You Eat Well
You Eat Well
The fourth morning came.
Once again, Han-byeol logged into the game without fail and was passing the time idly.
She had sneaked a meal the night before, so her hunger had lessened a little, but she was still starving.
On top of that, she was also terribly bored.
With her whole body tied up, the only thing she could do was just sit still and think.
Of course, she did log out occasionally to surf the web, but...
As befitting the number one player, she spent most of her time in the game, except for her workout hours.
If she didn't, she'd get fidgety for no reason. You could call it a kind of habit.
Anyway, because of that, she often felt bored for no good reason.
Of course, there was something to do even in this confined space. Observing Yor as he went about his business.
Contrary to the leisurely setting of a forest, he kept himself quite busy.
When morning came, he'd cook breakfast for himself, then head outside to hunt.
Then around lunchtime, he'd come back, cook another meal for himself, and then do housework.
Overdue cleaning, laundry, and so on. When he had time, he seemed to finish bathing altogether around then.
He usually showed up looking fresh and clean around that time of day.
After that, he'd prepare dinner...
He seemed to have a bit of time left around then. He showed an attitude of trying to play with her now and then.
Though even that looked like he was dealing with a dog, so she mostly ignored it...
Anyway, he spent his days keeping pretty busy.
To think an NPC could move so proactively over even trivial things...
She'd known about it from the community boards, but seeing it firsthand like this was, as expected, quite fascinating.
On the other hand, she also briefly had this thought.
'He really is good-looking...'
Even though he'd imprisoned her, she was still a 'woman' after all.
Once a handsome person was in front of her eyes, a reaction would come out regardless.
What's more, not only his looks but his whole aura was a bit unusual.
Unlike other men with soft, gentle auras, he had a certain sharp edge to him.
A feeling of peace on the surface, but if you touched the wrong spot, you'd get cut deep.
It was probably an aura tempered by living in this forest.
But that didn't feel especially unpleasant. On the contrary, it was impressive in a good way.
To be honest, she'd never much liked the uniquely 'soft' aura that 'men' had.
Didn't it make you feel like you had to protect and lead them...? Han-byeol had no particular talent for that kind of thing.
Perhaps for that reason, she'd never managed to date so far.
Part of it was living a busy life, but ultimately, she'd never really felt drawn to the opposite sex.
'...But what's the point. He's an NPC anyway.'
But that thought was only for a moment.
She soon let out a sigh and came back to reality. It was all useless thinking anyway.
The important thing was how to get out of this cave.
Another day passed like that.
And so, on the fifth day, she made up her mind.
'...Fine, I'll just tell him.'
What was this whole struggle for in the first place? It was a matter that could be resolved simply by giving him the Holy Water normally.
True, the price of Holy Water had gone berserk lately, but that was nothing compared to her five days.
She'd have to bend her pride a little, but she was starting to want to get out, eat some food, and level up again.
She also had to resume her stream, which she'd been taking a break from all this time.
Before long, she called out to Yor.
"Hey."
"Mm? What's up, Happy?"
"...I'll give you what you want."
"What?"
"That Holy Water you mentioned. I'll give it to you."
"Oh..."
Yor let out a subtle exclamation.
How to put it, he was glad things turned out well, but his expression looked like he felt something was a bit lacking.
Whether he felt that way or not, Han-byeol took the Holy Water out of her inventory.
Each bottle of Holy Water, giving off a vaguely sacred aura, was laid out one by one.
The total number of Holy Waters she took out was three.
It couldn't be called a huge number, but considering that buying Holy Water was nearly impossible right now, it was by no means a small amount. She'd also used up two when fighting him in the first place.
Yor stowed away the Holy Water she gave him, grinning from ear to ear.
"Thanks, hey. See, if you'd just handed it over from the start, it would've been easy."
Of course, for him, just those three were an enormous gain.
With just these, it meant he could bypass Berserk A once for free.
That wasn't all. If used well, these might even save Yor's own life one day.
The pain of Berserk A was a problem, but it also had the drawback of spreading the scent of blood in all directions.
Until now, he'd endured it deep inside the cave so the scent wouldn't spread, but now the cave's location was exposed.
If Berserk were to trigger while he was in hiding, he needed something to conceal him.
'I'd better save these.'
The day the moon would rise was not far off either.
