1. Saint Karina (1)
1. Saintess Karina (1)
Wow. So soft. So this was what a person felt like. Or was it because she was a woman? I stared intently at the face of the girl in my arms, barely clinging to life. Beautiful. I'd never seen anyone so beautiful up close in all my life.
"Heh. Tough call whether that was good luck or bad."
I headed home with her cradled in my arms, lost in thought. Naturally, my thoughts were about the game Survival Academy.
It had been ten years since I'd been able to play, but I still remembered a surprising amount about Survival Academy. On an uninhabited island with zero entertainment, the only thing to do was indulge in pointless delusions or chew over happy memories.
Survival Academy was a game I'd chewed over quite a lot.
And no wonder. The moment I transmigrated was right when I'd booted it up after the True Ending DLC update. Thinking back, I should've realized it then. But I'd wound up stranded on an uninhabited island without an academy—without a single other person—and was getting worked half to death, so the thought never crossed my mind.
After all, when your surroundings consisted of ocean, jungle, a dungeon-like thing in the middle of the island, and monster bastards, how were you supposed to figure out you'd transmigrated into that specific game? Even the Status Window I'd been given was the kind that would fit perfectly in a survival title.
The genres were completely different. Completely.
For starters, Survival Academy didn't have any of these survival systems or tentacle monsters that popped out of dungeons just when you forgot they existed. Survival Academy got called a knockoff Soulslike because of its brutal difficulty, but it was still distinctly an open-world RPG about enjoying academy life!
"Ah, should I write everything down once I'm back?"
Knowledge completely useless as long as I was stuck on this uninhabited island, but if I could get out with Karina's help, it'd be invaluable. If I could escape, that was.
...Could I?
It wasn't like I hadn't tried escaping. But the island was encircled by a whirlpool, so there was no getting out by ordinary means. Seeing as it churned 365 days a year, I'd guessed that I couldn't leave until I met some condition...
That condition was probably the dungeon in the center of the island. Honestly, there was no other notable point of interest here. Aside from two monsters who divided the territory with me three ways, the monsters and beasts around were just small fry.
Hah, let's shelve that part for later. Right then, thinking it over only led to vague guesses.
Recalling what I knew about Karina was a much more productive use of my time.
Karina... honestly, the info I could dredge up was hazy.
First, no surname.
The logic was something like, a saintess wasn't a child of men, so she had no need for a surname. If you had to attach one, she was sometimes called Karina Kalon, after the Church of Kalon she belonged to in the setting, but you almost never heard it. She was rarely called by name anyway.
Anyway, Karina awakened as a Saintess right before the story began and enrolled in Kalon Academy. Then she got entangled with the protagonist and experienced a bittersweet school life... yeah, right. She ended up struggling desperately to protect a world going to ruin in real time.
Why was it going to ruin again?
Come to think of it, they released that as DLC, calling it the True Ending, and I never got to play it. Still, I remembered the story was about fending off invasions by monsters and Aberrants—intelligent humanoid monsters that led them.
The final boss varied by route, so it was hard to jump to conclusions then.
Even the Karina currently cradled in my arms could appear as the final boss on a certain route. That was the Traitor Route, of course, so I had no intention of going down it.
To sum up, the game had multiple endings.
"Why the hell is my place so far away?"
The path home felt especially long today. I wasn't even lugging a load of baggage like usual, but the weight of a living person carried an indescribable heaviness. Maybe it was because she was a living person, especially a woman. A beautiful one, at that.
I was a man; of course I'd be tempted. But if I let a moment's lust cost me crucial information and cooperation, that would be the truly idiotic move. And with her help, I might be able to clear the dungeon at the heart of this island.
The dungeon that had threatened my survival for ten years.
The thought carried me all the way to the familiar sight of my front yard.
My home, built with bricks I'd laid by hand.
I kicked the door open and laid her down on my cot. Her gaunt appearance was pitiful. I tossed fresh firewood into the brazier and nurtured the embers. The spark I'd hidden in the ash met the kindling and began to grow with crackling sounds.
"Nngh..."
I'd been staring blankly at the flames devouring the air when the sudden groan made me spin toward Karina's face. Now that I thought about it, this wasn't the time to zone out. I needed to make some gruel for the patient and strip off her wet clothes before they sapped her body heat.
