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Chapter -23
First, I checked Isis’s expression.
No matter how much his long life on the streets made him desperately want to wash up, this was a completely unfamiliar place, and we were infiltrating.
If Isis judged it dangerous for us to be separated, he would naturally refuse the bath.
Anna seemed to understand Isis’s concern and added,
“I won’t cause any harm to Ririana.”
“How can I trust that?”
“We need Ririana’s healing ability. There are many injured people here.”
I recalled the injured I had seen scattered around the camp during our tour.
“For a long time, we haven’t met anyone with healing-type skills, let alone someone with medical knowledge. Ririana coming here is a great piece of luck for us.”
Anna’s voice was very serious.
“We won’t throw away this luck we’ve finally found with our own hands.”
Seeing her sincerity, Isis pondered for a moment before nodding.
“Please take good care of Ria.”
He approached me, pretended to hug me, and whispered in my ear.
“If a dangerous situation arises, scream.”
“…Okay.”
After the hug ended, Isis followed the person who had come to guide him and moved away.
And I…
“Ria, Ria, you come with me!”
…had managed to get some time alone with Anna.
* * *
“Ria, you’re also ‘Korean,’ right?”
“Yes. And you’re ‘SanSan,’ correct?”
“That’s right!”
Anna, blushing, tightly grabbed both my hands.
“You’re the first other possessor I’ve met!”
“Uh, me too.”
“Oh my, but you haven’t been possessed for long, right?”
Earlier, in front of James and the other camp members, she gave off a quite leader-like, managerial vibe, but seeing her get so excited like this made her feel instantly more familiar.
“Alright, alright, let’s get along well and chat comfortably while we bathe.”
The bathroom Anna guided me to was excellent. It was truly beyond imagination. Before my eyes was a bathtub of the sort you’d only see in modern saunas.
“Oh my god, how was this made?”
“We have an earth-related skill user in our camp. They dug the ground and shaped it finely with small stones.”
Steam rose languidly from the water in the tub. Just looking at it made me want to get in. Especially since my whole body felt sticky, even more so now.
‘We fought so much all night…’
I had roughly wiped it off, but the mixture of flour and creature blood had been very unpleasant.
After finishing my simple bath preparations, I submerged my body in the hot tub, and it felt like my mind was melting away.
“This feels great…”
“Hearing you say that makes it feel real now. You really are Korean!”
Anna, who was getting into the tub, laughed heartily, “Haha!”
“Anna, how old were you before being possessed?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Eh? Me too!”
“We’re the same age, shall we use informal speech?”
With the formalities out of the way, the stage for proper chatter was officially opened. However, this wasn’t a situation where I could spill everything comfortably.
‘Get a grip, Liriana.’
As Isis said, I couldn’t fully trust Anna.
Being glad to meet someone in the same situation was one thing, but I couldn’t foolishly hand over all our information. I had to give out the minimum information and obtain the maximum in return.
“Before being possessed, I was just an ordinary university student…”
I started by talking about ‘the me before possession.’
After all, ‘Lee Soyul’ and ‘Liriana’ were distinctly different people.
And Anna’s reaction was…
“He’s a total asshole!”
She cursed my ex-boyfriend with impressive flair.
“How can such a bastard exist? He did whaaat with a senior you were close to? And then said what? ‘Love isn’t a sin?’ The audacity!”
She got more worked up than I was, fuming. Then she asked again, as if she couldn’t believe it.
“And you just let it slide? If it were me, I would’ve ripped his hair out.”
“…You have a fiery personality.”
“So, you’re telling me you just let him go after some cursing?”
“I did curse him out.”
I had considered slapping him right there, but in the end, I just hurled a stream of insults and went home, comforting myself that I had dodged a bullet.
“Wow, you’re a real saint. Just ending it with curses.”
“It was right in the middle of the university campus. If I had hit him, only my reputation would have suffered.”
“Not at all? Everyone would have found out what a trash your boyfriend was.”
After the boyfriend story, when I talked about my family situation, Anna became somber and tightly held my shoulder.
“If you had such a hard time before being possessed, you should have been possessed into a nurturing story protagonist full of hope and love, or into a novel with a male lead devoted only to you, why did you end up in a place like this…”
…I wondered about that too.
Why, even when getting possessed, did I have to end up in a place like this where life and death hang in the balance every moment… I felt like gazing off into the distance.
“So, your favorability target is that guy from before, right?”
“Correct.”
“I knew it. The favorability targets are all impeccably handsome. So I recognized him right away.”
“Anna, have you found your favorability target?”
“…I found him.”
The delayed answer suggested she was reluctant to talk about it. I stared at her, waiting for the next words, and she struggled to speak again.
“I found him not long after being possessed. I worked incredibly hard to get close to him step by step, and we even built up a sort-of flirting atmosphere.”
“But then?”
“Hanson, that is, the favorability target… died.”
“Huh?”
Surprised by the unexpected words, I asked if I had heard correctly. Did she just say her current favorability target, the ‘male lead,’ died?
I stared at her blankly, shocked. Anna gave a bitter smile and continued her story calmly.
“You remember I mentioned a creature wave occurred around here before.”
“Yeah.”
“At that time, he protected me and got seriously injured, but there was no one to treat him.”
“…”
“So he died.”
Her tone was flat, as if talking about someone else, but Anna’s eyes were quietly sunken. As if she was missing someone.
Ah, perhaps Anna…
“It was because of me. Hanson died because of me. It was my first time seeing such an immense number of creatures, and I froze stupidly on the spot, unable to do anything. That’s why it happened.”
Anna’s face contorted. Guilt was weighing heavily on her. I couldn’t even begin to grasp how heavy that guilt must be.
“Ria, you know what? Even if a favorability target dies, their favorability window doesn’t disappear.”
She reached a hand out towards the empty air. A place where her status window would probably be, even if I couldn’t see it.
“After the creature wave, everything was a mess, so this status window is Hanson’s last trace.”
“Anna…”
“So I always look at that unchanging favorability window and make a resolution. I tell myself not to waste the life Hanson saved. That I must survive.”
I listened seriously to her firm resolution.
“Ah, sorry. Talking about such things when we just met today…”
“I was the one who talked about my family situation and all, so it’s fine.”
I shrugged lightly, and Anna’s expression gradually softened.
“I think you’re amazing. My biggest desire is still to run away from this world.”
“The best-case scenario is to max out the favorability and return to our original world, though.”
“One hundred percent… It’s such a distant number.”
I spoke with a sigh, and Anna laughed, “Haha!”
“Once you get on track, the favorability will shoot up. Take it from my experience, you can believe it. Ah, by the way, work on that favorability a lot. Pretending to be lovers, what better opportunity to raise favorability is there?”
“That’s true…”
Wait? What did Anna just say?
“Hold on! How did you know about the fake lover act?”
Was our lover act awkward? Both Isis and I did our best.
As I asked, flustered, Anna burst out laughing.
“Of course I couldn’t not know.”
What she said next was something I hadn’t even considered.
