[HRV] CHAPTER 6

It wasn’t the reaction of Inas who would always worry when he was in pain. Nigel’s face contorted in anger at his joyful reaction.

“Do you think I’m a fool?”

“But you’ve never understood me until now.”

Inas muttered darkly.

“You never undestood.”

Nigel’s body shrank back at the angry voice. But what was even scarier was what happened next.

“When I talk to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you, to you…”1

Inas muttered quickly like an unpleasantly low tone. He felt goosebumps at the words that were repeated without end like a broken machine. Those emotionless eyes were scarier than eyes that were glistened with madness. Nigel was a bit terrified and hurriedly grabbed Inas.

“I, I understand…”

As soon as Nigel touched his hand, Inas turned his head and smiled brightly. His sudden change of emotion was a bit creepy, but Nigel didn’t show it and just smiled directly. Inas hugged Nigel, drowned in joy.

“You finally know. I, I… The fact that I’ve been repeating this damn thing over and over again.”

No, I didn’t really know anything about it… But Inas’ voice was filled with too much happiness for him to tell the truth. Nigel’s heart shook because he couldn’t symphatize with the current situation and he felt ill at ease with Inas. He didn’t know what it was, but… Nigel kept his mouth shut since he didn’t want to ruin the impression of his beloved Inas.

Inas looked at Nigel’s stiff face and pulled both cheeks. As his face drew closer, Nigel was unconsciously startled. Inas whispered low, leaning against his ear as if to kiss him.

“Nigel-nim didn’t understand me every time.”

“I, I would have understoood. It’s not that difficult.”

As Nigel tried to step back, Inas grabbed him. Nigel couldn’t move as his thick arms wrapped around his body. In the first place…

StatusStrength 98,546,545Mana 78,564,687Proficiency2 94,104,318Speed 97,611,645Defense 85,144,324Dexterity3 80,310,263Luck 84,143,168...

Looking at Inas’ other battle figures, he didn’t even consider resisting. For reference, Nigel’s strength level was ‘5’.

It’s not that he was envious of what he didn’t have, but seeing the gap as if it were between a human and an ant felt somewhat weird. Inas gently soothed Nigel, who had sunk for other reasons.

“I’m not calling Nigel a fool, it’s just that there’s a problem with the system configurations. Because it looks like this game was made that way from the beginning.”

Problems with the system configurations… Nigel was hugged by Inas as he looked at the window shining behind the man. Level 40,000, Inas Edenbach’s information window was still flashing.

The moment he was about to ask what a game was4, the corners of Inas’ lips twisted.

“Next, you’ll ask me what a game is. You can think of us as being up there on that board.”

What Inas pointed to was the Aldet which was left alone last night, or on April 13th, to be exact. A board game where the king was symbolyzed by Al and the king’s father was symbolyzed by Det, and using the generals, knights, and soldiers under them to defeat the opponent’s Aldet.

‘It’s a game that only changes the terminology of real-life chess. I think it was set up separately because there was a dungeon where Aldet was applied in the middle of the story.’

An intangible voice, like an auditory hallucination, popped into his head. It was obviously something that he didn’t remember, but it naturally intervened in his memory. Nigel looked at Inas in confusion. Inas continued his explanation without knowing what was going on in Nigel’s head.

“Unlike Aldet’s pawns, which can only move by a fixed number of squares, the characters in games can grow. They can raise their levels, status, and skills, equip gears, defeat enemies, check stories, and defeat enemies again… The world is made up that way. Although, we’re the supporting characters, not the main characters… At best, we’re just the NPCs who guide the main party to the right path.”

Instinctual resistance surged. It was a similar feeling to when he found the word <Protagonist> in Kay’s information window. Inas, who saw Nigel’s face distort, gently touched him.

“You don’t believe it, do you? If you’re curious, you can check it out yourself, Nigel. Kay, Lana, and Axel will solve the anomalies in the Seldom Mines in the future. A lot of monsters will come out, and they will get along with the wizard Primel, who they hired as a guide, so they will invite her to the party. After that, they will go to Langini to solve a missing person case and recuit Jen, who helped them with the case. And the five will go through Orta, Visrald, Hilmer, and finally to the Magnus territory.

“Are you reading something?”

The stream of words was like peeping at a book. However, Inas only glanced over at Nigel. Inas smiled when their eyes met.

“No. It’s something I’ve been through countless times, so I have no choice but to memorize it. If I didn’t intervene in any way, things will follow the set story.”

Although he didn’t say it precisely, Nigel shrunk his shoulders at the overwhelming time5 he felt from Inas’ words and attittude. He wondered if Inas had experienced what Nigel had gone through countless more times. If so, that’s just insane. Nigel shut his mouth tightly, tired of the current situation and the heavy hour5.

Slowly, Inas released the arm that had been holding Nigel.

