Left in a Horror Game, Adopted by the Boss Chapter 02
When I woke up, I was lying in a huge, impossibly soft bed.
The blanket was light and warm—nothing like the little mat in the storage room back home.
Ever since Lily came to live with us, my bedroom had belonged to her.
Mom said she was too frail for the dust in the storage room, so I had to make do there.
The man beside the bed had been watching me for a long time. He wore a dark robe, and there was something ancient about him, like a black forest at midnight.
He looked down at me, cold and unreadable.
“You held my leg and called me Dad all night. Now that you’re awake, do you still mean it?”
I scrambled off the bed and nodded seriously.
“Yeah.”
I didn’t know how to make him like me, so I fought to mop the floors, organized his items, and peeled the biggest, sweetest oranges for him every single day.
At first, the man always frowned. But eventually, he set up a room for me and made the monsters in the castle call me little master.
He… he was the game’s final boss—Lord Corvus!
Three years passed in what felt like a blink.
On the day the Infinite Loop Game officially launched, the Main System forcibly recalled all test-server bosses for data calibration.
Before leaving, Lord Corvus walked me back to my room and made me repeat his instructions.
“When the dungeon is reconstructed, you must carry the core in my place.”
“You won’t be able to use your talent that day, so you cannot leave the castle. Understood?”
I promised I wouldn’t. I watched him disappear into a swirl of black mist.
The next moment, the heavy core pressed into my chest.
My whole body went weak. Gold sparks flickered across my vision.
That was when the castle doors burst open and a group of players streamed inside.
Among them were Mom, Dad, and my adopted sister Lily—after three years.
Dad saw me and rushed over with red-rimmed eyes.
“Nora! Dad finally found you!”
I stepped back on instinct. The silver tray in my hands crashed to the floor.
Oranges rolled everywhere.
Dad’s hand froze in midair. His face darkened.
“Three years, and you can’t even call me Dad?”
I answered quietly, “Sir, I have a father now.”
Mom slapped me across the face.
The impact sent me crashing into the edge of the table. I tasted blood in my mouth.
“Your father is alive! How dare you call someone else Dad? Do you have any idea how messed up that is?”
Lily hid behind Mom and said in that soft, fragile voice of hers,
“She’s probably still blaming us.”
“If the exit hadn’t collapsed back then, Mom and Dad never would have left her behind.”
The players with them suddenly understood. They looked at me like I was trash.
“So she’s just throwing a tantrum because she doesn’t want to face her own parents.”
“Mr. Hart spent three years looking for her. What more does she want?”
The team leader aimed a livestream camera at my face, and the chat exploded across the screen.
[Her parents literally risk their lives to find her and she calls them Mr. and Mrs.?]
[No wonder they left her behind. She’s a heartless freak.]
Mom saw the chat and sobbed even harder against Dad’s shoulder.
Lily dutifully wiped Mom’s tears. But when she looked at me, the corner of her mouth curled into a smirk.
I touched my numb cheek and looked up at Dad.
“Back then, I could have left. You gave my chance to Lily.”
Dad’s eyes darted away, then snapped back with anger.
“Lily had no talent. If she stayed, she would’ve died.”
“You could obviously survive. Why do you always have to go against her?”
Mom cut us off, impatient, and shoved a map in front of me.
“We can deal with the past later.”
“You’ve lived here for three years, so you must know where Boss Lord Corvus is. Take your sister to get his heart.”
I shook my head, furious.
But Dad pulled out an S-rank collar and locked it around my neck.
The cold ring tightened instantly.
He yanked the chain and dragged me toward the Thorn Garden, already crawling with monsters.
