#019
I gradually stopped returning to the house where Carlisle was. I began wandering meaninglessly through forests, seas, and mines, or when even that got boring, I’d go to pubs or restaurants where villagers gathered and camp out until closing time. But spending time with them, who only said the same things repeatedly or showed no reaction at all after a certain number of interactions, couldn’t be enjoyable.
Seasons repeated and events repeated. With updates, new areas would open and new characters and quests would appear, but in the end, it would all be repetitions of similar activities. Even though it was natural since it was a game, I somehow felt drained.
I found it both ridiculous and absurd that I had become so immersed in the game that I desired a character’s attention. I felt the need to live in reality a bit more. I thought I should quit the game for a while. Or play a different game – one without relationship stories.
I could have just not entered the game for a while in that state, but I deliberately demanded a divorce from Carlisle. I wanted to sort out the guy who had made me most over-invested.
“What did I do wrong?”
But when Carlisle said that with hurt eyes, for a moment I forgot he was a game character and my heart sank. I felt guilty as if I’d really hurt a living person. It was partly because I hadn’t expected Carlisle to react this way. Even though he’d been affectionate to me, he was originally a character like an arrogant young master, so I thought he’d just stare blankly and then coldly say he understood and turn away.
“Will begging and clinging change your mind?”
But to think such a line would come from him.
After being dazed for a moment, I hesitantly typed the response “No.” And before Carlisle’s next line could appear, I hastily exited the game.
***
‘You left acting like you’d live well on your own, so why are you like this here?’ What kind of line is that?
“Could he be saying that because the last game ended that way?”
I lay there in a daze after waking up, thinking such thoughts. While I slept, memories of when I used to play the game had surfaced like a dream.
“What are you muttering about by yourself? Are you still not in your right mind?”
Startled by the sudden voice, I tried to bolt upright but writhed again from the exploding pain. Lightning flashed in my head. The pain made it hard to breathe for a moment.
“Is being that injured not enough for you? Did you develop a habit of abusing yourself while I wasn’t looking?”
An exasperated voice continued.
“Ugh…”
I groaned and barely managed to exhale. Compression bandages were wrapped tightly around my torso and arm. Come to think of it, I was seriously injured. I’d been hit by a jeep and that crazy bastard Muchi had broken my arm, hadn’t he? To try to get up by pressing on that injured arm…
‘Still, for being broken, it’s in pretty good condition?’
The pain was no joke, but if it were actually broken, I wouldn’t have been able to press against the ground at all. Though it hurt, it wasn’t to the degree where I couldn’t move.
‘Did someone treat me?’
There was no way it could heal this quickly naturally, so they must have used a potion. Once the dizziness subsided, I carefully sat up again. And I looked at the person who had spoken to me.
Carlisle Lightinger was sitting right in front of me. His face, lit by dim light, was expressionless. His razor-sharp neat appearance was now slightly disheveled.
Or not. Aside from his bangs that had scattered slightly and fallen onto his forehead, his neat suit remained unchanged. It was just that the background where he sat wasn’t a luxurious room or comfortable sofa that gave that impression. I saw the rock wall he was leaning against and the dirt ground where his long legs rested.
‘What on earth is this…’
It was a place that was both strange and familiar. It was a wide cave with bamboo shoot-like rocks jutting up here and there and large mushrooms growing like trees everywhere. Additionally, the corpses of large and small monsters scattered all around made me shudder. Just from their forms, they were incomparable to the small fry I’d encountered in forests or plains.
“Mine dungeon…?”
This was the mine hidden underground beneath Wanderer’s Plains. While Wanderer’s Plains itself was D-rank and an early conquest area, this mine dungeon required separate quests after progressing further in the game and leveling up to enter – meaning it was quite dangerous for my current level.
“Why am I here…?”
I was bewildered. My last memory was of being chased by Muchi’s gang when Carlisle appeared (probably by coincidence) and saved me. I remembered him saying strange things to me, but I had no memory after that. Whether from drugs Muchi had given me or blood loss from injuries, I must have lost consciousness again anyway.
“While you were sleeping so peacefully, quite a commotion broke out. For some reason, even though it was still early, night monsters came pouring down toward us and it became chaos. Muchi set off a bomb while escaping, and whether because of that or what, a passage to the mine suddenly opened.”
Carlisle explained while pointing at the ceiling. I reflexively looked up, but all I could see were dark, damp stone walls. I could guess the rest without hearing more explanation. Naturally, the temporarily opened passage would have closed again after swallowing its offerings. He must have first dealt with the mine’s monsters that attacked as soon as he came down, then caught his breath and treated me.
This time without abandoning me.
Before I lost consciousness, Carlisle had asked why I was “always” in this state. So what I encountered in the forest wasn’t my hallucination either. It was obvious in retrospect. There was no way I could have imagined that appearance, which was completely unlike Carlisle Lightinger, on my own.
“Why did you…”
“Save you?”
Carlisle got up, brushing himself off, with a bored expression.
“After encountering the same situation twice, I thought maybe it’s fate by now. That doesn’t mean I’ll save you a third time though.”
Carlisle delivered the killing blow. What I encountered in the forest had been real. But “a third time too” – you abandoned me the first time, you bastard.
“…Right. Anyway, thank…”
Still, it was true that he’d saved me this time, so I tried to express my gratitude first. But my words were cut off.
“The medicine should have taken effect by now, so you can walk, right?”
Carlisle extended his hand. Thinking he was trying to help me up, I reflexively reached to take his hand but hesitated. Wasn’t his expression too cold to be showing kindness? Carlisle was giving off an aura that while he had acted to save and treat me due to circumstances, he found it all quite distasteful.
Moreover, unlike before, he was wearing only a suit jacket without a coat, and as I realized this, I also noticed that his missing coat was spread beneath my bottom.
So he wasn’t trying to help me up – he was extending his hand asking for his coat back. It was extremely fortunate that I noticed before grabbing his hand. If I had grabbed his hand without realizing, how absurdly would he have looked at me? I almost created a dark history that would make me kick the blanket dozens of times in my sleep.
I barely managed to stop my hand that was reaching forward, stood up abruptly (though I winced from pain in the process), and after shaking out the coat on the ground as much as possible, politely returned it to its owner. Carlisle’s expression was slightly subtle as he received the coat. Maybe he felt bad about having to wear something that had been spread on the damp dirt ground.
But it’s not like I had stolen it and spread it… The coat seemed specially treated, as fluffy as if just picked up from the dry cleaner. Still, if he asked for dry cleaning fees, I’d have to pay, but that would be difficult for me in my beggar state. He probably wouldn’t ask for just 10,000 or 20,000 rual either.
Feeling somewhat intimidated, I racked my brains. Once I safely sold the Melbrain and other gathered items and got money, it would be good for my mental health to prioritize paying Carlisle back something…
Wait, where’s my backpack?
I was definitely carrying it on my back until I fainted… As I quickly looked around with this sudden thought, Carlisle, who was putting his arms through his coat, made an indifferent sound.
“Are you looking for that dirty thing?”
In the corner he pointed to with his chin, my old backpack was rolling around covered in dirt.
“Ah, right! Thank you!”
I happily ran over and picked up the backpack. Although he had said quite rude things about someone else’s belongings being dirty and such (even if it really was dirty and old), it didn’t matter to me now. How fortunate that it wasn’t lost in all that commotion. Carlisle was a benefactor who had protected not only my life but also my entire fortune, so I decided to easily brush off that level of bullshit.
“What’s in there that’s so important?”
Carlisle, now fully dressed in his coat and with his arms crossed, looked down at me checking my backpack with a sour expression.
“What… something important?”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
