#004
I couldn’t understand the reason at all. It hadn’t even been half a day since I took the calming potion, so it couldn’t be panic. (The effect of calming potions varies depending on the situation, but usually lasts about a week.) Although my stamina was quite depleted, I wasn’t dizzy enough yet.
“Huh…?”
While examining my stamina bar, I unexpectedly discovered something wrong with my health bar.
It was natural for my health bar to decrease bit by bit since I kept getting bitten and scratched by small monsters. But wasn’t it too much for it to drop more than half when I hadn’t even fought any major battles? The speed at which it was decreasing was quite fast too. There was only one cause for health to steadily decrease like this without major external injuries.
‘Poisoning…?’
Did I get bitten by a venomous insect on the way? Or did I get scratched by poisonous plants without knowing? I tried to avoid going near bushes and walked only in the middle of the path… but I might have brushed against something without realizing it. If not that, could it be the aftermath of diving in that dirty water? But I definitely got out of the water within 3 minutes…
‘Besides, it’s still early in the game.’
At this stage, even if it were poisoning, the symptoms shouldn’t be this severe.
I hurriedly examined my stinging skin. There were marks on my arms and ankles as if they had been tightly bound with bandages and then loosened, and those areas were swollen red.
“Damn.”
I let out an involuntary groan. I thought I knew the cause. The red marks concentrated on my limbs, especially my ankles, were clearly marks from being wrapped by seaweed.
“Isn’t this too much?”
The seaweed that had been just an ordinary sea plant throughout the tutorial turned into a monster as soon as the main game started, which was already absurd, but it even caused serious poisoning? Isn’t this a difficulty adjustment failure?
“Squeak!”
One pure white rabbit monster fell down from my swinging hoe. But small rabbits and squirrels were still clinging to my back, shoulders, and legs, showing no signs of falling off. While I was staggering from weakness, the ones I couldn’t shake off had significantly increased.
From a distance, it would be a peaceful scene with fluffy cute fur balls hanging on. It might even look like cotton dolls dangling from an overcoat. But if you looked closely, these guys were desperately trying to sink their large front teeth into me and tear off my flesh.
Their biting force was weak and their teeth and claws weren’t sharp, so I managed to endure, but even that had reached its limit now. My clothes and the small monsters’ fur were gradually being stained a deeper blood red. Dark red blood was dripping drop by drop on the ground with each step I took. My vision was rapidly blurring.
‘If this continues…’
I fell to my knees on the road. I had lost even the strength to support my own body. The mass of small monsters constantly rushing at me felt like being crushed by a huge rock.
“Gasp, hah.”
My head was spinning. I was short of breath and nauseous. I vomited several times, but having eaten nothing, only bitter fluid came up.
‘What? Am I going to die on the first day as soon as the main game starts?’
It was so absurd I was on the verge of letting out a hollow laugh. I had died on the first day twice before. Once on the day I was dragged into the game world when I couldn’t grasp the situation and just went “uh, uh,” and once more in the next round when I fell into panic and couldn’t do anything. But even then, I was eaten by sharks or crocodiles, not bitten to death by rabbits and squirrels.
Whether it was the effect of the calming potion or my mind had gone due to the seaweed’s toxicity, the feeling of dying wasn’t maddeningly unfair or scary. It was just somewhat, no, very absurd.
‘They said this time I’d really die. If I die like this, what happens to me? Will my existence itself be deleted like erasing data? Going back to reality… that’s not possible, is it?’
I suddenly thought that dying in this state might not be so bad. It’s much better than being torn apart and killed by a giant monster while my senses are intact. Anyway, in this condition, I don’t think I could handle even common ordinary monsters. Even now, the seaweed’s poison seems to be acting like a painkiller since I can’t even tell if it hurts, so it might actually be fortunate.
But then.
“Even so, being eaten by small fry like this is a bit much, isn’t it?”
I heard a low murmur. At first I thought it was an auditory hallucination, but black shoes appeared before my fallen eyes. I blinked my blurry eyes. They were polished dress shoes. Not a speck of dirt despite being on a mountain path. Was that even possible?
