This Stand-In Is Acting Strange in the Horror Dungeon

[178 cm sinister-entity cleanup specialist bottom × 196 cm instance boss top] [Infinite-loop story / horror game / all NPCs transformed / reality consumed]

[Mutual secret crushes; the stand-in is the real person]

Yan Wuqiu is the ultimate cleanup specialist in a full-immersion game, slaying every sinister entity that hunts players inside its instances.

To make things easier, Yan Wuqiu always enters instances pretending to be a new player.

By chance, he sees the face of the person he loves beneath the mask of an instance’s sacrificial divine emissary, and is left shaken. After that, the instances begin to warp.

The next time he enters an instance, he becomes the duke’s most beloved adopted son.

The duke, wearing a face identical to Song Xunyan’s, demands, “Who are you looking at through me?”

In another instance, he becomes an outsider secretly meeting with a wealthy merchant.

The master of the Liang residence, wearing that same face, tells him, “I’ll let you treat me as a stand-in.”

…

At first glance, players dismiss Yan Wuqiu as “a rookie who doesn’t know when to quit.”

But then something seems off: the hidden bosses in the instances cling to him, while the sinister entities flee in terror at the sight of him.

Players discover that whenever he is in an instance, the clear rate skyrockets.

From then on, people on the forums turn their stories about him into legends, eagerly passing them around.

When the instances invade the real world, Yan Wuqiu decides to destroy the System’s core.

Memories long sealed away surge back. It turns out he once ruled everything here…

*

In the real world, the top was adopted by the bottom’s maternal grandparents. He later returned to his wealthy birth family and became a CEO.

In the instances, everyone who looks like the top is the top. In reality, he is aloof and restrained, but when controlled by the System inside an instance, he acts in ways that go against his nature.