Chapter 58

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Translator: penny

Chapter: 58

Chapter Title: Role-Playing (4)

-----------------------------------------------------------------

It was a monster with an enormously huge head.

Its head was so massive that its eyeballs were gigantic too, but the proportions were just right enough that you wouldn't notice how big the eyes were unless you paid attention...

The monster's left arm was packed with so much muscle it looked like someone's torso had been grafted onto it, making it incredibly menacing.

But its right arm on the opposite side was so thin compared to the left... Even if you measured it right now, it was definitely skinnier than my arm.

And also...

Thud... thud... thud...

The monster crawling out into the living room didn't have a lower body at all.

At that moment, seeing the monster desperately crawling around using its thick left arm, I even felt a bit sorry for it.

'Ah, is that guy the new son role?'

This morning, after the son monster had been dealt with, it seemed like a new one had arrived to take the son role.

'...If I don't play the dad role properly, I'll get disposed of too, right...?'

I figured that to avoid getting disposed of myself, I had to do my absolute best in the father role.

"Not sleeping, my son?"

I casually tossed the question at the thick-left-arm monster about why it wasn't sleeping...

It froze.

"?"

The monster crawling into the living room halted all movement...

'Even seeing its pupils move is scary as hell...'

It started checking me out by rolling that huge eyeball.

"You need to sleep soon."

No matter that it was my "son"... having a monster stare at me was pretty chilling in its own way.

The moment I told it to go to sleep so I wouldn't have to look at it anymore...

Thud... thud... thud... thud...

It was like it had locked onto a direction.

I could see the son monster crawling straight toward me.

"Already in puberty?"

Thud... thud... thud...

"Ha..."

Thud... thud..

"Dad's gonna have to use the belt-"

That's when I tried to scold the son monster in a slightly stern voice...

The son monster, now right in front of me...

"..This fuck-"

Grabbed my ankle...

And swung me around like a ragdoll.

Bam!

"Whoa..!"

Luckily, the sofa here was pretty big, so the no-lower-body, thick-left-arm monster flung me toward it.

Thanks to that, the impact... the impact...

'Blocking attacks and absorbing shock are totally different...! Ughhh...'

No matter how cushy the sofa was... it was still made of wood and leather at the end of the day.

Some of the shock still transmitted to my body, and pain started radiating through me...

"You little shit..! When Dad's talking..!"

I didn't have the luxury to whine about the pain right now.

The moment I jumped off the sofa to put some distance between me and the crawling monster...

'What the actual fuck...'

Screeech...

"Wha... happen... ing... hon?"

Suddenly, the wife monster opened the bedroom door and came out...

"Gaaahh gaaahh haaan chooonjaaa daaadbuuung."

'What the hell is it saying...?'

The thing that wouldn't answer any of my questions no matter what started mumbling something...

And then crawled straight toward the wife monster.

"Honey, it's dangerous..!"

"Huh?"

"Don't let that bastard grab you..!"

Using the fact that the left-arm psycho monster's aggro had switched to the wife monster, I circled around to its blind spot.

Like a human pinning down an alligator, I mounted the monster's torso.

'Without that left arm, you'd be monster chow!'

I'd already analyzed the monster in front of me to some extent.

From how it only crawled using its left arm, it was clear the right arm couldn't exert proper strength.

No legs, so to attack, it had to grab the opponent with that massive left arm and hurl them.

Crack-

The moment I jammed my knuckle into its left shoulder to neutralize the arm...

The guy who'd been crawling toward the wife suddenly stopped...

"..This is straight-up cheating."

Its arm twisted 180 degrees in mid-air, bending perfectly at the joint to grab me...

"Crazy..!"

Before I could even pull my fist back, it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠snatched my arm with insane speed... and this time, successfully slammed me into the wall.

Boom!

Armor was like that, after all.

It offered high durability against thrusts or slashes... but couldn't properly protect against powerful blunt impacts.

In medieval times, the most common way to kill a fully armored soldier was smashing them down with a blunt weapon.

"Ughh!.. Whoaaa!.. This thing... needs.. sponge... padding inside.. seriously.. whoaaa..."

The shock of slamming into the wall coursed through my entire body, bringing waves of insane pain.

In this worst-case scenario, I was racking my brain for any way to survive...

"Miiiine!!!"

The monster screamed hysterically... and started crawling toward the wife monster again.

This moment...

'Right now, that monster's target isn't me anymore—it's the wife monster... If that's the case...'

A brilliant idea popped into my head.

And that was...

"Honey.. run.. away.. quick.."

Using the no-lower-body monster to lure it away from me by sacrificing the wife monster.

"Wha...t do... you... mean..?"

"Don't... get... grabbed.. please.. run.. please.."

I felt bad for the wife monster, but... you cheated on me, right?

You cheated while your husband was away...! So listen to your husband this time... okay?

Hey... we don't both have to die.

I can survive with the miracle pill, so just run around for 2-3 hours to buy me time to recover... please...

"..."

"Go.. please.. run.. please.."

Tears streamed from the horrific pain feeling like my bones were shattering inside me.

I was certain I'd die if it dragged on even a little longer.

'Status... window...'

I mentally opened the status window, input IY to pull out the miracle pill—

'Where... is it... where.. is... it...'

Of all the bad luck... my inventory was stuffed with random junk items...

So I had to hunt for where the miracle pill was slotted...

"No.. this.. isn't... it.. no.. please.. no.. I can't.. die.. please.."

My breathing grew ragged...

'Found... it.'

I finally found the miracle pill in the third slot...

'Ah...'

But seeing my arm wouldn't move anymore... this must be my grave.

"..."

Breathing was getting hard.

Maybe my shattered ribs had punctured my organs...

Pain so intense I wanted to scream filled my body.

