He eventually discovered an old post on a local student forum, also published eight years ago.
The discussion revolved around "the DPS incident." No one explicitly stated what had happened, but everyone participating in the discussion seemed to understand the context.
That was how these things worked.
Everyone who needed to know already knew. Everyone else was left to piece together fragments and rumors.
In this old forum thread of the school, Surya found mentions of both Priya Gupta and Karan Sharma.
Here is what he found:
[Gupta was really foolish.]
[What? I think Suicide is actually admirable, it needs courage.]
[Do not talk nonsense! Suicide does not solve anything.]
[Sharma is a coward.]
[He just got scared, right?]
[It was Sharma who suggested the suicide pact to Gupta. After she jumped into the lake, he chickened out?]
[...]
Through these vague messages, Surya roughly pieced together what had happened at Delhi Public School eight years ago.
Priya Gupta and Karan Sharma had both been students there.
For reasons that remained unclear possibly failed romance, academic pressure, family issues, who knew the two had agreed to commit suicide together in the school's artificial lake.
It was undoubtedly a foolish and impulsive decision.
The kind of decision that teenagers made when they thought their problems were insurmountable and death seemed like the only solution.
On the appointed day, Priya had drowned herself in the lake. Karan, perhaps overcome by fear of death or other last-minute doubts, had ultimately abandoned the suicide pact.
The result was that Priya died on the spot, while Karan survived.
That was the basic story, though the specific details could not be reconstructed from these fragmentary forum posts.
But the major things were clear enough.
A promise made.
A promise kept by one person.
A promise broken by another.
And now, eight years later, the one who kept the promise was a water ghost still waiting by that lake.
"That happened eight years ago. So there is a high probability that Karan Sharma is still alive and well Right?"
Living his life, going to work, probably trying very hard not to think about the girl who died because of his suggestion.... Or maybe thinking about her every single day.
Who could say?
Surya closed the forum and searched for information about "Sharma Trading Company."
[The Water Ghost by the Lake, Priya Gupta, needs you to deliver an important letter to Karan Sharma. Try searching the Sharma Trading Company building with luck, you might find the person you are looking for there.]
After accepting the water ghost's quest in the game, Surya had received this mission prompt.
This search quickly yielded results.
Sharma Trading Company was an investment firm. The company building was located in Connaught Place, about an hour away by metro from his home.
So not just alive, but apparently successful.
Running an investment firm in one of Delhi's premium business districts.
Meanwhile, the girl who died for their shared promise was still haunting a school lake.
"If Karan is still alive, then the Sharma Trading Company building mentioned in the mission prompt is not referring to some unopened game map, but the actual real-world company."
"There is a good chance I will find Karan alive and working at Sharma Trading Company."
Surya gently pressed his right thumb against his teeth, lost in thought.
This was new territory.
All his previous game interactions had stayed firmly within the game world.
But now the game was asking him to go to a real location, to interact with a real person, to deliver a message from a ghost to the man who let her die alone.
After a moment, he sat up in bed and opened his school bag that had been carelessly tossed on the floor.
Besides textbooks and notebooks, it contained several damaged paper dolls, a tattered ancient manuscript of "Panchmukhi Art," the Liar's Needle, and a piece of white paper dampened by water vapor.
These were the items Surya had obtained during his time playing "Bhoot Katha."
He pulled out the white paper.
The paper remained perpetually damp, as if it would never dry, and no words were visible on its surface. Just blank, wet paper that should not exist in reality but somehow did.
"A letter that Priya asked me to deliver to his supposed to be boyfriend Karan."
Surya muttered to himself, his eyes thoughtful and uncertain.
Spirits from a game world wanting him to deliver messages to real people in the actual world.
This was getting complicated.
This game is not so simple it seems.
What would happen when he delivered this letter?
Would Karan even be able to see it?
Would he remember Priya?
Would he care?
And more importantly, what would Priya's spirit do once the letter was delivered?
Too many unknowns.
But then again, when had this game ever given him complete information?
He was always working with partial knowledge, making his best guesses, and hoping he did not die too badly.
Surya stared at the damp letter for a long moment, then carefully tucked it back into his bag alongside the other supernatural items that were slowly accumulating in his possession.
Tomorrow was Saturday. No school, which meant he could dedicate more time to exploring the game world and trying to increase that pathetic 36% exploration rate.
He set his phone alarm for 5:30 AM and settled back against his pillow, mentally preparing himself for another weekend of supernatural deaths and slow, grinding progress.
The weekend passed in a blur of failed exploration attempts and creative deaths.
