Chapter 1489

Illyna kept her eyes on Davey, as always.

He chortled to himself, “Kehehehe.”

“What’s up? Why the creepy laugh?”

“Wanna see this?” Davey held out his phone, showing a video of someone.

- Hya! Hya! Haah!!!

In the video, a young girl with a wooden sword was thrashing about wildly.

“Looks like she took the elixir Neltarid gave her. Look at that little thing going nuts! If this goes viral on social media, it’ll be hilarious.”

The Church of Neltarid never put much effort into cultivating a perfect image for Saintess Agatha. They simply put on a show of receiving a revelation and kept her image pure and innocent.

Of course, if everything she regularly did was exposed, it’d naturally cause problems. Fortunately, at least in the video Davey was watching, she came across as an ordinary girl her age more than anything else.

After swinging her sword for a long time, she finally approached the people watching her with amused smiles. She then pouted and acted childish in a way she normally never did.

Her face abruptly went pale, and she screamed as she rolled around on the floor.

The goddess’s prank. The blessing itself didn’t have that kind of power, but Goddess Freyja had slipped one of her pranks into it, and she suffered the result.

Davey wasn’t sure what triggered it, but it seemed like a slightly different case from what Hyun-Ah and Chris had experienced.

“Everyone seems to see it as pranks, but she must have some other motive.”

In fact, after Agatha’s outburst, she shared all the grievances she’d kept bottled up, and everyone listened to her.

“That’s how it should be, at least until Agatha grows up.”

After all, she was still someone who needed protection.

He heard a voice from beside him say, “Hmm...”

“What? Did something make you mad?” Davey asked cautiously, but Illyna only shook her head.

“Nah. It’s nothing.”

“Seems like something’s up. You’re not going to tell me?”

“...Maybe later.”

She had been looking sullen more often as of late. Since she was pregnant, he tried to be mindful of anything that might make her uncomfortable, but it still didn’t seem enough to put her at ease. Mood swings were considered common during pregnancy, but hers were particularly noticeable.

“I wish you’d tell me,” he told her. “But I won’t force you to.”

“Sorry. It’s a little too embarrassing to tell you...”

If that was what she wanted, he couldn’t say anything more. He backed off, not wanting to complicate things.

Right after he left, Illyna slapped both of her cheeks and curled up. “Little One! Thanks to you, your mom is so sexually frustrated these days...”

Ever since she’d gotten pregnant, she’d rarely been intimate with Davey, him insisting there was no need to push and overdo herself. Of course, once they confirmed the pregnancy, they had to avoid intimacy altogether since it could hurt the baby, not just because they wanted her to be at peace.

The problem was that Illyna had a history of giggling and teasing Perserque and Aeria when they were pregnant. “Ugh. They’re probably both holding massive grudges. Agh, I’m getting all worked up...”

She was tearing at her hair, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell Davey the truth of being so frustrated because of the baby, right after being so thrilled about it.

“It’s so weird... They say women don’t usually feel this way when they’re pregnant...”

Thinking about it, Perserque and Aeria seemed to have been similar.

* * *

Willow never let petty taunts get under her skin or make her lose her cool. She remained completely relaxed and made a strange smile at the situation she found herself in.

“Eva, you totally suck at this.”

“Aargh! My butt! You’ve never even played this game before!!!”

“I dunno. I bet I’d be better than you at this game, even on my first try.”

Evangeline furiously trembled with competitive spirit. It sure was a total mystery who she could possibly take after to be so fiercely competitive. No clues whatsoever.

‘Why’s she so easy to taunt? She’s just like Dad.’

Willow decided to stop before Evangeline started crying or throwing herself at her.

“Set up a game and I’ll show you better strats.” She reached out toward one of the computers in Evangeline’s gaming room, the fans inside whirring loudly. “Make a lobby.”

“Okay, bring it on! I’m gonna own you so hard!!! Prepare to get stomped!”

‘Wait, wasn’t it a co-op game?’

