When the owner of the horror game world summoned me home to reunite with my family, I was busy scolding the horrors in my dungeon.

After spending years as a dungeon boss, I finally learned that I was the heiress of the Swans in the real world.

The moment I stepped through the front door, carrying the gifts my horrors gave me on my back, the fake heiress shoved me hard to the ground.

"Don't even think you can come back and take my place! Mom and Dad will never love you!"

My birth parents treated me with indifference, made me sleep in the storage room, and used me to make their fake daughter look good.

At a banquet, my fiancé splashed red wine on me before acting intimate with the fake heiress right in front of my face.

It wasn't until the fake heiress was chosen to participate in 'Call of the Sea', a horror scenario, that they remembered my value.

Without any hesitation, they bound me to enter the game with her, gently reassuring her, "Don't worry, Anna, we'll make sure you're safe no matter what!"

"Don't be afraid, alright? Sylvia will die in your place!"

None of them noticed the mocking smile on my lips.

Silently, I spoke in my heart, 'Welcome to my dungeon! Now, none of you will leave alive!'

When I woke up again, it was to the scent of salty sea air and the feeling of damp, sticky sand on my palms.

Meanwhile, my biological parents and my fiancé were comforting Anna somewhere nearby.

When they saw me wake up, however, their faces immediately darkened coldly.

"It's all your fault! You bring around so much misfortune with you that you got Anna caught up in this mess!"

"If it weren't because you weren't willing to kneel and lick Anna's shoes, the scenario wouldn't have been activated in the first place!"

Hah!

Anna was the one who was completely insistent on summoning the horror scenario, but now they somehow pushed all the responsibility onto me.

There were ten people who were summoned in total. Only the five of us knew each other, while the rest were all strangers.

When these strangers heard that even my family was blaming me, they quickly joined in as well, thinking their words to be the truth.

"Are you mad? If you have a death wish, go do it yourself! Don't drag us all into it!"

Some of them even gestured to attack me.

Just then, however, a robotic voice came out of nowhere.

[Welcome to the horror scenario, Call of the Sea. Please head towards Sea Village, find the village chief, and obtain the Villager's Code of Conduct.]

At that moment, a man with an afro, who shall hereby be called Afro, who seemed very experienced with scenarios, breathed a sigh of relief.

"Whoof, at least this is just an A-ranked mythological scenario. As long as we follow the rules, no one's going to die."

Oh?

I looked towards the endless expanse of sea, the blood-red vapor wafting off of it making me curl my lip in satisfaction.

Much earlier before I returned to the real world and found my birth family, I had already long been dissatisfied with how bosses from other dungeons looked down on us, so I'd spent quite some time lecturing the horrors under my supervision.

Looking around now, I noticed that many parts of the scenario had been altered.

Which meant I was very curious to see what kind of surprises they had prepared for me.

At first, we all decided on following the system's guidance to Sea Village, but no one was willing to be the vanguard even though the difficulty of the scenario was low.

Afro saw that the five of us knew each other, and so quickly banded together with the other five to go against us.

"You're the ones who activated this dungeon, so one of you needs to take the lead!"

He had barely finished speaking when my parents shoved me from behind, almost making me stumble to the ground.

"What are you looking at? Are you expecting Anna to take the lead? She's our precious little girl, who we've raised with care since she was little! Not some useless mongrel who's spent their time running around in the dirt outside!"

I only wanted to raise my head, but my fiancé stepped forward and slapped me hard.

"Don't glare at Anna like that, you'll scare her!"

Hiding behind them, Anna sniffled pitifully.

"Don't be so mean to me, Sylvia. If it weren't because you couldn't let go of your pride, we wouldn't have gotten caught in this mess anyway!"

I was so angry I actually started trembling.

When Anna told me to kneel and lick her shoes in public, I obviously refused.

In retaliation, she summoned a horror scenario to threaten me, and now this was somehow all my fault?

As my emotions raged in turmoil, even space itself in the dungeon started to shift unnaturally.

Forcing myself to calm down, I smiled softly, agreeing to their request for me to lead the way.

This was my dungeon, after all. Who was going to attack me on my own turf?

If they did, they'd face retaliation from the dungeon itself!

The entire way there, no one saw a single soul, and we only started seeing signs of life when we came closer to the village.

When we saw the villagers, however, Anna couldn't help but screech, "These aren't villagers, they're all monsters!"

In the past, the villagers in my dungeon did look like humans through and through. However, as a result, they didn't seem scary at all, and didn't feel comfortable with human skin, either.

Therefore, I told them to just show up as they were, and now they truly were a sight to behold.

Each of them had the head of an aquatic animal, and the body of a human being.

When they heard Anna, all of their gazes converged upon our party.

Our group was immediately surrounded by the villagers.

The one at the very front, a man with the head of an octopus, walked so close to me that I could almost feel the slime on his tentacles.

When I went to the real world, I'd asked the boss for a mask that hid my true identity. I didn't want my so-called family to see my true face, after all.

The mask itself was quite high-level, so Octopus Face and the others didn't recognize that I was their boss.

"Monsters? Who said that?"

His deep voice rumbled, and the others immediately distanced themselves from us.

"They're the ones who said it! The five of us were in the back!"

Octopus Face came closer and closer with the other villagers, and Gerard, my fiancé, held Anna tightly in his arms.

Meanwhile, my parents stood forward, protecting them while pointing at me instead.

"She's the one! We've all had a proper education, so there's no way we could be so prudish!"

"Yes, this wench is the one who cursed you out! You must punish her!"

With everyone pointing fingers at me, Octopus Head wrapped his tentacles tightly around me in an instant, muttering under his breath, "Find the chief. Lock her up."

