Trapped in a Game That Flopped

Chapter 1

Episode 1

"Hero. Is this... all you have?"

Shari stared blankly at the hand held out by the man with shaggy brown hair.

Three dark, dingy-colored, jelly-like crystals.

'Lowest-grade monster essence...'

They must be from the few slimes that hop around in the field right next to the village.

The kind even seven-year-olds can catch if they have a weapon.

'Does this bastard have no conscience?'

When she looked up from it and stared at him, the shaggy-haired man, Jack, guiltily avoided her gaze.

"You know it too, Shari. Game has all dried up because of the drought lately."

"Hero. The herbs have also dried up because of the drought, and potions are hard to come by..."

"Ah, when there were lots of monsters, I used to pay more than the potion price! Everyone's having a hard time these days. Just understand. Hm?"

"But...!"

"A new request came in. I'll pay you next time, so just cut me some slack this once!"

While they bickered, Jack started sweeping the dozens of potions on the stall into a pouch he'd brought with his large hand.

"N-Not that many! And weren't you only taking health potions? Why are you taking attack potions?!"

Shari scrambled over the stall and ran out.

But Jack, avoiding her attempts to stop him, skillfully snatched the potions he needed and practically forced the three lowest-grade monster essences into Shari's hand.

"The reward for this request is pretty big. It's a mission to hunt a whopping 100 mid-low-grade monsters, you know? How can I succeed without attack potions, Shari!"

"You still haven't paid your last tab!"

"Don't worry. You'll be showering me with kisses soon, not to mention paying the tab! Until then, throw away those drab clothes and pretty yourself up."

The guy easily blocked the charging Shari with his large frame and grabbed the hood of the robe she wore pulled down low, trying to pull it off.

"Ack! What are you doing!"

But the hood wouldn't come off, as if stuck to Shari's head.

Her neck bent back, and she screamed.

Quite startled, Jack let go without thinking and said with an embarrassed face.

"Sorry. Did you put glue on that damn hood or something? Why won't it come off?"

"It's because you're always trying to pull it off, Hero!"

Shari was so furious she ran a hand roughly through her hair without realizing it.

But, oh no!

The hood that hadn't budged even when Jack pulled so hard flipped back easily.

Lustrous pink hair was revealed under the bright sunlight.

"Haa... You're this pretty, so why do you go around looking so drab, like a witch?"

Jack, who had scanned her face in that brief moment, let out an ecstatic breath.

Startled, Shari hurriedly pulled the hood back on.

Quickly hiding her face, she seethed and spoke irritably.

"Besides, Hero, you don't even have the ability to catch mid-low-grade monsters. Kisses, my ass..."

"We'll see when the request is done, Shari!"

"Wait, Hero! Hero...!"

He had taken everything he needed and teased her to his heart's content.

Before she could even grab him, Jack sped away from the apothecary.

Seeing his rat-like agility, he must have used the acceleration potion he stole from her.

"Hero! Jack! Jack!"

Shari, who had been chasing after him, stopped distractedly only when she reached the end of the alley.

Bba-deu-deuk.

"Jack! That goddamn, Hero fucking bas...!"

Shari, who had clenched her fists and burst out shouting, barely managed to shut her mouth.

Just a few more steps and she'd be on the main street where people were walking.

It would be big trouble if someone heard her carelessly cursing a Hero.

"...nim."

Timidly adding the 'nim', Shari turned back dejectedly.

She trudged back to the store and headed straight for the herb garden behind it.

She was in no mood to work after such a crappy incident first thing in the morning, but there was a mountain of chores piled up.

Thwack!

"Kke-ek!"

With a gloomy face, she began her daily task of beating mandrakes.

"Hah, hah..."

The hard labor continued. Despite the cooling weather, beads of sweat dripped from her forehead.

No matter how many she pulled and pulled, the procession of red caps seemed endless...

When she reached the midpoint, Shari finally exploded.

"Ha... Why is this fucking job never-ending, no matter how much I do!"

Tossing her shovel aside, she flopped onto the dirt ground.

Recently, she had begun to question everything around her.

The crappy Heroes who always stole her potions and the endless, repetitive manual labor.

'Just how long do I have to live like this, only doing grunt work?'

Tasks she had clearly performed without any complaint or thought were now causing her endless anguish.

It was then.

Kuuuung!

The ground vibrated with a loud roar.

"Wh-What...!"

Startled, Shari shot up from her spot.

At the same time, it grew noisy outside.

"Hey, Shari! Shari, are you in there? Shari! Open the door!"

Bang, bang, bang!

Someone was pounding violently on the store door, which she had closed for a bit.

Hearing the urgent voice calling for her, Shari hurriedly ran across the garden and into the store.

As she quickly opened the door, familiar faces scrambled inside.

Daniel, Hans, Mark, Iron, and Jack, who had just been by...

It was the gang that wandered around idly, calling themselves Heroes and ripping off the village shops.

"Shari! Potions! Do you have any attack potions?"

"I need a mana amplification potion!"

"Give me a health potion first!"

They pressured Shari, their faces pale.

