Hyper Luck

I woke up to the stinging sunlight from the window on my face in a small house in Azharus. As I opened my eyes I was greeted by the ceiling covered densely with illuminating leaves.

When I got up from my bed and went outside the room, I was met with a creamy scent that filled my nostrils.

Following the source of the smell, I went down the stairs and found a small dwarf old woman and Khea busy in the small kitchen.

She felt my presence and turned back at me with a slight smile.

“Did Valambar lose his key? What made you wake up so late?”

“What’s Valambar?”

As I expected, Khea had a playful expression on her face.

“He’s a snorkeler that sails through the surface of the ocean. Get it, Snore-keler?”

“Aha, so you’re making a pun?”

As I answered her, Khea raised her cat-like eyes indicating that I got what she meant. Then an old dwarf woman walked out of the kitchen to greet me.

“What’s there to worry about just because the sail was delayed. It’s fine as long as you return safely.”

With her characteristic warmth, she stretched out her arms towards me, and I knelt down and hugged her softly ‘like I did yesterday’.

“Thank you so much for letting me stay for the night.”

“You’d be a family to me if you’re a friend of Khea. Anyways, how much did you drink last night?”

This house was where I and Khea barely reached yesterday after drinking heavily.

She dragged me saying that she was taking me to the place where she had been taken care of, and I fell asleep as soon as we reached without knowing where we were.

Even so, I remembered vividly the warm embrace of this old dwarf woman.

“I’m sorry, I guess we got carried away a bit too much.”

I was internally surprised by Khea's polite yet lovely voice and actions that I had never seen from her before.

“Did you shake a feather of a Ravermed or something? You should’ve known better!”

The old dwarf woman’s nagging reminded me of the ones I received from my parents in real life. Khea turned on her charm at the old woman’s scolding.

“By the way, She’d never done this before.  Khea woke up early in the morning just so she could cook...”

“Oh, no! The soup!”

Before the old woman could even finish her sentence, Khea quickly called her up in an instant. Then she cautiously turned back to glance at me for a bit.

I thought it’d be the polite thing to do to pretend not to notice, so I sat down at the table and took a look around the place.

The house was decorated with many pictures, and worn-off furniture, which all looked very similar to the house I lived in.

Even the old chest of drawers in the front door was very similar to the one in our house that had never been changed since my birth.

I never dreamed that there was such a friendly place in this world, which has always offered me a series of wonders and surprises.

A moment later, Khea got to the table with her hand covered with a leaf-padded glove carrying something in her hands.

“Watch your hands!”

At her stinging warning, I quickly removed my hand from the table and watched as she put the pot down.

The huge pot with fiery heat made even the tightly closed lid tremble.

After the various dishes reached the table one after another, everyone sat down at the table.

Then Khea turned to look at me with sparkles in her eyes.

“Open it.”

Filled with great expectations, I hurriedly opened the lid of the pot and was met with a burst of white vapors from it.  And the sweet creamy smell tickled my nose and tongue.

[Azharus-style Steamed Routo]

Class: Food

Rank: Magic

When consumed, all stats are increased by + 1, and HP recovery per second is increased by + 8. (Duration: 3,600 seconds)

History: A dish made from the round of Routo, a beast that never sits down since its birth. Offering a combination of very tender meat and sweet sauce, this dish is a traditional dish of Azharus. Of course, this is also a dish that requires a lot of handy work from the cooks, so if it is made by an outsider, the soft round may become terribly hard, like the forearm of a golem.

- Cooking Researcher Aven -

This information pop-up window appeared first before I could even check the contents due to the bust of white vapors. I deliberately tried to ignore the window.

Only because I didn’t want to get spoiled by it. About the time when the pop-up window disappeared and even the white vapor, I let out a genuine exclamation.

“Wow!”

There was rich steamed meat in the pot, topped with a brown, sweet honey-like sauce, which looked similar to steamed short ribs in real life.

“Khea, did you make this?”

“My mom helped a lot, but yeah! I made this!”

“Huh...? Mom?”

I was agitated at her words for a moment. After seeing my reaction, she hugged the old woman sitting next to her and smiled.

“She took care of me and helped me a lot during my hardest times. That’s why she’s my mom!”

My heart felt a stinging throb after seeing her action. This was because I was reminded of the past she told me about back in Bing Caravan.

“The food’s getting cold. Let’s dig in.”

While being held by Khea, the old woman picked up a wooden fork and spoon and served me the first dish.

As I took a big bite of the steamed meat, a smile burst out before I could realize it. Although this was me not actually eating the food, the taste itself was so amazing that it would be considered betraying yourself for even thinking about that fact. The taste was truly magnificent.

“How is it?”

At Khea's question, 

“It’s so good!”

I answered before I even swallowed the food in my mouth.

***

And as we enjoyed the meal, a loud noise began to come from outside the house.

The sound of short-interval steps, and rough breathing, began to be heard. As soon as the sound got closer, the door opened up.

“Khea! Mose!’

It was Lorad the dwarf. He was dripping with raining sweat with his face as pale as a white blank paper. Lorad opened up to speak struggling to grasp for air.

“We need your help!”

“What’s the matter?!”

Surprised by this unexpected event, Khea and I approached Lorad.

