"Not Curious At All"

That was a viewer who came running the moment the stream notification popped up. He giggled in delight — and then froze solid.

Yesterday the viewer count had barely scraped three digits; overnight, it had exploded. <Viewers: 1,157>. With over a thousand people watching, confusion was only natural.

As the explanations piled up one after another, the viewers — who had known nothing about any of this — caught on quickly.

The new viewers, drawn in by the advertisement, kept heaping praise on the unexpected beauty they hadn't been looking for. When a major streamer gives you free publicity, a crowd like this was only natural. Seyul could sustain this audience on looks alone, so there'd be no drop-off — from here, only growth remained. It was every streamer's dream, really.

Seyul said nothing. She didn't even know she was streaming, so of course she didn't.

I'm starting to worry this is turning into a game addiction.

Having returned to the very spot where she'd left off before ending the game yesterday, Seyul wore a wry smile inside. She'd planned to wrap up quickly while grabbing a meal, but the place kept tugging at her mind all day long. The plan of "finish early and be done" got flipped on its head, and she'd nearly logged in without even realizing it.

Is it longing for that other world? A game that makes you want to keep playing.

Marvelling at how thoroughly God's Warrior had ensnared her, she set off, resuming the path she'd been walking yesterday.

Protests rained down on Seyul as she simply walked on, but she didn't stop. She just kept walking — an ordinary pace, not even hurrying. Stubbornly in one direction only. Entirely unaware that viewers were tearing their hair out watching her.

Then, the moment her foot touched a different region, a narration played with impeccable timing.

The Land of Outcasts. In short, it was the very first hunting ground on Extreme Difficulty. The monsters that spawned there were nothing but low-tier mobs with an "outcast" backstory. Dangerous compared to other starting zones, since they were still monsters — but the rewards were generous in equal measure. Seyul ignored all of it and simply walked, but for a normal Extreme Difficulty player, the standard route was to find an NPC elsewhere, receive a skill from a mentor, and come straight here to hunt. It was a place familiar even to veteran players.

But that last line was completely news to them. The Land of Outcasts served as the beginner hunting ground; if anything here went wrong, all future progression would grind to a halt. That was why this place, of all places, had never changed — and now a calamity?

Prompted by those strange words, the viewers belatedly scanned their surroundings — and froze. The mood had shifted so drastically it felt like the genre itself had changed.

No one was there. The Land of Outcasts was supposed to be crawling with monsters. Creatures should have been scattered everywhere, yet not a single one was in sight. Only clothes and belongings littered the ground. Dropped by their original owners? Garments and items lay strewn across the dirt in untold numbers. Something had clearly happened!

The viewers who didn't know the game got curious out of sheer ignorance. Those who did know assumed it was a new event and grew excited.

And yet — the one person who was supposed to face this "new event" on their behalf paid it zero attention.

Something obviously went down here, and I'm guessing I'm the one who has to fix it.

Seyul, who knew nothing about games, took it for ordinary game content. Having resolved not to be chained to game stories anymore, she ignored it outright.

Screams poured out at Seyul as she breezed past everything without a glance. With the crowd grown this large, the volume of lamentation was equally colossal. But none of it was visible to her, so her feet never stopped —

"Aren't you curious what happened here?"

As if speaking on the viewers' behalf, someone appeared and blocked her path. A face that looked like wolf and man blended into one. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠With a few exceptions, a werewolf was treated as a low-tier monster. When a werewolf bearing a spear materialized before her, Seyul frowned.

"Not really."

"Heh, figures. If you were curious, I could give you the ans— wait, you're NOT curious?"

The werewolf, who had naturally assumed she'd want to know, made a dumbfounded face.

"Everyone who lived here has vanished and only their clothes are lying around — you witnessed that insane scene and you feel nothing?!"

"Nope."

"Th-then I have a problem."

"That's your problem. Save the chatter and move. I have a road to walk."

"Hold on!"

Seyul tried to pass. The werewolf desperately blocked her. As this absurd tableau played out, the viewers were thrown into confusion.

The viewers who recognized the werewolf were especially baffled. Gerard — the only neutral NPC in the monster-infested Land of Outcasts. A monster, of all things, who idolized the human heroes of old legends. He'd trained the spear dreaming of the tales of a hero who once swept the continent with a single spear, which earned him the scorn of other monsters and got him exiled here. Perhaps because of that backstory, he was kind even to human players. Good-natured, and he even helped players hunting in the Land of Outcasts — a reasonably popular NPC.

