Tutorial (10): A Better Place Together
The task was simple. Open the door and escape the anomaly. With the gallery's view-sharing function still active, I walked straight toward her. Most of the comments were pessimistic, aside from a few who were cheering me on. I'll prove it to you. That you were all wrong, and my judgment was right.
I put on a solemn expression and strode forward with confidence. When I reached her, I did what I'd always done and gave her back a light smack.
-Smack!
“Hya?! Haa… haa…”
She had been sorting something into a basket, but I didn’t spare it a single glance. I simply sat down right beside her. Eoduksini caught her breath and scooted slightly away. To set a heavier mood, I kept my mouth shut tight and stared into empty space. After a moment, she stole a few glances at me and finally spoke first.
“It has been so long since my lord husband has stayed by this wife’s side like this. I am so overjoyed I scarcely know what to do with myself.”
“……”
“Please, do not leave again. Stay with this wife for a long, long time.”
It looked like the gallery members’ predictions had been correct. But even if every direction led to hellfire, there was always a way out.
“I shall do as you wish.”
“R-really, my lord?”
“Of course. Why on earth would I lie to you?”
“Ahh—”
That must have been the trigger. The ground beneath my feet, the sky above, the shabby thatched-roof house—everything began to shake violently all at once.
What a bunch of faithless people. Well, that was probably why they’d all died and become cyber ghosts in the first place.
I have a different method.
The anomaly in the form of a woman who had waited years for her husband. What she wanted wasn’t a frugal life—it was to live happily ever after with the man she loved. She must have longed for that life so badly that she even missed her husband’s beatings, panting with desperate heat every time she was struck.
That part might just be her personal taste, though.
Anyway. To escape the anomaly, I had to use that longing thoroughly.
“Enough!!!”
“?!”
The moment I roared, the violently shaking world froze.
“W-what are you doing, my lord? This is the very moment we become one again as hus—”
“Who the hell is becoming one with you!!!”
Eoduksini’s voice trembled as if she were slightly frightened. Even though she was blind, she had desperately waited for her husband. This was supposed to be the moment her long-held resentment and desire were fulfilled, so any interruption must have been unpleasant.
But.
I have zero intention of dying here just because you want me to.
I was going to survive and get out. I had to check whether my senior was safe, capture Eoduksini to clear the tutorial, and this time actually draw a decent ability as a reward.
And I absolutely have to survive so I can strut in front of the gallery members and tell them I was right.
Thanks to that thought, motivation surged inside me.
“Are you seriously saying you want to live here forever with me in this filthy place? The sky is blood-red, the air is stale, and the house is falling apart!”
“Those things are trivial—”
“I’m telling you they’re not trivial!”
If she wanted to keep me here forever, this approach wasn’t going to work.
“How could we possibly live together in such a gloomy, wretched place!”
“We can overcome it with the love between husband and wife.”
“Love! Yes, love! Fine, we’re a married couple. But what about the children? Could children live in such a creepy, ominous place?”
“……Y-yes…?”
Why was this anomaly reacting like that? Wasn’t she supposed to be a married woman? The moment I mentioned children, her face flushed bright red.
Don’t tell me…
She had married but lost her husband soon after, never consummating the marriage. A virgin ghost pretending to be a married woman?
Now that Eoduksini was flustered, it was the perfect opportunity. I pressed the attack immediately.
“In any case! I cannot live in such an ominous place!”
“B-but—!”
Eoduksini collapsed onto the floor and began sobbing bitterly.
“Hic… sob! Are you planning to abandon me again?”
A sticky black liquid endlessly seeped from her body. Or could you even call that a liquid? It was pitch-black, dense, and puffed up like urethane foam. The black mass seemed to have a will of its own and lunged straight at me.
“This time I won’t let you go!”
“Enough!!!!”
“?!”
When I roared again, the black mass stopped as if someone had slammed the brakes.
“When did I ever say I would leave you here?”
“……Pardon?”
“How could I possibly leave you alone in such a dreadful place?”
“T-then—”
“Let us leave together. To a better place.”
“……Huhhhhh?”
If I did exactly what Eoduksini wanted, I would be trapped here forever. But after longing for her husband for so many years, she had no intention of letting the person she dragged in leave. After finally reuniting, what kind of anomaly would cheerfully say ‘See you next time~’ and open the door?
She would scream ‘I’d rather die than let you go!’ and bind or dismember me to keep me here.
So I changed my thinking a little.
The important thing to her is being together with me, right?
Then the actual location—whether here or outside—shouldn’t matter. Once we got out, I could figure something out. So I threw the suggestion out there.
“A-are you serious?”
“I am.”
