First-Year Winter, Two Residents (1)

Ziiik... Ziiik...

Thud.

Pain exploded from the back of my skull, and my mind snapped wide awake.

A blizzard poured down as if the sky itself had torn open—a field of freezing snow beneath a sky glittering in a dozen colors.

'Where... am I?'

My head wouldn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠work right, as if I'd drunk myself into a stupor and only just come to. Since when had it become winter? Why was I lying in a frozen field of snow?

Gazing up at the impossibly beautiful purple moon and red moon hanging overhead, I felt like I was drifting through some hazy dream.

Except that for a dream, this was far too cold. My body shivered uncontrollably, and my jaw kept chattering.

'Ah... right.'

I had to move. With a blizzard howling and frost already clinging to my skin, simply staying outdoors in this weather was enough to earn frostbite.

I steadied my swimming head, pulled myself together, and ducked into a house with half its wall caved in to get out of the wind.

"That's right—the world inside the game."

It had been about two days now, and it still didn't feel real. But with my fingers aching as though they were splitting open and my toes screaming like they were about to snap, I couldn't stay checked out forever.

If I didn't find flint right now, the only roads left were freezing to death—or surviving and writing off a few fingers and toes.

'It should be here...'

Found it. I'd rifled through the kitchen first on the assumption it would be there, but it turned out to be stashed in the drawer of the nightstand beside the bed.

Kind to a damn fault, this game. Speaking personally, it read less like concern and more like a taunt—we've prepared this shitty situation for you, so please do enjoy it.

Thwack!

I kicked apart the table with the broken leg to strip it down, then held one of its round pieces up before my face to shield my eyes and nose.

There was no telling when the blizzard would let up, and I couldn't rest in some crumbling ruin—I had to reach the village center first.

"Uuuggh...!"

The moment I stepped beyond the wall that had at least been holding back the wind, the gale slammed into me, howling like it bore me ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠personal malice. It blew hard enough that I thought my body might be swept clean away.

Already frozen half-stiff and barely answering my commands, I knew that if I got shoved over out here—or fell down again—I would freeze to death on the spot, no two ways about it.

So I gritted my teeth and pushed forward with nothing but my face shielded, headed for the village center. A single step wrung sweat out of me, and even that sweat froze on my skin—like someone whispering at my ear, give up already and just die.

But then, who was I? The man who had beaten this piece-of-shit rigged game to the very end, that's who.

Dragging my reluctant body along by sheer will, I reached the makeshift shelter of stacked planks—and there a beautiful silver-haired woman was waiting for me. Arms stacked high, naturally, with the wood scraps I'd ordered her to gather.

"Got it, chief."

Clatter.

Most of it was shards of broken furniture—apparently there hadn't been any decent firewood left to scavenge. My instructions had been to look for proper firewood first and smash up the surrounding furniture if there was none; clearly, there had been none.

I struck the flint in quick strokes. My frozen hands slowed me down a little, but even so it beat mindlessly rubbing two sticks together and hoping. In the game, this had been mere drudgery—chores and errands you fobbed off on the untalented—but god, was it hard out here.

Still, after some thirty minutes of groaning and gritting my teeth, I finally coaxed an ember to life and got a fire going.

"Good work, Elena."

I praised her out of habit, but her expression didn't so much as flicker. She simply held her hands and feet to the bonfire I'd built, thawing them.

She didn't resent me for putting her through hard labor, and she didn't brighten at the praise, either.

'Well. Figures.'

Under normal circumstances, working and talking side by side like this builds affinity—but with her trait in the picture, expecting that was a lost cause.

Beauty was pointless with only the two of us around, but Prodigious Body was a fine trait—anything you assigned her to do with her body, she handled passably well. She managed basic labor without complaint, and above all, with proper training she could be forged into a genuinely powerful swordswoman. An excellent trait, all things considered.

And finally, Apathetic—in words anyone could understand: a psychopath. For a swordswoman, you could call it a good trait. She would cut down enemies without agonizing over their deaths or flinching at their screams, and you could hand her every filthy piece of cleanup work without a second thought.

Traits couldn't be swapped out on a whim, so raised properly, she'd make a first-rate resident.

'Which means the problem is me, doesn't it.'

A textbook villager—the kind stuck in a corner doing odd jobs. Granted, in this garbage game, a resident like me, who could work steadily at anything without glaring weaknesses, was rated better than a brilliant one with a fatal flaw.

But that was early-game logic. In practice, mediocre residents got discarded the moment the early game ended. Sure, if you planned to raise one with real devotion there were ways to force them strong—but it was simply more advantageous to recruit residents who were already talented, or marry your good residents to each other and train up a second generation.

'Not that I can discard anyone right now.'

Me. How exactly would I discard myself? If I got discarded, I died. Just like that.

So I intended to claw at every single means available to make myself stronger.

"Chief. What's next?"

"We wait out the blizzard."

On a high difficulty's late game, a blizzard like this would rage for days at a stretch—but right now was still early game. To keep its balance, this game dealt weak trials when you had little and far harsher ones when you had plenty, and thanks to that quirk, a few exploits became possible.

