building.

“Captain! Alice must be here in this world!”

“Of course, my buddy. She is anxiously waiting for us there.”

“I’m excited! I’m very excited… This time, she’ll have black hair. If she does, I’ll take her!”

Alice. Where are you, Alice?!

The shouts and hands yearning for Alice stretch out greedily.

A black hand reaching out from the gates of hell moves towards Alice.

POV Switch – Alice

“…Carroll?”

My thoughts can’t keep up with the incomprehensible sound.

Carroll? And all those thousands of intruders share the same soul?

It’s like… a multitude of doppelgangers moving.

“Be careful.”

A small bee was flying towards me as I stood blankly.

James crushed the bee with his gauntlet.

Have they already infiltrated this far?

When I went outside, I saw a monster controlling bees attacking the agents.

I immediately summoned a fire-manipulating monster and burned it whole.

“I took care of it. It’s probably not an ordinary bee, so if you get stung, get treatment quickly.”

I saw that each of them seemed to be injured, so I sent the agents to the infirmary through the mirror.

James gave me a short thank you and immediately contacted agents in other areas with his communication device.

The sound from the communication device seemed quite urgent.

“We are currently eliminating the intruders. There are too many, making it difficult to eliminate them all!”

“It would be best to activate the bulkheads, but due to a system error, the bulkheads are not activating. So, you should lower the non-activated bulkheads through the central system. We will investigate the situation further here.”

“Understood!”

With those words, James manipulated the surrounding systems to activate the bulkheads.

“This blocks the path to the center. We’ll look for the cause, assuming this isn’t a simple intrusion.”

“Yeah, there’s no way those kinds of enemies would appear without any warning.”

They must have used a mirror portal, just like me.

Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense.

Therefore, finding the portal the enemies are coming through should be the priority.

“What on earth does it mean that their souls match Carroll’s?”

“Even if you ask me, I don’t know…”

James was just as embarrassed.

Even if we wanted to speculate, there’s too little information.

Crack-!

Before we could even talk for a moment, we heard the sound of a bulkhead breaking.

James raised the output of his gauntlet and stepped back, and I retreated with him.

It must be the monsters who attacked the branch.

Bang!

The bulkhead shattered, and a monster with a pig’s head appeared.

“Sniff sniff… Were you having barbecue? It smells amazing! Oh? Who’s this? It’s Alice!”

The guy seemed to know me.

And through the hole in the wall, another monster appeared.

“Squawk squawk. This is lucky.”

A monster with the appearance of a human and a blue bird.

The presence of these two monsters, who appeared so abruptly, felt awkward.

They don’t seem to have any connection.

If I had to say, the common point is that they have animal characteristics?

“Do you know me?”

“Know you? Of course, I do! I’m Lewis Carroll!”

“Me too! Unfortunately, she doesn’t have black hair. I’m disappointed.”

Lewis Carroll?

I was stunned by the absurd claim.

However, the Institution’s soul scan revealed it to be true, which was confusing in its own way.

I showed a brief gap, and the monsters immediately took out something and threw it at me.

Chains?

Clang!

Chains wrapped around my wrists.

And they started pulling me.

I realized their purpose.

The target is me.

And it’s kidnapping!

But I’m not weak enough to be dragged away by mere chains.

Clang!

I broke the chains with a hand chop and glared at them.

“I won’t be taken down by something like this.”

The monsters, seeing my strength, shouted in surprise.

“Wha-what! She’s not an ordinary girl?!”

“How unique! Sometimes there are individuals like this.”

They acted as if this wasn’t the first time they had encountered something like this.

If it’s not the first time, who were they targeting, and why were they trying to kidnap them?

As I was going to ask about that, I noticed the blood on their hands.

“You… killed people.”

“Why? Are you going to cry?”

“You don’t look human at all. So, I won’t even give you a chance to be forgiven.”

There’s no need to use a monster.

I immediately jumped and kicked the pig’s head, sending it flying.

Crack…!

With that sound, the pig’s head flew off, and a fountain of blood erupted.

The blue bird spread its wings and tried to absorb something from me.

“…It won’t work on me!”

The guy’s rank is low.

Unless it’s a tale-devil, special abilities won’t work on me.