“U-uhhh…”
Seeing her reaction—half shock, half joy—it looked like things had gone well.
The gallery members congratulated me, saying it was a good outcome. There was no need to waste any more time here. So I spoke again.
“Let us live together in a cleaner, more pleasant environment.”
“……There is one strange thing, my lord.”
“Hm? What is it?”
Why was she acting like this all of a sudden?
“When you left me before, did you not earnestly warn me never to leave the house under any circumstances?”
…What?
“Yet today you suddenly flip your firm attitude like turning over your palm…”
The woman’s eyelids slowly lifted. Her head twisted to an angle no human neck should ever turn. Her pitch-black eye sockets stared straight at me.
“I suspect you are not my husband, but a stranger trying to deceive this blind wife.”
Something had gone wrong.
*
I took a deep, discreet breath to calm my mind. Then, once the tremor left my throat, I opened my mouth.
“What nonsense is this?!”
If I didn’t want to be suspected, I had to act with the same confidence I’d shown so far. Confident! Not a single weakness!
“If you truly are my husband… may this wife ask one question to confirm?”
If I really were her husband, how would he have reacted here? Would he have said ‘Let’s hear it~’? No, that didn’t seem right. From what I could tell, physical discipline had been a daily occurrence. Then maybe a silent nod? My senses screamed that was the wrong answer too.
Then the angel and devil inside my head popped out and spoke in unison.
Hey! Why are you even worrying about this?
You already know the only answer for a perverted anomaly who pants when she gets hit is proper discipline, right?
Why were both of them giving demonic answers? I sighed inwardly and glanced at the real-time comment window. A new comment had appeared.
Yes. Follow my gut. Overthinking at a moment like this only made things more dangerous. That was common sense.
“What ridiculous drivel!”
“……Huhhhhh?”
“I truly cannot listen to this! You should know when to stop with the nonsense! What? You want to ask me a question to confirm? Ha!”
“Did this wife say something she should not have…?”
“Yes! I went out of my way to think of our future and prepared a good plan, yet my own wife immediately suspects me! I feel like I’ve lived my whole life in vain! Fine! If you like this wretched house so much, live here forever! I’m leaving!”
“That cannot be allowed……”
“It cannot be allowed?! I’m saying I want to leave my own house, and you dare block my path?!”
“No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no—!!!”
Eoduksini clung to me with both arms and screamed. At least she wasn’t leaking that sticky black substance this time, so that was a relief.
Instead of suspicion and wariness, she seems to be panicking.
While her heart was shaken, I calmly reached out with a warm hand.
“Do you hate being alone?”
“Yes yes yes yes yes—”
“That’s why I told you. Let us leave this place together.”
“!”
The strength left Eoduksini’s arms. With my now-freed hands, I grabbed both of hers and pulled her to her feet. Then I brushed the dirt off her skirt with a few pats.
“Lying on the floor like some sloppy child.”
“……”
“There, all done. Let’s go now.”
“B-but—”
“No matter how important this house is, could it ever be more important than you?”
“!!!”
To move the still-hesitating Eoduksini, I turned my body first and pretended to walk out of the house.
“Ah—!”
“What are you doing? Hurry and follow me.”
“Y-yes!”
She closed her eyes again and scurried after me. Then she said,
“I will open the way.”
“Good.”
Right in front of the fence that had only led to a thousand-foot cliff, a large door appeared. Smiling, I pushed the door open forcefully while Eoduksini clung tightly to my left hand. Just like when I first entered, my vision blurred and then went dark.
*
You have subdued the anomaly <Eoduksini (Woman Submerged in Darkness)>.
The anomaly phenomenon <Beneath the Eternally Sunset Sky> has been dispelled.
You have escaped from the anomaly phenomenon.
My head felt like it was splitting open.
“Ugh.”
But the moment I regained consciousness, the pain vanished. My back was cold, yet strangely my head was resting on something soft and warm. When I sat up, a status window confirming that I had escaped the anomaly phenomenon called appeared.
“Haa.”
I let out a sigh of relief without meaning to. And at that exact moment—
“Is this the new house you spoke of?”
“!!!”
The voice I had been hearing for the past several days came from behind me.
Right, we escaped together.
I answered casually.
“No, there’s no way a cold place like this would be our new house, is there?”
“I see. Then where should we—”
“Wait here a moment. There’s something I need to check.”
The status window was filled with piled-up alerts, but I didn’t open them. There was something far more important.
“Senior!!!”
I had to check if my senior was safe. If it hadn’t been a hallucination, she had definitely been pierced through the chest by that anomaly’s hand… I ran urgently toward the corridor where she had collapsed. And then—
“Huk?!”
I was met with a shocking sight.