save3. Frontier City Chateau
save3. Frontier City Chateau
My vision shook.
As soon as the flashback ended, my senses returned.
"I, is this a flashback... right now...?"
It was a sensation I had never felt in my entire life.
A strange feeling of forcibly stuffing my own future into my head all at once.
"Haah, haah, haah♥ This is fu...cking crazy♥"
It didn't simply convey information about what would become of me.
I could feel every single emotion and experience, including the misery and devastation I would endure as time passed.
Starting from that fateful decision to head toward the village out of desperation when I couldn't enter the city.
The humiliation and powerlessness felt while being defiled by countless men.
And finally, the despair of realizing nothing had changed even after arriving at the village.
"To look so pathetic and miserable. How stupid can I... possibly be, guh♥"
My hands moved of their own accord.
I groped at my pussy with my fingers, but the stimulation was not enough.
Just touching my pussy wasn't enough, so I even pinched my nipples and drooled all over my body, struggling in every possible way to squeeze out some pleasure, but...
"Ugh, ugh...♥! What is this, why is it not enough...!"
It wasn't enough.
There was no way to reach a climax, no matter what I did.
It wasn't that no juices were flowing.
It was simply that I had become incapable of feeling satisfied.
After having such an ultimate, miserable ending jammed straight into my brain, it would have been weirder if I hadn't broken.
I kept masturbating until my fingers were waterlogged with precum, but in the end, my sexual desire was only resolved incompletely, without ever gaining a satisfying climax.
"It's not enough. One more flashback..."
Right, if I watch that miserable ending just one more time, I feel like I'll definitely be able to go all the way.
So, just once.
Just one more time, and then...
[※Flashbacks are provided free of charge only once per event. Subsequent re-watches will require Memory Coins.]
However, while I was frantically masturbating, the tip notification that popped up in front of the Recollection Room made my expression freeze instantly.
What? I need coins to watch the flashbacks?
What the hell is a coin?
No, more importantly, they called this a Recollection Room.
Isn't a Recollection Room supposed to be a system left open so you can comfortably watch whenever you want?
"Y-You, why are you suddenly acting like this?"
My hands and feet were trembling.
After making me go through an experience like this, they were suddenly refusing to show it to me?
This made no sense.
"How do I get coins...?"
That was why I asked.
Just what the hell do you want from me?
Making a system like this and demanding coins means you want something from me.
[※Memory Coins are increased by hunting monsters or gaining fame.]
"More specifically, please."****
[※Hunting monsters of a similar level to yourself grants 1 coin. Hunting monsters stronger than yourself grants coins proportional to the difference.]
"Then the conditions aren't as difficult as I thoug—"
[※The required cost for a single flashback is 100 coins.]
"..."
The conditions demanded by the system left me momentarily speechless.
"What about hunting monsters weaker than me..."
[※No coins are awarded when hunting weaker monsters.]
There was not even a single loophole to exploit.
It demanded that I hunt monsters strictly equal to or higher than my own level in order to hand over any coins.
That basically meant I had to go out and hunt way more strong monsters.
"Are you really going to play like this? I already saved the world once, you know."
I spoke to the system in a complaining tone, but no reply came back.
While it was a system that usually accommodated my conveniences quite well, when it refused to compromise like this, it was as stubborn as a mule and wouldn't listen a damn word I said.
"Tch. Fine. I'll do it. I'll just do it."
Stingy.
Pettiness at its finest.
It wouldn't hurt to just hand out a bit of wank material, would it?
Thanks to the worst experience of my life, my body had become incapable of finding satisfaction through mere masturbation, but flashbacks were still the absolute best spank bank material I had.
The sensation of my own life being miserably shattered.
The feeling of every single strand of my hair being utterly denied and being abandoned by the world...
It was a terrifying yet lovely pleasure that practically burned my brain to a crisp.
"Tch, anyway, I need to reload my save. Continuing any further in this state looks impossible."
My head having cooled down thanks to the system's interruption, I calmly acknowledged the current situation and prepared to reload my save.
No matter how much I was someone who had cleared the 1st playthrough, overcoming the current situation was simply impossible.
The current state was, by the system's own admission, a hopeless dead end.
If I were to proceed in this state, a terrifying and miserable future, just like the one I saw in the Recollection Room, would be waiting for me.
Of course, a part of me actually liked that too, but...
Even so, it would take far too long for things to reach that point.
Besides, even if I enjoyed miserable situations, I didn't enjoy being cold and starving.
Roaming around right now with no money, food, or clothes would probably lead to the ending I saw in the Recollection Room if I got lucky.
If I got unlucky, I'd starve to death, or perhaps get defeated and eaten by monsters.
In the end, with my progress completely blocked, the only thing I could do was load a save.
The thought of having to camp outdoors again right after waking up gave me a slight sense of revulsion, but...
