Becoming an Extra in a Trash Game

Chapter 34

“If it’s a part of the body… Would something like hair work?”

The magic stone is tempting, but what’s more important is surviving.

If we don’t want to leave one person behind or cut off too much of our bodies, we’d have to kill that guy, but he’s clearly not the real body but an illusion.

Moreover, someone capable of projecting such an illusion would be a fearsome person.

Even if that’s not the case, if he appears to be the dungeon master, who would survive if he closes this dungeon?

The woman called Ruby, Payan, cursed inwardly while smiling brightly, but whether it was because he was an illusion or because there was too much of a gap between them, she didn’t feel like her charm was working.

In the end, there’s only one way.

―You must meet the minimum weight. About 10kg should do.

Tension circulates at the dungeon master’s words.

Who will be sacrificed?

As the killing intent rises, the dungeon master Aish opens his mouth again in a languid tone, as if bestowing mercy.

―One, taking that much from a single person would be a great sacrifice and life-threatening. If each person cuts off a little, everyone can return alive.

Is it a single, complete sacrifice? Or a sacrifice made up of losses from many?

“To become cripples, you mean?”

At Karl’s sarcastic remark, Hals also frowned.

“Even if we cut from areas with a lot of flesh like the thighs or buttocks and pour potion on it, it’s just a temporary measure.”

Literally, it wouldn’t hinder survival for now, but there would be many side effects.

Moreover, if one doesn’t have money for regeneration at the temple, they’ll live with a hollowed-out part of their body for life.

If that happens, it’s as good as the end of life as an adventurer.

Whether it’s the buttocks or thighs, it’s obvious that the body’s balance will be ruined, and cutting that much would damage the nerves, so movements won’t be the same as before.

“Besides, the reward is just about 1kg of magic stone? Dividing that among four of us…”

You can’t live luxuriously for life with a disabled body.

For ordinary people, it might be different, but for those who already earn and spend more than others, a large sum is just a figure to spend as it comes in and enjoy happiness, not something to be planned and used carefully.

So the conclusion is,

“Payan(Ruby)… You weigh about 50 kg, right?”

“What, are you crazy?”

Karl and Hals, who were originally dungeon-crawling as a duo. And Payan (Ruby) and Joby, who joined later, distanced themselves as if in opposition.

As Payan takes a deep breath, Joby’s pale fingertips, hidden under his hood, twitch inside his clothes.

As Karl grips a dagger tightly in one hand, Hals also clenches his gauntleted fists together and glares with a fierce expression.

“The two of them would be over 100kg, right?”

“Well. That Joby guy is skinny, so he’d be lighter than Ruby, can’t expect much.”

Watching the two sneer and laugh, Ruby bit her lip.

‘Where did it go wrong?’

Charm is almost omnipotent depending on how it’s used.

If there are people you dislike for no reason, there are also people you want to be nice to for no reason. The trait called charm is what extremely elevates that feeling.

There was a drawback that it didn’t work well on other women, but Payan thought that wasn’t even a drawback.

Goodwill and praise for everyone. Wherever you go, a meal comes out differently with just a glance, and even when buying the same clothes, service follows.

People everywhere willingly accept slight inconveniences or losses with just one smile.

If the grade is A, just short of S, it can bewitch the other person to the point where they would willingly help unless it involves their own life or something they value as much.

Payan was quite intelligent. Born as a half-demon, despite innate limitations and discrimination, she could say she lived without lacking as an individual. That’s how powerful the charm trait is.

However, saying it’s close to omnipotent means it’s not omnipotent.

“Karl, how could you do this to me? Don’t you find me pitiful? Hals, you said I was precious to you too!”

Of course, in situations like this where one’s own life is at stake…

“Sorry Ruby, but I have to live too.”

“I’ll commemorate you every year, so don’t worry.”

“You bastards…”

In this situation, charm doesn’t help.

In the end, Payan raised her lowered eyes as if pleading and unraveled her tied whip with jingling bells, grasping it.

“Karl, you take care of Joby first!”

Hals took the lead, using his gauntlet that covered up to his elbow like a shield to check Payan, and Payan stepped back, aiming for Hals’s body except for the gauntlet with the powerful tip of her whip as if cutting through the wind.

