All According to God's Will
Ah….
I thought I'd gotten used to passing out from the pain ever since I was a kid, but nope, not at all. It always hurt, and it always felt brand new.
Fuck.
Swearing had practically glued itself to my mouth. I wasn't the type who never cursed, but I didn't do it that often either—yet in this short time since entering the dungeon, it had become a habit. I got pissed playing the game, but living it? That cranked the rage up to a whole new level. No shit.
Anyway, what's my status looking like now….
I was definitely back in Agony again, that much was clear. I'd registered everything up to zoning out from the reality crash after failing to kill it by a single point of damage, then getting grabbed by the boss. Awakening had definitely worn off, the Agony debuff was on, and one poke would finish me. Not surprising at all.
If anything, I should count myself lucky.
Lucky that the bastard attacked me. Lucky it slapped the mark on me first. Lucky my turn was right before the boss's, so I could pull some aggro. All those factors lined up perfectly, letting things play out just as I'd hoped.
Can't shit-talk games for lacking realism anymore. At least, not ones you can actually play.
This wasn't some pitch-black dead end or nightmare—it felt more like that first time in Agony, where I could only think.
Just dump all this pain on me at once and skip ahead, damn it….
In The Long Terror, there'd be an illustration of the hero briefly passing out or grimacing in pain, then it'd gloss over with "fell into Agony" or "succumbed to Corruption." Experiencing it myself, breaking the fourth wall, I realized just how much they skipped. Who knew? Turns out The Long Terror, that poster child for unfriendly, bullshit games, was actually super user-friendly?
Worried about Kaya and Shae, though.
Shae was out cold, but Kaya wasn't fully unconscious. So she probably saw me get crushed in the boss's grip—and if so, that must've hit her like a truck. I knew the Agony safety net would kick in, so I was braced for it, but Kaya had no way of knowing… She'd probably taken massive Mentality damage.
Put myself in her shoes—if Kaya or Shae went through that, not once but twice? My heart wouldn't hold up.
But Kaya… You have no idea how lucky it was that it was me getting attacked, not you. So please, don't do anything stupid.
…Which means I gotta pull that same bullshit again?
Chewing over Mr. Descartes' words, I thrashed mentally like last time. It felt like swimming an ocean in a body that felt nothing—like, I couldn't even grasp what that felt like.
Kaya, Shae. Shae, Kaya.
And the hand of terror. I compressed all those sprawling thoughts into one. I wasn't dead. Neither were Kaya and Shae. But we were all one step from death. My turn ended, the boss's turn ended—now it was Kaya's. It was short by one damage for sure. A light tap from Kaya, and that hand-freak would scream in terror and drop dead. Even if she whiffed, Shae's turn was next.
Wait. Shae's…
Unlike Kaya, Shae was fully knocked out. Kaya wasn't fully out either, but moving was a struggle.
Hold up. No way. Nah, can't be?
What if Kaya, physically and mentally wrecked, forfeits her turn? And fully passed-out Shae forfeits too?
Me? I have to wake up and finish this?
My mind screamed at the thought of being squeezed to the absolute limit right up to the wire. Best case was Kaya snapping out of it for the finisher, but a leader always plans for the worst.
Fuuuuck!!!
I started thrashing with everything I had.
[Brightness: 0]
The light completely extinguishes. Horror and darkness fully corrupt the dungeon.
The heroes' fighting spirit fades even faster.
The monsters are imbued with even greater power of horror.
"Honey… honey…!"
She couldn't see a thing. Her body ached viciously. But.
Me, my honey, our baby.
Her heart hurt far worse. It felt shattered into pieces.
Kaya knew full well it was a dream—or an illusion. She wouldn't use such tender words, she wasn't living some cozy married life with the Captain, and as a half-elf with congenital infertility, having a child was impossible anyway.
She knew. She knew it all.
And yet, even knowing it… she didn't want to escape it that way.
It was the worst. Plummeting from the peak of bliss into the abyss.
She didn't know why she'd seen such a vision, but since it was a happy illusion where even the impossible came true so easily, couldn't she hold onto it just a little longer? Even if it was fake.
That horrific monster in human skin.
It had killed her.
Killed the Captain.
And killed the Captain and her child.
The child she could have, if only in illusion.
Pierced it mercilessly, butchered it.
She couldn't forgive that. Never, ever.
Not content with shattering her happiest illusion into the worst nightmare, it had taken the Captain… the Captain…!
"Honey… n-no, Captain…!"
The illusion was cruel. Once for being a lie destined to shatter, and again for feeling so real despite that, creating a brutal rift with reality. Her heart torn twice over, Kaya wept as she called for Hendrick.
"Where… where are you…? Please answer… answer me…!"
But she couldn't see. No voice from the Captain reached her. Rage turned to despair. Not a speck of light ahead, no sense of the Captain guiding her. Her body was wrecked beyond death's doorstep.
Why. Why. Why can't I be happy?
Why can't I resist the things that torment me?
I'm always the one suffering—why can't I even win?
Those monsters are abominations even to the goddess and ordinary folk. Why.
Why.
"Why."
She pressed her hand to the floor. Agonizing pain stabbed up from her fingertips, her palms. Applying force multiplied it several times over. But even that paled against her heart's torment. In the end, Kaya rose.
She gripped the flail's handle—the one she'd never let slip—with crushing force.
The monster, screaming and babbling nonsense, had gone quiet. Hiding in the dark? Yeah, right. Everything was blurry, but the Captain's strike had been blinding. That great blow must've pushed the monster to the brink, forcing it to hold its breath and watch warily.
- I'm not dying. Why would I die? I'm never dying. Got it? - Get up!!! That's an order!!!
"Right. The Captain wouldn't die in a place like this."
The Captain's words rang true. His words, his orders—they had to be followed, obeyed to the end. That was Kaya's truth, her other faith.
"Where are you."
Ignoring the pain, Kaya straightened her body taut. She raised the flail high.
"I asked where you are, you fool gripped by false beliefs."
She wasn't sure of the direction. But Kaya stepped forward without hesitation. Pain surged as her soles sliced on countless blades. Her body screamed violently to stop.
"You who believe in horror, wear it on your lips, wield it as a weapon—scared now, are you?"
But Kaya's will didn't break. To fulfill the Captain's order, his fate. Their fates together. She had to break that monster.
That 'obsession' dragged her body forward by force.
"Must be scared."
No reaction from the monster still, but she'd noticed. Amid the gore of monster blood and her own on the flail, its tip faintly glowed, pointing one way.
And that direction wasn't far from where she'd been heading.
Thud—
"Pathetic."
Thud—
"Just moments ago, you were yapping about crushing us with fear, killing us."
Thud—
With each slow but certain step, the dungeon's seeped-in horror and darkness clung to her and the flail like a tantrum.
"Hiding, playing dead so we don't find you. Hilarious."
Thud—
She nearly buckled from the pain but barely kept balance. One step. Just one more step, and she could smash the monster's skull with this flail. On that single thought, Kaya straightened her half-bent knee.
"If you're so keen on screaming horror, shouldn't the terror of death approaching now be your finest hour…? Right?"
This side or that.
A graze meant death—everyone knew it without saying. This place, thick with death's aura, was a space perfectly suited to the theme of horror.
In the end, the limit of false belief.
Guiding her forward: faith in Raella.
Propping her crumbling body: faith in Hendrick, in Yujin.
Pulled from ahead, pushed from behind—Kaya's two unyielding faiths completed the final step.
"All is."
Unable even to see, but trusting her faith.
"'According to God's will.'"
Kaya swung the flail with every last drop of strength.