Ch.13Stat Farming? (2)

How long had it passed since I’d plunged the knife into my own stomach?

An hour? Two hours? A day?

No, perhaps not even 30 minutes had gone by.

One second becomes ten seconds.

Ten seconds become ten minutes.

The sensation of time, once steady, now stretching endlessly.

In this pain, my sense of time had shattered long ago.

‘This… hurts… more than I expected…’

I knew it would be painful.

I anticipated agonizing hours ahead.

I worried it might be harder than I had predicted.

Yet, this pain felt strange somehow.

Something was clearly, fundamentally wrong.

But I had no mental capacity left to figure out what that something was.

“Cough! Cough!!”

As I coughed from the pain, blood that had pooled in my mouth splattered onto the ground.

Stagger—

My consciousness faded as I coughed up blood.

I instinctively knew.

Death was approaching me.

The end that comes to everyone was drawing near.

“Not yet…!”

I had no intention of dying yet.

From the mountain of potions I had stockpiled,

I grabbed one and opened the cap.

The contents poured down my throat and into my stomach.

Soon, my wounded, bleeding body began to heal bit by bit.

As my body recovered, that terrible pain gradually subsided.

Or so I thought.

“AAAAARGH—-!!!!”

The pain I had felt until now.

Something far worse arrived in an instant.

Regeneration.

Destruction.

Regeneration again.

Destruction again.

My flesh regenerated, but with the sword still embedded in that spot, it was immediately destroyed.

This was clearly an anomaly.

Potions weren’t supposed to work this way.

Whether there was an arrow, knife, or anything else stuck in your body,

when you used a potion, your flesh would regenerate, leaving only that embedded object untouched.

This meant that while moving might cause injury from whatever was embedded, it shouldn’t create this cycle of regeneration and destruction.

Had I been sold defective potions?

That couldn’t be.

This wasn’t something I could dismiss as merely being more painful than expected.

“Damn… it…”

This could be the Evil God’s doing.

Or perhaps someone else entirely.

One thing was certain, though.

Someone else was interfering.

I wanted to find that someone and kill them immediately.

That’s how excruciating the pain was.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t do that.

I had neither the ability nor the luxury to do so.

“Urgh…”

I felt death approaching again after briefly receding.

And I knew I could push it away once more.

At the same time, I knew that the merely agonizing pain would transform into unbearable torture.

And that this cycle of pain would continue.

Yet despite knowing all this, I reached for another potion bottle.

I opened the cap and poured its contents into my mouth once more.

“AAAAARGH!!!!”

Another agonized scream erupted from my mouth.

I had been crawling on the ground, but now I was rolling around.

This made the sword in my stomach feel like it was driving even deeper.

Unable to bear watching me any longer, Lilly approached.

Though my vision was blurry, I could see her worried expression.

“If you can’t stop, just pass out! I can feed you potions too…!”

“No…”

“The pain-reducing magic isn’t even working on you!!”

Lilly’s desperate plea reached my ears.

Still, I couldn’t allow myself to pass out.

No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t.

What I was doing now was a kind of exploit.

This wasn’t how one was supposed to acquire the trait I was after.

Trait [Path of the War God]

This trait normally requires sustaining combat for 5 days while severely wounded.

I was merely maintaining a pseudo-combat state by stabbing myself and fighting goblins, trying to endure for 5 days.

But if I passed out, it would all be for nothing.

While a trance-like state might work, being unconscious wouldn’t qualify as maintaining combat.

So I clung to my fading consciousness, refusing to pass out.

I continued swallowing potions.

One, two, four, eight.

I could have asked Lilly to do this for me, but if I stopped this mechanical action, I felt I might truly pass out.

So I kept drinking potions, no matter how mechanical the action became.

* * *

How much time had passed since then?

I didn’t know.

At some point, Lilly’s voice, which had been constantly talking to me, became inaudible.

I didn’t think she had disappeared, but I no longer had the strength to hear anything.

All that remained for me was pitch-black darkness and the mechanical repetition of drinking potions.

Nothing else remained.

As if too exhausted to feel anything else.

My body seemed to have given up on sensing anything.

Sound, sight, smell, pain.

Nothing existed around me anymore.

This too must be a kind of trance state.

That’s what I thought absently.

Why?

I’m not such a resilient person.