"Uh, I don't. Jack took everything I had made this morning..."

As the flustered Shari mumbled her reply, the men glared fiercely at Jack.

"You selfish prick! No wonder you were chugging potions all by yourself!"

As the Heroes chorused their accusations, Jack said with a flinch.

"E-Everyone, calm down! She must have some extras made. Shari's an apothecary, isn't she? We don't have time to be fighting amongst ourselves!"

As if they all agreed, their gazes soon turned to Shari and the cramped store interior beyond the stall.

"Wh-What..."

"Shari, sorry, but we'll have to intrude. It's an emergency."

Led by Jack, they forced their way in and began to tear the place apart, searching high and low.

Not just the potion-crafting desk, but the bedroom and kitchen too.

The place, which was both her shop and her home, was a complete mess.

"There's a health potion here! It's high-grade, isn't it?"

"High-grade mana potion here!"

"Awesome! There's an area-of-effect attack scroll here too?!"

They soon found the high-grade potions and secret items Shari had hidden away.

They were things she had carefully saved to sell to a Hero who would pay the proper price.

"Wh-What do you think you're doing!"

Shari, who had been stammering at the events that unfolded in the blink of an eye, finally blocked their path as they tried to leave with her things.

"Daniel! Hans! This is theft!"

"This isn't the time to argue about that, Shari. It's an emergency! Mid-grade monsters have attacked the village!"

"That's something you Heroes should be taking care of! Taking things on credit is one thing, but now you're ransacking someone's house and stealing?!"

As if they still had a shred of conscience left, Daniel and Hans avoided her gaze.

The one who piped up in their place was Jack, who had been pissing her off since the morning.

"Theft, Shari! Isn't that too harsh? If it weren't for us Heroes, who would protect the village!"

'Shut up!'

Barely swallowing the curse that rose in her throat again, she held her palm out to Jack.

"If you're going to take them, at least pay, or no, leave an item."

"Damn it, we're in a hurry! That's not what's important, move!"

"Ack!"

But there was no way such words would work on a guy with no conscience whatsoever.

Thud!

Jack, who had roughly shoved her, scrambled out of the store.

Shari fell weakly to the ground. But among the people busy following Jack out, not a single one paid her any mind.

They might be Heroes, but this atrocity was unbearable.

She shot up from her spot and hurriedly ran outside after them.

But the alley, which had been quiet, was for some reason packed with villagers.

"Heroes! You were here!"

The villagers, all pale, ran over with delight upon seeing the guys standing in front of Shari's shop.

"A horde of monsters is coming! Please hurry and get rid of them!"

"Heroes! Over here!"

But despite the villagers' pleas, the guys just looked troubled and didn't budge.

"Kiiiiik!"

It was then. An eerie monster's cry cut through the people's shouting.

"Kyaaaaak!"

"M-Monsters! Run!"

With someone's shout, black masses the size of small children began scrambling up from the end of the alley.

People screamed and began to flee to the other end of the alley.

Though shoved around, Shari didn't move, as if her feet were nailed to the ground.

Lv.7 Lizard

It was because of the white text floating above the horde of monsters crawling all over the ground and walls.

Unlike in the past, monster bestiaries were common these days, so you could roughly tell the species just by its appearance.

But.

'You shouldn't be able to know the level until you kill it yourself...?'

When you kill a monster, you naturally acquire information about that monster.

But she had never killed a monster before.

'Then what on earth is that text floating above the Lizard horde...?'

Come to think of it, it wasn't just the Lizards.

Dover Village Resident Claire

Dover Village Grocer John

Dover Village Warehouse Keeper Max

White text was floating above everyone's heads.

"Dammit! L-Let's go too, Jack!"

Just then, one of the group of Heroes, who had been hesitating amidst the fleeing people, shouted.

At that voice, the villagers looked back at them with emotional faces.

Shari was the same.

If this was that 'request' Jack mentioned in the morning, then even though she felt agonizingly bitter about the potions the Heroes had stolen, she could understand.

Because to protect the village, it couldn't be helped.

And yet...

"Where are you going, Hero?"

Shari barely managed to grab Jack, who was running with the others toward the opposite end of the alley.

She didn't understand.

He was a Hero, so shouldn't he be fighting the monsters?

But Jack, and of course Hans, Daniel, and Mark...

'Why are they going in the complete opposite direction of the monsters?'

Jack, flustered by Shari's blank stare, stammered for a moment before suddenly shaking her off violently.

"What the... Let go!"

"What's wrong, Hero? You have to hurry and defeat the monsters and save the people. Hurry!"

There were already people being attacked by Lizards. There was no time to waste.

"Damn it, how am I supposed to catch a Lizard?! They're at least Level 4... Ugh, Uwaaak!"

While he was held back by Shari and faltered, a Lizard that had just bitten a villager leaped and attached itself to Jack's calf.

He screamed and thrashed about.

Because of this, Shari, who was holding him, was also pushed over.

Jack barely managed to kick the Lizard off.

But it seemed he'd been bitten, as his calf area was stained red with blood.

"Dammit! Because of you...!"