The five of them—Eva, Moderation, Grace, Si-Woo, and Elysia—had definitely been playing a co-op survival game.

Yet Evangeline’s eyes burned with nothing but competitiveness.

- Hey, Eva? I think you’re getting too worked up.

- Crush that thing! Absolutely demolish it!

Unlike the worried Seung-Hyun, Grace seemed to think Willow’s provocation was working perfectly.

Soon after, Willow casually logged in.

The game’s premise was simple. It was a survival game where players were dropped into a forest and had to survive against monsters and cannibals while upgrading their gear and vehicles, gathering resources, and hopefully finding the ultimate treasure.

Willow thought it was pretty stupid, but, since it was just a co-op game, Willow figured they just had to work together to survive.

As she watched how the game played out, she noticed a few important rules the others hadn't. Those five were having a terrible time as a result.

‘First, I should link up with the others...’

Willow asked them, “I’m in the forest here... Where are you?”

Evangeline gave a slight smile and called out the coordinates to them.

Willow turned on her compass and headed quickly in that direction, then stared blankly at what she saw.

Grumble.

There were numerous monsters around her. Only then did Willow realize Evangeline had given her the wrong coordinates just to mess with her.

“What in the world, you rascal?!”

“Oops, sorry, I called out the wrong coordinates. My bad. Just die once, or else they’ll chase you to the ends of hell.”

Willow briefly hesitated. It was likely impossible to kill so many monsters without equipment, given the way the game worked.

Yet, if she died like that, she knew exactly what would come next.

- Pfft. Calling us noobs when she died first.

- You’re so bad! You can’t do anything.

They weren’t saying anything now, but they’d start trash-talking the second she died.

She wasn’t about to let that happen.

The good news was that she could outpace the monsters with the right moves. They weren’t overwhelmingly faster than her.

Still, the annoying part was that now that she’d caught their attention, they’d chase her all the way to the edge of the map because of their keen sense of smell.

She sprinted quickly into the distance, picking up every fallen branch and stone on the ground.

“Hey, give me a few more branches here.”

They’d said everyone was on their own, but they were still working together and speaking over the chat.

‘You guys seriously messed up.’

She then ran dozens of calculations through her mind.

As soon as she finally put some distance between herself and the monsters chasing her, she immediately built a workbench, which was practically the starting point of any survival game.

Then, with the ease of someone who’s played a couple of times, she quickly crafted a few essential items, checked the surrounding terrain, and started running again.

She heard Seung-Hyun talk about how well their game was going.

- Wow, we’re pretty lucky this time. We already have an iron sword! Should we make some armor and start hunting monsters?

Evangeline taunted Willow, mocking, “Sis, you’re still alive? But you can’t do anything just running around like that! You can’t kill them with a stone knife or spear, there's nooo way. Just die and join us.”

Willow’s eyes burned with immense fighting spirit as she replied, “Nope. You started the war.”

She mentally calculated everything from how long the monsters rested to how fast they moved, how long it took to gather resources, and how long crafting took. If her calculations were off by even a little, she wouldn’t finish crafting in time, and the monsters chasing her would tear her limb from limb.

Luckily, since they were only after Willow, they would leave her structures alone.

“Come on, just give up! Even speedrunners quit if they’re targeted by monsters right at the start.”

Since Willow was sitting a little farther away from Evangeline, the girl had no idea what she was doing.

She couldn’t see Willow progressing at an insane pace while managing both the monsters that had been chasing her from the beginning and the waves of monsters that joined the chase each new day.

Her progress was so fast that only a machine or someone who’d planned the perfect route ahead of time could’ve pulled it off. She was beating the game at a pace the four, who were only playing for fun, couldn’t keep up with.

- But what’s Willow doing? It seems like she’s still alive.

“I don’t know. She’s completely locked in right now. We’ll just leave her and pick her up when she dies, I guess.”

The moment she said that, an explosion went off in the distance.

BOOM!!!