Well, what else could I do?
"Load Save 2."
[Loading save data.]
-save2. Outside the gates of the Aurel Empire
The moment I loaded the save data, my vision shifted in an instant and the surroundings turned dark.
Time had turned back to the night before I was violated by those unidentifiable men.
"Are you alright?"
Right in front of me, Ajim, the merchant who had offered me a meal the night before, was looking at me.
Wait, what conversation were we having when I made that save...?
"Ah, um. I'm fine."
"You seem to be in rather poor shape, though... So about that meal..."
Ah, he was still in the middle of offering me dinner.
I recalled the context of the conversation.
Save-scumming abilities were great and all, but this sort of thing was the real problem.
If you save right in the middle of a conversation and load it later, figuring out what you were talking about is always such a pain in the ass.
'Last time, I turned down the meal offer.'
I had considered the mister in front of me suspicious and intentionally kept my distance.
As a result, I ended up getting violated in my sleep and having all my belongings stolen.
If keeping my distance meant I'd end up violated anyway...
'Wouldn't it be better to just accept the meal offer?'
They say even a ghost who died with a full stomach looks better, right?
Whether the mister in front of me harbored malicious intent or not didn't matter.
I had already seen the worst possible outcome where I turned down the meal and lost all my footing anyway.
No matter if the mister in front of me drugged my food or violated me while I slept, could the outcome possibly be any worse than that?
'And if this doesn't work out either, I can just start over from the beginning.'
"Then, if you don't mind, may I join you?"
"Hoho, of course! Come on over!"
I followed Ajim over to where his cargo wagon was parked.
Near his cargo wagon, a modest number of mercenaries and staff he had hired were holding down their spots.
"Here, take this."
"Thank you."
In front of a warm campfire.
Ajim handed me a bowl containing an unknown vegetable soup and a few pieces of jerky.
It tasted ordinarily delicious, much better than I expected.
There was no artificial taste typical of drugs, and the chunks of meat were large enough to be satisfying.
"So, what brings Lady Alice to Chato?"
"W-Well, to make some money. I originally lived in the countryside, but after my parents passed away, I had no way to make a living, so I came up to the city thinking I'd become an adventurer or a mercenary..."
"An adventurer or a mercenary... That's pretty rough work for a woman like Lady Alice, will you be alright?"
"I-It's fine. I have an aptitude for magic, after all."
"A magician! That's quite a rare profession. Ah yes, with magic, you can definitely make a great success of yourself as an adventurer or a mercenary. Absolutely."
Light conversation was exchanged as I ate the meal Ajim had provided.
The back-and-forth dialogue was nothing special.
The questions he threw my way were mostly things he was asking out of pure curiosity.
Based on the conversation alone, there wasn't a single hint of an impression that he wanted to demand anything from me or pull something shady.
"Ah, sleep over here. This is the tent where our female staff sleep, and it's quite spacious, you see. You can sleep in peace. There are some bad eggs wandering around this neighborhood, after all."
"Uh-uh... thank you...?"
He even provided a sleeping arrangement that ensured safety by placing me with other women.
'...Does a merchant with this much conscience even exist in the Aurel Empire?'
I couldn't help but be astonished.
It was no exaggeration to say the country itself was a giant dumpster fire—that was the Aurel Empire.
For such an Aurel Empire to have a merchant who showed kindness to a woman he was meeting for the very first time without committing a single crime against her...
"ID check, please."
"Here it is."
"Ah, here is mine as well."
As morning broke after spending the night and the gates opened, we handed our IDs to the guard standing watch at the city gates and were able to enter the city.
The ID used for the guard's inspection was a universal identification card granted as a Hero perk that worked anywhere.
Of course, even with a proper ID, if a lone woman tried to enter the city by herself, the guards would have put her through the wringer under the pretext of looking suspicious. But even then, Ajim insisted I was part of the group he had hired and guaranteed my identity, allowing me to enter the city without a hitch.
"Well then, let's part ways here. I truly hope you succeed in this city and we can meet again someday."
"...Yes. Have a safe journey."
When parting ways, he even recommended a reliable inn and we split up cleanly without any extra fuss.
'What is this? He really was just an ordinary, genuinely good person?'
Had I really misunderstood such a good person as a rapist all by myself and distanced myself from him?
The old saying about digging your own grave suddenly came to mind.
"...Save 3."
[Saved to Save slot 2.]
save0. Prologue [Locked]
save1. ★Happy Ending [Locked]
save2. Outside the gates of the Aurel Empire
save3. Frontier City Chato of the Aurel Empire
Only after finishing the save in a safe place did a wave of self-loathing and a post-nut clarity crash over me.
In the end, I wasted the entire day kicking my blanket in the inn out of sheer post-nut clarity, unable to accomplish even a single thing on my schedule.
Though, of course, the wasted time was later undone by loading a save.