The players, who had been wondering how to find the chief, perked up immediately.

Gerard immediately suggested, "Let's follow these villagers!"

Then, he even started praising Anna, "You're so smart, Anna! You solved our first problem immediately!"

Anna's cheeks flushed red, and she accepted the praise without a hint of guilt.

"It's nothing, really. Sylvia just had it coming for not keeping her mouth shut!"

To them, I looked as if I was almost going to suffocate from the tentacles that were wrapped around me, but it was all just a ruse.

If anything, I was beyond satisfied.

After the update, just the attack power of my villagers alone was enough to kill two or three players without any issue whatsoever.

What I was more curious about was what changes the village chief, who had always been the quintessential kind and caring old man, would bring.

The party walked for another ten or so minutes, before they finally realized that the villagers walked at a snail's pace. As anxious as they were, however, none of them dared to ask the villagers to hurry up.

The last person who had offended the villagers was still wrapped in tentacles, after all.

Under the blazing sun, the party walked for an entire half hour before arriving at the village square.

"Is this a stone altar?"

"Aren't altars par for the course when it comes to myths about the sea? What's there to be surprised about?"

The party discussed amongst themselves carefully, before Afro exclaimed, "Wait, that altar isn't made of stones, it's made of human skulls! Wasn't this supposed to just be an A-ranked dungeon? How did so many people die here?"

At the center of the square stood a massive watchtower built entirely from human bones.

The village chief appeared, and with his face that looked no different from a human's, he stood out against the non-human-looking villagers.

When he saw the outsiders, he walked towards us with a kind smile.

"Ah, do we have new visitors? Are you here to stay in our village? Don't worry, we love visitors around here, so you'll definitely have a lovely ten-day stay here!"

Then, he waved his hand, gesturing for Octopus Head to set me down, before looking at me meaningfully.

Then, he scolded, "Have you learned nothing, you lot? You must be polite when dealing with visitors! Apologize to them now!"

The party's eyes glistened with hope.

"The village chief seems like a sensible enough person… If we stay with him, we won't be in any trouble, and-"

The very next second, all of our faces were splattered with warm blood.

Octopus Head had cut off one of his own tentacles, handing it toward us with its other tentacles.

"Apology. Eat."

The still-writhing, bloodied tentacle made Anna and the others retch instantly.

At that moment, the village chief took out a handbook bound in human skin, with the words Villager's Code of Conduct written in blood.

He smiled, revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth.

"Once you've eaten your fill, you can learn about the rules in our humble village."

No one was willing to eat.

Once again, all eyes turned toward me.

Without shame, they shoved all the tentacles into my hands.

"You're the one who angered the villagers! This apology is meant for you, so stop dilly-dallying and eat it already!" Gerard barked at me like an order.

I looked up, and everyone else looked away while Afro forced me down.

"Looks like we can only progress if we eat these tentacles! What, are any of you volunteering to eat instead? Show of hands?"

Quickly, the strangers held me down to the ground, while my own father stuffed the writhing tentacles into my mouth.

The suction cups clung to my throat, suffocating and painful, and I couldn't help the tears that came flowing out of my eyes.

Finally, I collapsed onto the ground, while the others accepted the handbook from the village chief.

With disgust on her face, my mother threw a copy of the rules at me.

[Rule 1: Each villager must throw one stone into the sea every day.]

[Rule 2: Villagers cannot leave their rooms at night.]

[Rule 3: The Villagers' Code of Conduct is proof of identity. The chief will inspect it every night.]

…

And so it went on, all seeming like rules that didn't hurt in the slightest as long as you followed them.

But then, the final rule seemed to be the key toward clearing the entire scenario completely.

[Rule 10: Defeat the final boss to clear the scenario.]

How were we supposed to defeat the boss?

Everyone fell into deep thought, silent.

At that moment, the village chief handed everyone ten gold coins each, used to buy items at the small shop in the village.

By the time I caught my breath, they had already rushed off to buy gear for survival.

After exchanging a glance with the village chief, I quietly followed them as well.

After Afro took a look at all the items that were on sale, he exclaimed, "Look at all the anti-bird items here! I'm telling you, the final boss must be some sort of seabird!"

"Seems like whoever defeats that thing will get the reward for this scenario!"

But at that point, none of them had enough coins to buy anything that would have been useful.

More ironically, the highly-priced items were all the gifts that the Swans had discarded, the ones that I had tried to give them upon returning.

The discomfort in my throat still hadn't faded.

I took out my coins, planning to buy a digestive solution, but Anna's voice came from beside me.

"Mom, Dad, I want to buy the Sea Maiden's Dress. This banquet dress is too heavy and hot…"

The outfit she was talking about cost ten gold coins, which was the maximum amount everyone had at the moment.

Thus, no one was willing to spend any money to buy something so useless.

Then, my father ordered, "Take out your money and buy her that dress, Sylvia!"

"Why should I? I was the one who helped you eat…"

My mother cut me off coldly. "What do you mean, helped us? You're the one who called them monsters, so you deserved it."

Gerard stepped forward without hesitation and tried to snatch my pouch. I clutched it tightly, refusing to let go.

"If Sylvia doesn't want to help, then forget it…" She sniffled pitifully. "I'll just continue dragging everyone down, wearing this dress.

"She can buy her digestive solution, and the seabirds are going to have a better appetite to eat us all after it eats her…"

The moment she said that, the others stepped forward.

However, since this was a survival game that meant life and death, none of them were willing to be used as pawns so easily.

"That outfit is basically useless anyway, that's true. How about this? We can split her ten coins in half. We'll take five, and you four can take the rest for her dress. Deal?

"Besides, she already swallowed part of a monster's body. She might mutate soon anyway. Giving her coins is pointless."