Chapter 21: It’s not like you can set fire to anything

Kazahana Rio.

I don’t know her real name, and I haven’t seen her much lately, but…

Still, I pride myself on being quite close for work colleagues.

First, we contact each other often.

And if Rio occasionally says she wants to see me, I’d go visit her once in a while.

For reference, Rio usually contacts me first. I’ve never forced her.

So, the main point is.

Rio is… a typical introvert who doesn’t readily like going outside.

But despite that, if we have a relationship where we seek each other out like this…

Isn’t that, to some extent, quite close?

That’s why I chose Rio.

It’s not like we’re particularly shy around each other…

And since we’ve had a bit of a lack of contact recently, it felt like playing together after a long time.

Half of it was to avoid troublesome things, but the other half was for that reason.

However, if there was one thing I overlooked.

Rio was extremely timid.

“Heek?”

“Aaat?!”

“Kyaaaaaaaak?!”

…Even more so than I imagined.

– Riiikkyaaaaaaaak

– Wow, look how loud that is

– Her usual vocal volume is different

– My ears are bleeding….

Thanks to that, the chat room was in an uproar, complaining about their ears.

Well… whenever she encountered something, she’d scream first.

And my stream isn’t usually that noisy, so…

They wouldn’t be used to it. Their eardrums wouldn’t survive.

‘…Hmm.’

The monsters aren’t that scary in design.

If she wasn’t startled by their appearance, then it must be that.

So, Rio seems to be extremely intolerant of…

So-called jump scare genres, where something suddenly pops out.

This game… it doesn’t have a minimap, so it’s hard to perceive anything in advance.

“Got it. You can come out.”

“Uuugh… thank you…”

…Well, still.

It’s a relief that the overall difficulty is low.

Even though monsters appear quite often…

As long as you have a weapon, you can beat them down moderately.

– She doesn’t even blink

– As expected of a delinquent

– Is this… the skill of someone who used to beat people in back alleys?

“…Skill of beating people? Who said that. Get out.”

– Gasp

– Wha

– It wasn’t me

While warning the chat room that had become slightly dangerous, I was farming loot.

And I found a truly unexpected item in this game.

“Oh, a gun.”

…Hmm. A pistol. It can appear.

But this… why is the modeling like this?

The graphics in this game are generally all round and cutesy…

But this one alone exudes a tactical feel… it’s somehow incongruous.

No, only this one has different graphics. The effort put into it looks different from the start.

Is it perhaps the developer’s preference? If not, there’s no explanation.

“Hwaaaaaaaak! Ina-yaaaaaaaa!!!”

Just as I was deeply pondering the correlation between the pistol and the game.

Rio came running, boasting a decibel level significantly higher than before.

“…What’s that, now?”

Following Rio was…

A monster that looked like it came straight out of a real horror game, a mishmash of various things.

At least, compared to the monsters I’d seen so far, it had a decidedly bizarre visual.

An uncanny valley that’s a bit hard to explain?

…Why did they suddenly create something like that.

The pistol too, just do one thing at a time.

– Bang─

Feeling annoyed, I pulled the trigger without hesitation.

– Thud.

The monster, hit by the bullet, stiffened for a moment…

And then fell backwards, like a tree being felled.

– ?

– ?

– ? Wait a minute

– What was that one-tap just now?

“Woww…”

“It’s nothing much. Let’s go farm.”

…Hmm.

Maybe because it’s a gun, the damage is strong.

Is it because I’ve been bashing things with a shovel until now? There’s a slight lack of satisfying impact.

“Um, Ina-ya.”

As I was soothing my subtle disappointment over the now-gone weighty impact.

Rio, who had suddenly sidled up next to me….

“Huh? Why?”

“That was, incredibly cool just now…”

“…Huh?”

…Uttered some very significant words.

– ?

– Oh?

– You?

– No way?

…Huh.

What is this, this déjà vu?

If things stay like this, it feels like something big is about to happen…?

“…At this point, we should have enough money. Shall we go see the others?”

---

To put it simply, the atmosphere was refreshed.

“…You died?”

“Ahaha…”

“How… in the world…?”

While Rio and I were diligently running around.

Fortunately, they managed to meet the quota itself…

The problem was, after that.

“Hwaaak!!!”

“Ah.”

“Ina-ya, save me, Ina-ya!!!”

In the next round too, those two died without fail.

And even Rio, who was at least good at farming, once separated from me…

Her screams attracted the monster’s aggro, and she died quickly.

Because of that, the picture that unfolded afterwards was….

“…No, where did everyone go!!!”

– LMAOOOOOOOOOOOO

– You are the hope of the 2nd generation, don’t let go

– Have to carry… the log, right?

(TL Note: “Carrying the log” (통나무 들다) is slang for carrying the team, especially when one person is doing all the work.)

– Sorry, really, there’s no one but you….

My desperate log-carrying show, always left alone.

…For reference, it’s a system where you lose money if you die.

No matter how much I struggled, clearing was out of the question.

Eterna’s gaming skills, confirmed to be hopeless.