"We are humans... humans need to stick together... humanity... we’re still humans."
Rafael whispered the same words that woman in Fersay had told him.
He called her an insane bitch, but now he was a fucking low-level Player surrounded by people who had been given an easy way out, and the irony hit him all at once.
His life depended on those people remembering the exact thing he had mocked.
That they were still human.
[Any Participant who slays another Participant will complete the Event and be teleported back.]
"Believe in humanity... this isn’t a game anymore. They wouldn’t do it."
He was panicking about it, because he knew one thing... this event wasn’t about orcs at all.
He knew because these special events had sometimes dragged him away in the middle of exploiting something, but more importantly, every single one of them had ended the same way.
Players always killed each other to get out as quickly as they could.
They never even cared about the event objective.
"It’s not even about the orcs..." Rafael looked up. "This shit is about us—"
Blood suddenly exploded from his mouth.
"Ugh—!"
His vision distorted almost immediately.
The trees stretched and twisted into impossible shapes as the entire world began violently spinning around him, and his legs nearly gave out beneath him.
Then came the burning.
It tore through his body, spreading from his stomach into his chest before racing down his arms and legs.
His skin felt like it was being cooked from underneath, and when he desperately sucked in a breath, even his throat burned.
Another mouthful of blood surged up.
Then another.
[You have been Poisoned: Blackrot Venom.]
"I-I’m sorry..."
A young woman’s voice came from somewhere to his side.
Rafael’s bloodshot eyes slowly turned toward it, but his vision was so distorted that he could barely make out the figure standing between the trees.
"I’m really sorry..." she stuttered, her voice trembling. "I-I don’t want to die."
Rafael tried to straighten himself, but another wave of burning pain tore through his body.
The blurry figure raised something in her hand.
"I just want to go back... I-I am..." She raised a sword with both trembling hands. "S-Sorry."
Then she brought it down.
"AHH!"
The blade caught Rafael’s shoulder, cutting across the skin but barely going any deeper.
Then swung again... and again.
"I’m sorry! I’m sorry!"
The blade hacked into Rafael wherever she could hit him.
His shoulder, arm, thigh... but the worst of it was that she didn’t have enough strength to cut through anything.
Every blow simply buried the blade into flesh before she desperately tore it back out and swung again.
She was butchering Rafael.
Blood splattered everywhere, covering her clothes and face, while Rafael instinctively curled up and raised his arms over his head as the sword continued chopping into him.
His forearm.
His side.
Each strike sent another burst of pain through his already burning body, but the woman wouldn’t stop.
In her eyes there was only one thing. The event rule.
[Slaying another Participant will teleport you back.]
"I-I have to..."
She raised the sword again.
"I have to go home.."
But this time, Rafael barely reacted.
The pain had become too much.
The poison burning through his veins, the wounds covering his body, the repeated strikes tearing into him... his brain simply couldn’t process any more of it.
And suddenly, he felt nothing.
The sounds became quieter... more distant. Until even those began to fade.
"I... inv—inventory."
Somehow, Rafael managed to whisper it while she continued hacking into him.
The familiar window appeared through his fading vision.
[Inventory]
He couldn’t read shit.
The inventory was open in front of him, filled with so much information that his dying eyes couldn’t make sense of any of it.
But he saw something.
The shape of an item in his inventory that resembled a ring.
And at that moment, Rafael placed his life entirely in the hands of luck.
That out of all the items Tim could have given him, one of them just happened to be the exact ring he needed.
The exact ring Rafael knew how to exploit.
"DIE! Why won’t you fucking die?!"
The woman screamed as she continued hacking at him, blood covering everything around them.
There were so many wounds across Rafael’s body that they were barely even visible beneath all the blood.
But when Rafael finally looked up, she noticed.
"J-Just... just stay like that..." she stuttered as she pressed the tip of the sword against Rafael’s neck. "I don’t want to... torture you."
[Ring of Health has been equipped.]
[Ring of Health has been unequipped.]
[Ring of Health has been equipped.]
[Ring of Health has been unequipped.]
[ERROR: Health value below minimum threshold.]
[Health calculation invalid.]
[Recalculation initiated.]
[Blackrot Venom has been removed.]
Rafael’s vision suddenly snapped back into focus as if he had never been poisoned, never been cut by the blade.
All the pain vanished at once, and Rafael lunged forward with everything he had.
He wasn’t thinking anymore as adrenaline had reduced his entire world to one instinct.
Survive.
But he was still up against someone else, and as Rafael forced himself up and lunged forward, the woman panicked and thrust the sword straight at him.
The blade missed his neck by inches before slicing into his left trapezius, but Rafael didn’t stop.
He couldn’t.
His body was moving on its own as he crashed straight into her, knocking her onto the ground.
And then he started.
His fist crashed into her face with everything he had.
[Strength increased by 1.]
Again.
"P-Please—""
[Agility increased by 1.]
His fist slammed into her mouth.
She desperately threw her arms over her face, but Rafael punched through them.
"S...to—!"
[Stamina increased by 1.]
His knuckles split open against her teeth.
"Please— sto—"
[Unarmed Combat proficiency increased.]
Rafael kept punching, even when her screams stopped.
Even when her hands fell limply to her sides.
He could barely see her face beneath all the blood, but he kept punching, blood splattering everywhere with every blow.
Then, almost unconsciously, he reached for the same sword she had been butchering him with.
He grabbed the sword near the tip, the blade slicing into his fingers and palm, and drove it into her throat.
He felt nothing at that moment.It was so real, yet somehow so distant.
The feeling of killing someone... of murdering someone.
Slowly pushing the blade deeper, feeling the resistance of skin and flesh, the scrape against bone, the muscles tightening around the steel.
He felt all of it physically.
But emotionally, there was nothing.
Nothing at all, even when he stood up and stared down at the woman’s body.
She was completely beaten up, her face swollen beyond recognition.
Half of her mouth hung loosely to the side by a few strands of flesh, several of her teeth had been knocked out, her nose was completely broken, and her eyes... or at least the right one, still stared lifelessly up at the sky.
Then, colorful confetti exploded around him.
[Congratulations! Level 2 Reached!]
[Health: 100 +5]
[Mana: 50 +5]
[Strength: +2]
[Agility: +2]
[Stamina: +2]
[Unallocated Stat Points: +3]
[Unallocated Class Trait Point: +1]
[You have successfully completed the Event and received your reward.]
[Teleporting you back to your previous location.]
[5]
Before Rafael could even process it, a voice suddenly echoed through the woods.
"We found the ninth!"
[4]
Then a man emerged from the bushes,armed up with a huge blade in his hand, but the moment his eyes landed on Rafael, he stopped.
"You... what have you done...?"
[3]
More people emerged from the woods behind the man, but their attention immediately shifted to the body beneath Rafael.
[2]
Eight people.
With him, there had been nine.
With her... ten.
[2]
Rafael looked down at the dead woman.
"You fucking idiot..."
She hadn’t needed to kill him... or more importantly, he hadn’t needed to kill her. He could have restrained her.
They could have all survived together.
[1]
[Teleporting]