LIGHTNOVELSTORY Chapter 5
I woke up earlier than I expected. The hard ground must have been the cause. I glanced over at Lilith, who was still asleep, then turned over to face the ceiling of the cave. The chill of the early morning brushed against my nose.
How could this feel so real? It was hard to believe I was inside a game. What kind of company created this game, and how did I end up here? I tried to recall my last memory before entering this place, but my mind remained shrouded in darkness.
…I guess the best thing to do is to survive and gather more information. It’s vague, but I believe that if I keep playing, some path will eventually reveal itself. I need to survive and establish myself in the game to find out who I am and how I got here.
[Day 2 has begun.]
[The new rules for Day 2 are being revealed.]
[All participants actually possess unique superpowers.]
[Discover the unlocking conditions for your abilities and unlock them. The first person to unlock their unique ability will receive a special reward.]
That was the end of the broadcast for Day 2. Just a few lines of unsympathetic instructions telling us to ‘figure it out.’ Fortunately, I already knew the unlocking conditions. Otherwise, I’d be just as confused as the other characters, staring at ‘???’ in my status window.
However, I remembered that the unlocking conditions varied depending on the type of unique ability. Maybe I could find a way to cheat the system?
I opened my status window.
[Name] Rudel / [Level] 12
Sure enough, my expectations were met. A new indicator had appeared at the bottom of the familiar status window.
[Ability Type] Pure Nature
[Unique Ability (Locked)]
So, Rudel wasn’t entirely a weak character after all. Of the three types of abilities, ‘Pure Nature’ was generally the strongest, though the unlocking conditions were more stringent.
Time to get to work.
I pushed through the dense jungle, my eyes scanning for supply boxes while heading towards my destination. Despite the thick underbrush, my skin remained unscathed, thanks to the bulletproof clothing.
‘I wonder if he’s still in the same spot? In the middle of the clearing where he massacred his victims?’
He was there. Ispan had gathered his lackeys and onlookers again for a public execution. This time, however, I didn’t see his handgun, perhaps because he was out of bullets. I watched his actions for a while.
Today, Ispan wasn’t killing anyone himself. He was seated, watching as two unfamiliar characters fought fiercely below him. They were tearing into each other as if trying to devour one another.
Thud!
The fight reached its conclusion. One of them drove a rock into the other’s side, causing the attacked character to stumble briefly before collapsing to the ground. Ispan whistled and clapped his hands.
“Enough!”
He had set them to fight like roosters in a cockfight.
Ispan smirked, clearly amused, as he patted the victor on the shoulder, causing the bloodied man to flinch. Then Ispan sauntered over to the defeated, near-death character, who was gasping for breath. He halted the fight just before one of them died, approaching to finish the job himself and hog all the kill points. Not completely stupid, huh? Which makes him even more disgusting.
If Ispan moved a little closer, I could see his status window. Knowing I could be discovered hiding behind the bushes without a stealth potion, I inched forward to get a better look at his stats.
[Name] Ispan / [Level] 16
* * *
[Health] 6462 / ▲442 / B+
[Strength] 8256 / ▲501 / B+
[Agility] 3168 / ▲68 / B
Level 16? And look at those stat increases. My jaw dropped. This barbaric and cowardly villain, who made everyone submit because of his high stats, also had immense level growth. The gap was widening. He strutted around like he owned the world.
It’s the situation I feared. The experience ratio from kill points must be very high. To understand whether kill points or play points (popularity votes) are more efficient, I’d need to compare them directly.
“…!”
Suddenly, someone grabbed the back of my neck. By the time I realized, it was too late.
“Ispan, sir!”
Someone who had yanked me out of the bushes called out loudly to Ispan, expecting favor for capturing a spy. The guy, with threatening muscles, still held a blood-stained knife.
“This is the girl. I’m sure of it. She’s the one who used the stealth potion to help Lilith escape yesterday. I have a great sense of smell.”
A character remembered my scent from the stealth potion I used yesterday? I had no strength to escape. Caught, I looked up at Ispan towering over me like a giant shadow.
“Really? You’re sure?” Ispan’s glee was palpable, like a petty thief catching a rival. He inspected me, his smile widening at my feeble appearance.
Thwack! A slap landed hard, snapping my head to the side.
“Open your inventory.”
“…”
Captured participants’ inventories could be forcibly accessed. My inventory opened, and Ispan took everything. It hurt. As I licked the blood from my split lip, Ispan squatted in front of me and tapped my cheek with his thick hand, causing the recently slapped area to sting painfully.
“Know your place. Weaklings like you should know better than to get involved, or you’ll suffer for it, little girl.”
His taps grew harsher, making my head jerk back and forth.
“Where’s Lilith? Tell me where she is, or this will happen.”
