The morning of the next day dawned.
For about two days, the hunger that had slowly been tightening around me started to worsen.
It was only natural. Since I fell into this world, I hadn’t eaten anything at all.
Honestly, it was a miracle I had managed to hold out this long. My body seemed to have a slightly longer interval between hunger than other humans.
I could go a few days without eating without any issues. It felt like I could skip eating for three days, or maybe even less.
The problem was, I didn’t know what kind of food would satisfy my hunger. Regular food didn’t seem to agree with my body.
At first, I thought all the food in this world tasted disgusting, but seeing Riana eat so deliciously made me reconsider.
Visually, there seemed to be no problem either.
So it was likely that the issue was with my body, not the food itself.
I approached Riana, who was having breakfast.
I felt that if I didn’t eat something soon, my daily life would be affected.
I still wanted to at least smell the food, knowing I couldn’t eat it. It had a strangely sweet scent.
“Hmm? Iria, are you hungry? Here, I brought two, so have one.”
What she handed me was a hard-looking bread.
Of course, it didn’t look tasty at all. It was the cheapest one, so even if we set aside my condition, it probably wouldn’t taste good.
But near Riana, who was holding the bread, the sweet scent lingered. Maybe I could eat it after all.
“…”
I took the hard bread in both hands. Bringing it closer, I felt my appetite plummet.
Before putting it in my mouth, my body rejected it. I expected some resistance, but this bread wasn’t something I could eat either.
Then where did that sweet scent that brushed past my nose come from? I briefly scanned the area.
And not long after, I spotted what seemed to be the source.
“Riana, you’re hurt.”
“Hmm? Oh, this? I tripped while being chased by the security. It’s just a little scratch, so I’m fine.”
Red blood flowed from Riana’s arm.
For some reason, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I was captivated by the small amount of blood dripping from the wound.
I swallowed the saliva pooling in my mouth. I couldn’t seem to regain my senses for a while.
“T-That… Iria?”
“Yes, yes?”
“Are you okay? Your eyes looked a bit scary just now.”
“No, it’s not that…”
I quickly turned my head away.
Even in front of human food, my normal appetite seemed to boil over as soon as I saw the blood.
It was probably the source of that sweet scent. I wanted to put it in my mouth. Now that I looked at Riana’s skin, it looked soft, and I had a fleeting thought about wanting to bite into it.
I felt an itch in my teeth as I wanted to act on that thought right away.
My vision blurred, my heart raced. My breathing became rapid.
“Iria?”
So I took a step back to distance myself from Riana.
I didn’t want to admit that seeing her blood spurred my appetite.
“I-I’m fine. I’ll just go ahead. See you later.”
It must have been in my head.
I wasn’t a monster that became excited from seeing blood.
“…”
It couldn’t be that way.
I held down the rising hunger.
My body was fine even after four days without eating. I didn’t think I would die just from being a little more hungry.
*
On the sixth day after falling into this world, I could see how I had somewhat adapted to this life.
I had learned the basic rules for living.
For instance, it was more efficient to hit it big at a gambling den than to steal items, and which places to sleep to avoid dangerous humans.
Of course, cheating at a gambling den was a life-threatening affair.
The private gambling den in the back alley was run by a rather famous organization in the area.
They said that if you got caught cheating in any form, they would cut off your wrist.
That’s why you couldn’t act recklessly.
Even if you couldn’t catch solid evidence, if you kept winning money, those guys would be ruthless enough to cut off your wrist based on intuition alone.
You had to be careful.
Though it was a place anyone could enter, it was practically a lawless zone.
They said the deepest parts of Dusty Lane were outside the patrol radius of the Knights Order. It felt like a hidden secret place known only to a few.
But I had to go to make some money. Stealing items came with a high risk of getting caught, but you couldn’t earn much that way.
In the end, there were limits even to making money through reading memories.
“…”
But even considering that, today’s gambling was a bit strange.
If it had been once or twice, it wouldn’t have mattered, but I kept getting losing hands.
