Trapped in a Game That Flopped

Chapter 46

Episode 46

"Shari Azrael."

Suddenly, I heard a voice call my name, enunciating it perfectly.

I hadn't thought he would remember my name at all, so I flinched and turned to look at him.

He shouldn't even be able to see me under my hood.

Kassel spoke, carefully articulating every single word as if he were staring right through me, his eyes locked precisely with mine.

"I have truly reached my limit."

"..."

"You seem to know full well who I am, so I will speak formally. If you are truly a subject of the Empire, go and bring me a sword."

"..."

"As the sun that illuminates Zenith, I command you. If your disposition is such that you cannot even lift a sword, then hurry and bring the Count..."

I suddenly shot out the hand that wasn't holding his arm.

Right before I covered them, the last thing I saw was his eyelids, fluttering shut as if he had truly reached his limit.

I completely covered even his half-hidden, blood-red eyes.

"What are you doing...!"

As his vision suddenly went dark, Kassel's body jolted.

"Dammit, let go!"

"I told you I'd handle it."

"What do you think a mere apothecary like you can do? This is madness. Just what...!"

He desperately tried to peel my hand away from his eyes.

But, with his vision now also plunged into darkness, he couldn't seem to overcome the wave of drowsiness crashing over him, and his movements soon subsided.

Thud. I watched impassively as his hand fell, limp.

All the tedious conversation we'd had up to this point was, after all, just a diversion I'd thrown out while waiting for him to fall asleep.

"...You will regret this, Shari Arizel."

To the very end, Kassel struggled not to fall asleep, his fingers scraping down the back of my hand.

'I'm already regretting it.'

I retorted inwardly, feeling indifferent.

"I don't know who put you up to this, but when I wake, I will kill you, and I will kill whoever is behind you..."

Even as he drifted off, the bastard didn't stop his bloodthirsty threats.

[The Lord of Nightmares feels strong hostility toward you.]

Unlike the system window, his speech, slurred with sleep, was unfamiliar.

For the past three days, the bastard had been a hell-mouth, busy tearing me down every time he spoke.

And I finally realized that the question he'd asked earlier was true.

"Why? Are you feeling some pathetic guilt now?"

Even with the 'lesser evil' option of inflicting pain to avoid the disaster, the reason I was putting him to sleep with my own hands might not have been just because I feared the aftermath.

Perhaps.

"...I was sorry about that time."

It was pretty ridiculous, apologizing to a game character, but.

"I planned it to try and help, in my own way..."

I could finally pinpoint the source of the discomfort I'd felt at Jinu's and Adam's criticisms.

"I didn't think the broken glass shards would hurt you."

GM Jinu: Waking him up by throwing glass bottles is humane? So cruel.

"Ha, ridiculous. Does throwing a potion bottle mean you aren't inflicting an injury?"

Honestly, until Kassel smashed the potion bottle and hurt himself, I hadn't considered it at all.

I naturally thought getting hit with a healing potion was better than being stabbed by bamboo spears or pelted with stones.

If he just endured the momentary pain of being hit by the bottle, the potion would heal the wound right away.

It would wake him up and avoid any unnecessary bloodshed.

Wasn't it killing two birds with one stone?

In fact, the cruel screenshots some users posted in the community were disgusting to look at.

People who, under the pretext of the 'wake-up quest,' would use anything that could be a weapon to hack the Lord of Nightmares character to pieces, then post it as if to show off.

"He's just a game character, so who cares."

Whenever critical comments were posted, those users would say that.

In truth, I thought so too.

It was a proposal I wrote not because I was worried about the pain Kassel would suffer, but because I didn't want to see those cruel screenshots.

After getting trapped in the game, when I first laid eyes on Kassel, I think I felt a strange sense of superiority without even realizing it.

I changed the bamboo spears and stones to healing potions, so you should be grateful.

'You're just a game character, after all.'

But the moment I saw him, his face pale, calmly enduring the pain as he mangled his own hand with countless glass shards.

My mind went completely cold, as if someone had dumped ice water on my head.

"...So consider this me repaying the debt I owed you."

Rumble, ruuumble...

It was then. A sudden, enormous roar echoed out.

Through the open window, I could see pitch-black storm clouds gathering in an instant.

Fwudududuk!

Flocks of birds in the forest took flight all at once, fleeing the approaching disaster.

Ruuuuuumble.

At the same time, the ground shook violently.

It was the sound of the monster sealed beneath the Tower, thrashing about as if it would burst through the ground at any second.

This situation was five minutes from turning into a total shitshow.

"Stop, please..."

As if he were barely hanging onto his consciousness, slurred words escaped slowly from Kassel.

It was a surprisingly desperate and tenacious voice.

'If this keeps up, he might just bite his own tongue and try to tough it out.'

A sudden sense of foreboding made me let go of Kassel's arm, and I hurriedly rummaged through my pocket.

Not the purple liquid I had been constantly pulling out until now, but a bottle filled with a milky-white liquid.

[Sleep-Inducing Potion]

Pop!

I pulled the cork out with my mouth and poured the contents straight onto Kassel's head.

It wasn't a situation where I could force him to drink it, so I had no choice.

All potions exhibit some effect just by being poured.

Besides, in Kassel's current state, he would pass out immediately just from having it poured on him, even without drinking it.

He must have realized what I was doing, as he shouted urgently.

"What... stop...!"

