In a moment of sheer brain freeze, I felt like my mind had gone completely blank.
There was a brief silence.
After a while, it slowly hit me that I had become lost.
“Wait, what…?”
Am I really lost right now?
How did I suddenly become separated like this?
I clutched my confused head and looked around, but not a single trace of Muyun was in sight.
Even if I wanted to deny it, I was already in the narrative of being left all alone.
No, wait.
I came here just fine; it’s probably Muyun who got lost!
After all, she had been keeping her distance and walking behind me, so she must have wandered off while I was distracted.
Feeling a little better as I rationalized the situation, I finally had the capacity to assess my surroundings.
It was a chaotic situation, but strangely, I didn’t feel like panic was about to set in.
Maybe it was because the flower garden around me had a calming effect on my mind, making it feel all nature-friendly.
Knowing this might be a graveyard would usually give me the creeps, but they say sight has a significant impact when it comes to perception, and it didn’t seem shockingly alarming at the moment.
Regardless of the truth, I wasn’t the type to be overly frightened as long as what I could see appeared intact.
Okay, let’s think this through calmly.
Assuming that I had become lost, I contemplated the situation.
However, no matter how much I thought about it, something felt off.
I had been leading the way, and if I had gone down a strange path, Muyun would surely have tried to stop me from behind.
She was the type to panic over something as trivial as the words at the front gate; there’s no way she would have stayed quiet.
That meant, logically, she could very well have ended up lost…
Which made this the most plausible explanation.
She might have even been captured by an Outsider.
Then it suddenly hit me.
A coward knows a coward best.
The worst possibility came to mind.
Could it be that she abandoned me and fled on her own?
Even as I thought about it, I wanted to dismiss it as impossible, but recalling what Muyun said during the way here made it difficult to ignore.
My coward sensor was buzzing with alarm.
Ah, is this really happening?
It sounds way too plausible!
“Haah…”
No, calm down.
I’m just getting a bit too paranoid.
For now, I decided to rationalize that we had been separated due to an Outsider.
Whatever the case, it didn’t make sense to do anything further in this situation.
What could I, someone with no actual combat power, do alone against the Gardener…?
If Muyun had also been left alone, she would likely aim to escape, so it made sense for me to head for the exit too.
Just as I turned to go back, that thought crossed my mind.
Huh.
But wait, where was the exit?
I’d like to think I’m not that directionally challenged, but as soon as I tried to retrace my steps, I couldn’t remember exactly where I had come from.
It had been so easy when Muyun was guiding the way.
This was a moment to realize once again the importance of navigation.
Sigh, what can I do?
Wandering around aimlessly in here looking for Muyun would only make me look foolish.
But I was different.
What’s truly scary is having a friend always right in your pocket.
A portable anxiety relief, if you will.
Carefully opening my pocket, the Outcast God peeked its head out.
Maybe it was because it was a new environment, but it looked around curiously. Then, it tilted its head to look at me and smiled brightly, as if it was glad to see me.
The twinges of distress in my heart felt a little healed.
It’s so cute.
“Hey, buddy, can you help me figure out which way to go to get out of here?”
I mean, even if you’re on different levels, you are still both Outsiders, right? Surely, it can help me get a general direction.
With high hopes, I asked, and the Outcast God, realizing there was no one around, flew out of my pocket and into the air.
Floating around me without venturing too far, the Outcast God seemed to grasp something before approaching me with a bright expression and pointing in a specific direction.
“Did you find something?”
At my words, the Outcast God nodded.
I felt my spirits lift.
How cute and capable it is!
I had just brought it along as if it were a burden, but who knew it could be so helpful?
Now, that’s what I call a cheat.
“Good job.”
When I gently patted its head, it beamed a happy smile.
If Muyun really did escape, there probably wasn’t anyone else here, so maybe the Outcast God could enjoy a bit of freedom too.
So, I gestured for it to hop onto my right shoulder, and its blissful expression was absolutely adorable.
It glided over and settled onto my shoulder, melting like sweet rice cake just like the first time we met, looking as cozy as ever.
“Let’s go!”
With a set direction, moving forward was easy.
I quickly walked in the direction the Outcast God pointed.
But as I made my way, I started to feel something was off.
Huh?
It felt very different from the path I had taken earlier.
Usually, it’s hard to notice changes unless you’re really focused, but if the most distinctive aspect changes, you can’t help but notice.
Yes.
The most distinctive feature had indeed changed.
The garden I passed before was full of various flowers blooming beautifully.
But the garden the Outcast God led me to was uniform in only one color.
Red.
And not just any red—this was a deep crimson, composed entirely of roses, which felt very out of place.