---
[GRUESOME DEATH]
Red letters slowly emerged from the dark screen.
Surya's consciousness returned to reality once again.
"Damn, dead again."
It was around 6 AM on Monday morning.
Surya had arrived at school early as usual and played the game in the gulmohar grove.
This time he had chosen to explore the northern district and academic building area of Delhi Public School in the "Bhoot Katha" world.
He had spent considerable time carefully avoiding the headless students wandering the pathways, and had finally found what seemed like a monster-free entrance to the main building. The very next second, a headless female student hiding in the corner of the hallway had ambushed him.
No chance to react whatsoever.
This world truly had danger lurking everywhere. Every corner, every shadow, every seemingly safe space could hide something ready to kill him.
Over the entire weekend, plus this morning's attempt, he had spent a total of five lives. Surya had not found any new NPCs in the game, nor had he picked up any new items. He had simply died in various creative and unpleasant ways.
Death by ambush. Death by mob. Death by wandering into the wrong room at the wrong time. Death by turning a corner too quickly. Death by existing, basically.
Additionally, his map exploration was not progressing smoothly.
According to the location mission prompts in the game, Surya had only explored 36% of the Delhi Public School in the "Bhoot Katha" world, still quite far from the required 80% completion rate.
There were simply too many areas where headless students wandered around, making them impossible to approach safely. The cafeteria was a death trap. The library was swarming with them. Even the hallways had patrol patterns that overlapped in ways that made sneaking through nearly impossible.
"However, I am starting to get somewhat used to this almost abnormally high difficulty level."
Which was either a good sign of adaptation or a bad sign that he was becoming desensitized to repeated supernatural death. Probably both.
As usual, Surya picked up the new substitute paper doll that had appeared on the ground, shouldered his bag, and left the school grounds.
This one was particularly mangled. Whatever had killed him this time had not been gentle about it.
Today he had requested a day off from his Class teacher and planned to take advantage of the weekday to visit the Sharma Trading Company building in Connaught Place to see if there was any chance of meeting Karan.
He had given some excuse about a family matter that needed attending to. The teacher had not questioned it much. Surya was not exactly a troublemaker, and his attendance record was otherwise spotless.
Whether he could actually complete this quest that spanned both the game world and reality remained to be seen, but at the very least he needed to investigate the situation.
After leaving school, Surya did not immediately head to the metro station. Instead, he found a small bookstore to kill some time.
The purpose was to wait out the morning rush hour.
During peak morning hours, every metro car heading into the city center was packed with people like sardines in a can. Bodies pressed against bodies, the smell of sweat and cheap cologne, no personal space whatsoever.
Surya had no desire to subject himself to that claustrophobic nightmare.
He browsed through manga volumes he had no intention of buying, flipped through magazines, and generally looked like a student with too much time on his hands. Which, technically, he was today.
An hour later on the metro.
Although he had avoided the morning rush, there were still no empty seats in the car.
Surya found a spot near the doors and stood there, put in his earphones, and gazed out the window with that artificially melancholic and aloof attitude that seemed to come naturally to teenage boys.
The pose was very important. Stare out the window. Look thoughtful. Appear mysterious. It was an art form, really.
As the train moved forward, the changing scenery outside the window and Surya's reflection in the glass constantly overlapped and separated, creating an oddly cinematic effect perfect for brooding self-contemplation.
"Just an ordinary high school student," Surya commented to himself mentally.
Just an ordinary student who happened to die in another world, transmigrate into a new body, and gain access to a supernatural horror game that granted real magical powers. Completely ordinary.
He also noticed that a professional woman wearing a white blouse and carrying a leather briefcase kept stealing glances at him throughout the journey.
She was probably in her late twenties, with her hair pulled back in a neat bun and wearing minimal makeup. Every time he glanced in her direction, she quickly looked away, pretending to be fascinated by her phone.
There was no helping it—attractive people always drew attention wherever they went.
With his current appearance, he definitely possessed what could be called "protagonist halo." The kind of face that made people do double-takes, that got him extra attention from teachers and shopkeepers and random strangers on the metro.
Yet the original owner, blessed with such a face, had still died in despair after a failed confession.
It really was a case of playing a winning hand badly. Having every advantage and somehow still managing to lose.
"But now that I am in control, that kind of pathetic outcome will not happen again. I am actually quite skilled at playing my cards well after all, I managed to play them successfully in my previous life too."
He had survived to twenty-three in his original world. Had a decent job, a small apartment, a reasonable life. Nothing spectacular, but nothing terrible either. He knew how to manage resources, how to plan ahead and most importantly he knew how to survive in this brutal world.