Which meant no game-savvy viewer could possibly fail to recognize him. The momentary confusion had a simple cause: a character who was half walking gag had appeared drenched from head to toe in shriveled, dried blood that belonged to no one but his victims.

"Fine, I'll hear you out."

Seyul showed nothing but irritation toward the blood-soaked Gerard. She'd meant to refuse, but mid-refusal she sensed something and grudgingly complied.

"Go ahead."

"Th-thank you!"

Ordinarily the other party should be the one begging you to hear their story. To find himself instead pleading to be heard was absurd, but Gerard didn't waste the opening.

"My name is Gerard. Until only recently, I lived here alongside the other monsters."

As Gerard spun his tale, Seyul listened with half an ear. The viewers, dying of curiosity, held their breath and hung on every word.

"Most of the monsters here were weak, or flawed, or driven out for one reason ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠or another. So aside from a few, most of them had sharp tempers. If any of them had laid eyes on a human like you, they'd have tried to kill you on the spot. Well, once you adjusted, life here was bearable enough, but—"

"Cut the filler and get to the point."

"...You truly are impatient. Fine, as you wish — straight to the point. While we lived like that, one day, a certain man came to us."

Gerard spoke. One day, a man had appeared in the Land of Outcasts. That man had gathered the monsters together and declared:

"Do you not wish to escape this miserable existence? I shall show you mercy and teach you a single technique — the art of absorbing the power of your slain foes and making it your own!"

What the man taught them was, frankly, a deeply suspicious technique. Suspicious it may have been, but the monsters' eyes rolled back with greed. A technique to grow stronger by devouring an enemy's power. Master that, they believed, and they could cast off their outcast lot for good. One and all, they learned the man's skill. And then, to grow stronger, they killed one another. A atrocity unfolded where comrades were sacrificed without a flicker of hesitation, all in the name of power.

At first, Gerard had recoiled from the whole business and refused the technique. But those empowered by it came for his life, and he had no choice. Reluctantly, he learned it too and cut down those who assailed him.

"And in the end, only I remained."

His devotion to the human heroes of legend — the training he had never skipped a single day — had borne fruit in his exceptional spearmanship, and that was the only reason he'd survived to be the last one standing.

"Left with no choice, I used the technique and drained the strength of those I killed. And it was a strange thing, truly — the moment the power was absorbed, even the corpses vanished. That is why no one remains here but me, and why only clothes litter the ground."

The moment Gerard finished, the chat window drowned in shock and terror.

Drain flooded the chat nonstop. The skill that absorbed even the corpses of slain monsters to empower its user — the name of the single most valuable skill learnable on Extreme Difficulty.

The one who taught Drain was, on the normal route, an NPC you'd meet along the way. Because he was a goblin, players affectionately called him the Goblin Mentor. Learn Drain from him, use it while hunting in the Land of Outcasts, grow at double efficiency, and build the strength to face the other bosses — that was the standard route in detail. And now—

Monsters learning a player skill and slaughtering each other with it — it was beyond absurd.

The viewers leaned in, straining to catch every detail.

"That man's true identity was—"

Just as Gerard, as if to reward their anticipation, was on the verge of revealing who the mysterious man was—

"That's enough."

Seyul cut him off, declaring she wasn't listening anymore.

Cut off at the most crucial moment, the viewers went ballistic. But Seyul hadn't stopped things this time without reason.

"You. Did my words not reach your ears?"

Silver hair, snow-white skin. A frigid chill radiated from her snow-like beauty as she pressed him with the majesty of an ice queen.

"I distinctly remember telling you to get to the point. This sob-story recital of yours is not the point, is it?"

"...You saw through me?"

"Of course I did."

Seyul had been through every hell that other world had to offer. One-on-one duels, sure — but also infiltrating deadly dungeons, and joining full-scale wars more than once. Her instincts, tempered by every kind of chaos, were screaming at her: this one is harboring murderous intent right now!

"Besides, look — I could understand never starting down that road at all. But someone who's already fallen to such methods once? I doubt they'd simply stop halfway."

"Ahh, fair point, that. What a shame. I was planning to shock you with a dramatic twist later, then devour you."

Devour her. Having dropped that grotesque line with perfect ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠calm, Gerard then flashed a wide grin.

"Just as you said. I found it distasteful at first, but before long I was hooked on the sensation of stealing another's strength. And now, there is no one left here but me. After starving for so long, along you came. A fellow wielder of the spear — and looking so very, very delicious."

Between the murmuring wolf's lips, sharp fangs glinted.

"As you wished, I'll get straight to the point: die by my hand, right here, and offer me your strength."