Ch. 2

Return (2)

‘Hunt Desert Drakes’
(4995/5000)

Time remaining: 0 days, 0 hours, 07 minutes

“Hah… Haa…”

She gasped for air, feeling her body reaching its limit.

Her mouth was parched and craved water, but the canteens had run dry long ago.

“Uhh…”

She tried to breathe through her nose, but it only made her mouth drier, and a more painful moan escaped.

“…I want to go back.”

She could still use a consumable item in her inventory called ‘Traveler’s Return’ to travel to a nearby city.

But if she did, her year’s worth of hard work would be wasted.

Scrolls that allowed her to return to a city were incredibly expensive, and there was no such thing as a scroll that traveled to a monster’s home.

Traveling to a drake-infested desert region, no matter how close to a city, would take a week.

—-

She had thought about it dozens, perhaps hundreds of times already.

The burning thirst. The temptation to give in to it, to enjoy the relief it would bring, haunted her over and over again, until she pushed it out of her mind.

“…”

Then, out of nowhere, a soundless laugh escaped her.

She thought she was being diligent, that she was trying hard, and yet here she was.

She wondered if she should give up with only five monsters left.

What’s more, unlike in the game, failing a quest in this world was not the end of the world. There was a penalty based on the level of the quest.

She could still vividly remember the pain of abandoning her first quest.

But what would be the penalty for giving up a quest that came once a year?

She realized that she would probably suffer for months, if not years, of pain similar to dying.

In that case, it would be better to die. For a moment, she even considered it.

If she had to endure months of pain that could not be cured by any means… It would be impossible to live a normal life anymore.

No, she couldn’t bear to go through that pain again.

Splash.

Even as she continued to think, she found herself walking slowly on a ground with some water.

“…”

It was a good thing that she didn’t have to cover every inch of terrain to hunt the thousands of monsters.

It was also a reminder that this was a game world.

Over time, new monsters would replace the ones she killed.

A bizarre phenomenon that seemed to defy the fundamental nature of living beings.

If she looked away from the place where nothing existed for a moment, it wouldn’t be long before a monster appeared there again.

In a space where nothing should exist, with the mere blink of an eye, a monster that shouldn’t have been there was suddenly there.

“…”

Tap-tap-tap!

The walking body was clearly the character she was playing in the game, but it was suffering from extreme fatigue.

Just like a real body.

The sharp pain of a cut on the skin felt all too real, and the taste of an unfamiliar food felt as real as eating it.

Even the beings she knew as NPCs had personalities so different from what she expected.

Some NPCs would purposely underpay her for quests, while others would admire her appearance and add extra rewards.

In between, the content of the quest would even change, which was confusing.

It felt like the world itself was an alternate reality.

Another reality where monsters regenerated, inventory existed, and holograms existed.

Before she knew it, she was accepting this world as real.

“Keung!”

“Keung!”

She was back in the monster’s respawn zone, and the desert drake’s unnerving cry rang in her ears.

Thump!

Thump!

The sound of a hulking figure staggering toward her.

She lifted her blurry gaze to the source of the sound and realized that even the drake’s appearance was indistinguishable from the desert terrain.

The monster and the landscape looked like a bizarre drawing of a child’s crude picture.

The only thing that made it seem even more bizarre was that the terrain was shifting and moving.

‘Maybe… I could die.’

She thought to herself, conscious of her vision, which was a blur of colors.

Her right hand, which held her weapon, didn’t bother to reach down and lift it, and each step she took was so heavy that each leg felt like it was carrying its own weight.

Even the slightest gesture to show skill, even the smallest movement of raising an arm, was a struggle.

“Kueh-eh!”

The drake’s cry, so close to her, made her body move without realizing it.

Her right arm with the crescent moon flail was thrust out, as if ignoring the pain her body, pushed to its limits, was crying out for.

Her legs also stepped out and showed skill.

Snap!

Rin’s body seemed to revitalize.

Her legs, enveloped in red energy, struck the drake’s behemoth with a crushing blow, sending it plummeting straight downward from the top of the semicircle of projectiles. The red energy began to flow.

“Kwee-ak!”

At the same time, Rin’s body began to rotate towards the rushing drakes from the other side.

In a series of Crescent-moon strokes, the flail began to spin, filling the space between the blind spots and the incoming drakes with red energy.

Swish.

Swish Swish

A harsh crackling sound echoed along the blood-colored line that stretched through the air, shredding the drakes as they rushed in from all directions.