“Inventory.”

I carefully whispered to call the inventory, pulling out my greatsword from it and tying it tight to my waist.

“Sheira and Pharah...”

“...What?”

As soon as he finished speaking, Khea jumped out of her seat and left, even though all he said was a couple of names.

I too got out of the house to chase after Khea.

The first thing I did was to get out to the main road to find Khea, and as I spotted her I ran after her as fast as I possibly could.

It wasn’t too hard to catch up with her thanks to my explosively elevated stat.

The place where Khea stopped was a huge three-story wooden building. I followed behind her and carefully moved my feet into the house.

And in that instant,

“I will never see a dirty player bastard come into my house!”

An old elf from inside came up to me and started swinging a broomstick relentlessly. Flustered, I took a step back as Khea stood in front of me.

“Where are Sheira and Pharah?”

“My goodness, Khea. Please save my children...”

“Where are they!?”

At Khea’s exasperated voice, the old elf man collapsed to the ground and started weeping. Khea put her hand on his shoulder and said,

“I’m here to stop anything from happening. And the person standing behind me is my most trusted colleague. I swear it in the name of Bellica the God of the Sun.”

As soon as she finished her words, the man bowed his head to me.

“I’m sorry! Please, my daughters...”

I knelt down to face him as I put both my hands on his shoulders.

“Please do not worry. Nothing bad will happen.”

As I calmed the elf man down and climbed the narrow steps following after Khea, a loud voice echoed from beyond her.

“I need it! Where is it! I need ‘that’!”

My heart sank at the moment I heard the tearing scream coming from a woman.

As I hurried my footsteps and approached cautiously, there was a writhing woman and Khea holding her down firmly.

She showed wicked and bizarre beastly movements that were driven only by instinct with her slender body, while the contrast caused by her beauty made chills go down my spine.

Saliva was dripping from her mouth, and her eyes were out of focus. All of the clothes she was wearing were torn to the point of revealing her skin.

In the meantime, she continued her seizures with all her might toward Khea.

Whenever Khea let go of her for just a moment, she started to ruthlessly scratch herself.

“M-Mose!”

Khea's face was filled with despair and sorrow.  As soon as I looked at her face I quickly moved closer to the writhing woman and gently pressed her shoulders down.

“Give it...! You... Are a player! Give it to meee!! Noow!”

Being suppressed down by my strength, all she could do is wobble her arms and legs around, screaming slurred words.

A feeling of regret suddenly rushed in, thinking I should’ve learned a magic that could calm her down.

“Sheira, calm down! Please!”

Despite Khea's desperate request, she continued her rampage, but suddenly, she stopped moving. And after a brief moment,

“Gurrg...Urrgh...”

She started to make gurgling noises, then she started to vomit with foam in her mouth.

“Oh my god, Mose! Call the doctor! Hurry!”

As soon as I heard Khea’s shout I leaped out of the house in a hurry. On my way to get the doctor, I ran into Lorad who was running from afar.

“How are they?!”

“This is too serious!”

“As I expected...”

“We need a doctor, now!”

Knowing that the situation was getting serious, Lorad motioned his hand to follow, then started sprinting with his short legs like crazy.

And so, I was led to the 'Healing Forest' Hospital by Lorad.

“This is the hospital, but...”

I ran into the hospital before Lorad could even finish his words.

And at the scene that unfolded before my eyes,

I almost lost strength in my two legs.

Countless people were convulsing like fish out of the water on a mobile wooden bed. The commotion reminiscent of a battlefield and the screams of the patients were enough to put this place in complete chaos.

“What kind of poisoning is this?!”

“Is this food poisoning?!”

“Here! Please pay some attention to patients who are players!”

Standing in the midst of that tornado of screams, I couldn’t do anything but to just look around me in vague despair.

Then a player like me appeared suddenly grabbing my hand.

“Excuse me, are you by any chance a magician or an alchemist?”

“I...”

“Please help us! The poison debuff won’t go away. No potions seem to work too!”

After that, other players also started to cling to me.

“I heard alchemists and magicians can dispel these debuffs very easily, what is your class...?”

“I’m sorry, I’m not...”

After hearing my response, all of them went back to the patients that they were taking care of.

After standing still again and concluding that it was impossible to take a doctor from here, I sprinted again.

As I arrived back at the house, I saw the old elf man weeping on the floor, captured by despair. Tears were endlessly flowing from his eyes.

When I climbed up the stairs, I found Khea leaning against the wall on the floor hugging her knees.

There were blood drops all over the bed sheet, and the writhing woman was lying on the bed unconscious barely breathing.

And beside her, there laid another half-elf that looked the same as her.

She laid there without a single motion, she seemed to have passed away.

“I only found out after calming Sheira down.”

Khea's sobbing voice made the back of my neck stiffen.

“Pharah... That poor thing...”

After hearing Khea’s voice like that,

An indescribable weight of anger began to form inside me.

“Khea.”

“Yeah.”

“From now on, I'm going to use everything I've learned and gained on whoever 's responsible for this.”

Khea stopped her sobbing.

“Do you swear on the name of Bellica?”

She said with a resolute voice.

She also gritted her teeth. She was thinking the same thing as me.

“I do.”