Hearing a sudden roar with it, Evangeline sent her character toward the sound with a puzzled expression. She then went blank.

“Huh?”

What stood before her was a small but extremely efficient fortress.

It wasn’t completely covered in iron, but the weak points had been reinforced with iron plates, and it took advantage of terrain glitches to create the perfect defense.

It was truly the ideal defense system.

“Wait. I’ve never even seen anything like this!” Evangeline screamed in confusion.

Willow’s character then poked its head out of the fortress and fired something at her.

Splat!!!

Evangeline screamed as the thick, snot-like slime splattered all over her, “Aargh! What is this?! Is that lure jelly?!”

Lure jelly was an item used to lure monsters when hunting them in the forest. It wasn’t something the five of them, including Evangeline, had much use for right now.

The moment she stopped screaming, monstrous roars erupted from all around.

“Guoooar!!!”

Glad in crappy gear, Evangeline freaked out and sprinted toward the base camp like her life depended on it.

“Kyaaah! Moderation!!! Save me!”

- Ugh!!! What did you do??

“I don’t know! It was Willow, at some weird fortress! WILLOWWW!”

Dozens of monsters chased after Evangeline.

Though the group of five were prepared for general survival, they hadn’t expected such a sudden attack. They fought desperately against the three monsters that quickly overwhelmed them.

- Si-Woo!! I died, too!

- Hey, hey, hey! Grace! Are you using me as bait to run away?!

- I dunno! I just need to survive!!!

It was absolute chaos.

In the end, the five lost all their equipment and supplies and died. The monsters had completely destroyed all the structures, workbenches, and warehouses they’d built.

“What the hell was that?!”

They couldn’t hide their frustration. However, what they dreaded most wasn’t their fortress going down.

Beep!

[Willow: :DDD noobs loools can’t even beat a solo player :DDD]

One in-game chat message from her completely crushed everyone’s morale.

- Oh right... She was still alive.

- Hey! Look at what she’s doing!

Entering spectator mode without respawning, they were soon able to find where Willow was. Seeing her setup, they didn’t know how to react.

- Holy moly... What the heck is this?

- Don’t tell me those monsters are trapped?

- Hey, Seung-Hyun! Aren’t those actually monster corpses?!

Unlike the five who were wiped out by three monsters, there were nearly dozens of monster corpses near Willow’s fortress.

- Don’t tell me the reason why we weren’t attacked as much was...

Si-Woo’s suspicions were indeed correct.

To gather the small amount of resources dropped by the monsters and natives, Willow had intentionally redirected the waves heading toward the other five and hunted them down.

- No, this is just crazy. She’s hunting monsters with those traps?

- More importantly, what’s with that fortress? I’ve never seen anything like it...

- It seems like Willow built it herself.

- By herself? And we only managed to build that much?

Not only that, she’d set up powerful single-use traps in strategic locations to deal with monsters her equipment couldn’t handle. She’d immobilize them first, then finish them off with infinitely respawning traps.

- So she handled everything by herself, from the monster that’s been chasing her since the beginning to every invasion, and managed to progress this far?

- W-Wasn’t this her first time playing this game? This is ridiculous... Look at how many crops she has... I barely managed to grow a few weeds...

Finally, Evangeline stood up and marched over to Willow.

When she saw the warehouse on her screen, she was horrified. “You... you’re seriously insane!”

Surprisingly, the warehouse was almost empty. That meant she’d used everything right away without letting a single thing go to waste.

“Sis...”

Willow just smirked at her. “I told you. You’re a noob.”

“Did you really have to go this far?!”

“Well, who are the ones who tried to kill me right from the start?”

“But that was just a joke... You could’ve died once and been fine.”

“And you weren’t planning to say all sorts of things to me the second I respawned?”

Evangeline flinched and looked away. “Ugh. Whatever, I don’t care! Feed us! A fortress this strong should have no problem keeping the monsters out!”

“Oh really? No problem.”

