Trapped in a Game That Flopped

Chapter 85

Episode 85

I immediately shot up and approached the bed.

"Are you okay?"

Nise, who had just woken up, turned pale and trembled violently as soon as she saw me.

[The One Forsaken by God feels a deep fear toward you.]

As always, the first system window I got from a main character wasn't exactly pleasant.

It was a relief that it wasn't something like 'senses killing intent' or 'holds suspicion'.

More than that, when she collapsed earlier, I was so startled, wondering if she had really just died right then and there.

"Wh, where am I?"

"A hotel in the capital."

"A ho, hotel...?"

She looked unfamiliar with the word, like someone hearing 'hotel' for the first time.

Then, with a dark, dead-looking expression, she asked me.

"D, did... you bring me here to kill me?"

"No. Why would I kill you?"

I denied it, startled.

If a main character died, it was no different from a Game Over.

When progressing through quests, each main character, including the user, had their own role to play.

So far, I'd been lucky and managed to solve things on my own, but that would become increasingly difficult.

Because of that, the structure was such that if even one person was missing, you couldn't clear the mid-game quests and couldn't reach the ending.

On top of that, Nise was in the Female Lead position of this game, and she later forms something of a love line with Kassel.

If you watch the videos from the few users who made it to the final boss subjugation right before the ending, Nise was the first one to die then, too, in the name of 'sacrifice'.

As a result, the corrupted Male Lead goes on an uncontrollable rampage.

And like that, far from stopping the destruction, he brings about a disaster instead, and it's an instant Game Over.

What must it feel like, to get a Game Over so anticlimactically, right before the ending...

The important thing is, the fact that not a single one of the users who left those highlight videos ever returned to the game circulates like a legend in the community.

'Must protect the Female Lead.'

In that sense, I made a firm resolution.

I would somehow lead this sunfish Female Lead and see the ending.

"You absolutely cannot die."

Not until I escape this damn game.

"So don't you ever let such scary words out of your mouth."

Was it because I said it too scarily, my eyes glaring?

Nise's pale face turned a little reddish.

At the same time, a system window popped up.

[The One Forsaken by God now holds a trace of wariness toward you.]

She seemed a little angry that I was arbitrarily deciding the fate of her life.

It was when my eyes met her clear, silver ones directly.

"Heu!"

She suddenly trembled as if struck by lightning, and frantically pulled her long, swept-back hair forward.

It seemed the realization that she shouldn't be exposed, since she had the same face as the Saintess, had hit her belatedly.

'She could just wear the hood.'

Because I'd brought her and laid her straight on the bed, she was still in the white robe that priests wear, but she didn't seem to have the presence of mind to even realize it.

Elaine looked at me with a sullen face, as if thinking the same thing.

I shrugged, didn't point it out, and just left her alone.

'Her clueless look is kind of cute, in a way...'

I'd been tormented by so many crazy bastards that dealing with the gentle Nise felt like nothing.

The Female Lead, who had been fidgeting for a while, hiding her face with her long hair, finally seemed to come to a decision and opened her mouth.

"Th, then please let me go. I, I have to go to the Temple. Please let me go. L, Liv... the poison..."

"Alright. Drink this first, then we'll talk."

I calmed her as she recited as if she would stop breathing, and took a potion bottle from my pocket and held it out.

As if she found the dark, unidentified liquid completely untrustworthy, Nise looked back and forth between me and the potion with anxious eyes.

"P, poison?"

"I told you I'm not killing you?!"

"Th, then what is this?"

"A mushroom allergy remedy. You have a mushroom allergy."

At my answer, Nise clamped her mouth shut.

[The One Forsaken by God now holds a strong suspicion toward you.]

No matter how much she hid her face with her hair, I had the ability to easily see through to her inner thoughts.

"H, how do you know that..."

"The smoke that came out of the gargoyle earlier, it wasn't poison, it was mushroom spores."

I lightly ignored her interrogation about how I knew and focused on persuading her first.

"I already gave you one dose after you fainted, so stop being suspicious and drink."

"Here, the empty bottle!"

I don't know when he'd set it aside, but Elaine quickly held out the potion bottle that I'd given to Nise while she was unconscious.

We'd only spent a few days together, but our teamwork was pretty good at times like this.

"If it's poison, you're going to die anyway with no way out, right? I'm also curious if Teacher Apothecary-noona really gave you poison, so hurry up and drink it!"

"You little."

"Ack! Why'd you hit me! Noona, you went out to play villain, didn't you! Then at least an assassination..."