Before the bewildered monster could say anything, I kicked his leg, breaking it, and James finished him off by blowing off his head with his gauntlet.

“It seems each individual has different abilities.”

“It might be overwhelming for ordinary agents.”

We took them down immediately, but that didn’t help us at all in figuring out what kind of group these guys were.

They said some strange things about being Lewis Carroll, knew me, and had the purpose of kidnapping me.

And the way they spoke as if they knew another Alice…

Boom-!

No way. Again?

Bang!!!

“There! Found a big-chested Alice! What a windfall!”

“Th-this isn’t Alice! If she has big breasts, she’s not a child!”

“Where, where? Want to eat some bread, our little one? Want some bread?”

A guy with a bowling ball head, a guy with a baby’s face and a huge, deformed body.

And the last guy who appeared chewing bread.

Again, a bunch of guys with no apparent connection sprang out.

“You know me too.”

“All Lewis Carrolls know Alice!”

“Catch her!”

“I’ll feed you big, hearty bread!”

The monsters rushed at me again to capture me.

I suppressed my irritation and pulled out a knife from the mirror.

And I took out the Beast of Gévaudan to fight for me and crushed them.

“E a t  t h e   b i r t h d a y   c a k e.”

“You eat it.”

I stab the head of the guy trying to shove bread in my mouth with the knife and blow it up.

Phew… When I was about to take a breather again.

Screech!

“Ha…”

This time, an insect-like monster sprang out from the hole in the bulkhead and chased after me.

“It’s Alice! Alice is here!”

Then, a block-shaped human appeared and smiled creepily.

“Heeheehee! You seem like a perfect fit for me!”

“These guys never end!”

“This isn’t good. We will retreat for now.”

“Then I’ll create a wall that’s not easily pierced.”

Before another monster could pop out, I summoned a monster from the mirror.

The summoned monster was Nurikabe.

A wall yokai from Japan that disguises itself as a wall to block passersby or crush them.

Its defense would be useful.

Immediately after summoning, Nurikabe blocked the hole in the bulkhead, and I, not wanting to hear the loud shouting, unleashed a slash using a yokai called the Gap Girl.

The Gap Girl can unleash a strong attack even through a small gap.

It must have worked well, as blood flowed from the bottom of the wall.

I can finally catch my breath.

“To think we’d be outnumbered by the intruding group.”

At this rate, instead of investigating the information that was our original goal, we’d just keep getting chased by those monsters.

Even if I tried to use [Bill the Lizard], it wouldn’t activate unless they were biologically similar, like the followers of the Rulers.

I need to think of another monster to wipe them out in one go.

“Hold on, there’s a call.”

While I was pondering, a signal came to James’ communication device.

A mature woman’s voice comes from the receiver.

“Agent James. Is that you?”

“This voice is… the Witch’s Doll Squad?”

Witch’s Doll? What’s that?

“That’s right. The situation is not good. If the cleaning squad can’t push them back, it’s almost impossible for us to operate.”

“I see… Then would you leave it to us? We have Alice here.”

“Very well. I’ll send the coordinates right away.”

James, finished with the call, noticed my gaze and explained it to me.

The Witch’s Doll Squad is a unit that specializes in curses, and this situation was an incident that occurred through a ritual, like a curse.

“The curse ritual must have a medium of the curse within the branch. They’ve found a place where a strange power is gathered… Here are the coordinates.”

“Alright. I’ll open the mirror.”

I checked the coordinates and opened the mirror to head there.

Going through the mirror, we entered a strange room that was hard to believe was a room in the Institution.

Indeed, as much as the cause of this incident is here, the space seems to be affected by the curse.

We might be able to resolve the situation soon.

There were strange statues in the room.

A bat statue written as Bad Bat.

A rabbit statue holding a sword, written as Cute and Brave Rabbit.

A beaver statue holding the bible with its eyes covered, written as Blind Black Priest Beaver.

What kind of riddle is this?

It seems like these might be mediums creating a portal somewhere… Can’t we just destroy them all?

“Alright. Let’s break them!”

“Alice? Are you there?”

Oops.

Just as I was about to try to solve it, I heard a sound from beyond the room.

Carroll is beyond the wall?

Then who is commanding the branch?

Who authorized it in the control room?

It smells fishy…

“I’m trapped! Please help!”