The hands I was dealt weren’t necessarily bad, but I just kept having games where I lost by a hair’s breadth.
Even if there was a game I could win, the opponent somehow raised the stakes significantly.
That made me anxious. I was clearly getting entangled. Even though I was using my ability.
The man sitting across from me chuckled.
“Heh, you usually win big, but looks like today isn’t your lucky day, huh?”
“…”
This guy was cheating.
I had suspected it for a while, but it didn’t take long for that suspicion to turn into certainty.
I confirmed that the people associated with the gambling den were subtly signaling him.
After winning money a few times, it seemed like he remembered my face.
That wasn’t a good sign, so I thought I should win just once and get out quickly.
In this turn, the game I was finally winning was one of the few times it happened, and the stakes were pretty high.
I should take this and run. And after this, I should never come back here.
“I’m all in.”
But it was a mistake.
If I had thought a bit cooler, I might have seen the trap.
But I was desperate. Any leeway comes from having money to spare. Being hungry for a long time didn’t help my thinking either.
As I watched my money dwindle, my anxiousness made me make a blunder in front of a criminal organization.
“Isn’t it fascinating? You’re betting all your money on that hand? Where does that confidence come from?”
“…It’s a bluff. I got lucky.”
“Oh really? You certainly looked confident for just a bluff.”
Sensing that something was seriously wrong, I immediately tried to leave.
Safety was more important than money.
But I couldn’t. The large men blocked my way as I tried to escape.
They grabbed me tightly, rendering me unable to move at all.
“Bring the axe.”
The man who had been observing everything from the beginning spoke. He seemed to be the leader of the organization.
Holding the axe handed to him by a subordinate, he slowly approached.
My arms were fixed in place, held by the men.
“Ugh, urgh…”
With my whole body being restrained, my chin was lifted. I found myself staring into the eyes of the sharp-featured man.
“I hate girls like you the most in the world. I let you win a few times, and now you come back like you own the place? Did I look that easy to you?”
The sharp edge of the axe brushed against my neck.
It was a clear intention to kill. I had seen what happened to those who got caught in gambling dens like this until now.
That’s why it was even scarier. I knew how the next scene would unfold.
“You know what happens if you cheat here, right?”
They’ll cut off my hand. Chopped with an axe, cruelly.
A wave of intense fear engulfed me. I trembled, and no matter how hard I resisted, I couldn’t escape from the overwhelming weight pressing down on me.
There were several men holding me down who were several times larger than I was.
Though they were holding me a little loosely for now, they were probably just controlling their strength.
But I didn’t want my wrist to be severed, so I resisted even harder.
“What’s with this girl being this strong? Someone help hold her down!”
“Grab her legs first!”
They weren’t as strong as I expected for large men.
I thought I could exert a little more strength here, but their faces looked strained.
Maybe the body of Iria that I possessed was stronger than it appeared.
“Let go of me!”
Thinking I needed to escape before more people arrived, I bit the arm of the man holding me.
It was an instinctive action to some extent.
“Ow! You little bitch—!”
Iria’s teeth were a bit different from regular humans. My fangs were especially sharp, so it easily sank into human flesh.
As I bit down with all my might, the grip holding me loosened. I tried to escape from the gambling den, but my vision was blurry, and I couldn’t manage it.
My heart raced faster than ever, and my eyes felt hot.
If someone were to see me from the outside, they’d probably notice that light was shining from my eyes. The light that seeped slightly out was reflecting off of objects.
A red glow flickered.
The man whose arm I had bitten swung the axe at me.
It was a weighty attack filled with murderous intent.
If it were a normal situation, I would have cowered in fear and lowered my head immediately. But this time was different.
The axe coming at me felt incredibly slow. It was flying towards me in slow motion.
I could have dodged, but I caught it midway.
If it was coming at me that slowly, I thought I could grab it with my hands.
After I caught the axe, I broke it.
It wasn’t intentional; I just gripped it tightly, and it broke.
“…I told you to let go.”
Was it because I had ingested a bit of blood?
I guess I wasn’t thinking straight today.
