Ch.131Acknowledging NPC. (4)

“Oh, an unfamiliar ceiling…”

“Hmm, are you awake now?”

And a familiar face.

I slowly sat up in bed, feeling the stiffness throughout my body. Green Stone looked at me and tossed me an apple.

I saw no need to catch it, so I let it fall onto the blanket.

“…How long was I out for?”

“You were lying down for two days.”

…Hmm. So I woke up two days after getting stabbed in the stomach and being brought to the hospital? This really is a fantasy world.

I touch my side where there should be a hole, but I don’t feel anything unusual at the wound site.

“Just so you know, I completely healed your wound that day.”

“Is that so? Yet I was still out for quite a while.”

Come to think of it, Green Stone could use healing magic too, right? Was my wound so deep that I couldn’t get up right away despite that?

When I asked about it, Green Stone let out a big sigh and explained.

“It wasn’t because of the hole in your stomach, but because you fell asleep. The hospital even said it wasn’t the wound that was the problem, but that you seemed to have caught a cold.”

“…Oh.”

That battle from before. After Miho blew off the head of the resurrected Er Jim, I delivered the final attack to the mass of flesh and collapsed backward.

Green Stone says that after treating my bleeding wound, he carried Miho and me, who could barely move, back to the village and left the recovery of the beastkin to the town guard.

“After you collapsed like that, I rushed to treat you and moved you to the hospital. When I heard it was just a mild cold, I really wanted to give you a knock on the head.”

“Haha. I wouldn’t have complained if you had hit me.”

“…After seeing you going crazy with sleepiness, you expect me to wake you up? I’m not suicidal yet.”

Green Stone shook his head as if genuinely disgusted, then turned to look at the hospital room door.

“Well, I’ll say this much though.”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for affirming my master who was suffering until the end, and for properly rejecting him too. I’m grateful. I couldn’t have done that myself.”

After saying that, Green Stone stood up and headed for the door as if embarrassed by his own words.

His face was slightly flushed—he really seemed embarrassed. It’s hard to look away when a handsome man acts like that.

“Green Stone.”

“Hmm?”

“If you’re grateful, buy me a meal sometime.”

“…Pfft, alright. Get well soon. When we go to Siltra, I’ll treat you at my favorite restaurant.”

He left the hospital room without saying anything about how I had disposed of his master’s corpse, even though he would have had every right to be angry.

“Ah! Elder, are you leaving already?”

“Yes, he’s awake now.”

“What?!!”

Then a woman’s voice came from the doorway, and the hospital room door swung open.

For a moment, I saw Green Stone looking back at me with a smile at the corner of his mouth. Somehow, that smile seems a bit concerning?

“Jack!!!”

“Ow, my ears. I’m a patient, you idiot.”

The woman with silver and black mixed hair shouted loudly as soon as she saw me. Miho rushed toward me with her golden eyes welling up with tears.

Wait, is she crazy?!

*WHAM!!*

“I’m sorry!! I’m so sorry!! I did something stupid again!!!”

“Hey, you idiot!! I said I’m a patient!!!”

“I’m sorry!! I’m really sorry!!! I, I stupidly got captured…!!”

“I get it!! It hurts!! I said it hurts?!! Let go?!!!”

Her chest!! Her chest is touching me!!!

Despite my shouting at her to let go, Miho started sobbing and grabbed my body with the hands that were holding my waist, gradually moving upward.

Her voluptuous chest is rubbing against my entire body, and it’s driving me crazy. What the hell is this?!!

“Hey!! I said let go?! You don’t even have anything to blame yourself for, so why are you crying…!!!”

*Lick*

“?!!”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. You were in a lot of pain because of me. *Lick* *Lick* I’m sorry, *sob*. I’m really sorry… *Lick*”

Miho suddenly grabbed my body and started licking my ear and cheek with her surprisingly rough tongue, causing me to grab her shoulders while making a sound that couldn’t even be called a scream.

Is, is she crazy?! Beast mode again?! What’s wrong with her?! Seriously!!!

“*Lick* I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Please don’t abandon me… please…”

I was about to push her away, but I hesitated when I heard those words as she continued to cry profusely.

Her appearance slightly overlapped with the blue-haired woman and the blonde woman from before.

And I think that perhaps I’ve been making a huge misunderstanding all this time.

‘…Even if they’re playable, even if they didn’t appear in the game… they each have their own lives and histories.’

She had definitely pounced on Ragni before. I saw that and judged Miho as a crazy psycho lesbian, and I didn’t try to know anything more about her.