Seeing Willow’s smile, Eva pouted and grumbled. Even though she knew it from the beginning, she still couldn’t believe that it was Willow’s first time playing.

‘There’s no way someone who’s never played before can give off such a hardcore gamer vibe.’

Yet, Willow indeed had exactly zero minutes of playtime with the game, so there was nothing more to say.

After respawning, the five headed toward her fortress.

She opened the door and greeted them in a cheerful voice, “Welcome, noobs! I told you, Eva’s a total noob.”

“Aargh!”

“Heek...”

Moderation, Grace, and Evangeline, who were all highly competitive, looked completely defeated.

Willow continued, “What are the magic words? You need to say them if you want to come in.”

“What? What’s up with ‘magic words?’ Just open the door.”

“Should I? Okay, I’ll tell you the magic words. It’s ‘Evangeline is a total noob!’ Just say that, and the door will open.”

Evangeline trembled in fury, remaining silent.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to give up here?”

“Hmph... H-hmph! It’s just a game, okay?”

“But you suck. You died before a newbie did. And now you’re giving up on the game?”

“Aargh!” Evangeline screamed and pulled her hair.

“Guooooo!”

To make matters worse, their timing was terrible. Monsters had smelled them and already started to chase.

“Oh? The monsters are coming. Quick, let me hear the magic words.”

“Ugh... E... Evangeline is a total noob!!”

When Evangeline finally yelled it out, Willow smiled brightly and opened the door.

‘Seriously, I thought this back when we played other games, but she’s not just a genius... she’s a monster. Even a pro gamer wouldn’t be this good.’

In the end, the five survived thanks to Willow giving them shelter. They stared outside the fortress with blank faces as the monsters got caught in the traps and were slaughtered.

“This is seriously amazing,” one of them marveled. “I’ve never seen anyone trap the monsters so they can’t move before bashing their heads like that. She took down something even a veteran with two thousand hours of game time would tell you to just give up on.”

“I know, right? But they’re gonna keep chasing us. I’m amazed she managed to build a fortress like this.”

Si-Woo was in awe. “Damn straight.”

Evangeline gnashed her teeth. “Ugh. I’ll never forget this humiliation.”

In the end, they succeeded in clearing the game, something the five of them had never managed to do.

It was mostly thanks to Willow’s incredible ability to calculate and use the terrain to her advantage, but it was still astonishing for a first-time player to get that far in such a difficult game.

Moderation and Si-Woo left the call as soon as the game ended, saying they’d had fun, but Evangeline was still incredibly annoyed by Willow and the smug grin she’d flashed at her while sprawled out on the bed earlier.

“I’m busy, so I’m gonna head out now. Have fun, my little noob sister.”

Evangeline finally threw herself onto the bed where Willow had been, thrashing about and hitting the teddy bear next to her. “Aargh! I’m so pissed! You meanie! You meanie!”

She wanted revenge, but she couldn’t bring herself to stoop to using any petty tricks, leaving her burning with frustration. Accepting there was no way she’d calm down unless she got her revenge, she decided to call in the experts for that kind of thing.

Beep.

“Rinne, do you want to come to the lair with all your Gourmet Research Society people?

They might be nuts, but they were the best when it came to driving people crazy.

Rinne, naturally among the nutheads, demanded compensation immediately.

- Rinne requests stipulation of price first.

“Do you want to just come now, or should I first go to Dad and tell him what you’re up to these days?

- Request accepted. Rinne reports quick arrival.

Now that the experts were called, it was time to think.

Evangeline, who was completely drained, wondered what to do next. She felt sluggish, as she hadn’t streamed for a while.

“Should I just upload her gameplay video?” Willow wouldn’t be pleased. One of the reasons she didn’t stream was that she didn’t like her activities being posted online. “Wait, that’s right. She doesn’t like it?”

‘Then I guess that’s what I’m doing.’

Thinking that, Evangeline started mobilizing all her video editors.

“Let’s work on something together.”