“Kweek…”

“Kueh-eh!”

“Kweeeeee…”

The screams of the drakes filled the room, accompanied by a woman’s eerie laughter.

Despite feeling excruciating pain that felt like her entire body was about to explode, she continued to move.

She knew that her body, pushed to its limits, was screaming for death, but she was subconsciously using a technique that was almost unconsciously adaptive to the situation.

– Ghost Dance.

– Red flowers.

– Isolation.

– Heavy rain.

– Bloody steps.

One skill after another, flowing like water.

That familiar feeling of tearing through flesh and hide.

The momentary bluntness of a blow that pierced a monster’s hide, and the strange sensation of piercing through it.

Each and every one of them, more vividly than ever before.

-Ting!

The ringing in her ears signaled the completion of her quest, but she found herself possessed by something else.

She just kept swinging her meniscus, slaughtering drake after drake.

—-

How much time had passed since then.

Not a sound for a moment. Not even a whimper from the monster. Not even the excruciating pain she had been feeling.

She was just existing in a pure white space.

Then she felt the familiar weight in her hand disappear.

In her dazed state of consciousness, her hands continued to flail in the air, as if searching for her meniscus.

This strange feeling of disconnection was repeated over and over again, as if everything attached to her body was disappearing one by one.

Then suddenly…

“You can go home now.”

She heard a voice out of nowhere.

She couldn’t tell if it was male or female, and it sounded so alien that she wondered if it was a human voice at all.

But the words were so clear in her mind that she knew someone was speaking to her.

“This is… Where am I?”

“Where am I…?” was all she could manage to say in a daze, as her thoughts failed her.

It was as if someone was deliberately messing with her head.

“Even I didn’t think it was possible to catch a million beasts in that world.”

“What do you mean… that world.”

“You’ve suffered, and you don’t have to suffer anymore.”

With those words, she suddenly lost consciousness.

—-

–!!

An intense pain in her head brought Rin back to reality.

She reflexively picked up her meniscus and held it up.

Ouch.

Ouch.

But it was just a hand flailing in the air.

She couldn’t even feel the straps that were supposed to be tied around her right arm.

In her daze, she lifted her eyelids and saw a strange space.

She blinked dazedly and slowly raised herself to her feet.

The softness that enveloped her entire body seemed to hold on for dear life, but she managed to pull herself up without a moment’s hesitation.

“Ah…”

And at the same time, an overwhelming sense of helplessness gripped her.

She could feel nothing, as if the enormous energy that should have been so familiar inside her had simply vanished.

The hologram that should have been at the edge of her vision.

The inventory.

The many pieces of equipment she had collected were like a prized possession. She thought of all those things and tried to pull them out, but there was really nothing. It all seemed to be gone, as if it had all been a fleeting dream.

“Why…? Why…?”

She kept saying stupid things, as if she couldn’t accept the reality of the moment. She kept checking her body.

Her body was smooth, as if she hadn’t practiced anything.

She was dressed in a light robe, and her appearance was at odds with her own memories.

Memories that were still vivid in her mind.

This body was so strange that it all felt like a fleeting dream. It was like…

Wasn’t this the same level she was at when she first fell into that world?

Only then did she recognize the space she was in.

It was definitely an unfamiliar space that she didn’t remember.

The various pieces of furniture looked refined, and their value seemed to be far beyond what they were worth.

And the items in one large room seemed out of place.

Tables, chairs, cabinets, shelves, doors. Closets. An air conditioner. A computer… and so on, but among the familiar items, there were a few things she didn’t recognize.

A huge, round, spherical object. There was room for one person inside.

She could just look at them and feel them.

This was ‘real’.

Not the world of the game…

Literally.

“…Reality?”

She muttered to herself and checked inside again.

The room was filled with modern gadgets that she remembered so well from the game that it was hard to recall.

She grimaced at the pain she felt as she idly grabbed her cheek and stretched it.

“…Real life.”

No.

What was this unknown house, then, and what was this body now?

Inside, a full-length, upright mirror. An all-too-familiar reflection.

It was definitely the reflection of the ‘Rin’ she had customized.

A character she had created.

The her that roamed the game world for years.

That’s why she realized the moment she saw the reflection that it was her.

She could feel herself touching herself, and the gestures she was making, mimicking the actions she thought she was doing, one by one, were actions that only she could do.

“…How am I supposed to take this?”

She muttered dazedly, leaning back against the bed.

A body so familiar in an unfamiliar space, yet so familiar.

That was the reality she had to accept now.