I was sure there hadn’t been such a flower bed on my way here.
“Is this really the right path?”
Looking at the Outcast God with an expression that said, “Are you deceiving me?”, it flapped its wings and pointed insistently to my left, as if assuring me that whatever I was looking for was over there.
I turned my head in the direction it pointed.
“W-what?”
There, quite unexpectedly, was something that caught my eye.
Long green hair obscuring its face.
But even more noticeable was a skull adorned with long deer antlers.
A girl sat there, hands muddy, as if wearing the skull like a mask.
One glance at her unusual appearance and the physique of a child in their growth spurt made it immediately clear.
This was not a human.
An otherworldly being descended to this realm.
An Outsider.
And the very Gardener we had been looking for.
Was it really right to meet it so soon?
I hadn’t even obtained a proper strategy for tackling it yet.
Damn it, I wish I had checked the boss strategies in the community earlier!
How foolish was my past self to avoid spoilers just because I didn’t want any scaring details, only to realize now that I should have consulted the strategy tab.
As I stood frozen, staring at the Gardener along with the Outcast God, it started talking to the ground.
“Are you okay? You’ll feel better soon.”
A calm voice.
It was hard to believe that those words came from an Outsider known for annihilating worlds and decorating them with corpses.
Glancing cautiously, it seemed it hadn’t noticed me yet.
Okay, it’s best to retreat before we’re discovered.
I had no idea why the Outcast God thought it could unlock a way to escape the Gardener, but being alone made things pretty risky.
So, I tried to carefully step back.
“…I knew you were here.”
The Gardener spoke to me with a deadpan tone.
Ha ha.
So this is what it means to escape—by reaching the end of one’s life, huh?
Well, I suppose that is one way to escape.
Looking at the Outcast God with a gaze that carried that meaning, it shook its head vigorously as if to say no.
Tears began to well up in its eyes, so I decided to cut it some slack for now.
“This one seems to have quite a strong mind. Must be a pretty high-ranking knight?”
Calm down.
Yeah, maybe we could actually communicate.
It could end up being a pleasant conversation like with the Watcher.
With that thought in mind, I decided to throw the first punch.
“Um, hello? I’m not a knight yet, maybe I should say knight aspirant? The thing is…”
“You came to hurt my friend, didn’t you?”
Despite my attempts to lighten the atmosphere, the Gardener was already furrowing her brow as she glared at me.
Ha ha, what a disaster before it even began.
This is not good at all.
“Oh, no! That’s not it!”
I tried to protest in fright, but her eyes, half-obscured by her hair, widened instead.
“You can understand me?”
Then she took a quick glance at the Outcast God on my shoulder and began to chew on her lip.
Wait, what’s going on?
“…I see, no wonder we can talk; you’re a follower of that woman.”
A follower of that woman? Who is she?
It sounded completely unrelated to me, but the Gardener had made up her mind already.
“No! I didn’t come here to harm you; let’s just talk first…”
“Liar! You’re clearly giving it away. Do you think I wouldn’t know?”
With that, the Gardener stood up and took a deep breath as if gathering her powers.
I was certain something ominous was coming my way, so I hunched down to brace myself.
“KRAAAANG!”
The Gardener let out a cute little cry, but what was happening around me was anything but cute.
The area suddenly fell silent.
No, more accurately, it felt like the time around me slowed down.
I saw a thick vine shoot up from the ground, but my body, lacking in physical ability, couldn’t react in time.
Before I knew it, I was struck by the thick vine, and as time resumed its normal pace, I was sent flying far away.
“Uaaah!”
When my body hit the ground after soaring for what seemed like an eternity, I rolled uncontrollably, unable to contain my momentum.
Finally, once all propulsion ceased, I came to a stop, feeling as if I had been thoroughly beaten all over.
“…No one can touch my friend.”
The plant vines seemed to join hands, encircling the Gardener and forming a massive circle.
“I’m not here to harm you! Let’s just talk…!”
But the Gardener ignored me entirely, as if she had completely shut her ears.
In her place, flowers started to appear, seemingly smiling with emoticon-like grins on their faces.
“Damn it.”
They looked utterly insignificant at a glance, but one of those flowers raised its stem skyward.
And then I realized—it was the same stem that had just attacked me.
Just as I clicked into that realization, it struck down towards me at a velocity I didn’t have a chance to react to.
Boing!
The sound resembled that of a toy being squeezed.
“Huff….”
A wave of pain surged through me, tightening around my chest, almost choking me.
Ah.
Is this how a person dies?
As my consciousness began to fade, the last thing I saw was the frantic expression of the Outcast God before everything went dark.
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