My fading consciousness briefly awakened. I didn’t have the strength to lift my head, so I just slowly rolled my eyes upward. Well-pressed dress pants and the hem of a trench coat swaying slightly in the wind came into view.
This guy didn’t know about TPO. Who comes to the mountains dressed like that?
‘Well, it is a game.’
Come to think of it, even if I had to go to a banquet hall or wedding venue right now, I’d have to go in these same old, dirty work clothes. This NPC might be in the same situation as me, having to wear only high-end suits day and night.
‘No, wait, that’s not right. The game has become reality.’
While I have no money so I have no other clothes, a wealthy person who can afford high-end suits wouldn’t be a one-suit gentleman, would they? Moreover, this game originally paid considerable attention to NPCs’ fashion, with major NPCs appearing in various outfits according to seasons and situations.
Now, who was it that went around in suits like this? The mayor? No. The suits he wore weren’t of this high-quality material. His legs weren’t this long and well-proportioned either. Just the voice alone… Huh?
‘Wait, this voice is… But no. It’s not time for him to appear now, is it?’
I must have been mistaken because my consciousness was hazy. In fact, the sound was echoing so I couldn’t hear it properly anyway.
“No response. Don’t tell me he’s already dead?”
The black shoe tip poked at my dazed cheek, then came down to lift my face. My head was lifted involuntarily, but my vision was already blurry, and the sunlight pouring through the dense trees was breaking above his head, making his face hard to see.
“Who could this be? It’s my ex-husband, isn’t it?”
And I heard something strange. Ex-husband? Me? It was definitely a man’s voice, so what kind of nonsense was this?
I frowned in bewilderment, but thinking about it, this game was also a romance simulation, and as long as you were single, romantic partners weren’t limited by gender. I too had romance and marriage events with several female NPCs. And there was one case where I even married a male character, and that partner’s name was…
“…Carlisle?”
Carlisle Lightinger. The face I had thought of when I heard the voice earlier.
He was the first character I was encountering since entering the game world, meaning I had never met him in the previous 9 tutorials. Carlisle originally appeared from autumn onward, but I had never survived until autumn. But why was he appearing from the early stages now…
“Should I say I’m glad you remember me?”
A gentle laugh was underlying Carlisle’s voice. But ominously, it didn’t sound particularly warm.
“I never imagined I’d meet my former spouse in such a state.”
Well, anyone would feel that way.
But the current me was different. Even in a worse state than this, no matter who the other person was, I needed to meet someone now.
What this situation was, why Carlisle Lightinger appeared now, even why he was talking about former spouses when everything had been reset to the beginning for the first time – if I thought about it with a sound mind, there were more than a few strange points, but I didn’t have the luxury to think about such things now.
Because I was dying.
“Help me…”
I barely squeezed out my voice that kept getting blocked.
When Carlisle touched my face, a few creatures near my head fell off, but the swarming small monsters were already covering my body like a fur coat, no, like a fur blanket. Although dull, they kept gnawing with their front teeth without rest, and the dirt ground around where I lay had already been deeply stained a dark red color.
I believed without doubt that Carlisle would help me. Not because we had been married, but because he wasn’t originally a villain character.
If he were an ordinarily good person, he wouldn’t ignore someone else in this situation. Like most NPCs in this village, he too, even if there were some cold aspects to his expression or tone, had always been an ordinarily good person. He wasn’t even a complete stranger.
But.
“Help you… Well. Why should I do that? I’m not particularly inclined to.”
The answer I heard went against my expectations.
“…?”
It was an indifferent and bored tone. I doubted my ears. Why wouldn’t he help someone who was dying? Was he a psychopath? Was Carlisle Lightinger a psychopath?
No, that couldn’t be. Nowhere in his character setting was there mention of him being a psychopath. He had a taciturn personality and a cold impression, but he was actually a kind person once you got to know him. I had been surprised by his unexpected aspects more than once or twice during romance and marriage events. Most importantly, this game wasn’t even a crime thriller genre, so there was no way a psychopath would appear.
No, wait.
‘Then could it be… because of the marriage…?’
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
