Chapter 31. Forest Shelter I
Episode 31.
Forest Shelter I
This was back when I was deep into the <FoS> community.
Among the various users in the community, there was one guy who was especially chummy with me.
-DanceDance: Hey~ Check.
Their nickname was DanceDance.
There wasn't any particular reason for it.
It was just that after he found out I was from the same country, he kept acting that way.
Well, it wasn't strange.
When you're in a foreign land, patriotism or hometown pride tends to suddenly boil up.
-Han River Water Check Master: ?
Of course, I was generally cold toward this guy, and there was a valid reason for that too.
DanceDance was a braggart.
From what I heard, before I showed up on the boards, he used to spout nonsense about being a famous idol or whatever — lies that wouldn't fool anyone.
That bullshit stopped the moment I arrived.
'Did he think someone from the same country would see through him easily?'
Anyway, I couldn't tell if they were thick-skinned or just oblivious...... but even when I was openly cold toward them, DanceDance kept acting friendly without showing any sign of being offended.
That day, he struck up a conversation with me over some trivial question.
-DanceDance: What would you be willing to do to clear FoS?
......What was that supposed to mean?
Did he mean whether I'd even commit a crime if it meant clearing the game?
Feeling puzzled, I looked around the board before answering. Posts were definitely coming in faster than usual.
As I scrolled down, I soon found where the discussion had started.
-Title: What's the highest Infamy score you guys have reached while playing FoS?
Infamy. A negative stat in <FoS> that accumulates when you commit criminal acts.
-Content: I got to about 1200? I like playing pretty cleanly, you see
↳Isn't this guy insane? When I killed about 30 NPCs, I was at two hundred
↳Lol this guy's a newbie. Once you play enough, twelve hundred just piles up while you're picking your nose. Anyway, if you bribe the peace officers a bit, it all drops right off
↳Huh? Mine didn't drop?
↳What's your class?
↳Black Mage
↳Ah.. well, good luck with that
Honestly, the board guys probably didn't actually talk like this.
For’ever was an overseas site. This is a fairly old memory, so just take it as my brain's reconstruction of it.
-Content: With FoS's structure, you can't help but backstab NPCs. Even if your reputation gets wrecked, that's a secondary issue — you've got to survive first, right?
↳Fr and anyway betrayal is first-strike-wins. If I don't do it, nine times out of ten those bastards screw me over first
-Content: In this game, you have to be most wary of the bastards who smile and reach out their hand. I kill all those bastards without exception. They might be Shadows, you know?
↳So were they Shadows?
↳Nah, nine out of ten were just NPCs
↳You lunatic lol
-Content: I ditched all my NPC companions at <Goblin Plains> and ran. If you don't know, just memorize it: in FoS, companions = spare lives, basically
↳If you're running from Goblin Plains, maybe the problem's with your fingers..?
"Hm."
From the look of it, they were wasting their lives on some trivial topic again today.
Then they started comparing who had the highest Infamy score on the board and who had done the most garbage things to NPCs.
'Typical For’ever.'
Once a game has been around long enough, people sometimes get heated over completely pointless topics like this.
-DanceDance: I suddenly got curious. You're one of the board's four notorious eccentrics, so I wondered how high your Infamy score got
-Han River Water Check Master: What about you?
-DanceDance: Me? Well, around 500 or so?
-Han River Water Check Master: That's low
-DanceDance: Well, of course. I didn't pour my life into the game like those board guys. <FoS> is definitely a fun pastime, but I have plenty of other things to enjoy in my life
-Han River Water Check Master: Ah. Right. Like dancing or singing or something?
-DanceDance: ..Let's drop that topic.
Look at him getting embarrassed.
I snorted, but DanceDance really was on the lower end of playtime among the board users.
Considering that, he showed up on the board fairly often, but he also disappeared mid-conversation or didn't show up for months at a time.
-DanceDance: So? What's your record?