'Gotta... live.. gotta.. live...'

I endured the crashing pain superhumanly, trying desperately to lift my hand...

But my arm refused its master's command, refusing to budge upward.

'Didn't... even say goodbye...'

It was regrettable that I couldn't properly bid farewell to everyone...

...Huh?

'..Why are you looking at me like that?'

It was the first time.

Seeing the wife monster's pupils shake.

Even though we'd only met for a day in that world...

For the first time, I read 'confusion' in the wife monster's eyes, and even felt a ridiculous emotion...

'You're... gonna die too.'

Before I knew it, the no-lower-body monster had crawled right up to the wife monster and grabbed her ankle... and just like that...

"Uwooooooooaaaaah!!!"

"?"

The monster's massive left arm was torn clean off its body.

"???"

This damn...

Wife my ass...! Wife my ass!! If you were that strong, you should've helped earlier, you sneaky bitch...!

'She even let me cheat...!'

Aaah...!

So unfair...!

Unfair, so unfair...!

"Uwooooooooaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!"

Like the monster screaming its lungs out, I was insanely frustrated too...

But what could I do...

It was already done...

'Was a good life.'

The monster that killed me was dead too, so where do the stones I hold go when I die? Pondering that philosophical question...

I closed my eyes.

This was... the last memory I remembered.

'At least I saw monster vs. monster before dying. Worth it.'

Slide... slide...

'Hnn...'

Slither... slide...

'Huu...'

Slide... slide...

'H...'

Slide... smack...

'Wha..! Don't touch there..!'

My eyes snapped open from male instinct.

Beyond my blurred vision...

"Which monster are you trying to grope right now?!"

"Ugh..!"

"..Mina?"

A familiar face came into view.

"Uh... ..Are you okay?"

"..Why am I here?"

"Uh... Big Whale suddenly came back. While you were asleep..."

"..Me?"

I'd unknowingly returned from the ghost story... What the hell did that mean?

To grasp the situation from this sudden event, I opened my status window...

'..Sanity dropped by 110? Return uses... down by one too...'

My total Sanity had fallen from 367 to 257...

And available Return Uses from 3 to 2.

Of course...

'..Still black...?'

My status window was still pitch black.

'When did I take the miracle pill... ..and when did I hit return...?'

Was this... that thing?

The extreme unconsciousness or whatever...

…

Returning to the safe zone made one thing crystal clear.

Namely...

'It was a mental attack.'

Something inside the Role-Playing ghost story world had been gradually taking over my mind—a mental attack.

Truly...

'If I'd stayed there another 3 days, I'd have been eaten.'

Even now, there was a clear line in my head.

The wife monster in the Role-Playing story was just a 'monster' playing the 'wife role'.

However...

Inside there, a couple times, I'd thought of my wife monster as my actual wife.

In other words...

'If my Sanity had been even a bit lower, I'd have been devoured quick.'

Thanks to my overwhelmingly high Sanity compared to a normal person, I'd held out against mental corruption for quite a while.

'No way that would've happened otherwise.'

No matter how I thought about it, there were too many weird points.

Feeling pissed seeing the wife-role monster get NTR'd.

Openly spoiling the RY entry method in the community.

Mounting the no-lower-body monster because it was a 'blind spot'—that was straight suicide, wasn't it?

'Felt like I was getting too instinct-driven.'

Should've used the wife monster as bait and run, not climbed on the damn thing?

'My instincts were that high-testosterone...?'

Probably, the mental corruption in the Role-Playing story was a instinct-related mental attack.

Jealousy, laziness, reckless charges... things rationality would've never allowed.

So the mental attack there was definitely the type that turns you into a human driven purely by instinct.

'Whatever. Instinct must've made me grab the pill from inventory and hit return just fine.'

The silver lining: even instinct-overridden, my survival drive got me out safely.

Reaching that absurd conclusion—that mental corruption saved me—I opened the community to post rebuttals against the idiots turning me into a fool image.

Ughhh.. Me Big Whale.. wanna be retard..

"Pfft.."

"..."

Mina, who'd been peeking at the community, let out a stifled laugh.

"How can someone like you be so ruthless to that guy."

"That bastard... tried to kill me."

"Hehe.. It's like reverse charm, kinda fun."

As Mina said... I tended to be way too soft on my people.

I drew a hard line with monsters or anyone trying to kill me... but for those who liked me or helped me, I wanted to help back.

Someone might say this personality is a huge loss...

But what can you do.

I only feel satisfied that way, even if I take Ls.

"Speaking of, weren't you with that corpse all day?"

"Yeah."

"Eww.. I'll clear it out quick."

"Hehe.. Thanks."

For Mina who'd spent the day alone with the body, I quickly stowed Sakai Yuuto's corpse in my inventory.

Normally I'd itemize it right away...

'What is it... Why do I keep hesitating like something's off.'

Something kept nagging at me inside.

To avoid regretting acting first, I decided to itemize later once this unease cleared up.

'Yeah, take it slow. Now 3 bodies in inventory, plenty to craft from.'

A quiet night...

Everyone asleep.

Snore... snore...

I glanced at Mina sleeping beside me... then checked the status window again.

'Still like this...'

Control of the status window still hadn't returned.

Some entity kept inputting RY code then deleting it over and over.

'Don't wanna touch it and risk getting kidnapped again...'

I was anxious about using the input for help requests and getting dragged back into a ghost story...

'Hm?'

For the first time, a different code appeared in the input...

Finally typing 'IM SORRY'...

"..Huh?"

The pitch-black corrupted status window... reverted to gray.

"..Sorry? ..For what?"

"Uuu.. Sorryyy.. I just.. wanned.. to touch.."

"???"

What.

Why's Mina sleep-talking like that...?