The Night Is Scary
The Night Is Scary
I had never used 'Player's Eye' until now.
That was because an Otherworlder had never once appeared near me. No, I hadn't even run into a person at all recently.
So until now, the skill called 'Player's Eye' had only ever existed in my imagination.
What kind of ability did it hold? What would happen if I used it? What did it even mean to see through a player's eyes? No, what was a player in the first place?
The only clue I had been given was the skill's name, so I'd had no choice but to think it over with just that. Fortunately, the one thing I had in abundance was time, so I'd had plenty of time to think.
I still didn't know who—or what—a player was.
But seeing the word 'player' had made me assume they were people living in something like a game world. Maybe they even carried a Status Window similar to mine.
If that were the case, 'Player's Eye' would be a skill that let me see the world through their eyes.
I had no idea where these so-called Otherworlders came from, but that was the most reasonable guess I could make.
Fortunately, my guess had been right. The problem was that there was something more to it than that.
[Try asking him to take the knife off your neck]
[Impossible. Streamer's too scared to even talk to him...]
[It's giving me school flashbacks... My hands and feet are trembling...]
What the hell was that? Letters were scrolling up as if a whole crowd of people had gathered to talk.
And what shocked me was—I had a vague idea of what it was. The design was something I'd seen fairly often decades ago.
Twenty-two years ago, back when I was a modern person, the chat windows of people streaming online had looked exactly like that.
A faint relic of the past I'd thought I'd never cross paths with again had just reappeared before my eyes.
"Um, I swear I won't do anything, so could you please back your face away a little...? You don't have to put the knife away—just your face, at least..."
[lololololololol]
[She's asking him to move his face instead of the knife lololol you crazy bitch lolol]
[I, Yoo Chae-rin, have a trait where I get scared when a handsome guy is in front of me]
[I'm more scared of men than a bloody knife too... yeah]
[Isn't that basically a reward though...?]
[Looks on about the level of a Fourth Knight Commander, holy crap]
[↳ nah not that high;;]
In that moment, a very ominous theory surfaced in my mind.
Wait. If this was really what I knew it to be—then wouldn't killing her or silencing her already be pretty pointless?
"...Ah, fuck."
"Eeep, I'm sorry!"
I took a step back from her, my face stiff and pale.
Maybe because I'd muttered that curse under my breath, she showed a flicker of fear. But the person who really ought to be scared right now was me.
I asked her in a dead-serious tone.
"How long have you been here?"
"Huh?"
"I said, how long have you been watching?"
At my words, she fidgeted and answered.
"I think I've been watching for about five minutes..."
[She's confessing to voyeurism rn holy crap]
[Quit your bullshit, streamer, we all know you were spectating for over fifteen minutes]
[She's straight-up lying because she figures he won't know anyway]
[She was watching for exactly 15 minutes and 37 seconds]
[Lol you damn pervert, you've got no excuse if you die]
[She didn't know it was a guy back then, tbf~]
Fifteen minutes...
Seemed like even if I was too late, I was already way too late. After fifteen minutes, hadn't everything worth being exposed already been exposed?
The one small relief was that she hadn't seen the mark on my collarbone—but the mere fact that my existence had been revealed was a problem in itself.
What was I supposed to do now?
My head was an utter mess. Shock and tension kept me from stringing together any proper thoughts.
I didn't think I'd ever been exposed to this many eyes, except maybe the day I was captured.
I'd been living in seclusion for twelve years, a total social outcast—and suddenly I was exposed to this many people?
Ugh, fuck. A wave of nausea hit me all at once, and I hurriedly told her.
"...Get lost."
"Huhhh?"
"I said get the hell out of this cave, right now!"
"Y-yes!!"
Immediate expulsion.
Since I couldn't kill her or silence her, that was the treatment I decided on.
At those words, she fled out of the cave in a panic.
*
"Wow... what was that just now? I was so freaking scared, seriously."
[lololololololol]
[That ghost story was real, holy crap]
[To that person who posted it back then... I'm sorry I ignored you...]
[Chae-rin, you're such a scaredy-cat]
[For real, if it were me I would've asked for his number straight away]
[Where did that big ambition you showed when you were talking to us go? lolol]
[For real, he was probably just an NPC, you should've shoved him against the wall, dammit]
[You're the one getting shoved against the wall, for real]
[Chae-rin, if you're gonna use your face like that, just give it to me]
After leaving the cave, Chae-rin caught her breath and shared her impressions of what had just happened.
To name the biggest feeling first—it was scary as hell...
To begin with, she was the type who'd walked the classic never-dated route: all-girls middle school, all-girls high school, engineering college.
She basically had no immunity to 'men.' She'd barely ever talked to one, so naturally she'd almost never had one come within close range of her.
Even now, after her stream had somehow gained a bit of traction and she was pouring herself into it, that hadn't changed.
She'd lived almost her entire life without the creature known as 'man.'
And then today, out of nowhere, a guy had held a knife to her throat and even cussed her out!
Honestly... even taking into account that he was an NPC, it was the kind of terrifying experience that would show up in her nightmares.
It made it all the worse that his face had a vibe that reminded her of those delinquent guys who used to smoke in back alleys...
[But he really was handsome, though]
[For real, I wanted to see the lower part of his face too, but it's winter and I'm so sad T_T]
[↳ Blocked by a moderator.]
[Fucking mod, stay still for a sec. Be honest, you wanted to see it too.]