However, even if Berserk A were to trigger, Yor had no intention of drinking the Holy Water right away.
Even if it meant enduring that terrible pain, he planned to save it as much as possible until more backup Holy Water came in.
Thinking that, he carefully placed the Holy Water into storage.
Now that he'd obtained Holy Water, it was time to get the source of it out of her.
He looked at Han-byeol and asked.
"From what I know, you can't get Holy Water even if you go inside the Holy Church right now. Where did you get all this?"
"...I have connections with knights."
Han-byeol continued.
"The knights might be collecting Holy Water, but they don't use all of it. Thanks to that, if you build connections, it's convenient in many ways. You can get various benefits through suitable trades."
"Oho."
At those words, Yor briefly let out an admiring sound.
This was another fact he hadn't expected.
Now that he thought about it, the Knight Order had promised a fixed purchase of Holy Water quite a while back. It seemed they had surplus Holy Water left over from buying it each time.
And Han-byeol, who had connections, could obtain it without much difficulty.
"Then did you learn that swordsmanship from knights too? It looked surprisingly refined."
"Well... I did get some help. Though they didn't teach me directly."
Yor nodded slightly.
The source he'd never expected was giving him a lot to think about.
Because the Knight Order was also a closed group, making it hard to easily obtain information anyway.
Since they were a group with such strong security.
With that in mind, Yor thought.
'If this works out...'
He might obtain new information he didn't know.
"Was it the Knight Order that put the bounty on me, as expected?"
"Well... yeah, probably."
"Then, just how strong... is the Knight Order?"
"What? Pfft."
At his words, Han-byeol let out a chuckle, because the cautious way he asked betrayed a faint hint of anxiety.
"Why, I guess even you're scared of knights, huh? Well, I suppose so, the moment you meet those guys you'd be subjugated on the spot, heh heh..."
"..."
Yor didn't answer that. Instead, he silently flicked her forehead with his finger.
Thwack—!
Along with a dull sound, a somewhat suggestive moan escaped her lips.
"Aheu...!"
"Cut the chatter and just answer."
Han-byeol writhed in pain for a moment before opening her mouth.
"...It's not a question that's easy to answer. Each individual knight is skilled, but their strength comes from their unity."
She continued.
"Especially the Knight Commanders, every last one of those bastards is a monster. It's a position that the empire's finest talents can barely reach after decades of rigorous training."
"..."
Yor nodded.
After that, Yor asked Han-byeol a few more questions. What the Knight Order was doing these days, whether they were showing any strange behavior, and so on.
But it was difficult to get a proper answer for any of them.
It wasn't that Han-byeol was deliberately hiding information. It was because she, too, was ultimately an outsider.
She lacked the guanxi to access proper information.
But still, it was helpful.
Having heard all that, Yor got up from his seat, satisfied.
Seeing that, Han-byeol said to him.
"Done? Now untie me."
"...Hm."
Yor, who had heard her words, smiled meaningfully.
True, she'd fulfilled everything he'd initially asked for.
But why was he unwilling to untie her?
It was probably because the plan he'd been secretly hatching had gone awry.
Thus, Yor smiled mischievously and said to her.
"I don't want to."
"...What?"
At those words, Han-byeol immediately started thrashing. Her resistance was so violent it looked just like the first time she'd been tied up.
"You goddamn bastard...! This isn't what you promised!"
"Whoa, whoa, calm down. If you just do me one favor, I'll untie you. It's not even hard."
And that favor was, of course, for her to eat the food he'd prepared.
With her face buried in the plate, like a dog. Naturally, Han-byeol scowled and refused upon hearing that.
"I won't do it. Just kill me instead! You don't have to untie me, just kill me and set me free!"
"Good grief, as expected of an Otherworlder, you use the word 'die' so easily."
Of course, Yor had no intention of sending her off like that.
The reason was simple. He still hadn't seen her truly eat a meal.
But her resistance was so fierce that he was forced to step back for now.
Arriving at the kitchen where the campfire was lit, Yor began to ponder.
'What on earth do I have to give her to make her eat...?'
She was acting like this right now, but she wouldn't keep it up forever.
She had to leave the cave anyway, and she was still starving.
She'd eaten a bit of fried rice before, but apart from that, she'd actually been fasting for nearly five days.
