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# Chapter 29: Promising Candidate (6)

They say humans are creatures of adaptation.

In the beginning, surrounded by an atmosphere of “Wow! Amazing! You’re the Saintess!” my hands and feet would cramp up, my face would flush, and I’d be squirming with anxiety. Nadia, however, after enduring this for about five days, somehow managed to get used to it.

To be exact, it was more like I had given up because there was no other way.

‘I did say I wanted to help people… but not like this.’

As her fame grew, Nadia’s insides just kept churning.

And rightly so, for unlike what was publicly known, she had hardly played a leading role in this whole affair.

It was Erin who wrapped up negotiations with the lord, and it was Arkaia’s soldiers who had effectively assisted the players.

All Nadia had done was provide a little show.

Thus, she desperately spammed party messages to Erin.

[Nadia: Erin! Please save me! People are calling me a Saintess! Everyone seems crazy!]

[Erin: Oh my… To think you’d say the players seem crazy, you’re surprisingly intense, Nadia.]

[Nadia: I didn’t mean it like that! This is totally a scam, right? If this gets found out, how will we deal with the aftermath?]

[Erin: Scam? Who’s getting hurt by this? The players learned combat methods, and Arkaia got money, so it’s beneficial for both.]

[Nadia: Fair enough, but it was you who prepared everything, Erin. Still, I’m the one getting the praise. It’s weird. This mysterious sponsorship should’ve gone to you originally…]

There were countless players eager for that unknown “sponsorship.”

In a game where dying truly meant dying, the value of escape tickets and spare lives didn’t need explaining.

If it were up to her, Nadia would have liked to pass on the coins she received to Erin, but inter-user coin trading was impossible, so that was out of the question.

[Erin: No, it’s a fair compensation. Ultimately, right now, Nadia, you’re the one getting noticed in my place. You should at least receive that reward.]

However, Erin’s attitude was resolute.

She had previously shown signs of avoiding attention among the other players, but ever since the “sponsorship system” had come about, it seemed to have intensified.

She would avoid meeting Nadia whenever possible, only communicating through party messages where she could dodge the prying eyes of others.

Erin firmly stated that she didn’t want to be in the limelight and since Nadia was doing what she couldn’t, it was only natural for Nadia to reap the rewards.

Yet, although Nadia couldn’t shake off the unsettling feeling, what she did was, in a sense, an amplified version of what Erin had done for her.

She decided to help out the players.

Of course, she didn’t help every single player indiscriminately.

This time, she would only assist those players from the “Nadia Initiative” (Although it officially had a different name, somewhere along the way it became this embarrassing title among the players. Nadia kicked her blanket and punched her pillow.) who had leveled up high enough that they couldn’t gain proper experience from the soldiers’ hunting missions.

The reaction of the benefited players was extremely positive.

“Nadia! Thanks to you, my level went up a lot! Thank you!”

“Oh, it’s nothing. We’re just helping each other out, right?”

The warrior players bowed repeatedly in gratitude.

While feeling pleased by being treated like a true lifesaver, Nadia couldn’t suppress her underlying anxiety.

‘The pace is too slow.’

【You are afflicted by the ‘Curse of the Forgotten King.’ Current stage is level 3.】

──── ──── ────

『Curse of the Forgotten King』.

Stage 1: Health decreases by 1% every hour.

Stage 2: Health decreases by 2% every 30 minutes.

Stage 3: Health decreases by 3% every 10 minutes.

Stage 4: Health decreases by 4% every minute.

Final stage: Health decreases by 5% every 10 seconds.

──── ──── ────

Day 5 of the event.

Before she knew it, the curse had progressed to level 3, and even the players who weren’t paying attention to the earlier stages had begun to feel a subtle burden.

As time passed and they reached level 4, the situation would become more than just a burden; it would pose a real threat to their lives.

The average level of players growing through the “Nadia Initiative” was now around 15.

Even with the soldiers’ help, it was surprising how much progress the originally level 1 players, who found even basic combat difficult, had made in just five days, but they still lacked the capability to perform well in the main dungeon of this trial, the “Blessed King’s Tomb.”

According to information from the advance party, even the monsters on the first floor were level 31, and it was hell by the time you reached the fourth floor, where they were level 38.

‘We’ve boosted them as high as we could through help, but thanks to the contribution system, the results aren’t as effective as we hoped. At this rate, it’ll be faster for me to die from the curse than to reach a level where I can do something in the dungeon.’

To Nadia’s mind, the only way for beginner players to survive was to become part of the parties led by higher-level players and receive their blessings.

However, the responses from the top-tier players were even more lukewarm than she had anticipated.

“If the dungeon’s difficulty was just a bit lower, I’d think about bringing you as a sweet deal, but it’s harder than I expected.”

“The blessings in the king’s tomb keep degrading every day, so going once isn’t enough; we need to go back periodically. And to get high blessings, we need to take an elite party.”

“Let me complete the dungeon first, then I’ll think about it.”

“Are you crazy? You want me to help a competitor?”

“If someone wants to worship here like they have no free will, it’s one thing, but these folks chose to join and are paying the price. Why should we help them?”

Even though gathering map pieces had become much easier with the existence of the exchange shop, the absolute number of pieces hadn’t increased.

Moreover, among the top-tier players were those who seriously aimed for “rewards” and saw other players as competitors rather than allies, intolerant of anything that slowed down their progress or forced them to restrain their own gameplay.

It wasn’t entirely baseless.

In fact, recently, as Nadia helped beginner players, her former top-tier level had plummeted to a mid-range level.

“Ugh…”

In the increasingly suffocating situation, with no signs of improvement, Nadia sighed deeply.

