The hidden cave in the Root Mountains.
The farther I went inside, the darker my surroundings became, and the air brushing against my skin grew damp.
The sensation was horribly realistic.
Step, step......
The sound of my feet on the uneven stone floor struck the walls and returned faintly.
“Well, I guess it is the sort of place that guy would live.”
My voice echoed several times.
I had said it for no reason but to drive away the eerie atmosphere, but it was not complete nonsense.
Reptiles like dark, damp places, don’t they?
It was a fitting place for the guy sleeping inside the cave.
‘I need to prepare a means of defense before the calamity breaks out.’
I had abandoned the idea of simply doing nothing.
I planned to leave combat to John Doe, but support him with useful items and help resolve the calamities.
Even so, if I wanted to provide support, I would inevitably have to loiter near dangerous zones.
‘For attack power, I can rely on medicine, but......’
I could make medicine and prepare for health or defense, but I could not waste medicinal ingredients just to prepare for an attack I did not know would come.
If so, I needed a means of defense that would let me survive even without relying on pharmacology.
‘As I am now, I’ll be done for if I get hit even once.’
I raised my hand and looked at my pale wrist.
No matter how many times I looked, it was a body that had clearly lived far away from exercise.
‘I can’t run around with a body like this.’
Taking risks and throwing away my life were clearly different things.
A safety line was absolutely necessary.
Grrr.
How long had I walked?
From far away, I heard a sound that shook the entire cave.
Grrr, grrrr......
It was a reverberation that swallowed the sound of my footsteps without issue.
The breathing of a giant beast.
An overwhelming presence, enough to make my shoulders shrink on their own, flowed out from deeper within the cave.
I placed a hand on the wall and carefully moved my feet.
-Inside.
At the voice that seemed to lodge directly in my head, every hair on my body stood on end.
I swallowed without meaning to and looked around.
-A little farther inside. Who are you?
The wall my hand was touching squirmed, then suddenly opened wide up and down.
It was not a wall.
It was an eye.
An eye larger than the body of an average adult.
The crimson eye rolled about while fixed into the cave wall.
“I’m Ritak Methyl. And you are?”
I knew his identity, but I pretended not to and asked.
-......You may call me Lord Wer.
The guardian placed in this world, Wersiculus.
A divine beast who had once fought against the calamities and been sealed in a deep cave.
With the carapace covering his whole body, he could firmly withstand even the fierce attacks of a calamity.
‘......was the early setting.’
In the process of drastically revising the game, most of the miscellaneous settings were reduced to dummy data.
My professor disliked having foreshadowing scattered here and there throughout the game.
He said there was no need for something like grand foreshadowing about the past.
‘But what’s with Lord Wer?’
It was the opposite in the game.
Far from speaking down to the player, he was a character who bowed down completely, saying he owed a great debt.
The guy narrowed his red eye and carefully examined me.
-To think you entered this cave with a human body. It seems you are no ordinary fellow.
Was this happening because I had progressed through a route different from the existing game?
Unlike what I knew, he treated me with a somewhat overbearing tone.
After throwing out one sentence, he kept his mouth shut for a long while again.
His eye, which had been narrowed thinly, was now outright frowning.
-However, you are still......
His gaze openly radiated suspicion.
After pondering for quite a while, he sighed deeply.
-You look frailer than an ordinary human. There is no way someone like you can break the seal. It would be better to wait for the next one who comes.
It was too audible to be called muttering to himself.
It even buzzed inside my head.
He was not wrong, but defiance rose in me.
‘Is this because I’m not the protagonist?’
Well, would an NPC who sold potions in the village really be to his liking?
It was true that right now, I was far lacking in both strength and skill.
-I am worried you may be injured if I ask you to break this wall. Go back now.
Speaking the lines given to them and becoming one axis of the story.
That was the very simple rule an NPC had to follow in a game.
But right now, this guy was thinking and making judgments for himself.
It meant he was not an NPC inside a game who always repeated the same lines.
Even so, there was no reason to panic.
The person who knew him better than anyone in this world was me.
Because I had created his setting.
“Wait. How do you think I got all the way here?”
The eye that had been slowly closing opened halfway.
As if to show off, I tapped the wall beside the eye.
“I’m the one who broke the entrance and came in here. I can probably break this wall too.”
The enormous eye snapped wide open.
Its pupil had narrowed into a thin slit.
-Y-you? How in the world!
I shrugged lightly.
“Does the method matter? I think now is the time to ask, not question me.”
The narrowed pupil shook violently.
Even in the voice transmitted directly into my mind, I could feel a faint tremor.
-A-as you can see, this body is sealed in the wall. If you release the seal, you bastard—no, I shall follow you and help you with anything.
Now he was finally acting a little like the guy I knew.
His way of speaking was still awkward, though.
‘That’s not all that important.’
I had no time to waste in a tug-of-war.
Because it would not be strange if the medicine’s effect began to fade soon.
Just like when I broke the entrance, I thrust out my fist.
RUMBLE!
The entire cave vibrated, and the wall beside the huge eye split.
CRACK, SPLIT.
The sound traveled up the wall and reached the ceiling.
And then the cave began to collapse.
THUD! BOOM!
I would not die here.
Even so, I could not help the instinct screaming that it was dangerous.
Only after my surroundings became quiet did I open my eyes, which I had squeezed shut.
When I looked back, the path I had come through was blocked by massive boulders.
By contrast, the area around me was perfectly clean, without even a small pebble fallen nearby.
“Are you injured anywhere?”
I raised my head.
Above my head floated a reptile about the size of my palm.
He had a black body that looked soft and smooth, with a turtle shell like iron armor.
And from that tiny mouth came the way of speaking of an old gentleman.
‘Wer......’