There was no way she wasn't hungry.
In other words, what he needed to do now was make food so delicious even she would be tempted.
Fortunately, Yor had a fair bit of confidence in cooking.
It wasn't by choice, but he'd been living alone for over ten years anyway.
He also happened to have one good ingredient.
That was Noho's tail, which had been troublesome to deal with.
The creature was a spiritual beast, so eating it did restore vitality, but only the first couple of times.
Yor, who had already eaten the tail many times, wasn't feeling the effects anymore.
He was also getting a bit sick of it from eating it so often.
Thanks to that, it had been left neglected in storage until just before it spoiled, but it seemed a use for it had finally come up.
He was just a bit tired of it, but Noho's meat was good in terms of nutritional value, taste, and distinctive character.
"Alright. Shall I give it a try?"
So Yor began to cook.
*
Around that time, Han-byeol was diligently badmouthing Yor to relieve her anger.
"Good grief, I really shouldn't have trusted him. Crazy bastard..."
Why on earth was he so obsessed with that damned meal? He looked far from normal, anyway. Did he have some kind of fetish for making people bury their faces in their plates or something?
But behind these thoughts, a sliver of anxiety also existed.
'Is he seriously not going to untie me?'
He probably wasn't.
Because the way he'd looked for the past several days, from what Han-byeol had observed, had a pretty resolute air about him.
So in the end, the choice given to her was just one.
As she imagined herself eating food only with her mouth, heat rose to her face unbidden.
After waiting like that for a moment, Yor finally brought the meal.
But this time, even the smell was unique. It was a little sour, and a savory, cheese-like scent wafted out too.
The aroma of food, thicker than usual, could only further stimulate her salivary glands.
Before long, Yor set the plate down in front of her.
[Demon's Saga]'s system had one somewhat peculiar characteristic.
Namely, a system description popped up for just about every object.
Among them, in cases like items or elixirs, minor effects were sometimes written out as well.
Now was no different.
+
[Dry-aged Mountain Lord's Tail Cube Steak]
Slightly over-aged meat of a spiritual tiger. However, it is not spoiled as it is soaked full of mana.
Consuming it permanently increases stamina slightly.
+
A long description of the food extended out.
Tiger meat? Where on earth did he get something like this?
No, to begin with, the very fact that a mere food item had a stat increase attached was something she was seeing for the first time.
Did this mean the food was practically an elixir?
Of course, the description had the word 'slightly' attached, so the effect probably wasn't very big...
But free stats you could obtain were always precious.
Thanks to that, her heart tilted slightly toward the food.
Just then, Yor opened his mouth.
"Here you go. I'll untie you right away as promised if you eat it."
"..."
"What's wrong? It's not even that hard a thing to do. It's also a gain for you, you know. This is meat you can't eat even if you offer tens of thousands of Gold."
It certainly looked that way.
Things that affected the body like this all boasted high prices anyway.
To make matters worse, she couldn't get outside anyway if she didn't eat it.
She'd even been fasting for nearly five days, so her desires were already filled to the brim with appetite.
Gulp—
Her Adam's apple bobbed deeply once.
As if an earthquake had struck her pupils, her two eyes trembled fiercely.
Indeed, pride is difficult to bend just the first time.
Once it's been bent once, the psychological hurdle drops much lower.
Humans are creatures of adaptation, and habit exerts a stronger power than you'd think.
Meaning the first time for anything is the hardest.
"..."
Like that, she silently lowered her head toward the plate.
A faint sense of shame and self-loathing pressed down on her. Because of that, her hands, tied behind her back, trembled and shook.
But contrary to that, the reward that entered her mouth was exceedingly sweet.
The meat, sliced for easy eating, entered her mouth and melted softly.
A savory flavor spread throughout her mouth. A meal eaten for the first time in nearly five days was incredibly delicious.
Watching that sight, Yor quietly placed his hand on top of her head.
Contrary to Yor's expectation that she'd immediately freak out and shake him off,
Han-byeol merely flinched for a moment and accepted Yor's touch, as if ignoring it.
A peculiar sense of conquest and the feeling of achievement from having done it swept over Yor.
Yor stroked Happy's head and grinned.
"She eats well, our Happy."
As she heard that voice, Han-byeol felt a certain place lower down resonate.