chapter 6: first fight

"...this is a real...another world...?"

……Actually, deep in my heart, I had a faint suspicion.

Because this world is too 'real'.

Although there are game-like UI statuses, item boxes, and skills, graphics that compare with reality, with no roughness or seams, and fully stimulate the five senses... Well, it was when I was in the bathroom that I started to wonder, "Isn't this weird?"

If there was a technology that could reproduce reality to this extent, it would have been picked up in the news before it was used in a game, and its existence would be widely known. And it will be used in various fields.

The more I think about it, the more unreasonable it becomes to treat it as a game.

AOOOOON――

"Hii"

Did a monster spawned nearby?

As i continued to think about useless thoughts a howl reached my ears...and.

don! don! don! don!

"W-what!?"

A sound that sounded like wood hitting wood resounded from nearby, and I woke up thinking, "What's going on!?"

"Aaaah!? i'm a such a stupid!!"

I made holy water, but I didn't sprinkle it because I was preoccupied with the coming of the Creator God!

To ignore the monsters and go sleep like this? that is impossible! A simple wooden door don't have that kind of resilence!

Even if you sprinkle it inside your house and turn it into a sanctuary, as it's a creator god-related item it will only last for a short time unless it's outdoors (so you can only take a short break in the dungeon), and to begin, if the door breaks, even with the sanctuary, this house is quite small so you can be thrown stones from the outside.

So, I can't be safe unless I spray it in a range that at the very least surrounds the house.…And in order to do that, i have to defeat the monsters that are approaching in front of the house.

"Ahh, just calm down, me. This is the starting point, strong monsters don't spawn...should be."

I take a deep breath to soothe my painfully pounding heart, and i mutter to myself as if to convince myself.

If it howls, has a wooden weapon, and is not strong enough to knock down immediately a unreinforced wooden door, the monster should be a kobold.

The weakest existence in the game, along with the goblins.

"If it's just that much... I can do it."

I equip the God's knife and a wooden shield that i made very quickly. 

Let alone metal, I can't even get leather, so that's all I have for armor.

If i was inside the game is one thing, but after recognizing that "it might be reality" i can't stop feeling uneasy at my poor equipment, but just because i want it, it will just not fall from the sky, so i have to use what i have now.

Preparing myself, i swallow my saliva and await for the moment when the sound of knocking on the door stops...To jump out with full momentum!

"Uwaaaaaaaa!"

“Gyan!?”

With the God's knife, i slash at the kobold who was hit hard by the door that was sudenly opened and become stunned.

Ugh, the feeling of the knife pierce the flesh so gross! it's disgusting!

Still, I couldn't just stop myself, with the weak offensive power of the God's Knife even a Kobold can't be defeated in one hit. Screaming in my heart, i continued slashing at the kobold over and over again and again. 

"Haa, haa... ugh...!"

I looked down at the fallen kobold who was finally dead. And that was really bad. The grotesqueness of the messed up body and scattered internal organs made me nauseous.

To the me who can't stand it and try to crouch down to vomit, a lesson is teached.

Don't let your guard down before checking the safety of your surroundings.

"Gugya gya gya!"

"... Ga!?"

A goblin that appeared from my side and slashed at my shoulder.

Fortunately, the trajectory was deviated from my head. If it was to hit my head it could have been fatal blown. However, even though it was just the shoulder, the feeling of being slashed with something like a knife, the 'realistic' pain that is different from the game, is not something that a regular japanese person can just stay calm and take it.

"Aughhh!!!”

In addition to the pain, the goblins stink. It smelled really awful.

The stench that almost twists my nose and the pain in my shoulder, that combination completely made me froze in place.

"Gyah gyah!"

"Kuh...!"

Even though i feel like i want to writhe in the floor in pain, I roll forward to avoid a further pursuit attack. No matter how you looked at it, it was an unsightly figure, but it was far better than losing my life.

When I looked back, the goblin was, as I expected with a blade in hands —an iron knife that he probably picked up from somewhere, it was full of rust and tattered to the point that it looked like it might break at any moment— but it was glimmering in the moonlight as the goblin was swinging it around.

It was just a coincidence that I was able to deflect attacks with my shield held up. It was because it was the same movement as if something jumped in front of me, so i immediately tried to put my arms in front to protect myself, so i was able to defend with the shield.

"World Maker" is a full-dive VR game, so it's not the type that manipulates the character with a controller, but the type that manipulates the character as if it were a real body.

Therefore, player skills are necessary to fight monsters. There was no auxiliary system to compensate for my movements.

Of course, I, who was a making master, had a lot of combat experience, and I knew everything about how to move my body and how to defeat enemies efficiently... even though I should have.

At that time, I was not able to use that experience.

It's not like the fake body became a real body that was the problem, my physical ability was higher than in reality, and the movement felt exactly the same as when i was moving in the game.

But.

The real pain, the atmosphere of a battle that strikes with all five senses, not just pain. And above all, the goblin murderous intent.

It was all, full of experiences that i felt for the first time .

My mind, who thought it was a game until just a moment ago, could not have been prepared for the sudden action, and driven by my survival instinct, all i could do was swing the knife around randomly.

"This! you, you, you! Just drop dead!"

"Gya, guga...!"

……I guess the reason I survived was because the remaining monster were just a goblin, and there was only one of them. 

I just got lucky and survived.

When i got tired of wielding the knife and came to my senses, i found the goblin lying dead in a pool of blood. Either because of sadness or relief, tears began to flow from my eyes.

Unable to wipe off my raging tears, i started to sniffle (and gagged at the goblin's stench), I half-consciously sprinkled holy water around the house and returned to the inside to crawl into the straw bed.

"Why did this happen..."

Again, while unconsciously using wound medicine to heal the wound --actually, it was a shallow wound that was enough to heal with just one use, but I ended up using all three in vain. My thoughts were really out of order at this point— I keep asking myself "why?" over and over again.

The reason why, is simple.

I was just a fool.

Complementing what is not written with my mind as i see fit, without checking the facts. I jumped in at the first the opportunity.

If i didn't press YES right away and logged out and checked online, i could find out that no one was talking about beta testers, and determined that the mensage that i received must have been a mistake or just a scam.

Judging from the conversation, the Creator God probably had no intention of deceive me at all, but carelessly getting involved in something whose truth is unknown, that is like being caught by a scammer.

However, it is my fault for not confirming properly and cheaply take that offer, but as expected, no one thinks that they will encounter in real life a event like "transition to another world".

That is not even at the level of an urban legend, it's is just a fantasy work event that no one thinks it will really happen.

……So shouldn't it be forgiven if I spit out a grudge against the Creator God?

Even if I did that, without any change, the straw bed would still sting me, and I wouldn't be pulled back to my original world, saying "Actually, it was a dream" or "It was a just a prank" in the end.

I burst into tears several times.

"...be damned..."

The wounds should have healed long ago, but a sharp phantom pain still hits me and the sleepless night continued――