D-Rank Guild Master of the Number One Guild – Chapter 5
* * *
I woke up earlier than expected. Probably because the ground was hard.
I glanced over at Lilit, who was still asleep, then turned over to face the ceiling of the cave.
I felt the chill of dawn brush against the tip of my nose.
How could everything be so vivid?
To the point that I couldn’t believe I had entered a game, everything was overflowing with realism.
Just what in the world was the identity of the developer that created this game? And how had I ended up here?
I tried tirelessly to recall my last memory before entering this place. But my mind was still nothing but dark, as if covered by a black veil.
……As expected, it would be best to focus on surviving and gathering more information for now.
It was too vague, but I believed that if I continued this game, I would see some kind of path eventually.
If I survived and established my position within the game, I would be able to find out who I was and how I had ended up inside it.
[Day 2 has begun.]
[Revealing the additional rules for Day 2.]
[All participants, in fact, possess their own unique superpower.]
[Find the unlock condition for your unique ability and unlock it. A special reward will be given to the first unique ability unlocker.]
Day 2’s game broadcast ended there. With a few careless lines of explanation that basically said, "Figure it out yourself."
It was a relief I already knew the unlock condition. If I hadn’t, I would probably be staring at "???" like the other characters.
But if I remembered correctly, the unlock conditions varied depending on which ability category the unique ability belonged to.
Maybe there was something I could check like a cheat?
I opened my status window.
[Name] Rudel / [Level] 12
As expected, it hadn’t betrayed my expectations. At the bottom of the familiar status window, a new line had been added.
[Ability Category] Pure Nature
[Unique Ability (Locked)]
So the Rudel character wasn’t a dirt spoon after all?
Among the three ability category types, of course there would be individual differences, but generally speaking, "Pure Nature" was the strongest.
The unlock condition was that much harsher in proportion…….
Let me just do what I had to do.
Cutting through the overgrown jungle, my eyes meticulously searched for supply crates. And I advanced toward my destination.
So many bushes, yet not a single scratch on my skin—the combat armor was the best.
*By the way, would that guy still be there? In the middle of the clearing where the forest ends, right there where the blood of those he slaughtered had been splattered?*
He was.
Today too, Ispan had gathered his cronies and onlookers to carry out public executions.
However, he didn’t seem to have his pistol—perhaps he was out of bullets.
I watched the spectacle for a bit.
Today, Ispan wasn’t killing anyone directly. He was watching from a seat of honor while two unfamiliar characters below were fighting each other.
They were fierce, biting at each other as if trying to devour one another.
*Thud!*
Then it was almost decided. One side had smashed the other with a rock from the ground.
I saw the attacked person stagger for a moment before collapsing.
Ispan whistled and clapped his hands.
"Stop!"
Had he made two people fight desperately, like setting up a cockfight?
Ispan grinned as if he had enjoyed it for a moment. The victor flinched when he patted his blood-soaked shoulder.
Then Ispan sauntered over to the loser, a character gasping for breath on the verge of death.
Stopping the match before one side really died, then approaching to take the life himself.
He was trying to monopolize all the kill points.
Not completely stupid. Which made him all the more disgusting.
If Ispan came just a bit closer, I would be able to see his status window.
I knew that without an invisibility potion, I might be discovered hiding behind the bushes.
I inched forward bit by bit, sneaking closer, and opened Ispan’s status window.
[Name] Ispan / [Level] 16
* * *
[Health] 6462 / ▲442 / B+
[Strength] 8256 / ▲501 / B+
[Agility] 3168 / ▲68 / B
Level 16? Why were his stat increases like that? My jaw dropped.
This barbaric and cowardly villain, a villain everyone had to submit to because he was a golden spoon of stats, even his level-up growth range was that wide.
The gap was widening even more.
That bastard was smug. As if the world belonged to him.
It was the situation I had feared. The EXP ratio for kill points must be very high.
Anyway, to know which was more efficient between kill points and play points, that is, popularity vote scores, I would have to compare them directly—
"……!"
At that moment, the back of my neck was grabbed. By the time I flinched in surprise, it was already too late.
"Lord Ispan!"
Someone who had snatched me from the bushes shouted loudly for Ispan.
Wrapped in a groveling expectation that Ispan would favor him for catching a spy.
A guy with threatening, twitching muscles came holding a blood-stained knife.
"It’s this girl. I’m sure. The invisibility potion that let Lilit escape yesterday belongs to this girl. I have an unbelievably good nose, after all."
I had hidden myself with an invisibility potion yesterday, yet there was a character who remembered me by scent……?
I had no strength to run. Caught helplessly, I looked up at Ispan, who cast a shadow over me like a giant.
"Oh really? You’re sure?"
Ispan laughed delightedly as if he had caught a thief, then soon looked me up and down. He scoffed at my scrawny physique.
*Pow!* He slapped my cheek, and my head snapped.
"Hey, open your inventory."
"……."
It was possible to forcibly open an inventory when the owner was captured. My inventory opened, and I had all my items taken by Ispan.
It hurt.
As I licked the blood from my split lip with my tongue, Ispan squatted down in front of me.
Then he tapped my cheek with his thick hand. Because it was the cheek I had just been hit, it stung terribly.
"You need to know your place. If a weakling like you interferes without knowing her place, you’ll get hurt, little girl."