Er Jim never appeared in the game. However, he had valid reasons to be consumed by the demon of wrath.

I had only thought of Green Stone as a deus ex machina from the game; I didn’t even know he had a master.

And now Miho—the one I had judged as a psycho lesbian—is pressing her entire body against me, a man, and apologizing like a cat or dog.

On top of that, Miho had been saying things like “don’t abandon me” and “I want to stay by your side,” trying to create openings in various ways.

‘…What do I really know about her? About what drives her actions?’

All I know are the classes, stats, and skills shown on her status window. I never once thought of Miho as a “person like us.”

…Just because she has a player class.

Miho licks my cheek again and looks at me with teary eyes, seemingly anxious.

She’s probably worried about how I’ll react since I haven’t said or done anything in response to her behavior.

“Stop licking. It’s sticky.”

“…Okay.”

I ask Miho, who has calmed down a bit, for a tissue and wipe my face. After slowly organizing my thoughts, I quietly said:

“Miho.”

“Yes.”

“Let’s talk.”

“*Sniff* About what?”

Looking at Miho, whose tail has drooped and whose ears have started to fold down at my sudden seriousness, I realize anew how much I’ve been ignoring her and trying not to see her.

I don’t know when it started. I don’t know since when she’s been reacting so extremely—no, so negatively—to my words.

It feels like the casual remark I made to Green Stone about talking to his master has come back to me like a boomerang.

“…First. Why don’t you tell me what your sister and parents do for a living?”

“…Huh?”

“And.”

I placed my hand on Miho’s head as she still anxiously clutched my fingers, and managed an awkward smile.

I just realized how little I’ve genuinely smiled at Miho until now.

“I’ll tell you about my dad and Ira too. Don’t fall asleep because it’s boring, okay?”

It seems I’ll have to stay in the hospital for one more day.

*

In the darkened mountains, a person approaches the Aigram Guard station as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Welcome!”

“Thank you. You’re working hard. Please keep up the good guard work.”

“Yes!”

After receiving greetings from the men, she naturally passes by and heads into the cave.

All the guardsmen glance at her as she enters the cave.

She might not qualify as a world-class beauty, but there’s something about her that draws the eye.

As Avaritia’s secretary, she checks the interior of the cave, pretending not to notice the men’s gazes even though she’s aware of them.

“…Hmm, so they really didn’t catch a single one?”

Muttering to herself in the empty space, she examines several fallen medicine bottles and chains where the beastkin had been tied up, then sighs as if disgusted.

“…With this, the seeds left by Wrath (Ira) are completely gone. Only two even germinated. To call this the chaos and wounds left by the Seven Deadly Sins seems too meager.”

It’s ridiculous. After Wrath died, she had infiltrated Avaritia’s side to find out how he had killed someone with whom he had poor compatibility, but who would have thought she’d be hindered from a completely different direction?

“…No. Perhaps.”

That day, the man who came in after Avaritia had smashed the gate. She had seen how Avaritia kept grumbling at this man called Jack but never properly rebelled against him.

It seems unlikely, but perhaps…

“It wasn’t Avaritia who killed him, but that man? A mere human, that human without any magical power killed one of the Seven Deadly Sins?”

It’s not entirely impossible. Thousands of years ago, all the Seven Deadly Sins except the current Pride (Superbia) were killed by human hands.

But the humans of that era, which she had only heard about, and the humans of today are so different in terms of strength. How could it be possible?

Could he perhaps have a skill that makes him stronger despite having no magical power?

“For now it’s just a possibility, but I’d like to confirm it completely…”

Her trail has already started to be discovered.

Two days ago, that man completely shattered the minds of the trash she had confined in the hospital, and now they all tremble and can barely speak when his name is mentioned.

If that man notices something and starts to move while I’m still here, I might get caught by Avaritia.

“…I can’t do something stupid like the apostles of Envy (Invidia). Anyway, our Queen will soon descend. I’ll report everything then.”

Using the now-useless Wrath and the pushed-aside apostles of Envy as nutrients, and with the blood that has already flowed enough, our Queen will descend upon the continent perfectly, without any weakening.

Lust (Luxuria) of the Seven Deadly Sins, Luxuria.

She will soon be resurrected at the mountain known as the final destination of the monster parade that occurred in Ponia.

The apostle of Lust, who had been disguised as Avaritia’s secretary, left that place and disappeared into the mountains, away from Aigram.

Later, Avaritia’s hysterical screaming for nearly a month over her suddenly missing secretary and the handling of the incident would be a story for a few days later.