Trapped in a Game That Flopped

Chapter 96

Episode 96

Whooosh.

A chilly wind swept past us.

Kassel, still gripping my hood tightly, was looking down at me with an expression of complete disbelief.

[Crown Prince Kassel Ludwig is highly displeased with you.]

[Crown Prince Kassel Ludwig doubts your intelligence.]

'I'm screwed.'

I squeezed my eyes shut at the system windows popping up one after another.

I'd been so careful not to get entangled with the bastard. How could I be this unlucky?

Unable to hide my wretched feelings, I cautiously opened my mouth.

"Um…… Have you been well, Your Highness."

"Well? Hah."

Kassel let out a scoff at my question.

He, too, seemed to find this situation absurd.

'Then what the hell am I supposed to saaaay......'

Since I felt the same way, I just swallowed my tears.

At that moment, Kassel's scoff vanished, and he asked with a serious expression.

"What are you doing right now?"

"Um, just, a night stroll……"

"I suppose climbing walls for a night stroll is the new trend in the capital?"

As if.

But I couldn't answer back like that, so I pleaded with him.

"Um, but my neck is kind of choking me…… C-Could you please let go of the hood?"

Of course, I wasn't asking him to drop me. I said it because there was a narrow ledge to stand on.

However.

"And why would I do that for you?"

Kassel, who spat out the words as if chewing them, suddenly yanked the hood he was holding.

"Ugh!"

I was helplessly dragged into his room.

For a moment, I braced myself to be thrown to the floor, but Kassel lightly set me down on the sofa in front of the window.

Plop.

Thanks to that, I was able to face him in surprisingly okay condition.

"Tell me what you were trying to do, scurrying out like a rat."

The bastard stood tall in front of me, looking down and pressing me for an answer.

I couldn't understand why he was so interested in me.

'Is this bastard the hammer for this quest?'

Enduring the creepy sensation crawling up the back of my neck, I stammered a reply.

"Um, as I said before……"

"None of that nonsense about a stroll."

But before I could even finish my sentence, the bastard's eyes flashed as he cut me off.

"You should know full well there are many ways to threaten you besides strangling."

I shuddered at the terrible things he was saying and hurriedly shouted.

"P-Potion ingredients!"

For a hastily made-up excuse, it came out sounding quite plausible.

"I was going to gather potion ingredients. For Your Highness's Sleep-Inducing Potion, and also to get ingredients to make the potion to treat the Saintess tomorrow."

"……In the middle of the night, by climbing out the window?"

"I tried to go out the entrance, but the door was locked, so I had no choice. I was in a hurry……"

In fact, the temple does close its doors at six in the evening after sending visitors out.

That's why users also had to go before then if they had business at the temple.

'Hah…… To think all that time I spent hanging around reporting bugs would be helpful at a time like this.'

When I first realized I was trapped in the game.

The moments I'd spent living like a homeless person for nearly two months at the temple in the Hailey estate, waiting for a reply from customer support, flashed by like a revolving lantern.

"……"

Kassel's eyes narrowed, as if to verify the truth of my words.

But he must not have found any particular holes to poke in it, as no 'suspicion' system window appeared.

After a moment of silence, he suddenly ordered.

"Get up."

I got up obediently. Since the suspicion was gone, I thought Kassel would just let me go.

"Follow me."

But far from letting me go, he led the way, opened the door, and went out.

Then, he glared at me as I stood there blankly in front of the sofa, not understanding the situation.

"Are you not following?"

"I-I'm coming. I'm going."

Afraid another thunderous order would fall, I hurriedly stuck to his back.

Kassel walked down the corridor without a word.

I was extremely puzzled as he strode right past my room, but I followed without question.

'Where the hell is he going? If he were going to kill me, he'd do it secretly in the room.'

Then again, considering the reputation he'd barely regained, he wouldn't commit murder in the temple.

Kassel might be a crazy bastard, but his pride and self-esteem as royalty are immense.

Besides, if he'd intended to kill me, he wouldn't have grabbed my hood and pulled me up earlier.

If he had let go as if dropping me, I would have been headed straight for the cliff.

I wonder how long I'd been following him with those thoughts.

After passing through the long corridor, he reached the central hall and stopped in front of the giant goddess statue.

Thanks to that, I realized it was the first time I'd properly faced the statue, despite going in and out of the temple.

The goddess of the hunt, peace, and protection, worshipped by the Zenith Empire, the setting of this game.

'Nisea-Liv, was it.'

I'd never looked at it properly because I wasn't interested, but the delicately carved goddess was so vivid and clear, she looked alive.

And for some reason, she looked familiar.

'She looks a bit like Nise, too……'

Come to think of it, Nise's name was set to be taken from this.

Of course, the Saintess's name, Liv, was also taken from this.

But the 'Agent of God' was not Nise, but his younger sister, Liv.

Even after Nise was revealed to be a main character, he was just called by his name or 'The One Forsaken by God'.

Nise's ability was to revive corpses, which was used to find traces of enemies or to create a strong zombie army during battle.

Some users would complain, asking why the last main character was Nise and not the Saintess.

But as an apothecary NPC, I could easily understand why.

This game's potion system is so good that a 'healer character' wasn't really necessary.

'Going all-in on attack power to defeat the final boss, is that it......'

Just as I was lost in thought, looking up at the goddess statue.

"What are you doing? Come here."

A sharp voice pierced my ears.

I quickly turned my head to see Kassel leaping over the barricade set up to protect the statue.

I was startled and approached him, asking.

"A-Are you allowed to do this?"

"Why wouldn't I be."

I had no response to that.