And there was someone who reacted to that sigh almost like a ghost.

「『UsagiMoe』 donated 10 coins.」
>What’s troubling you? Why the sigh?

「『Quick-Magic User』 donated 10 coins.」
>Fire a gun. Shooting the cause of your worries solves most of life’s problems.

“…”

Nadia hesitated a moment before responding.

Was it appropriate to share these thoughts with the ‘sponsors’ whose identity she didn’t even know?

But with Erin being busy lately and disappearing, she needed someone to vent her frustrations to.

“I feel like the trial difficulty is too high. At this rate, no matter how hard the players try, someone will die. We simply don’t have enough time.”

「『UsagiMoe』 donated 10 coins.」
>Isn’t that their responsibility? Aren’t the dangerous ones those who goofed off during Trial 1?

“People can hesitate and stumble sometimes. It’s not like they’re all gung-ho during the trial; they just cleared the first one, and if they die after that, isn’t it a bit unreasonable?”

This was something Erin would never say.

Erin knew that those ‘unfair situations’ were what brought the sponsors here in the first place.

However, Nadia didn’t know the identities of the sponsors, so she just spoke openly, as if addressing a VTuber audience.

「『UsagiMoe』 donated 10 coins.」
>True. If it were just a waste with nothing to gain from their point of view, it would be frustrating if they all just died.

「『Quick-Magic User』 donated 10 coins.」
>Isn’t it more of a pain to pull along those who have no talent?

「『Stern Sage』 donated 10 coins.」
>Mass killing and slaughtering are common elsewhere; sometimes, seeing the bonds formed here can be refreshing.

「『UsagiMoe』 donated 10 coins.」
>But if you try to save everyone, you run into problems. If you narrow down the numbers, you can still save about five or six, right? As long as you choose the obedient and capable ones, it could be fine.

「『Quick-Magic User』 donated 10 coins.」
>Just because you saved someone doesn’t mean they won’t stab you in the back later, right? If you could make them sign a contract for absolute obedience, then I’d agree.

「『Stern Sage』 donated 10 coins.」
>No way, give up already? You have to try as hard as you can to save as many as you can. That’s what we’re subscribed for in this channel.

Nadia watched the sponsors chatting among themselves with a bemused expression.

‘Is this their personal chat room or what?’

If this were a formal VTuber broadcast, they’d be filtering comments and blocking weird chatters for quality control, but here, none of that function existed, proving to be quite inconvenient.

The only upside was that even while they were chitchatting, coins kept pouring in for Nadia.

While it was a joyous occasion for her survival, it also felt somewhat depressing.

‘Choosing who to save…’

She thought they spoke too lightly.

That statement implied discarding the others, letting them die.

The idea of choosing who to save and who to let die was something she couldn’t even bear to imagine.

But what was the alternative?

Since there was no way to save everyone, was it more right to at least try to save a few?

Before that, maybe she should focus on saving her own skin first.

Just then, as no answer to her dilemma arose, Nadia sighed again.

“Nadia! The lord is looking for you.”

“Eh?”

「『UsagiMoe』 donated 10 coins.」
>Oh, a new event has popped up.

「『Quick-Magic User』 donated 10 coins.」
>In other servers, NPCs get caught by players like monsters, but they seem much more proactive here than expected.

「『Stern Sage』 donated 10 coins.」
>This is what’s good about being a seasoned player.

Moving the sponsors’ messages to the corner of her vision, Nadia followed the soldier toward the lord’s mansion.

The beautiful and dignified lord, Aurelia, whose appearance was like that of a haughty young lady, spoke towards Nadia.

“Nadia. I am quite concerned regarding this curse. As far as I can tell, it seems to only affect outsiders at the moment, but if things go wrong, I can’t know when it might start impacting other citizens. I also dislike the thought of the value of granting citizenship going to waste.”

“Yes.”

“And so, I’d like to entrust you with investigating the cause of the curse. To the far north of Arkaia, there exists a burial-like structure of unclear identity. Please check it out to see whether it’s related to this curse or not.”

“Uhm…”

Suddenly, Nadia felt dazed.

The curse spread due to an event, so wouldn’t the curse just have spread? Was there any meaning in investigating it?

Besides, didn’t they have more pressing matters than wasting time on that?

Yet, she didn’t have the nerve to straight-up tell the lord in front of her, “You must be mistaken.”

Thus, she tried to steer the conversation in a different direction.

“Of course, investigation is important, but… is this something I have to do on my own?”

“No, there are many fanatics worshiping the old evil god around the ruins, and they are extremely powerful warriors. It would be too much for you to go alone right now. If you have a capable party member, you can bring them along. Though, if you want to monopolize the reward, going alone is fine too.”

As she spoke, the lord indicated a rather decent sum of money.

It was entirely reasonable to pay money as a fee for assigning a task, but for an ordinary player like Nadia, who recognized “quest rewards” as items or equipment, this was somewhat surprising.

‘What should I do? The atmosphere doesn’t seem like I can refuse.’

After a moment’s contemplation, Nadia sent a party message to Erin.

Thinking that since the contract regarding the message function was nearing its expiration date, it was about time to get a new one.

*

[Nadia: There’s something I’m troubled by; what do you think, Erin?]

[Erin: Perfect timing! I found something interesting while wandering around, and it seems quite related to that quest. Let’s team up after a long time.]

[Nadia: Alright. I’ll wait in front of the lord’s mansion for the quest.]

After the party chat ended.

「…Don’t you feel guilty using a naive girl?」

Nadia’s younger sister lightly responded to the scolding from her robot pet, Older Brother.

“I’ll at least let her slap me later. Or maybe it’ll be a punch.”