[▶Chat Window – ON]
-??
– Huff huff
– Room Leader, are you okay??
– Are we going to proceed like this?
– The -15% penalty is way too painful. We barely cleared the first round!
– Can’t we just lower it to 888 or 777? After all, it would be a new record as a priest anyway.
I feel like there’s something I’m missing about this game.
I turned on the chat window thinking I might trust the collective intelligence.
“I want to save Adella.”
– Adella dying in Part 1 is a given…
– With Adella’s specs, she can’t beat the possessed Jin Chronicle in a one-on-one 😭
– Isn’t there a way to level her up well?
– Nope. Before Wagal had a firewall, the Chinese players already had the illegal app pulled apart for the story up to Part 1, so all the boss specs are detailed, and there’s an over ten-fold difference in all specs.
– If we compare it to League, it’s like a level 1 fighting against a level 10, right?
“What’s different in the second round?”
It’s definitely not the same world.
If I uncover the secret of the world, maybe I can bring Adella back.
– First of all, the stacked penalty with reduced stats is the biggest one.
– Yep, it goes up to five stacks, and you have to reach the checkpoint to reset it.
– Five stacks? That’s crazy 😂 So it’s -75%?
– Nice math skills!
– With five stacks, even if the sub-option is 1/1/1, clearing it is super hard.
“Not that. Didn’t you say that the boss patterns change?”
– Seriously?
– Maybe it’s just that the fights take longer because the damage is weak, and new patterns come out?
– No, there are mobs that change from the first pattern.
– Honestly, we reset all the time, so we don’t know either 😂 We’re already pissed off that our stats are reduced, so there’s no real reason to do it.
Well, most of the viewers hadn’t even tried Nightmare difficulty.
In the end, there’s no choice but to find out myself.
“Although it looks like there’s only one Remnant Academy in the center of the capital, there are actually several buildings outside. There’s an observatory to the south, a guard post to the east, and a materials warehouse and admissions office to the west.”
Daniel explains the operation just as thoroughly as before, not skipping a single detail.
The Branch Leader of Gestalt listens intently with his arms crossed.
Meanwhile, Adella and I both sat side by side on her bed.
Noticing a crescent-shaped comb on the table, I decided to untangle Adella’s messy hair.
To make sure she wouldn’t be startled, I showed the comb in her line of sight first, then slowly brushed her hair from the ends at the back.
Swish- swish-
“Hey, NoName? What’re you doing with my hair?”
“Why? Don’t you like it?”
As I stopped combing, Adella’s ears drooped.
“No, it’s not that I dislike it… It’s just a bit sudden for a first meeting, you know…? Do elves usually do this to strangers?”
“Yep.”
“What an interesting culture! It’s not unpleasant at all.”
[‘Nyangster Call’ donated 5,000 won!]
– Can this really happen? I’m going too!!! I’m going to comb Adella’s hair!!!
Suddenly, viewers started popping out one by one.
The chat window went wild again.
– OMG, the neck position is hilarious!
– Why am I the one who spends eight hours a day stuck in nightmare mode with no hope or dream but never thought about combing Adella’s dry hair until it’s shiny and smooth? I’ve really wasted half my life, I feel like committing suicide!
– You’re seriously insane, LOL 😂
– The demon king’s succubus, LOL 😂
– Adella’s ears are a cheat!
– “Dad, why is there no soup today?” “Sorry, son. Our butterfly has something to do for a while.”
– Amdella is totally dead tonight, LOL 😂 Let’s see the demon lord’s true earnest head pats!
[▶Chat Window – OFF]
“What are you all talking about?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Should I comb behind your ear too?”
“Ah, that spot! Haa… grrrr…”
I tossed that mentally damaging chat window back into the abyss once again.
While I hated the idea of someone combing my hair, having someone else’s hair in my hands gave me a surprising sense of calm.
Adella wriggled around every time my fingers brushed a new spot on her head, likely due to being ticklish.
She seemed to be making an effort to hold in her reactions.
