"Are you ready?"
The speaker was a middle-aged man standing before the round table. By his appearance, he seemed to be the current Patriarch of the Le Domas Family, as well as Alex's father.
Holding a pitch-black small box in both hands, he slowly placed it onto the tabletop.
"A long time ago, my great-grandfather, Victor, met a gentleman named Le Bail."
"It was precisely through that gentleman's generous funding that our family was able to build the massive gaming empire we have today..."
As the Patriarch recounted the history of the family's growth, he pushed the black box toward Grace.
"And among the many items from the collection Mr. Le Bail left to us is the box you see before you."
He stared intently at Grace, his expression one of excitement. "Whenever a new member joins the family, we insert a blank card into this box to replace one of the games."
"The new member must personally press the mechanism to draw a card. The will of Le Bail will determine which card you draw, thereby deciding what game we play tonight."
The Patriarch made a welcoming gesture and looked at Grace expectantly. "My dear, it is your turn now."
Grace clearly hadn't realized the gravity of the situation yet; she simply found this mysterious, theatrical ritual somewhat ridiculous.
She picked up the heavy box and pressed the mechanism on the side as instructed.
At that moment, Sephirot, hidden in the shadows, sensed an ancient demonic power manifest within the wooden box, manipulating the cards.
Click.
The mechanism popped open, and Grace pulled a card from within.
Beside her, Alex's face instantly turned deathly pale the moment he saw the writing on the card.
"What's on it?"
The Aunt Grace had seen earlier in the hallway leaned her hands on the table, urging her impatiently.
Grace flipped the card over, displaying it openly to the others.
Written in English on the card in her hand was a single phrase: hide and seek.
"Are we... really going to play this tonight?"
Grace looked around at everyone, unable to stop herself from laughing.
The idea of a group of adults gathering just to play hide and seek seemed utterly juvenile to her.
Alex looked toward his father, the Patriarch, for help.
Sitting opposite them, his brother Daniel gripped his wine glass tightly, his pupils shrinking in shock.
The expressions of the other family members around the table fluctuated wildly.
Some were stunned, others were fearful, but for most, there was an irrepressible sense of excitement.
Seeing the bizarre reactions of the crowd, Grace toyed with the card in her hand and looked at her husband in confusion. "What's wrong?"
Alex clearly hadn't expected his wife to be this unlucky. He froze for a moment; now, he could only hope that Sephirot lived up to his reputation and could protect Grace until dawn.
"It's... it's nothing. It's just family protocol."
The middle-aged Patriarch left his seat, walked slowly behind Grace, and rested his hands on her shoulders. "This game," he whispered, "is your initiation ritual."
"So, tonight, you are the one who hides."
Having said his piece, the Patriarch walked over and knocked on the door, signaling the butler outside that he could open it.
"Grace, listen. Go find that bodyguard, Sephirot. No matter what happens, stay close to him. He'll protect you!" Alex hissed, gripping Grace's hand tightly during the brief interval.
"No! Alex, I want to play this game properly."
Grace pulled her hand away, feeling that her husband was being far too neurotic.
"It feels strange, but it's your family tradition after all. I don't want to ruin it."
The Patriarch returned and ushered Grace out of the room.
He said to her, "The rules are simple. You can hide anywhere you like within this mansion. We will count to a hundred, and then we will begin searching for you."
With that, he shut the door to the room without mercy.
Grace looked at the closed door and sighed helplessly.
She turned around and looked at Sephirot, who had been standing silently in the hallway, and shrugged.
"Listen, regardless of what my husband just told you, I want to enjoy this initiation game of mine tonight."
Sephirot looked at the naive woman, a faint smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "Of course, Ma'am. I promise you will fully experience the 'fun' of this game."
He shifted his will slightly.
In the next second, Grace felt a sudden darkness before her eyes, and her entire being vanished into thin air right there in the hallway.
Going by the standard tropes for dealing with victims in horror movies, even if he knocked her unconscious now and tucked her away in a safe place, there was a high probability she would suddenly wake up at the most critical moment.
Then she would run out screaming, bringing him a mountain of unnecessary trouble.
Rather than waiting for the inevitable disaster, it was better to send her directly into Silent Hill.
As his mastery over Silent Hill grew, he was now capable of personally sending living people inside, no longer needing to act through Alessa's hands.
Since she wanted to play a game so badly, he would let Alessa accompany her in the Otherworld for a proper round of play.
After transmitting the thought "don't play her to death" to Alessa, Sephirot sat down on a sofa.
Now, all he had to do was sit here quietly and wait for the game to end at dawn.
—--
Helene Le Domas, her face cold and stern, pushed open the doors to the family armory.
Thirty years ago, on a midnight just like this, she had been forced to personally kill her husband after he drew the Hide and Seek card.
Since then, hunting down newcomers with brutal methods had become the only pleasure she had to fill the void in her heart.
Helene browsed the weapon racks carefully until a double-edged battle axe caught her eye. She took down the axe, its heavy weight coaxing a sickly smile to her lips.
Surely, it wouldn't be long before everyone dragged that little slut Grace out of whatever rathole she was hiding in.
When the time came, she would use this axe to split her chest open and listen to her scream for mercy in total despair.
However.
Things did not proceed as smoothly as she had anticipated.
The seven or eight members of the Le Domas Family, along with several maids and the butler who had been pressed into service, were all scouring the premises.
Armed with various weapons, they climbed through every nook and cranny of the mansion, but after searching for a long time, they hadn't found so much as a trace of Grace.
It was as if Grace had simply vanished from the face of the earth.
"Damn it! Did she already make a run for it?"
Empty-handed, the group gathered before the monitors in the security room.
To honor the traditions of the hunt, the wall of surveillance screens had been kept turned off.
The short-haired woman, with her sharp and sophisticated look, slammed her bow onto the table in frustration and cursed.
She had married into the Le Domas Family purely for their fortune.
She had no intention of losing her life over some woman she barely knew.
"Turn on the monitors and check," the short-haired woman said.
"We can't."
The current Patriarch of the Le Domas Family looked grave, rejecting the proposal without a second thought. "What if cheating during the game angers Mr. Le Bail?"
"To hell with Mr. Le Bail!"
Helene roared, "If we don't find that woman and complete the ritual before dawn, we're all dead!"
"Since we're dead either way, why not use the monitors to find her? Do you want us all to just sit here and wait for death?!"
These words instantly struck everyone's weak point.
Silence fell over the security room.
Several family members turned their gazes toward the Patriarch.
His expression shifted uncertainly as he glanced at the countdown clock on the wall, a flicker of panic surfacing in his eyes.
Finally, he nodded to the butler: "Turn them on!"
The surveillance screens flickered to life.
The group immediately crowded around the console, searching for the footage of the last place Grace had been seen.
The time on the playback was set to the moment after they had finished drawing the cards.
On the screen, Grace, still in her wedding dress, stood before the guest named Sephirot, saying something to him.
But in the next second, a scene occurred that made everyone's skin crawl.
Without any warning, and without the footage lagging or skipping a single frame, Grace simply vanished into thin air.
A chorus of "fuck" echoed through the security room.
The Patriarch stared fixedly at the screen, cold sweat beading on his forehead.
On the monitor, after Grace had disappeared.
This friend Alex had brought home was sitting leisurely on the sofa, looking as if he were waiting for something.
"What are we waiting for?"
Helene gripped her battle axe, her eyes filled with murderous intent.
"He's the one who hid her. Go grab him! I don't believe his mouth is tougher than my axe!"
(Translated by yourtl.app)