"It'll be over soon, so just sleep tight."

After saying it, I felt like some villain who overcomes the protagonist and forcibly summons a disaster.

Of course, I was doing the crazy act of causing the disaster with my own hands.

'He's the mastermind, so why...'

Gripped by a strange feeling, I looked down at the man whose eyes were still covered by my hand.

"Shari Azrael... I'll kill you. When I wake, I will make sure to kill you..."

Thud. Finally, even Kassel's upright head slumped forward.

"Seriously, that temper."

Shuddering at the bastard's personality, making death threats until the very end, I finally removed my hand from his eyes.

Through his half-closed eyelids, the red eyes that had been covered all this time were revealed.

Even after being doused with a sleeping potion, he hadn't fallen into a deep sleep but had entered a state of light sleep; his vacant pupils had lost their focus.

"Tough bastard."

Tsk. I clicked my tongue, but I was relieved.

From now on, he wouldn't know what I was about to do.

I checked him over one more time, carefully, to see if he was really asleep.

But, as expected of the Male Lead, his hair and face, wet with the milky-white liquid, looked strangely suggestive.

Seeing the bastard who had been spouting nothing but annoying words shut his mouth and become quiet, I felt strangely peculiar.

But that, too, was brief.

"Shari Azrael... I'll kill you. When I wake, I will make sure to kill you..."

The bloodthirsty words the bastard had been repeating just moments ago came to mind, and I snapped back to my senses.

"Get a grip! I have to finish this fast and bolt before this asshole wakes up!"

I raised my hands and slapped both my cheeks hard.

Since I had put Kassel to sleep with my own hands to cause the disaster, I had to finish it in one go and leave the Count's estate.

Rumble, ruuumble...

It was then. The ominous rumbling that had been sounding endlessly from the sky abruptly stopped.

At the same time, the earthquake shaking the ground also vanished.

I hurried to the window to check the situation outside.

Even without a system window popping up, the sky, covered in storm clouds, was so pitch-black that I knew the disaster had fully arrived.

It was dark enough to be believable if someone said it was the middle of the night, not the crack of dawn.

"Hurry!"

"To the west barracks!"

Suddenly, the area below the Tower grew noisy.

On the dark estate grounds, lights began to turn on, one by one.

Because the Tower's location wasn't far from the training grounds, I could clearly see the knights moving about busily.

'Looks like they're gathering all the remaining forces because of the disaster.'

It was going according to plan, but I suddenly felt a little bad for Adam.

Not even a few hours after I'd given him the hint to check the west first, the disaster had truly arrived...

For him, it must have been a bolt from the blue.

It was at that moment.

As if the momentary silence had just been to gather momentum, a flash of light burst in the dark sky.

Kra-ka-BOOOOM!

A massive thunderbolt really did strike the middle of the village.

Fwooooosh!

Even though it was quite a distance from the Count's estate, a fierce gust of wind slammed into me, strong enough to push my body back from the windowsill.

"Ugh!"

I reflexively threw up my arms to block it, then hurriedly pulled something from my pocket.

[Using one S-Grade Mana Amplification Potion.]

I downed the potion without delay, and immediately, a hot energy began to boil up from below my throat.

After confirming my mana had increased exponentially in an instant, I quickly scanned the point where the lightning had struck.

Not even a few minutes had passed since the lightning strike, but I could see a faint, flickering red dot in the distance.

The distance was considerable, but because the surroundings were so dark, I could spot it right away.

I blinked once, and the red dot had grown to the size of a fist.

The thing that was snowballing was none other than the beginning of the disaster.

A wildfire that devoured everything.

The fire, which had already grown to the size of a small child, spread quickly, sideways and sideways.

This was because the relentlessly raging gales were helping to annihilate Hailey.

"Tsk."

Clicking my tongue, I carefully placed the item I had taken out with the mana amplification potion on the windowsill.

The edges of the heptagon caught the light, glinting faintly with a rainbow-colored sheen.

The artifact Adam had given me had magic engraved on seven types of gemstones and was a considerably high-grade item, even among S-Grades.

So, as soon as I received it, I had thought to myself.

With this much, it's not just Kassel and Serina...

"Shield."

As I chanted lightly, light burst explosively from the different jewels set into the heptagon.

Like a rainbow appearing, seven transparent rays of light shot out and extended far into the distance.

Like a giant curtain, it rapidly enveloped the high sky.

From the Tower, over the Count's estate, past the village, across the fields of the monster zones, and beyond the horizon, far, far away.

'MP -999'

'MP -999'

'MP -999'

While the rainbow-colored barrier shooting from the artifact stretched out endlessly, my mana, which had been filled to the brim by the amplification potion, gushed out like water from a faucet.

I had never squeezed out this much mana since starting the game, so I had no idea it was this difficult.

I felt dizzy, and my vision blurred.

Perhaps because of my swimming vision, I started to feel nauseous, as if I were carsick, and I panicked.

'For a game effect, this is way too realistic!'

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, the sensation soon subsided.

[MP 10]

It was because the barrier had finally been completed, leaving me with only a pittance of mana.

[Activation of the S-Grade Defense Artifact is complete.]

[The defense effect will persist in the designated area for one hour.]

(Effective Range: The entire Hailey domain)

I gave a hollow laugh at the system windows popping up one after another.

Because the thought that I might be able to defend the entire village with this, if I did it right, had come true, just like magic.