Chapter 19

Slap, slap.

Hmm.

What could it be?

My mind was hazy and I wanted to keep lying down, but the crisp sound coming from somewhere was quite annoying.

Plus, both my cheeks felt stinging.

"Ugh..."

My brain was ordering me to keep lying down, but as the sound got faster and my cheeks stung more, I eventually had to raise my upper body.

Only then could I understand the cause of that sound.

The Lesser Outer God, with tears in its eyes, was enthusiastically slapping both my cheeks as if they were drums.

Ah.

Right.

I was definitely attacked by the Gardener and...

"Aargh."

As soon as blood started flowing through my body, I felt a dull pain all over.

It hurt so much that I looked myself over to see if I had any wounds, but there were no visible injuries.

I could have sworn I felt like there was a hole in my stomach?

It felt just like a game character who shows no external injuries no matter how much HP is lost, only dying when the HP completely disappears.

At the very least, there should be bruises, but seeing that there were no wounds left, it seemed that such a mechanism was correct.

Ha, so the Super Chicken Mod censors even this, huh?

If that's the case, could my state be described in gaming terms as 'low HP'?

To think I took this much damage from an attack by a mere mob, not even a direct attack from an Average Outer God.

It gave me chills.

If an Average Outer God is this strong, if the Observer, who is of a higher rank, had been hostile towards us...

Just thinking about it made me dizzy, so I quickly shook my head to forget about it.

Anyway, I did gain something.

Thanks to the Super Chicken Mod, even if mental fear is somehow resolved, there's nothing I can do if the physical gap between the opponent and me is too great.

I seemed to have passed out for a very short while after being beaten up, but at least I was able to clearly grasp what I had been unsure about.

Should I call this... a valuable experience?

Slap, slap, slap.

"...I'm awake now. You can stop."

When I stopped the Lesser Outer God, who was still slapping my cheeks, it pounced on me with a pouty expression, so I tried to soothe it.

Somehow, it felt like the place where the Lesser Outer God hit me was more sore than where I was hit by the Gardener.

If I looked in a mirror now, wouldn't there be cute hand marks from the Lesser Outer God?

As if not giving me time for such cute imaginations, the flower-like things that had attacked me earlier were closing in.

Looking around, fortunately, there was still a hole to escape through.

"Friend, which way is the escape route?"

I asked like that, but the Lesser Outer God still only pointed at the Gardener.

What intention does it have to keep pointing at the Gardener?

Considering it woke me up by slapping my cheeks when I was in danger of dying again, it doesn't seem to want me to die.

"Okay, is that so?"

Whatever it meant, it was clear that this wasn't something I could do alone.

Maybe it's thanks to the Super Chicken Mod. Pain is just a moment. Because I didn't feel pain, I ran away in the opposite direction of where the Lesser Outer God was pointing.

By the way, I wonder if Muyeon is really okay.

I started to feel a bit worried.

Squish, squish, squish.

An unpleasant sound of something being crushed was ringing out regularly.

At the center of that sound was Muyeon, running without looking back.

On the floor, there were shriveled knights who had been eroded by plants, looking as if their sap had been sucked out. To avoid seeing them, Muyeon was running with her eyes closed, stepping on all the corpses.

'I'm sorry, I'm sorry!'

The image of someone who took the lead for her sake and seemed to sincerely try to help her in such a scary place started to flicker before Muyeon's eyes.

Why is such a kind person a criminal?

Surely there must be some misunderstanding.

'No, no!'

A criminal is still a person who has done wrong, and that person even felt lust towards an Outer God and attacked it.

It was an unforgivable crime in Rondan.

She had to think like this.

If not...

As she was getting lost in these thoughts, Muyeon finally reached the main gate and grabbed it with her hands, running at full speed with a happy expression.

But seeing the gate not budge no matter how hard she pushed, Muyeon started to get more anxious.

"Open, I said open...! Why won't it open?"

After pushing with all her might for a while, Muyeon saw where the main gate met the fence and made a despairing expression.

"Ah, no..."

Around where Muyeon was looking, there were very tough-looking vines wrapped in layers.

As if trying to prevent escape.

Muyeon had never learned or heard that the Gardener trapped people like this.

The most likely course of events...

Imagining Tanton being cruelly killed, his whole body entangled by the Outer God's attack, Muyeon collapsed on the spot.

Fear overwhelmed her.

The thought that she would be next after Tanton met such a fate dominated her mind.

'No, no...!'

She didn't mind dying.

She just hated that the process of dying was scary.

To think she would die so miserably here, unable to overcome even her fear.

Muyeon, who didn't want to face anything, covered her ears and curled up.

That's when it happened.

Suddenly, Muyeon felt something on her ankle.

Muyeon, whose fear had already reached its peak, felt like her brain was about to burst.

Her pupils shook violently, and her body trembled involuntarily.

The conflict between her reason not wanting to see and her instinct to check and avoid danger made Muyeon's head turn very slowly.

