Just as he finished all this, clapped his hands, and was about to go to bed, Liam White heard the sound of a door opening and closing from the room next door, along with a series of stealthy footsteps.

Liam White paused just as he was about to lie down. All the rooms around him were ones he had booked himself. The rooms on either side of him belonged to Andrew Carter and Jeffrey Howard. To protect (?) himself, Liam White had deliberately arranged for Lucy Carter to stay in the room farthest from his.

The sound of the door opening and closing came from the left, which was Jeffrey Howard's room. Liam White got up from his bed, pressed himself against the door, and looked through the peephole into the hallway. Jeffrey Howard glanced around, and after confirming that there was no one in the corridor, he furtively went down the hotel stairs.

Liam White frowned. What is Jeffrey Howard doing, sneaking out in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?

He was just about to open the door and follow, when Liam White saw the doorknob of Jeffrey Howard's room, which had been closed, begin to slowly turn again, as if someone else was about to come out of Jeffrey Howard's room after him.

Each hotel room was for one person only.

There should only be Jeffrey Howard in his room. Lucy Carter would never go to Jeffrey Howard's room in the middle of the night, and Andrew Carter had a bad relationship with Jeffrey Howard, so he definitely wouldn't go looking for him at night. Liam White himself was in his own room.

So who was this person coming out of Jeffrey Howard's room?

Liam White's heart skipped a beat. He suddenly realized something and moved his face slightly away from the peephole.

What was coming out of Jeffrey Howard's room was not a person!

The doorknob of Jeffrey Howard's room turned with a click and finally slowly opened from the inside. Liam White once again heard that dull dragging sound he had heard in a half-awake state, as if something was being dragged along the floor on its knees.

But this time, Liam White knew what was making that sound.

A human-sized mermaid statue came out of Jeffrey Howard's room. Its face was frozen and motionless, completely expressionless, its eyes lifelessly white due to the lack of pupils. Its fish tail was on the ground, scraping and dragging itself along the empty hallway in the dead of night. Its snow-white, heavy tail dragged across the hotel's sturdy, old red carpet, its entire body remaining perfectly still as it moved toward the stairs, reminding Liam White of zombies—those stiff monsters that could only move by hopping.

...This thing can actually get out of the room by itself, and even open doors...

As the mermaid statue dragged itself out of Jeffrey Howard's room and reached the stairwell, it seemed to sense something. Its neck twisted stiffly a full 180 degrees, its head turning all the way around on its shoulders, and suddenly it changed direction, expressionlessly heading toward Liam White's room.

Liam White's heart leapt. He quickly crouched behind his own door, swiftly covering himself with a white sheet, leaving only his eyes exposed.

After making sure the door was locked, Liam White shrank into the lower right corner of the door, wanting to see what this thing was up to. Soon, he saw the peephole on the door turn white and start spinning.

The thing was pressing up against the door, trying to look inside with its eyes. The spinning object was the statue's white eyeball, and it was searching through the peephole for anyone inside the room.

This terrifying scene was projected onto the big screen, and everyone waiting in front of Liam White's small TV held their breath, so tense they were almost biting their nails.

“Shit, shit, shit, this is so scary. If I were in the game, my sanity would definitely drop...”

“Hold on! Hold on! The death rate for newbies in this area is super high!”

“The main thing is, when players first enter, they know nothing, and then they get trapped in the room by a monster—they can’t even run! The only option is to find a weak spot to attack.”

“And the monsters in Siren Town are disgusting. It’s really hard for newbies to stay calm and find this thing’s weakness when they first get here...”

The new players on the screens around Liam White had also reached the part where the mermaid statue blocks the door. Some players were a bit faster, and the mermaid statue outside their door was banging loudly. On the screen next to Liam White, a player was crying and hugging their ears, curled up by the shaking door, trembling as they held a wooden stick, apparently ready to attack. Every time the mermaid statue slammed into the door, the player would cry out and scream, but no one came to save them. After the door shook a couple of times, it stopped, and it seemed like the mermaid statue outside had left.

The crying player wiped away their tears, breathing a sigh of relief as if they had survived a disaster, and stood up, weak in the knees and hands as they leaned on the door.

But what they didn’t notice was that the peephole on the door was still white—a pure white stone eye was staring into the room through the peephole.

The mermaid statue hadn’t left at all. It was pretending to leave to see if anyone was inside. When it saw the player stand up, a strange and stiff smile appeared on the statue’s face. It smiled with satisfaction, as if it had found its prey. The door was suddenly slammed twice more, easily broken open. The player, caught off guard, screamed as they were crushed under the door. The mermaid statue dragged its heavy tail as it glided into the room, the smile on its face radiating a bizarre purity and a twisted ferocity, as it opened its arms and slowly reached toward the player pinned beneath the door.