The tapping hand gradually grew stronger. *Slap, slap.* My head shook back and forth.
"Where is Lilit? Tell me where she is. If you don’t talk, this happens."
Ispan struck my jaw at a speed I couldn’t see. My head flew upward.
Ah, thank goodness I didn’t bite my tongue.
If I had bitten my tongue, I wouldn’t have been able to pronounce my next lines properly.
"You dog-pig bastard."
*Click*—Ispan’s laughter stopped as if by a lie. As if doubting his ears.
He wore the expression of a man who saw a buzzing bug appear before him—something he could have simply ignored—but now that it was crawling up his foot, he wanted to stomp and crush it.
"Do you not know what ‘fair and square’ means? Watching what you’ve been doing yesterday and today, you’re more despicable than a mosquito sucking blood every night. What’s the point of having high stats when your mentality is so inferior?"
In my heart, I could have spewed enough profanity to get caught by broadcast censorship, but since I wasn’t a frivolous character, I recited honest words.
So shocked was he that Ispan stood there blank-faced for a moment. It was the stupidest face I had ever seen.
And after a moment, it changed into the most chilling face I had ever seen.
*Pow!*
My head was snapped backward by a monstrous punch. Just one hit made me feel dizzy, as if I were on my way to the afterlife.
Just as I had predicted yesterday. With those ridiculous stats, a weakling like me would die from a single hit…….
Ispan grabbed my hair and dragged me to the center where everyone could see me.
And he began beating me mercilessly without a trace of laughter.
My body bounced around this way and that, regardless of my will. When his foot kicked my stomach, a choking sound escaped me.
*‘Ah, it really hurts.’*
For the sake of in-game combat, game characters were supposedly designed to feel only 40 percent of real pain when injured beyond a certain level, according to the developers.
If it hurt this much even so, how painful would it be to actually get hit…….
What would the viewers’ reactions be by now? They were probably typing chats like this:
*‘what’s with her, she must be crazy wanting to die’*
*‘fuck that must hurt’*
*‘doesn’t this bitch have a tomorrow? she talked big, so why is she doing this’*
*‘is her fear nerve broken or something?’*
That’s not it……. I want to live……. I’m doing all of this to survive…….
Perhaps my mind was wavering in the feast of indiscriminate violence; I talked back one by one to the imaginary viewers I had created.
In the meantime, the area around my nose and mouth grew warm with blood, and my whole body went numb. Bitter fluid rose all the way up to here, as if my organs were on the verge of rupturing.
*Boom!*
My body was thrown far away. I struck my head on the ground and wheezed.
Even after beating me for so long, that bastard Ispan wasn’t even breathing hard.
That damned B+ grade…….
"Hey, from now on, you hit her instead."
Ispan wiped his blood-stained hand with a towel.
A certain character stood over me holding a club.
*This one too, looks like a weakling.*
Because he had no power, he must have been under Ispan’s thumb, trembling.
The man’s eyes welled up with tears. He seemed sorry for doing this to me, who had been beaten to a pulp, yet as if he couldn’t help himself.
Because he was so afraid of Ispan.
So, afraid that Ispan might not like it, he squeezed his eyes shut and swung at me with all his might, his face turning red.
I could feel my life rapidly draining away.
It was the first time I realized a person could be beaten to death.
Everyone was probably hoping for it. For someone to appear like a hero.
For that bastard, who had been feeding them a million sweet potatoes, to finally get a taste of soda and die.
*But if someone like that really appeared to calm this terrible situation, the viewers’ reactions would be explosive, wouldn’t they?*
It was the perfect stage for a protagonist’s debut.
Ispan stopped the character who had been brutally beating me. In my vision, swollen and stained with blood, I saw Ispan approaching with a knife.
The unlock condition for the Pure Nature unique ability that I knew of was—.
*Reaching the brink of death, or something equally desperate.*
Knowing this was inside a game, I was ill-suited to possess something "truly desperate" in this fake world.
So, I just had to hurt until I was on the verge of death.
The difficulty itself wasn’t hard. You just had to pretend to misstep and fall off a cliff to get injured. It was easy compared to the other abstract conditions.
But if I was going to get hurt anyway, I wanted a dramatic awakening moment. I wanted to imprint the debut of the character Rudel upon the viewers.
That was why I had deliberately walked into Ispan’s den of my own accord.
Sensing something ominous, Ispan soon stopped in his tracks.
I was glad I still had the strength left to open my mouth. In a voice that was barely hanging on, I whispered softly.
So that Ispan could hear. So that the viewers could hear.
"Ispan."
Ispan narrowed his eyes.
"I’ll thank you in advance."
I raised the corners of my mouth in a bloody smirk.
[Participant Rudel, unique ability unlocked.]
The game broadcast pierced through my blocked ears.
[Ability Category] Pure Nature
[Unique Ability] Fire
[Potential Grade] S
[Congratulations. You are the first unique ability unlocker!]
Around me, flames shot up in pillars, lolling scarlet tongues.
When a unique ability was unlocked, a single line representing that character appeared. To all other participants, and to all viewers.
["Dying to the likes of you would be a waste of me."]
It was a line I was fond of.
From a single finger I stretched out with effort, a flame erupted, surging toward Ispan’s face with fierce intensity.