Sure enough, before long the blizzard died down and the temperature began rebounding fast. Snow still lay banked everywhere, but once I saw it thawing to the point where my hands and feet wouldn't freeze the moment I stepped outside, I left the plank shack.

"Find whatever food there is."

"And then?"

"We leave."

In the judgment of a hardened End of World veteran like me, this place was pleasant enough for living in peacetime—and dead wrong for surviving a post-apocalyptic world like this one. Even ordered to abandon the hometown she'd grown up in, Elena nodded without a flicker of complaint and set off in search of food.

This was exactly why players called the [Apathetic] trait broken. Give her any order and she simply carried it out—and her mind would never break.

We scraped up every scrap of food the village had to offer. I'd assumed there'd be nothing left, whether because starting villages were dirt-poor or because it had been looted ages ago.

But mercifully, Elena turned up wheat that someone had hidden away in secret, and I discovered a deer frozen to death on the village outskirts. It hadn't died in today's blizzard—more like a few days before—but thank goodness for winter: it hadn't rotted.

I was wrestling to butcher it with a passable knife for the road, but the carcass was frozen solid and the blade wouldn't bite—until Elena, lugging a good basketful of wheat, strolled over and began carving it apart in clean, crisp strokes with the dagger she carried.

'Is she a monster?'

Elena's Melee was 3. Mine was 0.

'The stat cap in this game is 9, so even a 3 puts you at a seriously high level in the early game.'

A stat of 0 meant, quite literally, that you had never done the thing in your life. A 1 meant an average person following a simple explanation. Around 2 meant some real experience, and at 3 you were pulling off feats that made eyes spin—Elena's swordwork was exactly that.

The one mercy was that there was no hard ceiling per person, only differences in growth rate; used steadily, any stat would develop. Since neglected abilities withered over time, it was impossible to push every stat past 9. Around 5 was enough to handle nearly anything, and a main stat of 5 to 7 wasn't just high—it was practically overflowing.

Of course, there were other exploits that kept stats from degrading, but with only one body to go around, there was little point in maxing out every stat. Combat stats were worth raising high, but for the rest, excellence in one or two would do.

"Then let's move out."

Our luggage amounted to a few changes of clothes, planks from the demolished house, some simple tools, and food. Honestly, if we'd kept combing the village we could have turned up usable odds and ends—furniture and the like—but obsessing over such petty property would keep us from surviving at all.

Great wealth soon invites great enemies. So we packed only the essentials.

We were two people traveling light, and we weren't going far; anything more would only weigh us down. Just in case, I loaded Elena—our designated escort—with cargo we could ditch in a heartbeat: timber, frozen meat. I took the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠comparatively precious, breakable things myself.

'A packhorse or an ox would've made this easier.'

The village's livestock had been plundered and eaten long ago. No hoping for that.

One last matter, before we walked out of the village. I made my way to the pit Elena had tried to shove me into yesterday morning. There was something I had to settle before we left.

Perhaps because of yesterday's blizzard, snow had drifted over the pit like a burial mound. But beneath it lay a heap of corpses too many for even that mound of snow to hide—and as Jin, that is, as I, looked on them, the anguish began. Jin's memories stirred at the traces these villagers had left, and a pain came crashing in, as though my chest were being wrenched shut.

'So this is how bad it gets...!'

In the game, it was one line of text and the sight of a resident visibly suffering. Living it firsthand was another beast entirely—an ordeal so brutal that simply holding onto my sanity felt like an achievement.

And still, it had to be done.

I soaked a ragged covering that might once have been someone's clothing with more oil than I could have carried by hand, and poured it into the pit. Normally you'd delegate this to a resident with the Apathetic trait, someone like Elena—but this, right now, was something I had to do myself.

Tick... tick... fwoosh.

The corpses caught fire. Whether it was the oil's potency or the kinder weather, the flames swallowed the pit in an instant and went to work consuming the villagers.

A stench of burning flesh spread thick enough to turn the stomach, and the fire ran along the oil I'd laid in advance, reaching into the village itself.

As the village's memories surfaced, Jin's body trembled with grief. But I ignored it and forced one foot in front of the other.

I would survive, whatever it took. And then I would clear End of World once more... and go back. To do that, I would do everything within my power.

"......"

Thank god Elena was Apathetic. Any ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ordinary person, watching a hometown full of their own memories burn to nothing, would have raged or grieved—grieved until they couldn't move at all.

Only once I was certain the fire would spread across the rest of the village did I pick my pack back up and cross the boundary leading out.

Then, with Elena waiting for me outside at my back, I turned around once more. Through a haze of soft light, I watched a small crystal shaped like a snowball take form at the village's exit.

A keepsake no bigger than a snowball—a crystal with the village's scenery sealed inside. Start over in another village, come back here someday, and you would feel the traces it held. It was something close to a consolation prize, left behind only when every resident of your first village deserted or died out, leaving not even ruins or a legacy worth anyone's while.

And of all the causes of ruin a player could bring about most easily, most artificially—the memory this village, which met its end by fire, would leave behind had already been decided.