#064 – I’m just glad I didn’t pay for my stupidity with my life

#064 – I’m just glad I didn’t pay for my stupidity with my life The thunderstorm didn’t blow over soon. In fact, it kept raining way past midnight according to my bracelet’s built-in clock. I wanted nothing more than to huddle into something soft and pass out at that point. And while Mr. Gargles could provide the former, the thunderstorm made sure that as soon as my eyes began drooping, a loud bang would abruptly wake me up. “I hate this, chat...” I whined. “I just wanna sleep off the stupid poison...” Part of me felt like this was some kind of karma. For being stupid. For not building a proper base of operations when I could. For cutting off ties with my family. For everything else I’d ever done. Really, why hadn’t I made some kind of base? Because chat had voted to explore? That was just an excuse. It wasn’t as if I always listened to whatever they voted for anyway. It was because I was lazy. Because I’d believed myself to be invincible. Because I’d thought I would find my back quickly somehow? Because... I’d felt like the protagonist of some epic isekai story? Well if that was the case, then right now would probably be some kind of character development moment where I stopped screwing around and began taking this seriously. After all, even if I had video game mechanics and chat to keep me company, this was not a game and I needed to stop treating it as such. Another flash and a bang nearby made me flinch and forget my train of thoughts. Once I confirmed that no forest fire was happening because of the lightning, I relaxed a bit and hugged Mr. Gargles tighter. Unfortunately, as nice as the canopy was to protect me from the worst of it, some rain still found its way down to me. I was already soaking wet and shivering even despite my cold-resistant clothes. Lightning my body on fire could only help so much, especially because I had limited Ether now that I’d left my bucket in the dungeon and couldn’t see any ooze lakes nearby. I sneezed. This was going from worse to absolutely awful. If I survived this, I had to make quadruple sure this would never happen again. Never ever again. Finally, at about three in the morning, according to my bracelet, the storm began to die down and I was left with just light drizzle reaching my ears. I probably passed out at some point, huddled with Mr. Gargles under the tree, because the next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes to bright and cheery sunlight greeting me through the canopy. My eyelids still felt heavy and my head was pounding. “Morning, chat...” I managed to groan out before sneezing again. “...I don’t really feel any better. Ugh.” What I would give for some warm chicken soup and aspirin. The best I had was pizza and shark meat, though... I also had that tentacle. I’d thought I never wanted to try eating that, but apparently, my mind was delirious enough right now that I was tempted to try it. Also, I felt ravenous after two days of not eating anything and couldn’t soak the shark meat, nor did I want to use more Ether restoring the pizza since I was still kinda low after the stormy night of keeping myself somewhat warm. Tentacle it was. I pulled it out of the backpack without even grimacing. I looked it over with a frown and tried tearing off a chunk with my hands, but it was a bit too tough for that. I also didn’t want to use my key sword that had been covered in zombie guts multiple times without disinfection. Sure, they had despawned, but it still made me leery. I rustled through my backpack, mentally trying to find something else that I could use as an impromptu knife. I found a gleaming green gem that looked decently sharp, although I had no idea where I’d gotten that. ...It reminded me of the gem-covered arrow the archer zombie bitch had tossed at me, though. “...Chat? Did I get this from the archer zombie?” I asked and then sniffled. God, I didn’t even have any napkins to blow my nose into. Should I use the towel? Ugh... JamieWasTaken3: yea SpoOo0oOon: you barely looked at it back then trelipideliberitation: wait is it poisoned? “That’s what I’m thinking, Trelip...” I mumbled before trying to appraise it, remembering that I’d switch it out, switching Appraisal back in instead of Fire Breath, and finally appraising it. Infused emerald An emerald infused with some Ether. “Huh. Emerald? Doesn’t say anything about poison...” I spent the rest of the day finding appropriate trees and branches to lay against the main one and bracing them against the ground and each other so that they would stay put and subsequently finding smaller branches and leaves to cover the whole thing in and finish up my all-natural tent. It was... actually nice to have a roof over my head again as I fell asleep that night. Even as scuffed as it was, it made me feel way safer than sleeping inside a dungeon or out in the open where rain could ruin my day at any moment. Well, rain would still ruin my day, but at least it would be as bad. The next day, I finally began to feel just a tad better. I didn’t sniffle as much, my head felt clearer, and I only sneezed a few times. I was still hesitant to go back to the dungeon to retrieve my stuff though. After all, it had taken everything I could do to beat that stupid archer woman when I’d been healthy and had all my stuff. There was no way I was risking having to fight an enemy of similar caliber while still occasionally sneezing. With that said, I spent the day resting again, making my new makeshift home a bit more livable with some soft grass for bedding, and brainstorming with chat on other possible dangers I was still unprepared for. Poison was one of those, of course. But I was also worried about a dozen other things now that I had a better idea of what this world was like. Mind-control, possession, curses, bottomless pits, teleportation traps... The list went on. There were way too many things I had no answer for and it made me uneasy. Jeofffff: I doubt there’s gonna be bottomless pits in the city Jeofffff: feels like it’s about fighting random people from there bloopbooper: bloop... (っ o - o ς) “I mean, yeah. I think so too. But you never know with these dungeons. And also, what about other dungeons? Just because this one doesn’t have bottomless pits doesn’t mean there won’t ever be any and I doubt the slow fall effect of the sleeves is that effective in the air if I don’t flap my hands like a chicken.” KaiEbikoOfficial: there’s no way you can know in advance though JamieWasTaken3: yea maybe its like ur fighting famous ppl from that city KaiEbikoOfficial: or maybe you can somehow? I shrugged. “No idea how to find out, Ebi. Eh, you think so, Jamie? So far it feels like it’s just random people... Although, it did get exponentially more difficult.” I grimaced. “The first one was barely stronger than a regular zombie from the water park, the second one used magic, and the third one nearly killed me.” I grunted in annoyance. “How many fights are left there, even? How hard would those fights even be? I’m not gonna risk going any deeper right now...” JamieWasTaken3: I bet the final boss is some giant dragon lol GeorgeDoshington: nah its the castles king “Why dragon...? Feels a bit random.” HellEnna: nana? “Hmm? Hey, Emma,” I said, trying not to sound too cautious. “What’s up?” HellEnna: are you feeling better? “Yeah, a little bit...” Emma had been in the chat a few times in the past few days while I’d been sick. She’d asked me how I felt several times, but it was hard to tell what she was thinking from her flat and emotionless style of messages, so it made me cautious. I could always call her personally, but... I also kind of didn’t want to. I wasn’t comfortable with actually directly talking to her yet. And calls with Ebi were just more soothing. HellEnna: that’s good HellEnna: I’m glad I narrowed my eyes. “Was there something you needed...?” Ugh, was that too confrontational? I still had no idea how to talk to Emma, dammit. HellEnna: well HellEnna: the police wanted to talk to you I froze with my mouth hanging open. After a few moments of silence, I sneezed. “Uh... Okay...?” I asked as I sniffled, a bit dumbfounded.