This little turtle was Wersiculus.
Wer.
Originally, he was so enormous he could be mistaken for a rocky mountain, but because he had been sealed for a long time and lost his strength, his body had shrunk this much.
‘From now on, you’re my helper.’
In the game, his role was a helper character who followed the protagonist.
Once his seal was released, he would trail after the protagonist, give information, and hold items for him.
His most useful ability was his shield, a convenience feature I had added because everyone who tested WoI died too many times in the early game.
‘A beginner support system.’
A translucent red membrane spread out from him and wrapped around me as though protecting me.
It was the power of his shield.
“I am ashamed of my own eye. To think you were someone with this much power.”
His head, shaped like a salamander’s, drooped low.
It seemed he was bothered by having underestimated me.
“No need to go that far.”
“......I must apologize.”
Was it because his size had shrunk?
I could not feel the pressure from before.
Should I say he was much easier to deal with now?
“It’s fine, Lord Wer. I plan to get plenty of use out of your shields from now on.”
“Get use out of...... Y-yes. I shall support you with utmost sincerity.”
“And how much is utmost sincerity?”
Wer looked down at his own body.
Was it my imagination that his face looked tearful?
His voice became even more dejected.
“......With this body, the number of times I can protect you is limited to three for now.”
“That’s enough.”
That was the number of support uses I knew.
Wer’s shields numbered three.
As long as shields remained, it was no different from being invincible.
And even if they were used, the number recovered after a certain amount of time passed.
‘Reliable extra lives.’
I had taken several long steps away from death.
In satisfaction, I tapped my shoulder.
“Are you planning to stay above my head the whole time? Why don’t you sit here?”
“May I?”
After hesitating, Wer landed on my shoulder.
‘Isn’t he a little too dispirited?’
Without thinking, I stroked his little head with my index finger.
He smacked my finger away with the sole of his foot.
“......I shall simply remain in the air.”
“Well...... Do as you like.”
Prickly, wasn’t he?
No matter what anyone said, he was a character I had created.
I could not help feeling affection for him.
But to him, I was someone he had just met, so I supposed it was burdensome.
With my hand grown awkward, I took out materials instead.
“Medicine Crafting.”
Since the path I had come through was blocked, I had to move forward.
The way I had entered had collapsed, but if I walked straight ahead from here, I could find an exit.
However, monsters were stationed along that path.
‘I have enough materials.’
With the Passion Fruits I had stocked up on and the remaining Sourgrass, I made Strength Increase Sticks.
FLASH!
When I used the skill, light burst from my hands.
Wer’s sharp eyes turned round.
“You use a strange power!”
He made a fuss.
To me, Medicine Crafting and shields were both equally strange powers.
Chew, chew, chew......
The Strength Increase Stick was still bitter.
But when I thought of the medicine’s effect, I did not feel like complaining.
I felt strength welling up in my body.
“Hold on tight.”
“W-wait. Ahead of here......”
“I know. I’ve been hearing creepy sounds for a while now.”
“......You have good ears, for a human.”
In truth, it was a sound ordinary people would not be able to detect.
I said it because I knew what was ahead.
“Fine. Since you broke the seal, what lies ahead should be easy. If need be, this body shall protect you.”
Wer nodded as though resolving himself.
His claws, bent like hooks, latched onto my shoulder.
‘He won’t make holes in the gown, will he?’
It was shabby clothing that looked as though chemicals had splashed all over it anyway, so it did not matter.
I pushed aside useless thoughts and ran forward.
Skitter, skitter, skitter!
The sound that had been difficult to hear even when I focused grew louder and louder.
An unpleasant sound, like the scraping of crustacean legs.
A cave insect appeared.
“Here they are.”
A monster with a long body like a centipede’s and many legs bent like a crane fly’s.
The insect, which was as large as a person’s forearm, was insanely fast.
If I hunted it, I could obtain a useful material for facing the first calamity.
‘......But it’s way too disgusting, isn’t it?’
It had been a horrible monster even when I saw it as graphics.
It was also a creature with a danger as vicious as its horrible appearance.
Seeing it in person made me want to quit on the spot, materials or not.
SCREECH!
The insect leaped toward my face.
There was no time to hesitate.
My fist moved before thought.
SPLAT!
The cave insect’s body burst open refreshingly.
Before I even had time to shake the fluid from my hand, another insect rushed at me.
“You annoying little......!”
Each individual cave insect was nothing special, but getting bitten became troublesome.
Because these bastards swarmed in packs and even had paralyzing poison.
But if I did not let my guard down and hunted them steadily, they were also monsters I could kill without difficulty.
THWACK! THWACK!
I continued swinging my fists and advanced.
I did not even count how many insects I had killed.
And the moment I saw the light outside.
-Strength stat increased by 1!
At the same time I killed the last insect, a voice rang out as though congratulating me.
It was a notification that washed away the unpleasant feeling of my sticky hands.
‘Stats can increase!’
The strength stat given to Ritak Methyl was rock bottom, even without needing to look at a status window.
But if growth was possible?
I could see potential.
Clench.
I tightened my fist.
Was it just my imagination?
My fist felt much harder than before.
“Amazing! This body did not even need to deploy a shield!”
“It was nothing much.”
Wer hopped around as though excited.
He patted my shoulder with his palm.
It seemed we had grown a little closer.
I stroked Wer’s small head too.
“Ritak, you bastard......!”
His shell trembled.
Had I acted too familiar after all?
“Did you just wipe insect scraps on this body’s head!?”
“Ah.”
Before a bolt of wrath could fall, I began running toward the village.
As I resolved that once I reached the recovery shop, I would scrub my shield’s head clean first.
However, before I could even open the shop door, I sensed it.
This was not the time to be wiping Wer’s head.