As if telling me to follow, the bastard immediately turned and started walking, so I also hurried, struggling to climb over the tall barricade.

By that time, Kassel had already rounded the right side of the giant statue.

When I hurriedly followed him around, a crude, temporary staircase attached to the statue came into view.

"This is the only hole to slip out of during the night. I don't know what the hell they're up to, but they've even put up a barrier to block entry."

He said, glancing at the stairs.

'……Is he helping me?'

My eyes widened at the unexpected kindness. I stared at him for a moment, then turned my head to look at the stairs.

The temporary stairs, perhaps for the statue's maintenance, only went up to the goddess's shoulder.

But the goddess's head was almost touching the ceiling.

The stairs alone weren't enough.

"From here…… How do we get out?"

I asked, but he didn't answer, simply climbing the high steps lightly.

'Jeez. Would it kill him to just tell me.'

So, while grumbling discontentedly, I had no choice but to climb the stairs after him.

I wonder how long it had been since we started climbing the steep stairs.

By the time the dark temple floor felt dizzyingly far below, Kassel and I had reached the end of the stairs.

"From here, you have to climb yourself."

He hopped off the stairs and onto the goddess statue's shoulder.

And without hesitation, wasn't he climbing the goddess's head, stepping on the layered, sculpted shapes of her hair?

'We're going this way, so crudely? Is this…… really okay?'

I might be an atheist, but still, this is the god an empire believes in......

Seeing the man who was the empire's Crown Prince climbing on top of it so casually, I felt an unidentifiable sense of guilt.

But having come this far, it was awkward to turn back, so just as I, too, was hesitantly stepping onto the shoulder.

Ding-dong!

[GM Ari has summoned you.]

A summons suddenly rang out.

'Ah, that startled me!'

My heart sank and my shoulders twitched. I glanced at Kassel, who was now up by the goddess's ear, and secretly opened the chat window.

I wondered if the monster attack from the 'Fake Disaster' had already begun.

However.

GM Ari: Shari-nim. I'm a devoutly religious person, so this looks extremely sacrilegious to my eyes. ㅠ

GM Ari: Isn't there another way?

"What the……"

Just as I was muttering blankly at the absurd chat.

"What have you been spacing out about since earlier?"

Suddenly, a large hand appeared, cutting through the floating chat window.

I hurriedly closed the chat window and saw Kassel, holding his hand out to me.

'Didn't he go on ahead, regardless of whether I followed or not?'

As I stared at him, feeling a bit strange, he narrowed his eyes.

"You'll waste the entire night dawdling like that. Grab on."

It seemed I was seeing many different sides of the bastard who had seemed like such a psychopath today.

"……Thank you."

After freezing in surprise for a moment, I finally muttered softly and took his hand.

He's not going to suddenly change his expression and push me, is he.

For a second, all sorts of thoughts flashed through my mind, and I felt a bit unsettled.

But unexpectedly, he just pulled me up gently.

Once I reached the goddess statue's ear, the rest was quick work.

We climbed the rest of the sloped head and, in an instant, were on the very top.

The temple ceiling was suddenly much closer.

Perhaps to create a radiant effect using the sunlight shining on the statue, the area just above the goddess's head was made of glass tiles.

Kassel pushed up one of the many tiles without hesitation.

Clunk. Screeech.

As he pushed aside the rattling tile, a hole surprisingly large enough for one person to pass through appeared.

"……How in the world did you know about this?"

I asked, looking back and forth between the open ceiling and Kassel with surprised eyes.

"……Right. How did I know this."

He said after a slight pause, as if recalling something.

Then, he let out a short, self-deprecating laugh and added.

"When you come here a few hundred times, you can't help but find out."

What reason would he, who was born and raised in the Imperial Palace, have to visit the temple hundreds of times?

It was a setting I'd never heard before, and I was just bewildered.

'What…… Is the Emperor a desperate religious zealot?'

In any case, surprisingly, this time I had clearly received help from Kassel.

I bowed my head deeply to him.

"Thank you, Your Highness. Um…… I won't charge you for potions while I'm in the temple."

"Hah. What, should I be honored?"

He sneered coldly, but for me, not charging for potions was the most sincere I could be.

But whether the bastard sneered or not, there was no more time to waste.

I immediately grabbed the open ceiling and pulled myself up.

"Heave-ho!"

Getting out was easy.

The cold night air brushed my face.

Standing on the roof of the temple, which was already built on high ground, I could see the entire capital at a glance.

I looked down for a moment at the Zenith Empire, submerged in darkness save for the sporadically flickering lights.

'……This feels a bit strange.'

Is it because it's so quiet at night?

Even though it was a scene I'd seen countless times whenever I logged in, for some reason, the game's background felt so vast and unfamiliar.

'Was it always this…… big?'

Just as I was staring blankly at the endlessly sprawling capital.

Thud!

I suddenly heard a presence behind me.

Startled, I spun around and saw a man who looked like he had just climbed onto the roof.

"Why…… are you coming up?"

I asked in a reluctant voice as he brushed the dust from his hands.

At that, he replied.

"We're going together."

"……Pardon?!"

"I can't sleep. I thought I'd try that 'night stroll' thing, too."

"Wh-What……"

"Otherwise, would I be crazy enough to help you escape with my own hands?"

The bastard quite confidently revealed it wasn't a kindness, but surveillance.

The gratitude I had felt for a moment shattered completely.

"Rip it. That thing."

While I was stammering in fluster, the bastard bared his teeth in a grin and motioned with his chin toward the Teleport Scroll I was holding.

"Let's go on a fun little night stroll."