Chapter 50: I feel a little proud

I turn around.

A grotesquely distorted face was there.

All the facial features were twisted and deformed as if to cause discomfort.

The bright red mouth was ripped open to the ears, revealing sharp teeth.

Over 2 meters tall, with limbs bent and drooped, its rapid approach seemed so unnatural.

Whoosh.

Whoosh.

Stones and branches hit its body and immediately fell off.

Just as it reached close enough to reveal its long tongue, stretching its mouth even wider.

I turn around and dash forward.

The footsteps following right behind were clearly audible, indicating the close distance.

“Attacks don’t work on it.

I’ll retreat for now.”

-Wow, f*ck, I thought I was caught.

-Aaaagh!

-It looks really brutal.

-Ah, this is so scary.

-I’ll have to sleep with my mom tonight, lol.

“It seems like it closes the distance in an instant when I look at it.”

So I focused on running without looking back.

In the meantime, other things popped out from various places and blocked my path.

A woman shedding tears of blood.

A body with all its organs exposed due to mutilation.

A person crawling on the ground without a lower body, flailing their arms towards me.

“Oh.

Did you see it flinch when it got hit by the stone?

It seems like small fry can be attacked.”

-Don’t get ahead of yourself!

Just run away!!

-Ria is just enjoying it, lol.

-Is it possible that she has no emotions?

-Ah, I’m going to get neurosis from this chase music.

“It’s a bit frustrating.

Why do I have to run away from that thing?”

It wasn’t a pleasant experience to be chased after so long.

It’s so unfair to have no way to resist.

Do I really have to run until it gives up?

While pondering a way, I thought of my belongings.

Herbs, water bottle, flashlight, the choice was quick.

I picked up the flashlight and turned around.

“As expected.

When I shine the flashlight on it, its speed doesn’t increase even if I look at its face.

From the way it made the night come faster earlier, I thought there might be something to this.”

-Ugh.

-It looks even more horrifying when you shine the flashlight on it.

-Ah, I can’t watch anymore.

-What’s with running backward?!!

-How do you avoid the corpses while running backward??

-Please look ahead..

-Your guts are really something.

“Is it the power of the flashlight itself?

Or the light?

Anyway, it’s a good clue that I can seal one of its abilities.”

I shined the light on various parts of its body, looking for other weaknesses.

However, my thoughts were cut short because it suddenly stopped.

“Why isn’t it following anymore?

It can’t be out of stamina.”

As I approached it step by step, it started to rush at me again.

Then it stopped again at a certain point.

“From here on, it either can’t enter or doesn’t want to enter.”

-Why are you going closer;;

-This girl just doesn’t have an amygdala.

She can’t feel fear.

-How do you not get lost even once?

One wrong turn and it’s game over.

“The path from the entrance was the same even with the directional disturbance.

The illusion formation is quite sloppy.”

-Then did you memorize the entire path after seeing it once?

“What’s so difficult about finding a forest path.

I learned from Ria, the elf.”

-Why are you still pretending to be Karen when no one believes it…

-You are the definition of bullheadedness.

“This is a place I haven’t been to before.

Shall we go in?”

At that moment, the man clutched his head and sat down on the ground.

“Help.

I can’t stand it anymore.”

“Why is this guy suddenly like this?”

-Because of stress

-Look at his mental state

-Herbs

-You have to feed him herbs

“So this is when I use the herbs.

He’s such a weak-minded person.”

-Is that so…?

-It’s impressive if you can endure it by eating grass, lol.

-Your way of thinking is different from ours.

After eating the herbs, I moved deeper.

It was a place where a low, gloomy fog obscured the view.

There was no background music, no whispering in my ears, just a suffocating silence.

Whoosh.

There was a shape approaching through the fog.

I quickly bent down to avoid it.

“The tree bowed its head on its own.”

As I walked, similar things happened often.

Long branches swished by, and thorny vines tried to grab my ankles and arms.

There were also places where the ground suddenly gave way, and the hard ground turned into a pool of blood.

It was as if the entire forest was alive and moving.

“This place… is very similar to the Forest of Deschmaugh.

But it’s much safer than that place.”

-Sa?fer?

-What is Deschmaugh?

-Why are you asking that?

