Chapter 23

Chapter 23 : What Counts as a Normal Route? (3)

【Time】They Say You Can’t See an Inch Ahead

You apparently have a taste for being tied up, so you’ve gone and gotten yourself bound again.

Find out why the Phantasmal Species have increased and take one step closer to the truth.

▶Fixed Reward – Greatly Increased Contribution, Skill Unlock

▶Fixed Penalty – Just go ahead and die

▶Time Limit: 3d : 00h : 00m : 00s

With one hand gripping the rope and my legs hooked loosely over a branch, I glared at the quest window.

So the reward was a tug-of-war between a skill and my life.

“A Frame?”

When I had tried to figure it out by force, the system had thrown up warnings about an abnormal route, and now it wanted to dangle a skill in front of me like a carrot?

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously at each floating line of text in turn, then waved a hand.

Ignoring the smoky afterimage left behind as the text vanished, I looked down.

Since the quest’s goal and the goal of my being used as bait were one and the same, I figured I could clear the quest without worrying about it.

Just like the fixer commission last time.

Yip-yip.

One passing Phantasmal Species noticed me and began circling beneath the tree.

It had rabbit-like ears and long, sharp fangs jutting out.

It toddled around on its short hind legs while raking furiously at the bark with its long forelegs. If its claws had been just a little longer, they might have reached the end of the rope. It was that close.

“Hm…… and that is supposed to be it running over because it likes me?”

Absolutely not.

It felt more like a lion rushing over in delight for a friendly high-five, only for me to be carried away at minimum with grave injuries.

And when I tried hesitantly to stretch out a hand, only for it to grow even more excited with a “Kyuu-kyung!!,” I found myself reflecting on the dangers of excessive affection as well.

Perhaps it heard the love-struck serenade of the thing writhing below, because another one came bounding out right after it.

A bird that looked something like an ostrich…… no, perhaps closer to a giraffe? Whatever it was, with its long neck thrust out and its jaws hanging wide, it was a monstrosity packed with dozens of teeth.

Clack—clack—. Every time it opened and shut its jaws, the sound alone was vicious.

“Who exactly said these things were friendly toward me?”

Sighing deeply, I opened the bag Pan had prepared and took out what looked like a rice ball.

Holding it easily in one hand, I took a large bite and looked down at the creatures staring up at me with bright, eager eyes.

“You can stare all you want. I’m not giving you any.”

It was about time.

This was the third round now of gathering the Phantasmal Species, killing them, then moving elsewhere and repeating the whole thing again at roughly one-hour intervals.

Watching the creatures that came because they liked me keep dying off didn’t feel very good.

It kept reminding me of when Woldeer died.

I hadn’t even managed to bury him.

I rubbed absently at the tip of my nose and looked off beyond the trees.

At the far horizon, the trees had begun to sway. Judging by the way it was gradually drawing closer, the time had come.

“This one’s starting from pretty far away.”

It was coming as though giving advance notice not to be startled, but it made no difference. It attacked the Phantasmal Species almost the moment the signal came.

Stuffing the rest of the rice ball into my mouth, I grabbed the rope and climbed higher.

I had let myself come down to a fairly comfortable position among the branches, but whenever things flipped over like this, it was better to climb as high as possible and save myself first.

“Hm?”

But something felt wrong.

Based on the signals from the last two times, I ought to have started hearing creatures go down already, but the forest remained strangely silent.

A creeping pressure rose from the distance, the feeling that something was approaching.

As the part that had first been a tiny dot came nearer, the swaying leaves filled more and more of my field of vision.

It was like ripples spreading across the surface of water.

And when it came close enough for me to make it out clearly—

“That’s that thing…… black fog.”

It was the phenomenon I had seen in the Original Work the other day.

What had it said then? I rummaged through my memory and summoned the text back before my eyes again. I flipped through the imagined pages until the line I wanted appeared.

‘At that moment, the wind shook the leaves of the forest, and dark black clouds rolled in beneath his feet. It was an unexpected ambush.’

