My Three Vampire Queens In The Apocalypse-Chapter 30: The King In Yellow

After wandering around for a while longer, carefully avoiding anything that looked like it could eat me, bite me, or charge at me like my toxic boss, I finally reached the place I had been looking for.

In front of me stood the entrance to an underground parking lot. It was bathed in a faint green glow that looked welcoming... if you ignored the whole apocalypse setting.

This place was a safe zone. There would be no zombies and dinosaurs waiting for me inside. It would be just peace. Just... paid peace.

There were quite a few of these scattered across the city, acting like little pockets of sanity in an otherwise completely insane world.

Honestly, whoever designed this system had a twisted sense of humour. "Here, have safety... but only if you can afford it."

I stepped inside, the green light washing over me, and immediately felt some of the tension leave my body. My shoulders relaxed a little as I let out a quiet breath, then reached into my bag and pulled out my phone.

Time to refresh my memory.

[You have entered a ’safe-zone.’ 100 coins have been deducted.]

Ah, right.The part they conveniently didn’t tell before entering. Didn’t even ask if I wanted to enter or not, but oh well.

"Yeah, yeah, take my money," I muttered under my breath as I opened the diary in the Notes app.

Did I forget to make it clear that it costs coins to enter?

If I did, then let me make it very clear. You need coins. Actual, hard-earned, life-risking coins.

What, you thought the Hosts suddenly grew a conscience and decided to help us out a little?

Please, you’ve got a better chance of your ex texting you back with a sincere apology.

A Host being kind? That’s not happening. If anything, they would probably charge you extra if the [Probability] allowed it.

And the worst part was that the price didn’t stay the same. As days passed, it would keep increasing. One hundred would turn into two hundred, then four, then eight, and before you knew it, the entry fee would look like a phone number.

At that point, I probably wouldn’t be able to afford it even if I sold everything I owned.

...Or, well, almost everything.

I paused for a second, a thought crossing my mind.

"Okay, but realistically speaking..."

I looked down at myself.

"...would people pay to watch a guy who looks like me twerk for coins?"

There was silence for a moment before I reached the conclusion.

"Yeah... probably."

I nodded slightly, as if confirming a very important hypothesis.

"Not my proudest backup plan, but we stay flexible."

Shaking my head, I focused back on the diary and started skimming it. The writing was rushed, some parts messier than others, but it was still readable enough.

Surprisingly, it took far less time to read the whole of [Third Scenario] than I expected.

"...That’s it?"

I scrolled back and forth, hoping I had somehow missed something important.

But, nope. That was all.

"I really should have made better notes."

I clicked my tongue in annoyance and rubbed my forehead. Back then, I barely had time to write anything down. The only free time I got was during my commute, which was about two hours one way.

That gave me roughly four hours a day, which sounded like a lot... until you realized what I was dealing with.

When a single dream could stretch on for what felt like months, cramming all that information into a few hours was like trying to fit an entire library into a notebook.

It just didn’t work. So I ended up writing only what caught my attention at the time.

And let’s just say... My attention had questionable priorities.

Important survival detail? Might skip.

Some weird, random, completely useless observation? Oh, that’s getting a full paragraph.

"...Brilliant."

I let out a quiet sigh and closed the diary halfway, staring at the cover for a moment.

"If I had known my dreams would turn into this... I would have done a much better job."

There was no point in regretting it now, because no amount of hindsight was going to rewrite what I had or had not written down. What mattered was that I was not walking into this completely blind.

After all, I had watched that psycho woman go through this scenario one thousand five hundred and thirteen times.

Yes, I counted.

And no, that was not a healthy experience.

By the end of it, I had picked up a lot of information despite being greedy for more. I understood many patterns, places, sub-scenarios, and hidden pieces. It was not perfect information, but it was enough to keep me from dying like an extra in the opening scene.

"The main objective of the third scenario..."

I muttered quietly, more to organize my thoughts than anything else.

"...is to stop the descent of him."

Even saying it like that felt wrong, as if giving it a name made it just a little more real.

The King in Yellow.

It was not a monster and not something you could measure with levels and stats and then beat to death with enough effort.

This was something else entirely.

If the things outside were threats you could run from or fight, then this was the kind of existence that made those options meaningless. The King in Yellow was not dangerous because of strength alone, but because of what it represented.

Madness.

It wasn’t the simple kind, the kind people joked about or shrugged off, but something deeper and far more insidious. It did not attack the body first. It slipped into the mind, quietly, patiently, and by the time you realized something was wrong, it was already too late.

Your thoughts would start to feel... off. Your decisions would stop making sense.

And the scariest part was that everything would still feel normal.

I exhaled slowly, recalling what I had seen over those countless runs.

People standing still and smiling at nothing. People laughing until their voices gave out, as if they had just heard the funniest joke in the world.

People calmly walking toward death like it was the most reasonable choice they could make.

There was no panic or resistance. Just acceptance.

"...Yeah. That’s not something you fight head-on."

I rubbed the back of my neck and looked down for a moment before continuing.

The real problem was not the King in Yellow itself, but its descent.

If it fully entered this world, then that was it. No clever plans, no last-second escapes, no miraculous comeback. The scenario would end, and so would everyone in it.

I had seen that outcome play out more times than I cared to remember.

Which meant the objective, as simple as it sounded, was borderline insane.

Stop the descent.

Interrupt whatever conditions were allowing it to happen. Break the process before it is completed.

I let out a quiet breath and closed my eyes for a brief moment, already feeling the weight of it settle on my shoulders.

"...And do all of that while staying sane."

A faint, tired smile appeared on my face.

"Yeah... no pressure at all."