“If you’re in that wall, should I get you out?”

“Um, I don’t think that’s possible. If I touch it wrong, I might get cut into five pieces.”

What kind of state is that….

“Then what do we do? There’s nothing here but some riddle?”

“A riddle? Can you tell me?”

I told her about the three statues in front of me.

Hearing that, Carroll thought for a moment, then quietly muttered, as if she had a hunch.

“It starts with B. Could it be Snark Hunt? What is this…”

“Huh?”

“Are there any numbers nearby? There should be more clues.”

“Hmm? You’re right. There’s a note that says 3.”

“Then break the Beaver statue.”

I broke the Beaver statue as Carroll said.

Then the wall collapsed, and the trapped Carroll was freed, rolling out.

“Ah!”

“Are you okay? I don’t know how you knew, but I’m glad you’re safe.”

“Ouch… It’s simple. I just matched the number of words starting with B.”

Blind Black Priest Beaver. Now that I think about it, the other statues also had words starting with B.

Huh? Thinking about the guys who attacked us, the things I thought were disparate actually had something in common.

The Bee monster that first attacked us.

Then the pig head mentioned Barbecue, followed by Blue Bird, and then Baby, Bread, Bowling Ball.

Oh my god! They all start with B!

…So what?

What does this mean?

“I’ve never heard of anything like this either. I’m sorry for being incompetent. Even the control was taken away…”

“Who could have predicted this? I’ll tell you about the guys we’ve encountered.”

Carroll’s expression hardened as she listened to my story.

Well, I would have found it absurd too.

“Words starting with B… And they said they were Lewis Carroll?”

“Even the soul detection says it’s true. Honestly, I thought you might be the mastermind.”

“That’s…!”

She looked genuinely shocked, and I felt terribly sorry.

You don’t have to make such a betrayed expression, do you?

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay… It’s a situation where suspicion is understandable. I didn’t do anything well either. Right after Alice refused, I heard some kind of bell, got hit on the back of the head, and when I opened my eyes, I was here.”

A bell… Bell?

Another pun?

I’m getting tired of this.

“Agent James. The reason you came here with…”

“We received information from the Witch’s Doll Squad that this incident was due to a curse and came to destroy the medium. But wasn’t it you who gave permission for the soul scan?”

“Eh, it wasn’t me. I didn’t give any permission. And was there any problem with the defense system?”

“Hmm, the bulkheads didn’t go down.”

“…The branch’s external interception system?”

This branch has an interception system too.

But I didn’t hear any missiles being fired, so was the system deliberately manipulated by someone?

It would be impossible unless it was someone who knew the Institution well…

“It probably wasn’t activated.”

Whooooooosh-

“!”

A loud noise hit us.

A sound coming from outside, not inside.

But the fact that it’s so audible means that they deliberately shot that loud noise from the other side, and at the same time, our location is close to the outer wall of the branch.

Carroll, while covering her ears, hurriedly told us.

“This incident is designed to look like a curse. They put something that looks like a medium and made us come to find it!”

“So, you’re saying this is a trap?”

As soon as the words were out, the ground shook.

And I heard the sound of a bell in my ear.

Clang- Clang-!

Kugugugung!

Simultaneously with the sound of gunfire, the wall of the room exploded like a cannonball, and the outside of the Institution’s branch came into view.

The strength of the wall is by no means brittle!

And to shatter this thick wall, what kind of firepower is this?

When the black dust was pushed away by the fierce cold air and our vision cleared, what came into our sight was a huge ship floating in the sky.

“Found you.”

Kugugugugu…!

Clang!

The ship is charging towards us!

“Dodge!”

Boom!

The ship rammed its body, and I hugged Carroll and James and pulled back to reduce the impact.

A jingling sound was heard through the rising cloud of dust.

A man with a bell on his head.

I instinctively knew he was the mastermind behind this incident.

“Luring a child who likes riddles always works. Nice to meet you, Alice.”

This chapter is based on one of the works of Alice’s author, Lewis Carroll, called The Hunting of the Snark!

You can get a rough idea by searching on Google.

Heya! New site for those who haven’t been checking on the discord server! With the new site I picked up a few more translations, so go check it out!

As always, if you spot any mistakes, feel free to let me know—and I hope you enjoyed the read!

—Chip>