An ambush.

Startled, I lost my grip on the rope and slid down with a jerk. Since the rope was tied around my waist, I didn’t fall all the way to the ground, but I still had to take the full force of the impact.

My palms were scraped a little when I belatedly caught hold of it again, and the rope around my waist tightened harder from the shock, stealing some of my breath.

Cold sweat ran down my body and dripped onto the Phantasmal Species clawing at the trunk below.

When I lifted my head, the thick black fog had already begun steadily expanding its territory.

Because the Original Work had cut off right at the ambush, I had no way of knowing what it was or how to deal with it.

Part of me hoped Pan’s group was nearby, but another part worried that if they were, they might be caught in it too.

I clung tightly to the rope and climbed all the way back to the highest point where it was secured.

By then, the black fog had reached the immediate vicinity and swallowed up the Phantasmal Species massed below.

Terrible, grotesque cries rang out from within the fog. It was so dense that there was no way to tell what was happening inside it, and my palms grew slick with sweat.

Then—

Slash!

A long claw tore through the fog and shot out.

At first I thought it belonged to the rabbit-mutant, but when more of those sharp shapes burst free in quick succession, I belatedly realized they were the ostrich-giraffe thing’s wings.

Those wings, which had looked merely fluffy before, had now turned into obvious weapons, as though sharp daggers had been embedded throughout them.

“You’ve gotten a lot scarier, haven’t you?”

And that was only the beginning. Even the little creature with the cute rabbit ears had put on some strange shell and was now scratching even more ferociously at the tree.

“At this rate, the tree’s going to break first.”

The only frightening thing wasn’t them.

There was also the fear of the unknown—what if that fog, still pressing forward with the same relentless force, did something strange to me too?

I dug into the bag and pulled out the dagger.

I had to cut the rope before the tree toppled.

Better yet, I needed to cross to the next tree before that happened.

Pan had better see with his own eyes and admit that these Phantasmal Species charging at me with red-lit eyes were absolutely not friendly.

At this rate, they were going to shred me—or bury me in the fog—before any rescue came.

“Should I load the Original Work?”

Last time my luck had been good, and today I had a good feeling too. It felt as though the very next scene would appear.

Honestly, when I thought about the timing, it almost seemed as though the system had foreseen this day and been warning me for my sake the last time I loaded it.

Crack—

I couldn’t keep following the thought, because the Phantasmal Species had at last clawed all the way up the tree.

I seized a usable branch and cut the rope loose.

Even if I was a little late, crossing to the neighboring tree was still something I, with months of forest survival under my belt, ought to have been capable of doing.

I jumped, I caught hold, and even getting my footing went perfectly.

And then the face of a Phantasmal Species slammed into my vision.

[Randomly loading a scene from 〈Your Regret After Killing Me〉.]

[2 points have been deducted.]

“……?”

Just before the Phantasmal Species and I could go tumbling together, the system’s text suddenly barged in between us.

At the same moment, everything around me stopped.

The rustling leaves. The drooling Phantasmal Species right in front of me.

The red fur that had been flying in the air stopped as though the rippling motion itself had frozen, and the branch bending downward beneath the creature’s weight also halted in that exact state.

The same was true of me.

The only thing I was allowed to do was draw in one large breath.

I had always viewed the Original Work while alone before, so this was the first time I realized it.

Beyond the frozen space and time in my vision, one scene of the Original Work slowly wrote itself out.

And it picked up exactly after the point where it had cut off before.

「(Excerpt omitted)……dark black clouds rolled in beneath his feet. It was an unexpected ambush.

Pain like his skin was burning swept over him. Chezer hurriedly wrapped his cloak all the way over his head and unlocked his Frame.

At that sudden release of power, the black fog that had come crowding in was driven all the way back to the far horizon. But judging by the way it was already writhing and pressing forward again, it was only a temporary measure.

“Do you even know whose forest you’re trying to ambush right now?”

After the first rustling cry, the forest awakened all at once.

