Notions of Hygiene (1)
Elves possessed overwhelmingly superior physical conditioning.
From their lithe, delicate frames came strength and speed that defied reason, paired with a peerless beauty that never seemed to fade. When it came to Armion, the Queen of Eladrien herself, pointing this out was practically redundant.
"Kyahaha!"
D-d-d-d-dot!
Gripping the mounted heavy machine gun with one hand, Armion opened fire on the monsters burning red in the dark. Aiming was hardly necessary. There was an endless supply of ammunition at her disposal—so much that no matter how much lead she spat, the belts never seemed to run dry.
"Your Majesty!"
"I-It is too dangerous!"
The elf elders came rushing from behind, frantic to stop her. Taking to the battlefield herself was bad enough, but wielding an unverified contraption provided by the Head Moderator was madness.
"P-Please calm yourself!"
If the Queen was maimed or killed, all their heads would roll. Elders old enough to be her grandfathers and grandmothers clung to her robes with all their might, but Armion didn't budge an inch.
"Let go of me!"
"Your Majesty, we beg of you!"
"Eeeek! I said, let go!"
"Gah!"
Easing off the trigger for a split second, Armion casually shrugged off the elders with a flick of one hand. The difference in physical strength between withered elders who shunned meat and a young, carnivore-leaning queen was as vast as heaven and earth.
"Haha!"
Skreeeech!
Gurgle...
The beasts scrambled and twisted in a desperate attempt to dodge, but their struggles were utterly futile. The heavy machine gun, spitting fire in the dark, unleashed rounds at speeds far beyond the tracking capabilities of the naked eye, tearing the beasts to shreds. Between the dark expanse bathed in crimson fire and the bizarre monster roaring flame from the distance, the scene looked like a nightmare brought to life.
"Th-The beasts are fleeing!"
Though the monsters had crawled out from the Outside, this display was far more hellish than anything their homeland had to offer. Utterly panicked, the pack broke into full retreat. Only then did the heavy machine gun cease its violent outburst, radiating intense, billowing heat from its barrel.
"Ah... Now this is what living feels like..."
Sweating from the blistering heat, Armion gazed down at the heavy machine gun, her face flushed with euphoria and pride. How could something venting waves of scorching heat look so breathtakingly magnificent?
"Eliana! Bring me more ammunition!"
"Ammunition...? Ah, do you mean the grand magic catalyst?"
"Yes! Hurry!"
She wanted to mow down every last one before they vanished over the horizon. Urging Eliana on, Armion waited impatiently. When several minutes passed without fresh belts arriving, she snapped her head around. Eliana greeted her with an apologetic wince, turning her screen to display a post from the gallery.
In short: the invasion was repelled, so he had no intention of handing over more.
"...Huh?"
The radiant, blooming smile on Armion's face froze solid. Did this mean she couldn't fire the heavy machine gun anymore? Did it mean she had to go back to playing the dull, dignified Queen, cooped up in the royal library reading dusty tomes...?
"NOOOOO!"
"Your Majesty!"
Armion's eyes rolled back, and she fainted dead away.
Fortunately, the crisis that had threatened El-Ladh had blown over. With the monster invasion averted, the gallery was once again flooded with its usual barrage of random shitposts.
I tossed an empty bag of chips directly into the Rift beside me and was casually browsing the new feed when a peculiar thread caught my attention.
[Frog sticker sobbing while aiming a bow at the heavens]
Everyone else has a rift in their house, but ffs I'm the only one without one, so I have to haul my own trash outside to dispose of it.
Walking all the way to the rift in the central plaza is such a pain in the ass, and people glare at you the whole way.
Can't you just spawn a rift in my crappy room too?
"Huh. Come to think of it, that's true."
In my case, I had a Rift right inside the bunker. It had been there since the bunker was just a ruined warehouse, and even after all the system upgrades, the fissure remained. I had deliberately placed my bed right next to it. That way, I could finish snacking in bed and flick the wrappers straight into the void without taking a single step. I had simply assumed every gallery user was disposing of their garbage the same way.
The problem was that not every home had one. There was a Rift in the central plaza, but trekking all the way there to dump waste had its own issues. Hauling a bucket of raw sewage through the streets drew judgmental stares, and if you accidentally tripped and spilled it, it was an absolute catastrophe.