As if blaming Shari for his injury, he glared at her murderously for a moment, then took something from his pocket and threw it.

Clang!

With a sharp shattering sound, billows of green smoke rose up.

Shari's eyes widened at the sweet smell spreading through the air.

'Aggro potion?'

There was no way she wouldn't know what it was.

She had made it herself.

It was something she had spent days and nights making so the Heroes could use it in emergencies during monster hunts or battles...

"Kiiiik!"

The Lizards that had been attacking people must have smelled it, as they began to lift their heads one by one, making a resonating sound.

Shari stared blankly up at Jack, who had thrown the potion bottle at her feet.

"Kuk! S-Sorry, Shari! I-It can't be helped... Dammit!"

The bastard left her with those words and quickly started to flee.

'Dover Village Hero Jack' grew more distant.

Before long, the shadows of monsters began to fall around her, one by one.

In this absurd situation, Shari couldn't even feel fear of death.

Far from fear, this feeling was...

Closer to killing intent.

'To think this is all I get for grinding in the fields and cleaning up after those Hero bastards!'

She had a good bit of money and grew her own crops to make potions, so she didn't really need Heroes to exist.

The only reason she had devoted herself to them was because 'Heroes' were beings set up to be well-treated in the game.

'...Game?'

Shari tilted her head at the alien word that suddenly popped into her mind.

But she couldn't just stand there blankly.

"Kiiiii..."

She seethed with rage as she looked at the horde of monsters swarming around her.

With even the so-called Heroes running away, there was no way for her to survive.

Though she did have a spare mana amplification potion and an area-of-effect artifact hidden in her pocket, to avoid the eyes of the guys who popped up randomly to steal her potions no matter when, where, or what she was doing.

Unless she was a Hero with power, she couldn't use them to attack monsters...

'Why?'

It was that moment.

'Why can't I use them?'

Such a question suddenly shot up in a corner of her mind.

She didn't have great strength like the Heroes of legend, nor could she use magic freely.

But she did have mana.

And a quite large amount, more than someone ordinary like her deserved.

High mana and stamina were the absolute basics for performing alchemy.

She put her hand in her pocket and fumbled for the things inside.

'Maybe.'

She might be able to survive.

"Oh, what do we do, Shari!"

One of the villagers cried out pitifully upon seeing her fallen on the ground.

The lizard-shaped monsters swarming around her.

"Kie-ek!"

Finally, just as one of them leaped up to be the first to tear at the prey's throat.

Pop! Shari unhesitatingly popped the cap and drank the mana amplification potion.

"Keu...!"

As expected of something she made herself, the effect was immediate.

Her throat grew hot, and her mana surged in an instant.

A new world opened up for her, who had worked herself to death making them day and night but had never once thought to drink one herself.

The Hero-wannabes, who didn't have a lick of mana, would often blabber that every time they drank a mana potion, they felt like they'd become a sage and understood the principles of all creation.

"Kie-e-e-e-ek!"

The moment all the surrounding Lizards followed the first one's lead and leaped toward Shari.

"Annihilate."

Lv.999 Annihilate skill has been activated.

At the same time as the unfamiliar message window that appeared in the air.

Hwa-reu-reu-reuk!

The bodies of all the Lizards leaping in the air caught fire.

It wasn't just the ones in the air.

Like fire spreading across a dry field, it spread to the ones beyond those around Shari.

And beyond them, and beyond them.

Until finally, the fire she had created swallowed all the monsters deployed throughout the village.

"Kya-a-a-ak!"

The monsters' terrible screams echoed through the entire village.

In the middle of the alley, which blazed brightly like midday fireworks, stood the village's small apothecary, clad in a gray robe.

Just having an area-of-effect artifact didn't mean you could annihilate all the monsters.

The range of attack varied wildly depending on the caster's mana, attack power, or skill level.

The reason she was nevertheless able to annihilate the Lizards was.

Dover Village Apothecary NPC Shari has defeated 100 Lv.7 Lizards.

"...Sh-Shari, how...!"

"She's not even a Hero, so why is a mere apothecary..."

When the situation ended, the so-called Heroes pushed through the murmuring crowd and appeared.

"Sh-Shari! If you had such a good artifact, you should have given it to us sooner!"

Among them was the very cause that had made her tremble with rage since the morning.

Shari, who had been staring at the text floating in the air, slowly turned her head.

"...Jack."

A gloomy voice leaked out from under the low-pulled hood.

"Daniel, Hans, Mark, Iron..."

She, too, had attained enlightenment. The principles of all creation.

"You fuckers are all dead."

"What?"

"Ban!"

Shyushyushyuk.

At the same time, the figures of Jack and his lackeys began to disappear.

And.

'Dover Village Hero Jack' is permanently banned from this region.

'Dover Village Hero Daniel' is permanently banned from this region.

'Dover Village Hero Hans' is permanently banned from this region.

'Dover Village Hero Mark' is...

.

.

.

I remember now.

The cause of all this wasn't Jack, or the potions, or the monsters.

It was because I was an NPC in this goddamn game.