Ho-ho, It Has Nothing to Do With It
Ho-ho, It Has Nothing to Do With It
003.
A few days ago.
"Kkiyaaaa!!"
A dark night. Screams echoing from behind. Flaming roofs, and a burning village.
Leaving that brutal scene behind, Vivian fled far from the village toward the forest, holding her two young sisters by the hand.
Second, holding her hand tightly while desperately keeping up, asked frantically.
"Eonni!!!! What about Omma!!? Isn't Omma coming with us?"
But biting her lip tightly, Vivian lied to survive.
"Omma will follow us shortly. Let's go ahead first."
It was a lie.
Vivian's village had fallen to a raid. The men of Vivian's village were nowhere near enough to hold off dozens of raiders.
She had heard that these raiders were cruel people.
If captured, the men would become slaves, and the women would suffer terrible fates.
So Vivian had no choice but to hold her two younger sisters' hands tightly and run.
"Haa... haa... haa..."
How long had they been running? Unable to stop, they ran until they were utterly exhausted. So they hid themselves inside some ruins.
Where on earth was this place? Where could they go to survive?
Hunger set in, and their legs throbbed with pain.
In the dark night, she stared into the space beyond the cracks of the shabby ruined walls. It felt as though someone was still pursuing them.
Vivian set up an abandoned table, pulled out some fruit she had gathered nearby, and fed her sisters.
Tears poured continuously from her eyes.
She wanted to be held by Omma and Appa and act like a child too, but her heart weighed heavy when she thought of her younger sisters.
It was at that moment.
A strange woman's voice resonated inside her head.
Instantly, Vivian froze.
She had heard of tales before. The voice of the heavens that could only be heard in desperate situations.
Vivian fell to her knees right on the floor, rubbed her hands together fervently, and offered a prayer.
"P-Please save us! Please save me and my sisters!"
Vivian, looking up at the shattered ceiling, hesitated.
She had heard stories like that too. Stories of people who encountered the wrong Outer God, only to be played with like toys and abandoned.
Vivian dropped her head and hesitated.
Right then, from somewhere far off, came the terrifying howl of a beast—Auuu-.
"E-Eonni. What's wrong? Why are you suddenly kneeling?"
Vivian looked at her two younger sisters.
In this harsh world, could three females with no survival knowledge whatsoever actually survive?
A contract might be better than dying right away.
She nodded.
"I'll sign the contract!"
And she informed her sisters as well.
"G-Girls! I heard a voice. I was chosen by an Outer God!"
Instantly, a flash above Vivian's head sparkled as if light were descending. Vivian prayed in her heart. Please let them be a merciful entity. Please. Please.
"Ahhh..."
Upon hearing that Revelation, Vivian's legs gave out, and she collapsed in tears, weeping profusely.
His first Revelation was a pure desire to communicate without a shred of malice.
Vivian's earnest prayer had worked. He truly was a benevolent entity who would guide them on how to survive.
Therefore, she must never misunderstand His will. Nor must she ever displease Him.
For now, at least.
A room as narrow as a Rice Chest. Shouting loudly, 'Long-term Service Unit 1' squirmed while bound as he entered his 16th surgery.
"H-He said... I must i-install the prosthetic leg perfectly for you..."
"Euaaak!!! I said I'm fine!! Stop it already... Please, I beg you... S-Stop... How many times has it been already..."
Soon, Unit 1 passed out from the anesthesia. Vivian checked his breath with her hand and immediately went back to the re-operation.
Vivian was currently detaching Unit 1's prosthetic leg for the 8th time. Detaching and attaching it 8 times each meant a total of 16 surgeries, and now it was the 8th detachment.
"Man, the dialogue is ridiculously realistic."
I muttered, then tilted my head, finding it odd. Why does the AI judge attaching and detaching a prosthetic leg as something so painful?
I clicked on the status window.
[ Gouging out flesh to attach/detach the prosthetic leg... ]
"Gah. Ugh! Gross."
It was way too detailed. Just imagining it was so painful and gruesome that I closed it immediately after reading a bit.
Even though it was made up by a language AI model, if I were actually that prisoner, I would have gone insane.
'But it's just a game, right?'
I gallantly kept a close eye only on Vivian's EXP bar.
Soon, a notification sound chimed—Tiring-.
"Oho! Done!"
[ Medicine (★★) : 10 ]
Filled with joy, I stood up and clapped my hands.
In a world where 20 was the maximum cap, Vivian's Medicine finally hit 10. Starting from 2, it had been quite a rough journey.
Conveniently, the surgery had just ended as well.
[ Balance : 2,300 pt ]
Thanks to discovering Vivian's trait, my balance was pretty full, so I clicked <Issue Revelation> to praise her.
I pressed <Send>.
Vivian's status window displayed [ Flinched ], which soon changed to [ Kneels and offers a prayer ].
'What the.'
It seemed Vivian was taking my meaning a bit weirdly. I was going to excuse myself, but then I thought it's actually convenient that the AI misunderstands on its own.
Vivian follows my Revelations seriously hard. She even ate her meals inside that Rice Chest-like closet room while relentlessly performing 16 surgeries back to back.
'Is this also a feature of the AI mod? She's fucking diligent.'
