Chapter 2

The administrator grabbed me by the collar with one massive hand and lifted me into the air.

Mocking laughter echoed all around me.

"She wants to see who? The bosses of Happy Home? Is she trying to get herself killed?"

"Exactly! She's just a human, yet she dares pretend to be related to the instance bosses? Even the administrator doesn't recognize her!"

I stared straight at the emaciated administrator in front of me, his eyeballs bulging out of their sockets as they locked onto mine.

"You're only a mid-level ghost. You can't even meet the bosses yourself. So how can you be sure they never adopted a human girl?" I said.

A flicker of hesitation flashed through the administrator's blood-red eyes.

But my brother immediately sneered.

"Even Dad can only build relationships with mid-level ghosts. The bosses are top-tier ghosts. How could someone like you possibly become their adopted daughter?"

The hesitation in the administrator's eyes instantly vanished, replaced by fury. He slammed me hard onto the ground.

Pain exploded through my body, my bones feeling as though they'd shattered apart. Still, I forced the words out through clenched teeth.

"Your superior ghost is the janitor, am I right?"

The administrator's expression changed drastically.

"How do you know that?"

After all, in most players' eyes, the janitor was an insignificant character. Just a kind-looking old grandmother. Most players never paid her any attention.

Only insiders knew that Granny Rosa, the janitor, was actually a high-level ghost.

Seeing the administrator hesitate, my father let out a dismissive laugh.

"She just got lucky with a random guess. She's only trying to scare you! She hit Nicole just now. Rip off one of her arms, and I'll give your wife ten thousand dollars in the real world!"

His vicious words instantly dragged me back into memories of my previous life.

Back then, Nicole constantly provoked low-level and mid-level ghosts. She stole their belongings and mocked them as idiots. Then she shoved me out to take the blame.

I cried as I tried to explain that I'd done nothing wrong—that it was Nicole who had angered the ghosts. But my parents and brother never believed me. Instead, they accused me of slandering Nicole.

"How can you be so vicious? Nicole is so kind! She'd never behave as rudely as you claim!"

Some weaker ghosts had originally intended to spare me after learning I was their bosses' adoptive daughter.

But my parents and brother bribed those lower-level ghosts with money, ordering them to tear my body apart and stitch it back together over and over again, until I was reduced to pieces.

Without hesitation, they covered Nicole's eyes.

"Nicole, don't look. She's filthy."

Not once did they remember that I was their biological family. Simply because I hadn't grown up beside them, they used my suffering in the horror game to entertain Nicole. They even tortured me to death for her amusement.

So this time, I wouldn't spare them out of some pathetic attachment to family either.

"Ten thousand dollars… or your own life. Administrator, you'd better think carefully before answering me."

I stared coldly at him as I spoke.

But before he could respond, another mid-level ghost, the old gatekeeper, walked over impatiently.

"What's taking so long? Why haven't you brought them inside yet?"

Seizing the opportunity, Nicole rushed forward to complain.

"Gatekeeper, you're here too! It's all this bitch, Alison's fault! She keeps claiming she's the adopted daughter of your bosses! She even says she knows Granny Rosa personally!"

The hunched old gatekeeper suddenly straightened, his body swelling larger as razor-sharp claws pressed against my throat. He bared his fangs with a sinister grin.

"Granny Rosa has never once mentioned you to me! Your parents are under our protection in this instance, so they at least have some standing here! But you? Who do you think you are?"

The gatekeeper had always been defeated by Granny Rosa.

The two of them had fought several times in hopes of advancing into a high-level ghost, but he had never once been her match.

Now he could only rely on the dirty money he earned from the real world to maintain his reputation and fight for promotion during the next ranking evaluation.

That was why hearing Granny Rosa's name infuriated him so much.

For the sake of his future promotion, when my father proposed throwing me into the horror game to "learn manners," the gatekeeper had confidently invited them all in to enjoy my misery. Then he used the opportunity to extort an even higher protection fee.

But this time, not only would he fail to advance, he would probably lose his life too.

I grabbed hold of his clawed fingers in return. Blood dripped steadily onto the ground as I turned toward my parents with an amused smile.

"So these two mid-level ghosts are your trump cards? Well, it seems you're all going to die today."