Thinking back, I remembered.
Hiasen and I used to sit on either side of Niobe, combing her hair together.
She was just as lively as Adella and rarely came with dust or grass in her hair.
The difference was that, unlike Adella, Niobe was the very embodiment of purity.
A girl made out of white sand collected from the beach.
Just being close to her felt like the sea breeze, sweeping away the turmoil of life.
She was also my eternal friend who shared my childhood in my past life along with Hiasen.
The brushing stopped for a moment.
I suddenly missed Niobe so much…
Even if she’s someone entirely unrelated to me now, I tried to bottle this emotion away, reminding myself it was just a memory from my past life, but this feeling wouldn’t fade easily.
Even if I had to bear the curse of the demon king again, I wanted to go back to a time when she was alive.
“Grrr… NoName? Why did you suddenly stop? If you don’t brush it all the way through, it’ll get tangled in the middle.”
If you stop brushing halfway, the hair gets tangled, and you have to start all over again.
It’s like when you miss the first button on a school uniform, you have to unbutton everything and start again.
Everything was a natural logic.
“I’ll start over from the beginning, Adella.”
*
[YOU DIED]
[All stats will be readjusted]
[Current Penalty (3): -45%]
[NoName(NoName)]
[World of Arseria – Priest Nightmare 10/10/10]
[Broadcast Time – 5:01:47]
[Number of Viewers – 5,930]
“Hah… Hah… Huff.”
Same butterfly-patterned ceiling, it was the bed in the Abyss Inn.
The second round ended with the same outcome as the first.
The only thing that had changed was the boss clearing time cut down from three hours to one and the happier smile on Adella’s face when she chose to take her own life.
Adella was still weak.
The third round started with a -30% penalty.
Even memorizing all the routes and optimizing the experience points to loot, we were caught trying to escape from the Academy due to a lack of stamina.
Adella was still weak.
– This really isn’t going to work.
– Ugh!
– It’s disappointing but way too much.
– Instead of hitting them twice, we have to hit three times, making us too vulnerable to consecutive waves.
– If 50 of them chase us, there’s really no answer.
– Still, don’t we have the max sub-options with penalties, is a one-hour cut for real, LOL?
– I just tuned in and it seems like your physique is a total pro level!?
– Not in a one-on-one, but in such a brawl, even pros would have a hard time.
– Everyone’s misunderstanding. The Room Leader’s class is a priest.
– Is it really worth it to fight so desperately?
– Adella is dead… we should let her go.
As long as Adella doesn’t get stronger than Jin Chronicle, we can’t save her.
But the experience points gained by hunting guards are limited.
The more experience points I give her, the weaker I become.
And after moving on to the six rounds, I’d have to endure a whopping -75% penalty.
From then on, my struggles would become meaningless.
Instead, Adella would be in a position to protect me.
My head was in a mess.
After failing the third round, I couldn’t walk the same path in the fourth round.
But I couldn’t think of an answer.
Was she truly destined to die systemically?
I went back to Adella’s Room again.
“Never knock first and just barge in like that, it’s rude here. Anyway, Forest Keeper, what’s your name?”
“NoName.”
“Ooooh, that name really rolls off the tongue.”
“…?”
Adella said nonchalantly.
The dialogue had changed. But getting here did not seem to change much.
“Why?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“My name, isn’t it weird?”
“Not really? Actually, it feels familiar. Living in the system for so long, there are all kinds of ridiculous names, so Forest Keeper is actually pretty mild.”
Gulp- gulp-
Adella finished the remaining beer.
“Adella.”
“Why?”
“Adella.”
“Why do you keep calling me? It’s embarrassing! If you have something to say, just say it!”
I wasn’t mistaken.
Now, I couldn’t find any sense of awkwardness in her actions.
In the last round, the round before that, does our connection somehow remain ingrained in her body?
Another reason to not leave Adella behind surfaced.
[‘Nyangster Call’ donated 10,000 won!]
– NoName, how did you get Adella’s permission for head pats? She never lets me! 😭