'Ah, no. Don't move.'

No matter how much she begged inwardly, her body was already moving on its own.

It felt as if a massive magical force was forcibly grabbing her head and turning it.

Eventually, Muyeon's head turned enough to see the situation behind her, and the moment she confirmed it.

"...Kyaaaaaaah!"

A desperate scream burst from Muyeon's throat.

The corpses that had been scattered all around were all moving towards Muyeon, and the corpses she had stepped on while running were approaching hideously, grinning while maintaining the footprints she had left.

One of those corpses was grabbing Muyeon's foot.

Muyeon tried to kick the corpse with her free foot, but even as its head flew off, it didn't let go of her hand.

Instead, it sneered and supported itself with both hands to not fall off.

Even the other foot that she had been kicking with was grabbed by a crawling corpse, and she became unable to move as if ice had been put in her whole body.

Fear paralyzed her body.

"No, no, don't come..."

Looking at the corpses persistently clinging to her legs, Muyeon shook her head with difficulty, her face pale, and spoke as if in distress, but there was no one to listen.

"Kuhaha! So you meet such an end after all!"

Suddenly, a voice came from somewhere.

Muyeon looked around in confusion and realized that the source of the voice was the corpse grabbing her leg.

Its appearance gradually transformed into a corpse in the form of a knight.

"Are you letting the criminal who helped you die because you're scared of even an Average Outer God?"

"N-no... I just..."

"Huhaha! Look at you making excuses, what kind of knight are you!"

Kekeke!

The skeletons chattered their jaws and guffawed with their bony hands.

The laughter without breath amplified Muyeon's sense of fear even more.

"Your father, who died in the Snow Mountain Expedition, must be wailing underground, buried in snow!"

"F-father..."

"Inheriting that blood, and all you do is this thuggish behavior instead of the glorious Outer God hunting? What is this daughter doing!"

This is a mental attack.

She shouldn't keep listening.

She knew, but it was human nature that words stabbing at one's self-esteem could never be ignored.

Muyeon covered her ears to not hear the corpses' words, but they gradually started to eat away at her mind.

"Your father, for your sake..."

"Tarnishing the name of your father, who was one of the strongest knights..."

"You are a powerless child..."

"A chicken who cowers in fear even at this..."

The voices of all sorts of corpses started to confuse Muyeon's mind.

Now, as those voices became faint enough to barely hear, Muyeon was sweating profusely and barely managing to collect her emotions.

Her breathing became rapid, and the corpses continued to grab and pull at Muyeon's legs.

And as if to put a period at the end, the voice of one corpse rang out.

"You! You can't even follow a hair's breadth of your father! You cow-headed bastard!"

"Aaaaaargh!"

Finally, at those words, Muyeon messed up her hair with both hands and vented her stress.

Perhaps because of that.

Crack!

"Ah, aah..."

The protective talisman she had brought finally lost its effect and fell to the ground, torn to shreds.

Unable to withstand the mental attack, the protective talisman had finally endured once and lost its effect.

Then, the sounds of the corpses crawling towards Muyeon all stopped at once.

The moment Muyeon raised her face towards where the corpses were, she was so surprised she forgot even to breathe.

The corpses all looked at the torn protective talisman, then stared at Muyeon expressionlessly.

"...It's torn."

"It's torn."

"It's torn."

One corpse crawled up Muyeon's leg and grabbed her chin with one hand.

"Now that it's gone."

We can finally become one.

With those words, Muyeon's legs were pulled with a force incomparable to before.

"How sturdy! Your mind is utterly powerless, but your body is blessed with strong bones!"

Because of that, Muyeon's upper body, which she had raised, finally fell backward and started to be dragged.

"No, nooo!"

"Kuhahaha!"

As soon as Muyeon's position was in the middle of the mass of corpses, they all rushed at her at once and started to grope her entire body.

Only her face was not covered, revealing her expression broken by fear.

"Stop it, nooo!"

Not satisfied with just groping, suddenly Muyeon felt an intense pain in her thigh.

"...Aah?"

"If your mind doesn't break down, we can't covet that body either.

But... you've lost to us. Shouldn't you offer that body?"

As Muyeon, not understanding those words, quickly looked around at each corpse, the corpses all shouted in unison.

"Let's become a flower."

"Become a beautiful flower like us."

"Yes, join us."

Ah.

So this is how it ends.

"What kind of flower will a chicken be?"

My mind is becoming distant.

The corpses are starting to look like flowers.

Mental contamination that feels like it's plucking out each brain cell.

Gradually, their whispering voices become noise and converge into a single language.

"Beautiful flowers"

A flower bloomed beautifully.

A flower bloomed.

A flower bloo.

A flower's bloo.

Blood.

In her fading consciousness, Muyeon thought that perhaps this end suited her.

She deserved this.

So it's right to accept it humbly, Muyeon thought, when...

"...Wake up, Ms. Muyeon!"