-Han River Water Check Master: Hmm...... maybe around fifty thousand?
After a brief pause, the reply came back.
-DanceDance: Seriously? A hundred times mine?
-Han River Water Check Master: Does it matter if it's a hundred times or a thousand times? Once you pass twenty thousand, you can't enter the kingdom anyway. After that, it's just a meaningless numbers game
-DanceDance: Still, fifty thousand is something else. What, did you kill a king or something?
-Han River Water Check Master: Close. I killed the Church of Abel's saintess
-DanceDance: You're insane. How did that happen?
-Han River Water Check Master: She was a Shadow
-DanceDance: Ah
Even now, that was a regrettable run.
The story was unfolding quite well, and I expected to break my own progression record, but the Church bastards interfered at every turn.
When I got suspicious and investigated, it turned out the saintess had become a Shadow.
-Han River Water Check Master: Of course, I've killed plenty even when they weren't Shadows. I've done everything the game's freedom allowed
-DanceDance: Specifically?
-Han River Water Check Master: Well, like the board guys always say — abandoning companions and running, selling them off, and when relations seemed to sour, just secretly killing them and taking their gear. Ah. There was also a run where I took assassination contracts in the underworld
-DanceDance: Wow. You're trash
-Han River Water Check Master: Look who's talking. You can't say you've never done anything like that, can you?
-DanceDance: Well, true. When a wandering merchant tried to pull some shit with potion prices, I wondered what kind of nerve he had. In the end, I killed him and buried him in the forest
-Han River Water Check Master: Right. Everyone's like that, probably.
I tapped at the keyboard.
-Han River Water Check Master: In the end, in a game with this much freedom, it's probably rarer to find a player who's never killed an NPC.
* * *
[You have wandered the same area for a long time without a guide.]
[You are afflicted with the status ailment <Wandering>.]
I walked on through the darkened forest.
The only thing to rely on was the faint moonlight.
Crunch.
The fitful wind, dry fallen leaves, and twigs crunching underfoot sounded unusually distinct.
It hit me anew that a forest really was a goddamn awful place.
With the light gone and everything painted black, the place felt unfamiliar, as if I'd entered a completely different space.
Wooo—
Whenever I heard these howls from time to time, I couldn't help but tense up no matter how hard I tried not to.
When the underbrush rustled nearby, I stood in place on guard for minutes at a time.......
Squeak!
After staring for a long while, a fist-sized rat darted out and vanished back into the forest's darkness.
"......."
My nerves were being absolutely shredded.
I'd underestimated it, thinking all I had to do was walk, but advancing through the dark forest in a state of alert brought far more mental fatigue than I'd expected.
'So that's one more thing I've learned?'
Another difference from the game, that is.
Right. This is how I grow, learning one thing at a time.
Even if I comforted myself with idiotic thoughts like that, the fundamental cause of my current suffering wasn't resolved.
I yawned for what felt like the umpteenth time.
'......My eyes sting so bad I could die.'
But if I forced my eyes wide open, objects split into two or three.
[You have wandered the same area for a long time without a guide.]
[You are afflicted with the status ailment <Wandering>.]
I know, alright.
Just as I dismissed yet another message—
"Hey, Kaindel......."
A voice like it was being wrung out came from behind.
"Let's rest a little. I'm dying......."
"......."
I'd thought she was overdoing it at the start, and it seemed she'd hit her limit sooner than expected.
I was about to say no, but when I saw her face, the words died in my throat.
"......Rest for five minutes, then we go again."
"Ughhh......."
Seigrena groaned and collapsed on the spot. Her whole body was drenched in sweat, as if she'd sprinted at full speed.
'She used <Divine Release>, so that's only natural.'
Of course, <Divine Release> doesn't wreck your body the way overusing mana does, but it has a fatal drawback just as severe.
'Enormous stamina consumption.'
If you push it to the limit, you pass out on the spot. Depending on the character, you might not get up for days.
