The month passed, and the crescent moon returned.
That means I’ll be safe for the next month.
Thank goodness there’s only one day a month when the moon doesn’t rise.
If it were 2 or 3 days, I might have already committed suicide.
The day after surviving the berserk mode, I slept the whole day away.
Of course, if it were Berserk B, it might have been different, but Berserk A really drains your stamina.
Having stayed up all night before, post-Berserk A sleeping has become a kind of routine.
After sleeping for a full day, I started cleaning up my blood.
I walked and walked, going deeper into the cave. When I shone a light in the dark cave, I saw the walls caked in dried blood and the floor soaked with it.
I couldn’t help but gasp.
“Wow.”
It felt like I was looking at a murderer’s workshop. Anyone would think I had chopped up a bunch of people.
Unfortunately, the only one doing the chopping here was me.
Regrettably, I couldn’t clean that up either.
After all, the blood had splattered and dried dozens of times, leaving deep stains like spots.
Well, what can you do? It’s a place I only come to when berserk, so I might as well leave it be.
After cleaning up my blood fountain show, I began to shower.
The advantage of this cave is that there’s underground water flowing inside. So, I hardly need to trek all the way to the distant stream to bathe.
Of course, sometimes when the underground water freezes, I have no choice but to go to the stream, but thankfully, today isn’t one of those days.
“Ugh, it’s cold.”
The downside, however, is that it gets extremely cold in winter. In a cave where the only heating source is a campfire, you can’t expect anything like ondol.
Fortunately, I could use warm water, but today I was too lazy to bother and just washed myself.
After all, as a demon blood manifestor, I hardly catch colds.
Once I finished showering, I started doing my laundry along with a light meal.
Since I bled a lot yesterday, I needed to wash my blood-stained clothes.
Sometimes, laundry is such a hassle that I greet berserk mode without any clothes, but of course, that’s hard in winter.
“Phew, all done.”
After hanging the laundry outside the cave, I lightly combed my hair.
Except for dealing with the aftermath of the berserk mode, this was usually my daily routine.
Eat, shower, do laundry. If I have spare time, I might go gather some food.
It’s pretty much like living alone as an unemployed person. Not having friends to meet is also a similarity.
‘I want to make friends too.’
Today, I quietly muttered this impossible wish to myself.
Life in the forest was generally boring and lonely. So much so that I felt this way.
‘…I wonder if anyone will come visit again?’
Suddenly, the image of a girl named Yoo Chaerin, the streamer I saw a few days ago, popped into my mind.
How ironic, I directly told her never to come back, yet I’m thinking about her like this.
I have to admit, I’m a contradictory person.
But it couldn’t be helped. Reason and desire are two different things.
I know my safety is threatened if I contact society. But I was so starved for conversation that I could momentarily forget that.
“Sigh…”
Of course, wishing won’t make my desires come true.
Today, like any other, was a safe day in the forest.
*
Yor’s face appeared on YouTube.
And the impact was quite significant.
To the point that it took up half a page on the “Demon’s Saga Gallery,” commonly known as ‘Demon Gallery’.
A good-looking NPC popped out after ages, from an utterly random place like the Forbidden Forest.
What’s more, he was a man who had been mentioned at least once in the past.
After all, there was a silhouette of him that appeared in a user’s screenshot a few months ago.
At that time, it was concluded to be a collage or a ghost story.
But it turns out, that ghost story belonged to a real man!
Yor had all the qualifications to be excellent kindling for humor or conversation.
Of course, half a page in the Demon Gallery isn’t much compared to all the various fires around the world…
But then again, it still created ripples. Yor was that much of good kindling.
Most people consumed this topic merely as gossip.
But like how hundreds of people gather, dozens can be idiots.
Not everyone in a community is a clean user.
Just like other games, there are toxic users in “Demon’s Saga.”
However, the difference is that the toxic users here are quite awful.
The game itself is so realistic that it’s touted as ‘another reality’.
The level of freedom is also ridiculously high. The “19+ mode” is even supported by the game, so what else is there to say?
Without exaggeration, most things players can imagine are possible to act upon.
However, this leads to a small issue…
There are those who try to commit small crimes in the game that they can’t do in reality.
‘Fools.’
A perfect example of this is Kang Ji-woo, a 27-year-old shut-in (virgin) who’s obsessed with the game.
She was currently heading into the “Forbidden Forest” showcased on the stream. The reason, obviously, to meet Yor living in the forest.
‘Why isn’t anyone going to visit such a good doll?’
To explain more, she wanted to subdue him and forcibly “consume” him.
She had meticulously memorized the route after watching Yoo Chaerin’s stream dozens of times.
Sure, since it’s a forest, all the paths look quite similar, but she could devise a route thanks to her desperate determination.
