Chapter 19
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 19
Chapter Title: Departure.
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From the moment I realized the rewards I'd earned risking my life had flowed into the inventory.
I'd figured Rie would come sniffing around again sooner or later—but even though I'd braced myself for it, the sound of her voice still squeezed my chest like a vise, choking off my breath.
A groan escaped me under the intense pressure.
It was a voice I used to like, too.
Now it just sounded nauseating and repulsive.
"Suddenly succeeding in the thief subjugation and flooding the inventory with junk items, huh?"
Rie muttered in confusion, like she was checking something over.
"This guy's traits have leveled up?"
She must have been looking at my status window, because her voice carried a note of surprise at my newly grown traits and swordsmanship.
"Silent Steps looks pretty good... Can I take it and give it to Rie? No? Too bad..."
Her casual words about handing over the fruits of my hard work to someone else pissed me off, but there was nothing I could do, so I quietly started gathering herbs.
"Traits like this are way too good for a worthless character like him."
"You feel sorry for him? Why? Come on, he's just a game character. Aren't you guys getting way too immersed?"
I bit my lip at her casual barbs, dismissing me as "just a game character."
That's how she saw me, apparently.
She could spout that crap without a second thought because to her, I was nothing more than a character in a game.
Deep down, I knew it.
Rie hadn't really done anything that wrong.
She'd just created a character, got bored, abandoned it, and was happily playing with a new one.
That was all.
But even if my head understood that, my heart couldn't accept it.
To Rie, it was just a game she was enjoying—but to me, suffering inside that game, her words were infuriating.
So much so that part of me wanted to hack her into a hundred thousand pieces.
"Anyway, it keeps progressing even if you leave it alone, right?"
"Yeah, it's half an idle game like that. Even when you're not logged in, it moves on its own, just slowly. Your actions get recorded in the 'Epic,' and death wraps it up into a character ending. Right?"
That was new information to me.
"I know! I know! Stop spamming the chat with obvious crap! I read the game info way more thoroughly than you guys!"
All my actions recorded in an epic, ending with my death and rolling credits.
What the hell kind of game was this?
I couldn't even grasp it.
Before my narcolepsy got bad, I'd played games a ton—if something like this existed, there's no way I wouldn't have known about it.
So it must have come out after I fell into narcolepsy.
After I was flailing around in lethargy.
A hard game to wrap my head around.
"I've heard there's endings besides death, but with 300k concurrent players, no one's reached them yet. Probably takes forever or some insane conditions. Not my thing. I'm a streamer, not a ranker."
"So, what do we do with this guy?"
I swallowed dryly as Rie wrapped up the game talk with her viewers and returned to the main topic: deciding my fate.
I had some autonomy, sure—but from everything I'd experienced so far, it wasn't omnipotent.
If Rie wanted to do something, it'd execute first, and only then could I resist.
I couldn't stop her from trying in the first place.
"If we leave him be, won't he keep dragging in junk and messing up the inventory? Why the hell is inventory shared anyway... Whatever, this time he brought back money, so it's not terrible. But Rie's got plenty of cash already, right? Like 10 gold coins now."
I'd gone through hell and barely scraped together less than one gold coin.
Her shiny new character starts with 10.
"This fucking sucks..."
I tried to hold it in, but I couldn't.
I knew my voice wouldn't reach her anyway, so I spat out the curse.
"Should I just delete the character? You feel sorry for him? You guys are way too immersed. Fine, let's vote on it."
My fate decided by total strangers I had nothing to do with.
Probably like how an innocent prisoner felt on the way to the guillotine.
A chill, like being dragged to the scaffold for no crime of my own.
I closed my eyes.
Emotions churned wildly, unrefined, deep in my chest.
"Vote results are in! ...What? Delete: 23%, Leave Alone: 77%...?"
Looks like I'd dodge deletion, but it wasn't exactly a happy outcome.
Being toyed with by unrelated people wasn't fun—it was just disgusting.
"Got it, got it... Leave him be, huh? Even though he's messing up the inventory."
Rie couldn't outright ignore her viewers' vote either, backing off a step—but I didn't relax, figuring this wasn't the end.