"Shut up!"

I hardened my expression and smacked the bastard's head one more time.

Teamwork, canceled! This bastard was a hopeless crazy bastard whose snout needed to be muzzled.

Nise watched the comedy-like scene between me and Elaine for a while, still with wary eyes.

Then, before I even realized it, she opened the lid and drained the potion.

"Huh? She drank it."

Elaine suddenly muttered in a foolish voice.

At his words, I, who had been grabbing the bastard's hair, also snapped my head around.

Nise was now holding the neatly emptied bottle with both hands, fidgeting with her fingers.

"I, I won't die from most poisons anyway..."

As if burdened by the sudden focus of attention, she ducked her head low and muttered quietly.

'Is it because she's only lived in the Temple?'

To spill such important information to her kidnappers.

It was a more naive reaction than I'd expected.

Or maybe she'd lost the will to live a long time ago, so it didn't matter either way.

"...You've been through a lot."

I recited quietly and forcibly snatched the empty bottle from her hand.

I don't know if I'd developed a trauma because of Kassel, but seeing someone sitting there so powerlessly, clutching an empty glass bottle, made me want to snatch it away.

Of course, it was a trauma that had just formed.

Nise watched this entire series of events with bated breath, then suddenly questioned me.

"Y, you controlled the gargoyle. Didn't you? Y, you used black magic to deliberately cut its neck and make the poison gas spray out..."

"I told you, it wasn't poison, it was inky cap mushroom spores."

"W, whatever... a, a curse was released, too."

"Well, it was garnished with a little curse..."

At my addition, which was like a mumble to myself, Nise stared at me as if dumbfounded.

Because it was a puppet controlled by black magic, I couldn't completely prevent the emission of a curse, even though I had planted spores instead of poison.

"B, but there were so many ordinary people..."

As if worried about the people even in this situation, Nise muttered with a very sullen face.

'How is a kid like this 'The One Forsaken by God'?'

This title was what they called Nise inside the Grand Temple.

Unlike her sibling, who had the power of healing, Nise, who had the ability to resurrect the dead, was treated almost like a heinous sinner in the Temple.

The corrupt church bastards were abusing her, branding her with that absurd title, all while taking full advantage of her ability.

I'd end up turning the Temple upside down in the process of making her a party member anyway, but.

Her good-naturedness, which was greater than I'd expected, weighed on my mind.

"Don't worry about that. The Grand Temple or the Saintess will take care of the purification."

I alleviated Nise's useless worry with an indifferent voice.

Because of what I'd done, the procession had failed spectacularly, so the Grand Temple would desperately try to spin this situation.

Therefore, the faint curse derived from Ballakk's black magic wouldn't be a big problem.

Just then, as if to prove it, the health reduction penalty occurred.

'HP -1'

HP 943

Several hours had passed since I brought Nise to the hotel, but there was almost no change in my HP bar.

If I drink a health potion now, it's safe to say the penalty is practically non-existent.

It was then.

"Y, you were exposed to the curse, too. How are you so... unaffected...?"

Nise suddenly asked, looking down at my hands.

Though it was faint, because I had severed the Soul-Connecting Thread, a trace announcing the penalty remained on my hands.

That is, a trace of the curse remained.

'...How did she know?'

It was a faint mark, almost non-existent compared to how my arms had turned completely black in the black market, as if covered in mold.

Even that was hidden by the cuff of my robe's sleeve, but Nise's gaze was as if she could see right through it.

'Seeing curses is something only people with strong divine power should be able to do.'

People like the Pope, the Saintess, or the high priests, for example.

Not an ominous existence called 'The One Forsaken by God'.

Come to think of it, in our earlier conversation, Nise had accurately recognized that the gargoyle was controlled by black magic.

Just as I was looking at her with a strange expression.

"Teacher Apothecary-noona, do you know how to control gargoyles, too?"

Elaine, who had been listening quietly, suddenly cut in and asked.

"No. How would I do something like that?"

"Ah, no wonder! I was wondering why that bastard reeked of monster shit!"

Elaine suddenly gagged and shouted irritably.

"Uegh, you should have at least told me! You know I have trauma from the smell of monsters!"

I didn't know, but apparently, the worst part for Elaine while he was locked in the slave prison was the smell of monster and beast excrement.

Unlike his appearance, he was a bastard who was quite the clean freak.

I, who had neither the time nor the inclination to explain the plan to him, just silently looked away from him.