Are you a native to Karen’s stream?

-When Ria brings up a word that only she knows, usually..

“It’s a forest that belongs to the territory of the demons.

It was the chosen path to infiltrate deep into their territory.

But there was a reason why even the demons didn’t approach it often.

The entire forest was hostile to all life that didn’t originally belong there.”

I learned about it from Ria.

I’ve used this excuse too much.

“One of the curriculums at the psychic academy was to carry out missions through virtual reality.”

-Why is there a curriculum to fight against demons…

-Ruining your main character’s RP, lol.

-Karen has to fix it anyway, lol.

-Pleasure without responsibility.

Anyway, after getting out of the area without any real sense of crisis, the whispering started again.

“It hurts so much!

It hurts so much!

It hurts so much!”

“Die, die, die.

Die.

Die.”

“More blood… more blood… more blood…”

The whispers gradually turned into louder shouts, and eventually, they became screams.

And then, instead of just echoing in my ears, the subjects themselves started to appear.

“There are a lot of them gathered here.

There was a reason why it was so noisy.”

Adults and children.

Men and women.

Beings with faces and limbs mixed together crawled out from all over the place.

Chewing on herbs, I picked up stones in both hands.

-Turn on the light!

-Run away quickly, you’re surrounded.

-Ah, the graphics on this are really unpleasant.

-It’s so well made that it’s gross.

“It’s not just appearing and disappearing for a moment.

And there’s no rule that says I have to run away.

Is there any reason not to fight?”

-You can’t beat it that way.

Running away is the standard strategy.

-(You can get a proper weapon in the next chapter anyway) [Message deleted by manager]

-Let’s refrain from spoilers.

-She’ll figure it out.

-I might see the first game over, lol.

I took in the surrounding scene at a glance and immediately threw a stone at the nearest enemy.

Thud.

It hit one of the many faces directly, but it only staggered for a moment.

Thud.

Thud.

Stones flew at other enemies, but again, they only stopped momentarily.

In the meantime, they formed a circle and started to approach rapidly.

-I told you, the damage is too weak to kill them.

-Is this the end..

-It was impossible to clear hardcore on the first try.

Throwing won’t stop them.

Then.

I picked up stones again.

And I rushed towards the thinnest and longest one.

Amidst the vivid screams and breaths right in front of me, I started to hit it directly with the firmly held stone.

I didn’t train my martial arts to the extreme.

Just enough for self-defense.

Even so, I can’t use it perfectly because of the limitation that I can’t reflect all the movements.

Because this is a game.

However.

The experience of maximizing possibilities within the limits of the system was very familiar to me.

Rely on senses and reactions.

Utilize the wide view of the battlefield.

Respond to the most threatening attack first, and evade to a place where you can make the next move.

Being surrounded is never absolute.

A flow that changes according to the situation.

Find the gap and move, and sometimes create a gap yourself.

Thud.

Thud.

It doesn’t matter if it’s weak.

If I keep hitting without getting hit, eventually the opponent will fall.

With that belief, I swung my arms endlessly.

Screams and howls echoed from all directions.

-You’re dodging and hitting everything even here, lol.

-You might end up killing them all alone…

-This isn’t a game where you go on a rampage!!

-The game genre has changed…

-Genre: Fighting/Action

-I’m not scared of watching horror games anymore.

-Suddenly, they seem pitiful…

-It hurts so much!

(From getting beaten up by Ria)

Thud.

How many times did I swing my fist?

After an immeasurable amount of time, the last enemy finally fell to the forest path.

“I feel a little proud.

Even if it’s just in a game, it feels like I’ve helped the suffering souls pass on.”

Those who were used as experimental subjects by the demons, or those whose souls were used due to a wrong contract.

It wasn’t just because I didn’t want to run away, but because I thought of them that I chose to fight until the end.

Hmph.

-You just did it because it looked fun, lol.

-Don’t try to package it..

-No, no, they suffered because of you.

-I think I know why battle maniac is part of Ria’s RP, lol.

-Did you have to be so persistent in killing those poor things?

-Ria doesn’t know the human heart..

Are many Pias watching?

Or are Karus always like this?

They’re so united when they have a chance to oppose me.

“Please don’t slander me.”