Why am I subjecting myself to this pain, even paying money for it?

I’m just one of countless gamers.

Though I do think I’m better at games than most.

That’s all.

If you asked anyone who knew me whether I was special, ten out of ten would answer, “No.” That was who I was.

Just someone who happened to get caught up in this mess.

Why would someone like me voluntarily put myself through this?

‘…’

One reason.

There was just one reason.

Not a mission to save the world.

Not a simple desire to help others.

Not even a desire to see the game’s ending that I hadn’t seen before.

Just revenge.

Revenge against the Evil God who had abducted someone living a good life.

I was the type who couldn’t let things go when wronged.

I’d lived my entire life that way.

So this time was no different.

Someday, I would hang the Evil God’s head on my front door.

With that resolve, I steeled my will again.

First, to see the end of this endless pain.

And at that moment:

[A fragment of the War God gazes upon you.]

[The fragment of the War God acknowledges your will.]

[‘Kill him in my stead.’]

[The fragment of the War God entrusts you with its revenge.]

[The fragment of the War God transfers its remaining power to you.]

[You have acquired the trait ‘Path of the War God.’]

I didn’t think there were any constellation elements in this game.

That question crossed my mind, but having achieved my goal, I felt my body relax.

I was worried about the sword still embedded in my stomach, but trusting Lilly to handle it well, I chose to pass out.

“I’ll just… rest… a bit…”

With those words, I slipped away.

* * *

I woke to the sensation of sunlight warming my body.

I couldn’t tell how much time had passed, but at least I knew it wasn’t nighttime.

“Ugh…”

A dull headache struck as I tried to get up.

Just then, a water pouch was thrust in front of me.

Simultaneously, Lilly’s voice came from beside me.

“Finally awake? You idiot.”

Looking to the side, I saw Lilly staring at me with a look of exasperation.

Though she spoke calmly, her face looked haggard, as if she hadn’t slept properly.

Anyone could see she had suffered a lot because of me.

Because of this, I smiled awkwardly, apologized first, and then continued.

“Haha… sorry, I caused you trouble. How long was I out?”

“Not much time has passed. I’m not sure how long you were unconscious, but I’d say about 3 hours since you said your last words.”

Hearing her words, I briefly wore a confused expression.

Three hours from my last words.

So, three hours since I passed out.

Was I misunderstanding this simple situation?

Perhaps Lilly read the thoughts behind my expression.

Looking at me, she sighed deeply and provided additional explanation.

“To begin with, since you had a knife in your stomach and put on a show for 5 days, I don’t even know when you actually passed out. You hadn’t been responding to me for a long time.”

“Ah, that’s what you meant…”

At some point, I had been in a state where all external information was blocked.

So from Lilly’s perspective, it was natural that she couldn’t tell whether I had passed out or was just talking in my sleep.

“So, did you get what you were trying to get after all that suffering?”

“I did. It’s a bit different from what I initially expected, but I think I got something even better.”

Trait [Path of the War God]

The name was slightly different from the [War God’s Rest] I had initially aimed for, but it clearly felt like it was of the same nature.

‘My body has definitely gotten stronger.’

The effect of the [War God’s Rest] trait I had originally sought was simple.

Increased physical abilities during combat.

And permanent ability increases proportional to the enhanced abilities when combat ends.

It was a trait that could solve the problem of the Succubus race, which kept increasing charm instead of the physical stats they needed.

“Well, I’m glad it worked out. But if you’re going to do something like this again, please don’t call me…”

“I had no one else to rely on but you, Lilly.”

“As if I’d believe that.”

Lilly smiled faintly and climbed onto my shoulder, leaning against my neck to rest.

And just as I was about to rest my tired body against a suitable rock—

Crack.

The wind barrier spread throughout this area was destroyed.

While it wasn’t particularly durable, it shouldn’t have been so easily broken.

A wind barrier is still a barrier, after all.

Lilly and I immediately went on alert, and soon we could see several figures approaching in the distance.

“The quest location is this way.”

“Do we really need to check the quest? The fact that there’s a barrier means there’s definitely something here.”

“If we clear this quest, we’ll be set for life. We’ll catch up to those overpowered starters.”

It seemed that unwelcome visitors had come to disturb our sweet rest.

“Those guys are Apostles.”

And very annoying ones at that.