I reached a hand toward her body. The moment my fingers touched the fabric, the damp sensation crawled along my fingerprints. Then I felt skin as soft as a kitten's down. My heart pounded like mad at the drug-like texture that made me want to keep touching.
"What the hell are you doing in front of a patient, idiot?"
Even a Saintess would end up in a coffin without proper care.
I resumed undressing her. Fortunately, her clothes were a relatively easy-to-remove one-piece, not a pointlessly complicated dress. Thanks to that, it didn't take long to hang everything out on the line.
"Bet I can leave the underwear, right?"
Ah, there I went talking to myself again. Living alone, the only thing that multiplied was self-talk. Anyway, I draped a blanket I'd salvaged ages ago from a drifting ship over her body, then sat down in front of the brazier. Now it was time to prepare a sickbed meal.
Gruel would've been best, but there wasn't a single grain like wheat or rice on this island. All I had were plants I'd tested on my own body, fish, various meats, and fruit. After some deliberation, I decided to mash up a reasonable mix of plants and larvae and boil it.
The most nutrient-dense ingredients you could get on this island.
"Heh. I foraged those for a snack."
I poured water and dumped the plants and larvae into the pot, then gazed at it vacantly, sinking back into thought.
What was I supposed to say to a person who'd just woken up?
This was my first conversation in a whole ten years. I at least wanted to avoid being labeled a weirdo. No, wait—wasn't living in a place like this already a guarantee I was a weirdo? My head swam. I scratched at it in frustration.
...When did I last wash?
I'd lived alone for ten years, so naturally my hygiene had slipped. In a place where you had to drink any water you could wash with, bathing wasn't easy. And washing with seawater just pickled your whole body in salt—worse than not washing at all.
"At least I should shave."
My beard had grown as long as a finger joint and covered my face, so I'd at least tidy that up. I couldn't afford to be mistaken for some native from the very first impression. I used the poker to tamp down the fire, then headed to the little well in the backyard.
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[Karina! Get inside, now!]
[What about you, Reni?!]
[I can find my own way to survive, so you must hurry! The ship will sink any moment!]
Death screams that filled the ship instead of air. People thrashing in despair. Karina could do nothing but stare at that horrific sight. Saintess though she was, before the tyranny of nature, she was nothing more than a helpless girl.
All she could do was clasp her hands together and pray inside a small wooden barrel.
'Almighty Kalon, have mercy on us and grant us Your compassion...'
The barrel shuddered. The whirlpool that had swallowed the ship began to shake the barrel violently, as if trying to shuck her out. Inside that dizzying hell, she desperately recited her prayers and held on, but in the end, she lost consciousness.
[O Kalon...]
She had endured day after day, eating the meager rations inside the barrel whenever she regained consciousness. After the food ran out and she finally lost consciousness from exhaustion, she opened her eyes.
'A ceiling...?'
An unfamiliar ceiling. She blinked. It was only after a considerable time had passed that Karina, who had been caught in the whirlpool, shipwrecked, and taken refuge in a barrel to survive, realized she had been rescued.
"This place..."
She tried to sit up, but her body wouldn't move. Having gone so long without proper food, she was weakened to the extreme. If the Divine Power built up in her body hadn't desperately clung to her lifeline, it would've been no surprise if she had been discovered as a rotting corpse long ago.
Ultimately, the most she could do was turn her head—the only part that still moved—and mobilize all five senses to grasp the situation. Among them, her overly sharpened sense of smell caught an appetizing aroma.
"Food..."
A savory scent. Turning her head, she spotted the pot on the brazier, and Karina swallowed involuntarily. Right before her eyes was a mouthwatering meal. She couldn't tear her eyes away.
'I had to eat...!'
If she didn't eat, she'd die. Instinct devoured reason and began to move her body. For the sake of survival, she writhed desperately. The brazier was close. Just a little, a very little more, and a meal that could fill her belly awaited.
The grub called Saintess crawled toward the brazier. She couldn't exactly plant her face in the fire, so she propped herself up against the cot and reached a trembling hand toward the pot.
That was when it happened.
"Needs to boil a bit longer. Wait."
Karina turned her head toward the voice behind her. Their eyes met, and Karina murmured before she knew it.
"A-An Aberrant...?"