[You never know lol maybe there's a fat slab of lard under there lol]
[↳ Slander.]
Of course, the next feeling she'd felt was, naturally, admiration. His looks really had been exceptional.
Exceptional enough that even now, when you could see countless beautiful people on the internet, she'd still been impressed. And to discover that in a remote forest like this—the impact was bound to be enormous.
A person with an unimaginable visual had appeared in an unimaginable place, after all.
'Wow... the viewers.'
Thanks to that, her viewer count had jumped considerably. Even now, after leaving the cave, it was a whopping 3,400.
Then how high had it been inside the cave, when she was facing him...? She quickly checked the peak viewer count to find out.
'Gasp, 6,500!'
For her—not exactly a nobody streamer, but hard to call a major one either—that was a huge number.
It was a very unusual event for her, given that her average usually didn't break 1,000.
[But why did you just sit there taking it?]
[For real lol Chae-rin, you could've just pulled out your weapon and gone, "Let's have a damn chat, shall we," and had a standoff]
[Streamer's stripped all her gear right now, that's why. And even if she did pull something out, it's questionable whether she'd win anyway.]
[Please, how strong could a guy really be? lolol]
Even after that, the chat window went on about the topic of the man for a long time.
"Alright, alright, everyone, let's stop chattering and get back to exploring."
Eventually, Chae-rin, unable to watch any longer, cleared the mood and resumed the stream.
There was still a long way to go before reaching the innermost part of the forest. The content she could pull from this place was still overflowing.
Maybe because quite a bit of time had passed, a reddish glow had spread across the whole forest. The sun had set behind the horizon.
The crimson-dyed forest created a rather dreamy atmosphere. Yoo Chae-rin admired it for a moment, taking in the sight with her viewers, then headed deeper into the woods.
*
When a sudden torrent sweeps you up, it's only natural to panic. And I was the very person who had been swept up by such a torrent.
After sending her away, I needed a while to calm my heart.
In one instant, my existence had been exposed to countless people—rendering my twelve years of hiding meaningless.
And needless to say, that was a very, very big deal. So big it was comparable to when I'd faced off against that Mountain Lord bastard a few years ago.
In short, I was getting fucked.
'What do I do now?'
So I had no choice but to keep thinking for a while.
Was chasing her out the best move? Honestly, it wasn't. It was a hasty decision I'd made because I'd wanted to be alone in the chaos. A choice driven by emotion could never be the best one.
But even now, thinking it over, no clear answer revealed itself.
Should I move to a new place? That was a decent option.
Even if I had been found out, going deeper into the innermost part of the forest would make it difficult for anyone to properly track me down. The problem was that it was a place where even I struggled to survive—but at my current level, I could manage it somehow.
Yet even that plan had no reason to be acted on immediately. I couldn't afford to move too rashly.
And above all, I had too many resources stored in this cave.
Honestly... I didn't want to live after giving up this comfortable life.
Even after that, I kept pursuing various trains of thought.
Would pursuers come? Would the Empire step in? Or would nothing happen at all?
But no clear answer surfaced for any of them.
"Hoooh..."
And so, after all that agonising, this was the decision I reached.
Just stay still for now. If something blows up, I wouldn't be too late to move then.
My Berserk cycle was steadily approaching anyway—I didn't want to waste Mental Power on this.
'Still, she sure was pretty...'
After that bout of anguish, the thing that washed over me was a simple impression.
Barring those scuzzy bastards in the back alleys, it had been a very long time since I'd met a person. An ordinary person, at that.
And honestly, her looks were a hell of a lot better than those grimy assholes, too.
Whenever I met a normal person like that, a certain idle thought would sometimes cross my mind.
'If I could have lived an ordinary life, would we have been able to talk more comfortably?'
Living an ordinary life like an ordinary medieval person, meeting ordinary friends.
Joking around and chatting idly, a future where I'd eventually end up with someone.
An empty what-if, of course. Cut off from civilization, my encounters with people were bound to be extraordinarily rare.
Entertaining this fantasy would only ever make me sad.
While I stayed still like that for a time, night had crept in before I knew it.
A deeper darkness settled over the already-dim cave, and the lone campfire I'd lit was the only thing pushing that darkness back.
The atmosphere was eerie, but after living here so long, I'd grown fairly accustomed to it.
'Time to eat and sleep.'
I'd been thinking that and was about to start preparing dinner when it happened.
"Excuse meee!! Um, is that man from earlier still here?"
Suddenly, a voice called out from outside the cave.
It was the voice of the woman I'd met during the day. Startled, I hurriedly grabbed my spear and stepped out of the cave.
"What is it."
The woman was standing in front of the cave, fidgeting.
"O-oh, hello... hehe."
I went on guard first.
"I'm pretty sure I told you to get lost earlier. Why are you back?"
"Ah, n-no, that's..."
I aimed my spear toward her and let my voice drop heavily.
Though she did show signs of shrinking back, she didn't particularly run away.
From the look of her, she seemed to have something she wanted to say.
After fidgeting like that for a moment, she finally seemed to make up her mind and took action.
"P-please, I'm begging you!"
She suddenly dropped to her knees on the ground as if begging! The sight even looked a little desperate.
"Just one night! Please let me stay just one night! I won't do anything, I'll really stay perfectly still!"
"...What?"
"Uwaaah! It's too scary outside! It's so dark I can't see anything!"
"..."
The sight of her was so goddamn ridiculous.
That I was speechless for a moment.