“Nigel, around that time you will go to there to check on the strange incident that is taking place near the Magnus estate. After seeing Kay and the others solve the case, you will guide the way to the last enemy. There, they’ll defeat the last enemy and see the ending in the spring. That’s the end of the story. Then the world will turn around. Back to April 14th again.”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“Are you still unconvinced?”

Inas’ voice asking that question gave him chills. Nigel nodded his head despite thinking Inas was about to hit him on the head at that moment.

“Would you believe it? The world where I live in… Being a world of a game or whatever.”

He couldn’t believe this nonsensical story. At least, not before he confirmed it himself.

“Well, you may not believe it. Nigel-nim may have a lot of doubts…”

Inas, who was crazy but still had a sharp sensibility, said after slowly contemplating.

“Then take your time to confirm it, Nigel.”

***

After speaking, Inas said he had to go back to where he was and disappeared as he pleased. Nigel, who was left alone, was very disappointed, but decided to observe the situation as Inas had said.

The first thing he did was to meet the boy named Kay. Although Kay was called the <Protagonist> in this world, it was not difficut for Duke Nigel to meet him, who was a commoner in status. In fact, he could do more than that if he put his mind to it. Nigel endured the urge to use a violent action and waited for Kay and the others to arrive at the royal capital.

Originally, Count Rudio was the one that Kay and his party were supposed to meet after arriving at the royal capital. However, Nigel contacted Count Rudio and intercepted the meeting. The count, who valued the Duke of Magnus more than common adventurers, handed over his word without much thought.

The invitation was in the afternoon.

Nigel, who had been working all day, got up from his desk neatly, enjoyed a leisurely bath, and got dressed. Since he was only meeting commoners, he could meet them in modest clothes, but he was in high spirits, so he took out his best clothes and even decorated himself with some simple accessories.

“You look more beautiful today, Nigel-nim. If you leave now, you’ll be completely bewitching. Where are you going?”

“It’s not like that.”

Listening to his assistant’s silly words, Nigel greeted Kay and his companions as guests, hiding his nervousness.

Kay, Lana, and Axel. The three entered the room one after another. As with Count Rudio, all three of them seemed to be nervous because they couldn’t guess why a high ranking aristocrat, who had no relationship with them, would suddenly call them.

It was someone other than Kay who came into the room and said hello.

“Hello, Duke Magnus. It’s an honor to meet you. My name is Axel. These are Kay and Lana.”

“Right. Welcome to my mansion. I didn’t call you for some sort of grand purpose, so don’t worry and sit down comfortably.”

While a servant entered and poured them tea, Nigel observed the three of them unnoticed.

Kay was 17 and Lana was 16. The two childhood friends went on an adventuring journey together. Axel, who they met by chance in another village and got involved in their business, was 21 years old. He seemed to be the eldest, so he took the lead in saying their greetings.

Nigel offered tea and pretended to drink to check the party’s information window.

Basic Character Information Window► Protagonist's CompanionName          LanaOccupation    HealerLevel         22HP            96/96MP            55/55<View Status><View Skills>Basic Character Information Window► Protagonist's CompanionName          AxelOccupation    WarriorLevel         24HP            117/117MP            40/40<View Status><View Skills>

Kay was the protagonist, and the other two are the protagonist’s companions. Unlike other people, the sparkling sentences proved their significance.

According to Inas, Kay will continue to travel with his companions. After going through Seldom, Langini, Orta, Visrald, Hilmer, and finally the Magnus territory and seeing the ending… Time would rewind.

Nigel used to write off prophecies and stuff like that as a terrible scam… In reality, he couldn’t ignore the <Protagonist’s Companion> embedded in the information window. He wished he could just dismiss it as absurdly crazy. Now, Nigel’s feelings were closer to half-believing.

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T/N:
Guys! I found out the webtoon is getting an official english tl as I was working on this chapter lol. The official eng title seems to be “Raising a Sacrifice”, but I’ll probably the title for my tl as it is right now so that I don’t show up when you google the official name. Just a small info 

1 The sentence is ‘저는 당신에게 말하고’ and the word Inas repeated is actually the last word which is 말하고 (talk/speak). But for the tl I went with the last words he said which is ‘to you’. Also Nigel was right, that part is creepy as hell.
2 The word 기술 translated to skill, but since this is about character stats and after looking at similar meanings, I thought proficiency is more appropriate. Feel free to correct me.
3 마방 translated to barn, and I couldn’t find any other tl to the word so I decided to put dexterity for now as a placeholder. Please tell me if you know the meaning of the word because I really can’t find it :”
4 Same with the word ‘party’ a few chapters back, they’re using the loanword for ‘game’.
5 He kept mentioning 시간 (time/hour) and I genuinely don’t get what he means. Tried looking for other meanings but found nothing. Let me know if anyone figured out what he’s talking about!