Well, whatever the case, thanks to that, Vivian will now be able to breeze through things like attaching/detaching prosthetics or dressing simple wounds smoothly.
Meanwhile, while the Medicine grinding was in progress, I had tasked Second and Third with simple reinforcement construction through Vivian.
Tang, tang, tang.
Third was diligently building wooden walls according to my orders. First, they needed to avoid the cold and heat, so I told them to block the holes in the wall with timber.
"Was it here that Vivian eonni said to divide it from earlier?"
I had told them to partition the ruin space based on the protruding ruined stone wall. That way, one side of the space would enclose the Rice Chest room.
"Damn right, double doors for prisoner rooms are an unwritten national rule."
Of course, it was partly to prevent prisoner escapes, but I also planned to use this space as a temporary warehouse later.
Before long, it was dinner time.
I watched the three sisters eat dinner and chat.
"Eonni, so did you spend the whole day doing prosthetic surgery today? Constantly detaching and attaching it?"
"Yes. Because it's His will."
"C-Crazy? Why?? Isn't our Outer God like a psychopath or something?"
"N-No! You shouldn't talk like that. It's because I couldn't succeed perfectly in one go."
"Khehe, this is fun in various ways."
I watched the sisters whispering among themselves for a long time, then went and cooked some cup ramen, blowing on it as I joined them.
Even though they were just AI, watching the tiny graphics chattering away made me feel a strange sense of comfort from their struggle for survival.
Somehow, I felt happy.
So I kept watching them. Even though they were just bits of graphics, I watched them clean, wash up, and fool around.
Soon night fell, and the three sisters prepared for sleep. Bearing a full smile, I thought about calling it a day for gaming and maybe cleaning my room for the first time in a while.
I paused just as I was about to hit the quit button.
"Should I not turn it off?"
Suddenly, I didn't want to turn it off. I knew it was fake. Even so, I still felt that way.
I wanted to hang out with them, watch them closely, and protect them.
After all, time flows arbitrarily in this game.
So I decided to do just that.
Instead of quitting, I popped it up on my secondary monitor. Then I passed the time watching internet livestreams or Noutube.
Before I knew it, deep night arrived in the game.
While watching a stream, a change occurred on the in-game screen that should have been motionless since everyone was sleeping at night.
"Huh?"
The prisoner woke up.
The prisoner went berserk. He pounded and smashed against the door. The three sisters, perhaps exhausted, couldn't hear it and kept sleeping.
"Tsk, gotta wake them up quickly."
A prisoner escape was an 'ordinary affair of war'—in other words, a routine occurrence in this game.
I checked the map. Fortunately, I had detached his prosthetic leg, and today's construction work was done well. The double doors and layout leading to the three sisters would buy quite a bit of time.
I immediately pressed <Issue Revelation>.
I pressed <Send>.
Vivian's status became [ Eyes snapped open ]. I thought she would arm herself right away, but the character trembled again. Soon, it displayed [ In a Panic ] again.
"Uh...?"
Right. Conceptually, she was still just a young girl who had barely reached adulthood. She looked flustered.
I clicked <Issue Revelation> again.
Soon, Vivian's [ In a Panic ] status vanished. And she immediately woke up her sisters and did as I commanded.
Peo-ong.
Just then, the first door blew open.
Now spitting out curses, the prisoner looked around, spotted the second door, and began bashing it down.
That sound was probably audible to the three sisters. I checked the status window.
[ Nervous ]
They were worried. But he should be easy enough to take down.
I clicked <Issue Revelation> once more.
I coaxed her gently. Soon, Vivian whispered the Revelation to her sisters, explaining it to them.
Peo-ong.
Soon the second door blew open as well, and the prisoner stepped inside without knowing a thing.
At that moment, planks ambushed him. Hiding on both sides of the door, the three sisters began beating the prisoner with planks.
Peobeobeobeok. Peobeobeobeok.
However, his voice was far too quiet to stop the panic-fueled assault of the three sisters, who swung the planks desperately as if fighting for their lives.
The beating continued for quite a while. After watching for a moment, I finally froze.
"Huh??? Unit 1 is gonna die!"
Absolutely not. I can't let our key asset and primary teaching material die over such a trivial matter.
I hurriedly clicked <Issue Revelation>.
Upon receiving the Revelation, Vivian hastily stopped her sisters. On the floor lay the one-legged prisoner, bleeding out but not quite dead.
"E-Eonni! What are you doing! Let's kill this bastard!"
"No! H-He told us to keep him alive for now."
"What? That makes no sense!! This bastard could escape again!! If things go wrong..."
"No! It's His will! Listen to me!"
Afterwards, the two younger sisters carried out my commands one by one, while Vivian dragged the prisoner back to the closet room to treat him.
Vivian was whispering toward me.
"Hehe, mercy has nothing to do with it, my child."
What is the most expensive asset in our settlement right now? 'Long-term Service' Unit 1. Other than him, even if everything else gets raided, it wouldn't hurt.
But our 'Long-term Service' Unit 1 could potentially escape on foot. So what do I need to do?
I pressed <Issue Revelation> again.
Soon, following my command, Vivian began the prisoner's 19th dawn surgery.
I have to chop off his other leg, too.