He struck my jaw at an invisible speed, making my head snap back. Thankfully, I didn’t bite my tongue. If I had, I wouldn’t be able to clearly pronounce my next line.
“Like a pig or a dog.”
Suddenly, Ispan’s laughter stopped as if it had been cut off. He looked as if he couldn’t believe his ears.
A bug appeared in front of him, buzzing around. He could have just ignored it, but since it crawled up to his foot, his expression said he wanted to crush it.
“Do you not know what ‘fair and square’ means? From what I’ve seen you do lately, you’re more despicable than a mosquito sucking blood every night. What’s the point of strong stats if your mentality is that inferior?”
If I wanted, I could have cursed him out with the kind of language that would get me in trouble with broadcasting standards, but I wasn’t that kind of character, so I chose straightforward words.
Ispan was so shocked that he stood there dumbfounded for a moment. It was the dumbest look I had ever seen on his face.
Then, it changed to the creepiest look I had ever seen.
Whack!
His enormous fist swung at me, making my head twist back. Just one punch made me feel like I was on the brink of death.
As I expected yesterday, with his monstrous stats, a weakling like me would die from just one hit…
Ispan grabbed my hair and dragged me to the center so everyone could see.
Then he started beating me mercilessly, without a trace of a smile.
My body flew this way and that, regardless of my will. When his foot hit my stomach, a choking sound came out of my mouth.
‘Ah, it really hurts.’
The developers said that for the sake of the game’s combat, the characters were designed to feel only 40% of real pain when they got injured past a certain level.
But if it hurt this much, I wondered how painful it would be to get hit in real life…
I wondered what kind of reactions the viewers were having right now. They were probably typing comments like these:
‘What’s with this person? Does she have a death wish?’
‘That must hurt like hell.’
‘Is this girl not showing up tomorrow? She did speak well, but why is this happening?’
‘Isn’t she completely out of her mind?’
But that’s not true… I want to live… I’m doing this to survive…
As my mind started to wander from the unrelenting violence, I responded to the imaginary viewers’ comments one by one.
Meanwhile, my nose and mouth were warming with blood, and my whole body ached. I felt a bitter taste rising up as if my insides were about to burst.
Thud!
My body was thrown far away. I coughed and gagged as my head hit the ground.
Despite beating me for so long, Ispan didn’t seem to be out of breath at all.
Disgusting B+ rank…
“Hey, from now on, you hit her instead.”
Ispan wiped his blood-stained hand with a towel.
A character holding a club stood over me.
‘This guy looks weak too.’
He must have been trembling under Ispan because he had no strength.
The man’s eyes were filled with tears. He looked at my wrecked state with regret, but it seemed like he had no choice.
He was too scared of Ispan.
So, to avoid displeasing Ispan, he shut his eyes tight and hit me with all his strength until his face turned red.
I could feel my life draining away quickly.
For the first time, I realized that you could actually die from being beaten.
Everyone must be hoping for it. For someone to appear like a hero.
For that bastard, who made us eat a million sweet potatoes, to get smashed by a bottle of cider.
‘But if someone really did appear to stop this horrible situation, the viewers would go wild, wouldn’t they?’
This is the perfect stage for my debut.
Ispan stops the character who was brutally beating me. Through my swollen, blood-filled vision, I see Ispan approaching with a knife.
The conditions for unlocking the pure natural ability I know are—
‘When life is on the verge of death, or something equally desperate.’
Knowing that this is a game world, it’s inappropriate to have something truly desperate in this fake world.
So, I have to at least be in severe pain, right before death.
The difficulty itself isn’t high. I could just pretend to misstep and fall off a cliff to get hurt. Compared to other abstract conditions, it’s easy.
But if I were to get hurt, I wanted a dramatic awakening moment. I wanted to leave an impression on the viewers with the debut of the character, Rudel.
That’s why I deliberately walked into Ispan’s lair on my own.
Ispan, sensing something unusual, stops in his tracks.
Luckily, I still had the energy to speak. In a barely audible, hoarse voice, I whispered.
So that Ispan could hear, so that the viewers could hear.
“Ispan.”
Ispan narrows his eyes.
“I should at least thank you a little.”
I smirked slightly.
[Participant Rudel, unique ability unlocked]
The game broadcast pierced through my clogged ears.
[Ability Type] Pure Nature
[Unique Ability] Fire
[Potential Grade] S
[Congratulations. You are the first to unlock a unique ability!]
Around me, flames shot up like pillars, their scarlet tongues flickering.
When a unique ability is unlocked, a phrase that represents the character appears. It’s shown to all the other participants and viewers.
[“I’m too precious to die by someone like you.”]
It was a phrase that I liked.
A flame sparked from the finger I struggled to extend, and with intense energy, it rushed towards Ispan’s face.