Chapter 30.

With the mobs still on me, I raised my left hand with the wolf trying to bite into my arm. I’d held onto the cigar I lit earlier and I’d been careful not to drop it. It would be a sin to let it go to waste after all. With it in between my lips, I sucked in a long trail of smoke. I lowered my left hand leaving the cigar dangling in between my lips then exhaled the smoke.

The smoke swirled about my body and all the mobs on me instantly lost strength, died, and fell to the ground devoid of life. A few seconds later, white cracks appeared all over their bodies and they exploded into particles of light.

“Now then, I should probably get moving.”

I took a single step forward and the world froze in place. Infinite speed was a pretty convenient thing. I leisurely strolled through the forest and after not too long, I came to a stop in front of a girl frozen in a running position.

To me, it felt like a decent amount of time had passed, but to others, time was effectively at a standstill. I squatted down in front of her and examined her face. Tears were frozen in the air directly below her chin and down the sides of her cheek. She wore a deeply pained expression on her face.

I took a picture of it to send her later on. I wasn’t satisfied with just one though, so I took a few more from several different angles. Some from a short distance away, others from up in the trees, a few close up. I just thought of it like taking a kid on a roller coaster ride and getting a few pictures for a childhood album. Kids needed embarrassing photos of their childhood, didn’t they? I was truly such a thoughtful person. Her parents would surely thank me one day.

When I was content with my work, I jumped up into a tree and time resumed. She fled at full speed stumbling every now and then on the uneven terrain. I followed from overhead and observed her little desperate struggle for survival.

She wanted to plot against me, so this was just me teaching her if she was willing to plot against others, she needed to be prepared to be plotted against. Let this be a lesson you take to heart, never be the one that moves first in a war of plotting when you don’t fully understand your opponent’s strength. You’ll only get burned if you underestimate anyone in this world.

If you stick around to the end and are still underestimating me because you think of me as a weak level 1 guide, it will be too late for you to regret it. If you want to beat me, you need to uncover my abilities on your own and fully understand what I can do. Don’t disappoint me like all the heroes before you. I’d like to experience the thrill of death once too like a normal NPC as well you know.

I’m unable to find a way to die on my own, but surely there will come a day when someone will find a way to set me free from this curse and clear this world. If you can kill an unkillable monster that was never meant to be killed and transcend the limitations imposed by the system, perhaps you will be the person that can accomplish what I cannot.

I’m not waiting for a hero, but rather, the person who will kill me and end my misery. The person who kills me will not necessarily be considered a hero to this world. Rather, they may very well be considered the one that brings about the destruction of this world. Without me to instantly eliminate all the heroes from the world, the asteroid will destroy it. This world has never actually seen that outcome because of my existence.

Haaaah. Enough sulking over these sorts of things.

“Damn it. Sniff. That defective NPC had such a setting? Why wouldn’t he just listen to me?” Midget White continued to flee as she wept over my overdramatized fake death.

I followed her from above, just outside of her detection range until she broke out of the tree lining. The instant she jumped out, she froze in place as her eyes widened in abject horror.

“Shit,” she cried in shock.

Yes, she’d stepped into a level 50 and above Orc encampment. She was immediately spotted. Before she could escape, an alarm resounded throughout the encampment of Orcs. She spun around and ran away at full speed, but the Orcs were quick to react to the delectable sight of a little girl like her.

“Damn it! Would I have to run from some pathetic level 50 Orcs if I was at full strength? Hell no. This is all that NPC’s fault. But... damn it! I can’t even blame him anymore. Why’d that NPC have to turn out to be like that at the end rather than the despicable guy I know? I felt so guilty I called him Daddy in the end. So embarrassing… Am I seriously going to have my character wiped by Orcs of all things?”

She retreated as fast as her level 1 stats permitted her, but her struggle was futile. The Orcs had both higher stats, and wild horses they’d tamed for mounts. Escape was impossible. The Orcs had trails cleared through the forest to ride their horses and entrap any pray that fell into their domain. They easily got ahead of her, using their mounts, they encircled the area and quickly cut off all avenues of retreat.

Some Orcs entered the forest on foot to corner her further. She could neither move forward nor turn back, she was trapped like a rat in a cage. There was no means of escape. The only option that remained was to use whatever pitiful strength she could muster up to fend them off and survive. She had to face the possibility of being completely overpowered by the wild Orc encampment’s overwhelming strength. There was a high chance of her being taken alive and captured to quench the lust of all the Orcs in the encampment.

Following footprints she’d left in her wake, with trails of broken twigs and branches, they skillfully coordinated with each another to ensnare her. They periodically sent auditory queues throughout the forest to reveal the direction she was headed. Like this, the net the Orcs spread out slowly, but surely, closed in around her.

Now then... how will you fight when you no longer have the power to? Will you cower back in fear and resign yourself simply because you lack the power you were once so confident in? Or will you rise up and resist your death by putting up a pointless struggle. Her choice would determine whether I’d consider her a worthy opponent. 

If you can’t even stand up and fight back against a seemingly impossible scenario like this, please don’t bother wasting my time. You’d simply fall to your knees in despair once you discovered the monster hidden in plain sight from the very beginning if you don’t even have the willpower to resist the awful fate that lies in front of you at this critical juncture. 

It’s happened far too many times for me to count already. Kids crying and whining about how unfair it was when they reached what they thought was the end, it was all too common. The world wasn’t fair, it never was. The only thing you can do is suck it up and deal with what’s thrown at you.

Midget White slumped down with a tree to her back, panting, both physically and mentally exhausted from fleeing for her life. The fear of death and the reality of her situation gradually sank in and consumed her from the inside out.

“It’s not just death or a character wipe I need to be concerned about. Will these Orcs really just simply kill me? No… in this weakened defenseless state, won’t I face something far worse if I’m caught alive this time. But there’s no longer a path to escape anymore.”

She trembled at the thought. Afraid. She felt truly terrified, it was all too easy to see.

She drew her sword with an unsteady hand.  “Even… even if I fight them, I don’t stand a chance. Was this game always this scary? Though... to die by killing myself without even putting up a fight means to lose all the work I’ve put into this character up until now.”

“Even back with Mudkipz when our party was captured by the Orc Demon General’s Orc army it wasn’t anywhere near as scary as this. Those Orcs in that army showed little to no interest in us, they were well trained and only cared for combat. I thought all Orcs were like that in this world because of them. I was wrong though, the moment I locked eyes with these Orcs I could tell by their insidious facial expressions alone.”

Yes, that’s right. They are unruly wild Orcs, not disciplined in the slightest.

“But… I can’t die now. There’s no way I can die after letting that uncharming defective NPC offer up his life like that. I just need to not get hit and keep hitting them until they die. If I can at least take away 1 HP then there’s at least hope. No, that’s not right. Even if it turns out I can’t do any damage, it doesn’t mean it’s impossible. I just need to avoid all their attacks for six days straight… it sounds impossible, and it certainly is… but that would be my only hope if it turns out attacking them proves to be useless.”

“I may not be able to beat them now, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be able to in the future.”

Oh? I unknowingly smiled when I heard her words. I didn’t actually consider the latter option. That’s right, she simply needs to not get hit for six days straight. But you’re just a normal human in your world you know. You need to sleep too. Your brain can’t function forever without sleep. At least, to date, I haven’t met a hero who could do that.