"Maybe it is because of my high charm stat, the [Liar's Needle] is incredibly effective against female targets it seems.
This little silver item has a rare quality rating, which puts it a whole tier above those excellent-grade items like the sacred Ganga water and Hanuman's vermillion-covered mace."
On his way home from work, Surya muttered to himself as he walked through the quiet residential streets, if someone heard him now they will think he is a madman.
Good thing the streets were mostly empty.
During his evening shift, he had discreetly tested the silver needle's effects on store manager Kavya, employee Sharma, and two different customers who had come into the shop.
The results were remarkably satisfying.
Almost too satisfying, if he was being honest to himself.
As long as Surya's lies were not completely outrageous or obviously impossible to happen in daily life, both Mrs. Malhotra and Sharma would choose to believe him unconditionally, almost as if they were under some kind of subtle mind control.
He suspected that if he were bold enough and morally flexible enough, he could probably convince them to hand over the store's entire cash register, and they would probably thank him for it.
The thought was part thrilling and some part terrifying. That much power over people's perception of reality was not something to take lightly.
Of course, such malicious manipulation was something Surya would never actually do in real life.
He had standards and principles that even with supernatural assistance he will not take what is rightfully not his.
Plus, getting arrested for theft would really put a damper on his whole "survive and get stronger through a supernatural horror game" plan.
Prison and supernatural games did not mix well...well that do fit quite well but you got the point.
Additionally, through careful testing, Surya had discovered an important limitation that he needed to remember when using the [Liar's Needle]:
When he lied repeatedly to the same target while holding the silver needle, the chance of being caught gradually increased with each subsequent lie told to that person.
Therefore, he could not just pick one victim and continuously deceive them.
The magic had built-in diminishing returns against repeated targets.
It made all sense, really.
Even mind-altering magic had its limits. You could not just spam the same trick over and over and expect it to keep working forever.
That would be too broken, even for a rare-quality item.
As he walked and reflected on these discoveries, Surya turned into a narrow side street. He was almost home now.
He lived in a modest neighborhood not far from the more commercial districts of the city, where the sounds of traffic and urban life created a constant background hum even late at night.
The alley was quite narrow, with dim streetlighting that left plenty of shadows.
Cigarette butts and empty food containers were scattered along the pavement, and electrical wires hung low overhead, creating an oddly oppressive atmosphere.
Since it had rained earlier in the day, there were still several puddles of water reflecting the bright moonlight like scattered mirrors on the dark asphalt.
There was a modest apartment building tucked into the alley, and Surya could see the external air conditioning units and drainage pipes that had been somewhat haphazardly installed on the building's exterior walls.
When Surya's gambling father had still been alive, the father and son had lived together on the second floor of this very same building.
Not the happiest of times were those. But at least the apartment was still here, and it was still affordable.
Although Barely.
The apartment was roughly 600 square feet it has one bedroom, one small living area, and one bathroom.
The space was getting old and showed signs of wear, but it was reasonably clean and did not have any unpleasant odors.
Which was more than could be said for some of the other units in the building.
The apartment was rented, of course, with monthly rent of 100 dollars a full one third of Surya's work pay.
This fixed monthly expense made Surya's already tight financial situation even more challenging.
One hundred dollars might not sound like much, but when you were only making three hundred total, it was a massive chunk of your income.
Therefore, maintaining his part-time job while keeping up with his studies was absolutely essential for his survival.
No job meant no rent.
No rent meant homelessness.
Homelessness meant no safe place to rest between supernatural death games.
The logic was depressingly simple.
After returning home, Surya took a hot shower to wash off the day's stress, then lay back on his bed and pulled out his cell phone.
"Bhoot Katha," he said, opening the app.
[No opened map found. Please go to the designated location to start the game.]
Well, this annoying game was still the same while he knew it already but still he couldn't help but open it.
It could not be started normally unless he was physically near the gulmohar grove at Delhi Public School.
Which meant no convenient late-night gaming sessions from the comfort of his bed which is type of punishment for gamers actually.
He had to actually drag himself to campus at ungodly hours if he wanted to play.
What kind of mobile game required you to physically travel somewhere to start it?
Oh right, the supernatural horror kind.
After exiting the game, Surya turned his gaze to the slightly water-stained ceiling and began reviewing what had happened that day particularly what he had seen and experienced in the supernatural game world.
"The water ghost I met in the game what was her name again?...oh yes Priya Gupta."
"In the original owner's memories, it seems like a drowning incident really did occur at Delhi Public School many years ago."
The memory was vague, filtered through the original Surya's general disinterest in school gossip.
But it was there, a shadow of something tragic that had happened before he arrived.
After thinking this through, Surya opened the browser on his phone and started typing keywords:
"Delhi Public School," "drowning incident," "student."
After spending considerable time filtering through irrelevant information and several articles about completely different schools on forums, he found a press release from eight years ago published by a local Delhi newspaper.
Tragedy at Delhi Public School - Student Drowns!
The report was brief and routine. The victim's name was not recorded, and the cause of drowning was listed as "still under investigation," but it included a photograph of the drowning site.
The photo showed a corner of the artificial lake at Delhi Public School.
"So the artificial lake at school really did claim a student's life."
The image of the water ghost appeared in Surya's mind pale, waterlogged, wrapped in aquatic plants.
That had been a real person once.
Someone who had walked the same halls he walked on school, sat in the same classrooms as him, ate in the same cafeteria.
Alas...
There was no follow-up coverage of the drowning incident in subsequent newspaper issues, so Surya added "Priya Gupta" to his previous search terms, paused for half a second, then also added "Karan Sharma."
This time it took much longer to find useful information.
The search results kept giving him random people with those common names, none of them connected to the school or the incident.
He eventually discovered...