It’s said that if hit properly, a whip is a weapon that bursts flesh and damages internal organs, but if deflected with a solid gauntlet or blocked by wrapping around the hand, its effectiveness decreases.

The silver thread that requires a lot of control in handling is also just a frail weakness if the situation is prepared for in advance.

While Ruby used the whip to keep Hals in check by aiming for his ankles or suddenly twisting her wrist to change the trajectory, Joby resisted by throwing fire potions or ice potions to help.

“How annoying.”

Karl growled as he tried to check Joby who was throwing potions but was hindered by the continuously exploding potion smoke bombs.

“Let’s take care of Joby first!”

While mentioning Joby verbally, Karl turned his body and aimed at Payan. Payan screamed like a small bird at the dagger thrown at her as if spraying.

“Come here!”

As Payan moved her fingertips while bending her body as if about to fall, Joby moved quickly and received the daggers with his head and chest with a thud.

With that recoil, Joby’s hood came off, revealing his white eyes and blue skin.

“What is that?”

“Joby,zombie?”

Karl and Hals’s eyes widened at the sight of Joby pulling out the dagger stuck in his cheek while bleeding black blood.

“Why… Didn’t we know?”

“Because you’re idiots, that’s why.”

Payan wiped away cold sweat with the back of her hand and twisted the corners of her mouth into a smile.

Anyway, the trait wooden tags issued by the temple only show the highest-grade trait.

Who would only have the talent written there?

So Payan thought. To hone her third highest ability in case someone at the temple detected her trait or to prepare for those she shows to let her guard down.

‘Puppet mastery!’

The bloodline magic that manifested in her, a half-demon.

She always carried Joby with her, killed by charm and then chemically treated. Slightly unnatural movements or taciturnity were seen as the stubbornness typical of magic users, and other suspicious matters were hidden by Payan’s own charm.

If they had desired a little less, if they had said to cut a little from each other’s bodies and all survive. Perhaps Payan would have reluctantly offered Joby, her puppet, as a sacrifice.

After all, what Payan, who always drew people in with charm, needed most was a true companion.

‘But as expected, trash only meets trash.’

I should have expected what I should have expected.

“Let’s all die together.”

You think I’ll die alone and become a sacrifice?

As Payan laughed and spoke, Joby ran towards Karl and Hals holding bomb potions.

* * *

The Dungeon of Loss appears not only in the game but also in the original novel.

Of course, Kane didn’t enter it directly, but later, one of the men who confronted Kane had cleared the Dungeon of Loss.

He was disabled and had a prosthetic arm, and he recalled entering the Dungeon of Loss drunk and drugged, filled with evil, and offered one of his fake arms made of crude metal, which was heavy, just in case, and then gained everything.

Gold coins, rare reagents and metals, magic stones and attribute stones.

And a homunculus.

―This is…

I frowned, pretending to be in pain as I watched Luna tear her clothes to tie my leg, and opened my mouth.

“It doesn’t have to be just flesh, right?”

Since he said a part of the body.

The prosthetic leg made of living metal that I handed over flowed like water in Aish’s hand and formed into a round shape.

He looked at it with a strange expression and then opened his mouth.

―Yes, you were of the same kind as me.

Its illusion flickered, becoming faint as if about to disappear, then darkened again and approached me, passing through the bodies of Kane and Luna who were on guard, and grinned right in front of my eyes.

―An imperfect one.

It was a strange feeling.

I had a feeling that he was referring to something other than just physical deficiency.

As one of my eyebrows raised and I glared at him, Aish ignored Luna’s kicks and Kane’s sword that passed through his body as he bent down, and then stepped back.

―One who is deficient. I have met a comrade, why should I take more?

The living metal that had been flowing like water seemed to melt into Aish’s illusion and disappeared, and then Aish, who had taken a posture of touching his fingers together with his prosthetic hand and bare hand, spread his hands as if opening space.

A box floats out through the gap as the space splits, and Kane receives it as if blocking me.

And at that moment, Aish’s illusion dissolves and disappears like ink in water.