Her coincidence of being a thief, just like Yoo Chaerin, helped too.
‘Good thing I saved up some points.’
Praising her past self in her mind, thanks to that, she learned the “Stealth” skill without leveling up much. Everything seemed to fall into place.
At this point, one might wonder.
Is it really okay to include things like rape in an open RPG, no matter how high the freedom level is?
Of course not.
Therefore, toxic users committing such crimes were permanently banned as soon as they were caught.
The perception among general users was also nearly at the level of food waste.
Moreover, customization is allowed only within 5% of realistic appearances, so they could easily be identified.
There are various safety mechanisms in place.
However, as the world works, if you don’t get caught, you’re innocent.
Initially, getting banned usually came first from being caught by players or NPCs before ending up in prison.
As long as there are no witnesses, it doesn’t matter even if you commit a crime.
Given that, Yor was quite the tempting target.
The Forbidden Forest, with its treacherous paths and tough monsters, had absolutely no people around.
As long as she handled her target, Yor, well, she could dream of a perfect crime. For example, disposing of him…
Strangely, in this game, NPCs don’t respawn after dying. Once they’re dead, it’s game over.
Rape and murder in one shot… But Kang Ji-woo, who was thinking that way, felt no guilt. Though she did have antisocial tendencies.
‘He’s just an NPC, anyway.’
This underlying thought is what drives her.
After all, it’s all an illusion. Even if the NPC disappears permanently, that’s all there is to it.
If a real person isn’t dying, what’s the problem? It’s the other players who want to champion 2D rights that are the weird ones.
She had no worries about subduing Yor.
After all, she was quite a high-level user. Her level was a whopping 79.
Considering the world’s top-ranked user barely broke into the 90s, she was incredibly powerful.
Although this location was also a high-level zone, she figured overpowering one ‘man’ wouldn’t be much of a problem.
Time passed, and eventually, she reached the cave.
There were clothes hanging on a nearby tree, hinting at whether she had done laundry. The man she saw on YouTube was currently picking up those clothes.
Still winter, it seemed, as he wore a fur coat just like the other.
Like a thief, she stealthily approached from behind and swung a hammer down on his head.
Not hard enough to kill him, just enough to knock him out.
THUD!
With a dull thud, the man’s body fell limply to the ground.
Still, being hit with a hammer caused a trickle of red blood to drip from his head.
“Heh heh…”
She let out a small chuckle and made her way to him. The pent-up lust she built while watching the YouTube videos was starting to burst forth. The sight of his bruised face was still somehow attractive.
Not stopping there, she began to unravel his fur coat. After all, it would be difficult to do anything with such thick clothing on.
As she revealed his upper body, the man’s physique was laid bare.
With six-pack abs and broad shoulders. The sight made her unconsciously exclaim in awe.
“Wow, damn…”
The man on YouTube had been wearing his fur coat.
And it was so thick that his shape wasn’t visible at all.
Because of this, many envious commenters speculated that he must have a terrible body under that coat.
Of course, those were baseless claims, and she had scoffed at them.
However, it was true that a sliver of anxiety lingered in her mind. What if his body is as bad as those comments say?
Until she opened him up, she wouldn’t know, like a Schrödinger’s box.
Those worries dissolved completely the moment she unveiled him.
A terrible body? No, it was even better than his face! It was a perfectly sculpted physique, packed with ideals of women!
How does a man’s body develop muscle so seductively?
It seemed to grow without purpose, making the body delicate.
With chiseled abs, spotless white skin, and a burly chest, just looking made her feel tingly down below.
Thanks to that, she half-lost her sanity and tried to pounce on him.
But then it happened.
“…What a pity.”
The voice of the man she thought was unconscious suddenly reached her ears.
What?! He hadn’t been moving at all! Has he woken up already?
Various questions surged in her mind. But those doubts didn’t linger long.
“If you were just a bit prettier, I might have considered letting you have your way with me.”
SWISH!
Before she could react, her wrist was swiftly severed.
Severe agony enveloped her as her wrist flew away.
“AAAH!”
Having maxed out her resistance right before coming here, the pain was unimaginable.
Grabbing her severed wrist with her confused mind, she pondered.
What?! Did he have a weapon? But I didn’t even see him swing it?
She had also been fully armored.
It might have been low defense as a thief, but she should be much tougher than bare skin.
That had to be the case, yet her wrist was sliced clean off.
Questions swarmed in her mind.
Regardless, the man kept moving. He kicked her aside and pinned her down on the ground.
Now that she looked closer, there was indeed a dagger in his right hand. It seemed he had been hiding it up his fur coat’s sleeve.
With the dagger pointed at her neck, he said,
“Yep, you’re definitely ugly.”
Whether from pain or sorrow, she felt like crying.