So, naturally, most people just hurled their slop out the window. The variety of excuses was truly colorful.
"They're literally identical to the real Middle Ages."
Because of this very habit, furious arguments erupted on the board almost daily.
[Distorted frog giving the middle finger sticker]
I got into a massive fight, and this asshole keeps insisting it's not his fault. It blew my mind, so I'm posting here.
We have a huge family under one roof.
Naturally, we produce a ton of filth and trash, so we gather it in buckets and dump it all at once at dawn, right?
'So when barely anyone was walking by,'
'And after shouting "Watch out for shit!" before throwing,'
I chucked it out.
Then some bastard drenched from head to toe in slop bangs on my door and starts cussing me out???
I apologized reasonably enough, but he's throwing a tantrum demanding compensation, so I'm pissed as hell writing this ffs.
Whose fault is this?
1. Ffs it's your fault, you dumbass — 20%
2. Honestly the fault of the idiot who didn't look and got hit — 80%
Judging by the chatter, perhaps barely one out of ten households had a Rift. Thanks to that, the stench permeating the city could no longer be brushed aside as a minor inconvenience.
"Wait, what the hell is that smell?"
The fallout had reached me as well. A foul, nauseating stench of raw sewage was slowly creeping into the bunker. Perhaps because I had bought the bunker at a bargain price, its cheap ventilation system was completely powerless against the full, unadulterated stench of medieval slop.
"Damn it, I didn't see this coming."
I had helped establish the Kingdom of Kellierton to serve as a secure green zone, but I never dreamed I would suffer blowback like this. Had I lived on the surface, at least the open air would have diluted the odor; trapped underground, the stench gathered and stagnated until my head began to spin.
Yet even when the sky falls, there is always a way out.
Vwooom.
"Lightbulb!"
The Holy Sword, which had been hanging from the ceiling like a chandelier, descended and hovered before me as if it had been waiting for this exact moment. Pulsing with radiant luminescence, it practically oozed supreme self-assurance.
"Do you have a solution?"
Vwoooom.
Flashing its light as if urging me to put my trust in it, the Holy Sword pointed toward the bunker hatch. Then, without warning, it began aggressively slashing at the empty air.
"Ah... so your plan is... go out and terrorize people with violence until they dump their waste in the plaza rift?"
Vwoom.
The blade gave an enthusiastic nod.
Without a word, I bound the Holy Sword tightly in its scabbard with thick rope and hoisted it right back to the ceiling. Call this a holy sword?
"Is there really no answer?"
Just then, the Dwarven Masterpiece Sword—which had spent the entire time huddled timidly in the corner out of fear of the Holy Sword—floated over. It drifted toward the ventilation shaft and began spinning in place like a turbine. In an instant, a refreshing, crisp breeze swept through the bunker!
"I knew I could count on you!"
It had spent all its time shrinking in the corner walking on eggshells around the senior sword, but it pulled its own weight when it counted. Medieval slop stench? Don't even try it. The Masterpiece Sword was a god, and I was invincible.
Unfortunately, not every home had a dwarven masterpiece blade. The gallery users who possessed neither a rift nor an enchanted sword were left to suffer in agony.
Just as modern people dreamed of winning the lottery, people in this otherworldly realm desperately prayed for a Rift to open inside their living rooms. But there was a fatal catch. Beating the one-in-ten odds to land a Rift wasn't guaranteed to be a blessing.
[Photo of a house collapsed into a pile of rubble]
[Photo of a rift standing proudly amidst the debris]
You saw it? Now get lost.
If it manifested in an out-of-the-way corner or a basement, it was a stroke of luck. But what if it sheared through the load-bearing frame of your house? Or worse, what if a Rift opened directly on top of you while you were asleep?
[Photo obscured by severe static and unidentifiable noise]
[Photo showing nothing but pure black void]
?????
Just woke up, where the hell am I?
Then you simply got Backroomed.
Even so, I didn't think too deeply about the issue at the time. Medieval hygiene was what it was. In a brutal world where people died left and right and monsters assaulted the walls on a daily basis, sanitation felt like a secondary concern.
As usual, I was lying comfortably in bed, scrolling through the system shop to pick out something good to eat, when the neglected problem finally detonated.
[Photo of a shrieking, pulsing lump of putrid flesh and filth]
A monster had appeared smack in the middle of the capital's streets.