I took a deep breath that I had momentarily stopped and fell into Luna’s arms due to weakness from excessive blood loss.

“The door should be open.”

“Don’t speak, drink more potion… I’d like to heal the wound and stop the bleeding with potion, but…”

“If we do that, we don’t know how the nerves might tangle. Even if it’s reversed at the temple, Adelian, your family will notice.”

I nodded at Kane’s words.

That’s why we’re enduring without pouring potion on the leg.

Unlike simply running away from home, with that much, we don’t know how the family will react.

No matter how much of an outcast Adelian is, going out with the family head’s seal and getting a leg cut off? It’s possible to be summoned right away.

Bang!

At that moment, the sound of something exploding is heard from deep inside the dungeon.

Whether a trap was activated or something, thinking we should leave this place quickly, Luna and Kane moved fast.

And this time I was carried like luggage by Kane.

Luna held me like a lady, but you treated me like luggage.

That’s really, can’t use this. It’s fortunate that I’m a man, what if it was a female party member? You’d hear the sound of a crush being broken. This guy has a lot to teach you, man.

“Oh my…”

“Hmm.”

I deliberately made a groaning sound and flailed my dangling arms and legs, and Kane seemed to notice as he made a sound and then adjusted to hold me more comfortably.

“Ugh, I’m sorry. I should be the one carrying you…”

“No… It’s okay…”

The box didn’t go into subspace, perhaps because it was magically treated.

The situation was too urgent to open it and take out only the items inside, and I insisted on not leaving it behind because I came in for that. Let’s definitely take that with us.

Thanks to that, if Luna carried me and Kane carried the box, it would be difficult to block anything that might come out without hands, so it’s much better for Luna to carry the box and Kane to carry me like luggage with one hand so he can hold his sword with the other hand to keep guard, which I know well.

‘Just that it feels dirty.’

And I pass this dirty feeling on to Ruby’s party.

I waved my hand in the air to take out the Codex and poured magic into the passage connected to the Labyrinth as soon as we came out of the Dungeon of Loss.

With a rumbling sound, the passage collapsed.

“Young Master?”

“What are you doing?”

I closed the Codex with my hand that had turned pale from blood loss and smiled at Luna and Kane’s voices protesting.

“If we get stabbed in the back, we should stab back.”

No matter how rotten Kane’s personality is and how much he distrusts humans, he can’t yet have the blood of someone who isn’t a monster on his hands in a situation that isn’t forced, in a place like this.

I have a sense of affluence, so I don’t feel much even if I bury someone alive.

The sense of affluence makes me not feel excited even for cute girls like Luna or charming women like Ruby and makes me imagine that this situation is like a dream that will soon wake up.

Well, I don’t know how Luna or Kane would react if they knew this. I’m not a god, how would I know?

So it’s possible for me because I won’t have my mental state shaken by things like ‘I killed someone!’

Moreover, it’s the same for Luna. No matter how much Luna is the final party member who can become stronger, in a situation where I can finish it myself?

I shrugged and smiled lightly.

“It’s the price for my leg.”

“Then that’s cheap too.”

Luna played along with my joke and forced a smile.

Kane didn’t say anything more and continued to jump up, generously surrounding the emerging monsters with aura and cutting them in half with one strike.

‘This is bad. It’s starting to get blurry.’

As the effect of the potion seems to be wearing off, a stinging pain spreads and my body gets cold.

It feels like crouching in a classroom with broken heating in the middle of winter, looking at a textbook.

Or like staying alone in an office looking at documents.

‘Cold… And sleepy…’

Every time I close my eyes, Kane shakes his arm to wake me up, but I’m really sleepy.

I need to keep thinking about something.

‘Come to think of it, the box.’

I captured the box that Luna was carrying and running with in my wavering vision as if submerged in water.

That should be in there.

In the original work, it contained the homunculus that became the prototype for the siren that enabled long-distance communication.

‘In the game, it was the activation of the mail function.’

The only item that allowed communication with other users in Innocent Saga, which was originally a solo game.

A patch item that allowed buying and selling items or exchanging messages via mail.

‘With this, I can use Harlon more effectively.’

I couldn’t hide my pleased smile and passed out just like that.