Rocks that had lain buried in the earth for decades burst up from the ground, and tree roots writhed as though alive. Leaves shook and stirred up wind of their own accord, and the grass, moss, and vines on the ground wrapped around that motion and set the forest itself in motion.

At the center of it all stood Chezer, clutching the red-thread earring.

The red gemstones, which had not reacted to anything no matter what was done, blazed brilliantly in response to the forest’s cry.

Startled by that light, the black fog began spiraling from far away, unable to find its path, then shot upward into the sky.

As though impossible screams were echoing throughout the entire forest……(To be continued)」

When all the letters had appeared and were just about to vanish, I urgently reached out.

The Phantasmal Species that had been lunging at me with teeth the size of my forearm went crashing down under the tree on the other side.

Cold sweat ran down my back.

Looking at it with its head buried awkwardly as it flailed, it seemed it had managed to leap up here with those useless wings.

“Ha, I should’ve brought that.”

The red-thread earring. The Phantasm Master’s Favorite Possession.

So there had been a reason the system had suddenly handed it over.

The Original Work that appeared as though predicting the future, the item, the book, all of it.

The Original Work did contain a way to avoid that untouchable black fog.

The problem was that it wasn’t a method I could actually use.

I either needed a cheat-level ability like Pan’s, or I needed that earring.

Now that I’d seen the Original Work, the situation with the fog only felt more hopeless. And since it worked by contact rather than by breathing it in, even my current position was rather precarious.

First, I untied the cumbersome rope still looped around my waist. Since I’d had to cut it in a hurry, I’d only managed to salvage about a person’s height worth of rope, but this wasn’t the time to be picky.

A dagger, a half-eaten rice ball, a short rope.

That was everything I had.

Clicking my tongue in frustration, I rummaged deeper through the bag.

The dagger was one thing, but surely they hadn’t sent me out with absolutely nothing else.

“Hm?”

Something was sticking out from a small inner pocket of the bag.

It was the earring that ought to have been resting safely back in my room at this very moment.

What was this doing here?

Sparkling, glittering, proudly radiant in the sunlight—it was unmistakably that very thing.

“You bastard. You searched my room?”

A hollow laugh escaped me, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it.

I immediately put the earring on. I didn’t have the skill Pan did, to stand there clutching it in my hand while dealing with already-difficult Phantasmal Species.

The soft clink of it sounded at my ear, and in that instant a temporary wave of dizziness struck me, followed by an eruption of red light.

[You have been acknowledged by 〈The Phantasm Master’s Favorite Possession〉.]

[Temporarily restoring part of its abilities.]

My vision turned red.

What had first looked as though red paint had been flung across my sight soon gathered together, red upon red, and gradually traced out unfamiliar paths.

Between things still moving and things frozen in place, red roads appeared all the way to the edge of the horizon, in every space my eyes could reach.

The black fog could not touch those paths. It withered, retreated, and fled from them.

This was different from the way Pan forcefully drove it back by opening his power.

It looked simply afraid.

As though the fog itself feared it.

[Temporarily restored 〈Skill—Phantasm Domain Deployment〉.]

[Temporary duration 01h 00m 00s]

The moment I read the text, a set of red numbers kindly appeared in the corner of my vision.

They were steadily counting down, second by second.

After watching them for a beat, I tightened my grip on the dagger.

The fog was dealt with, but the Phantasmal Species still rampaging below were very much not.

I had to get out of here while the Phantasm Domain remained active.

The only conclusion I could draw from Pan’s group still not appearing was that something similar must have happened on their side too.

I checked the contents of the quest again.

It wasn’t telling me to complete the commission.

[Find out why the Phantasmal Species have increased and take one step closer to the truth.]

I still didn’t know why their numbers had increased, but if I followed the source of whatever was driving them into this frenzy, I ought to learn at least that much.

“I’ll d-do it.”

What choice did I have, if I didn’t want to just die like the quest said? You miserable system bastard.

Gripping the dagger in reverse, I leapt straight down from the tree.