You could force them awake and keep them going, but their condition collapses, and if they pick up a <Sleep Deprivation> debuff, even their stats drop.
If you're unlucky, you even develop the <Insomnia> Trait.
So honestly, Seigrena was fairly tough.
'Is this really the time to worry about someone else?'
Once I stopped walking, the drowsiness hit even harder.
Suddenly, I remembered the carving knife in my pocket.
One of the items I'd picked up in the Corpse Den. Nothing special — I just wondered if stabbing my thigh with it might chase away the sleep.
'......Fuck. I've lost my mind.'
The thigh is a vital point on the human body.
If I stabbed wrong, I could bleed to death or simply make it difficult to walk.
Meaning it wasn't something I should even think about, even as a joke.
"......How much farther do we have to go?"
"Just a little more. There's not much left."
"Not much left? How many times have you said that now......!"
Seigrena snapped at me, then shut her mouth. Her face was thick with fatigue and irritation.
Well, honestly, it wasn't surprising. I'd expected her patience to run out much sooner, so she'd held out longer than I thought.
I fiddled with my watch and spoke.
"Now there really isn't much left."
"Where even is the destination?"
"Somewhere safe."
"Somewhere safe......? Does a place like that even exist in this forest?"
Of course it does.
That's why we're suffering like this.
"Why are you in such a hurry? Can't we just sleep and move tomorrow?"
"If we sleep here? Who's going to stand watch?"
"......."
Seigrena closed her mouth.
She knew too.
If we closed our eyes here, we'd both fall asleep as if knocked out, and we wouldn't wake up again.
Neither of us was in any state to stand watch.
"If you've got the energy to argue, get up. Use that time to walk even one second farther."
Seigrena let out a sigh and staggered to her feet.
We walked through the forest again without a word.
Even so, I kept calculating the remaining time.
'......About two or three hours left now.'
That's right. Time.
The remaining distance wasn't measured in steps but in time.
Only then could we reach the destination...... <Forest Shelter>.
'Forest Shelter.'
A hidden map and safety zone that could only be entered by satisfying specific conditions.
There were several ways to reach the shelter, but the method I was aiming for used the <Wandering> debuff.
'First, it must be your first time in <Eternal Forest>. Second, you must wander in the Wandering state for over 50 hours.'
If those two conditions were met, you would receive the forest's guidance and the path to the shelter would open.
'It was easy in the game.'
Fifty hours passed in the blink of an eye when all you had to do was move a mouse around.
'......Two or three more hours.'
I went over the time once more.
Considering the state of my body, it was no different from being told to hold out for two or three more days.
And on top of that, I was carrying Kria too.
Thud.
At that moment, Seigrena, who had been walking behind me, collapsed.
"Seigrena?"
I called her name, but there was no answer.
"Ha."
I couldn't help sighing, but first I went over to check her condition.
Fortunately, she wasn't dead — it looked like she'd just pitched forward while walking.
"Get up. If you sleep here, you die."
I shook her shoulder and tapped her cheek, but there was no response. Seigrena had fallen asleep as if she were dead.
I let out another sigh.
'Now I have to carry her too?'
On top of Kria being unconscious?
'Or else.......'
There was another way.
The dark, sticky thought that had been churning in my head all along.
Honestly, this was a situation I'd experienced countless times while playing the game.
'The crisis of a party wipe. The crisis of a game over.'
In a situation like this, what was the top priority?
The player character's life, of course.
Obviously.
Companions could die by the dozens — that was fine — but if my character died even once, the game was over. So—
"......."
Wouldn't abandoning Seigrena and Kria here be an extremely rational choice?
⁝
[You have wandered the same area for a long time without a guide.]
[You are afflicted with the status ailment <Wandering>.]
⁝
[Reflecting current party status.]
[The status condition, <Wandering>, is stacking.]
⁝
[Current status: <Wandering(3)>]