"So we just dump all the junk on him? It's useless, won't sell for much... Might as well use him as a warehouse. Good? No complaints from you guys, and the data scrap you pity gets some charity."
Charity.
Even just from her voice, her irritation dripped from that word choice, her mood clearly soured.
"It's just a game... Why can't I do what I want...? Vicious? You're banned."
A sigh, and then her voice cut off.
My bag got a little heavier.
Rummaging through it, I found it stuffed with what she'd called "junk."
"Two silver coins and 60 copper, a fine cloak, waist pouch, hemostatic agent, silver ring, silver necklace..."
I dumped them out—plenty of stuff.
And every bit of it was valuable to me.
"This... is junk?"
If someone offered all this in exchange for "me," I'd have seriously considered it, no matter the outcome.
If she called this junk, what kind of life was her main character living?
Relief that nothing worse happened mixed with a seeping inferiority complex.
If I'd started normally—not bottom-tier, just average—maybe I wouldn't be this bad off.
That idle fantasy made the bundle of herbs in my hand feel utterly pathetic.
And even myself, so accustomed to digging them up.
"Every time I get used to it, adapt somehow, force myself to accept this shit... she shows up to remind me of reality..."
That this pain was something I shouldn't have to bear, this humiliation something I shouldn't have endured.
Every time I realized that, it reset me to square one.
Things I'd grown numb to, thresholds raised, hit me fresh with pain and injustice.
"If she'd just ignore me completely, how nice that would be."
I glared at the "charity" items in my hand, swallowing my rage.
I didn't need this crap.
She didn't even need to show up.
Why did she have to appear and make me feel so pathetic?
"...Fuck."
Even as I cursed, I couldn't bring myself to toss the valuable "charity"—and that made me feel even more pathetic.
I stood up.
Enough herbs gathered.
Business here was done.
Rie had approached as expected, and I'd survived it.
Now just order the weapon and wait for completion.
Money was plentiful, so no need for a few weeks of quests.
I packed the herbs and Rie's castoffs, heading back to the guild.
Maybe because I'd swung my sword around inside the guild—no one was dumb enough to spout nonsense to my face.
The whispers behind my back didn't matter.
But even with noble protection, sticking around here was done.
No hesitation needed.
I had no intention of tangling with these people anymore, so I lifted my downcast gaze, taking in each face.
Staring at the ones shrinking back, avoiding my eyes, I realized something.
When I was weak, anyone meeting my gaze oozed hostility and disgust.
Now?
After I'd crushed their momentum once, those eyes looking back held not enmity, but thick fear.
Disgust turned to terror and dread.
"Fucking morons."
The ones badmouthing me after I'd saved them, or nodding along.
Excluding Ban, not a decent one in the bunch.
I tossed the herbs on the counter, collected my pay, and left.
Straight to the smithy the noble mentioned.
Flashed the commission slip, ordered the sword design I wanted.
Two weeks to craft, so I packed and switched inns.
With grudges from guild adventurers, holing up alone in some backwater risked a screamless death anytime—plus, word of my bounty payout had spread.
The innkeeper charging 50 copper for a bowl of watery slop didn't help.
Two weeks passed like that.
Holed up training swordsmanship, time blurred—then a messenger from the smithy said the sword was ready.
I went and claimed it.
Shorter, thinner, lighter than my old one.
Trying to block a mace with this would snap the blade for sure.
But it was sharp as hell.
"Thanks."
"First time making such a weird weapon, not sure if I did it right—but if the user's happy, that's what counts."
The smith shrugged and handed over the ebony scabbard.
No engravings, felt a bit empty—but that plainness gave it a sleek charm.
"Where to now?"
"...Dunno. Thinking the capital."
First, leave this place and head to the capital.
If the saint was traveling pilgrimage roads, she'd end up there eventually.
Activity there would lead to crossing paths.
Next day.
I boarded a carriage to the capital.
And the day after.
The carriage flipped from monster attack.
I survived, body covered in wounds—but coachman and horses dead.
I looked up at the sky.
It stung my skin, annoyingly clear and sunny.
"...Ha."
I let out a deep sigh.
The world pissed me off.