PMEVBO 4

“Ah…!”

The girl, who had been staring at me with a face pale as a sheet, suddenly fell. She lay flat against the floor and began to stammer a string of incoherent apologies.

“I, I, I… I am so, so, so sorry for entering your room without permission…!”

“…”

“It was past the time you usually wake, yet you did not call. I… I let my worry get the better of me and committed an act of rudeness toward you, Priest. P-please, I beg you, just do not kill me.”

Wait, who on earth would kill a person just for failing to knock? Especially a mere child…

Then again, Lucariel’s original personality was a complete disaster.

Given that temperament, he likely wouldn’t have let a child go home unscathed. I sighed as I was reminded once again that I had possessed the body of a piece of human waste.

“…I won’t kill you. So stop that.”

“P-please, just once, have mercy… what?”

“I said that is enough with the apologies. I won’t kill you.”

The girl remained sprawled on the floor even as I took my discarded shirt and pulled it on. Tears large as raindrops fell from her wide brown eyes.

I told her I wouldn’t kill her, so why does she keep doing that? The floor is cold…

Left with no choice, I approached the girl and reached out my hand.

“Come, stand up.”

After much hesitation, she tentatively took my hand.

“T-thank you, Priest…”

Ping!

────【 Sub Quest 】────

‘Paf’ has appeared!

Complete the mission by complimenting ‘Paf.’

────────────────

What is this now…?

I was briefly taken aback by the sudden appearance of the status window, but I kept my composure and helped the girl to her feet. She stood stiffly in the exact spot where I had helped her up and began to steal glances at me, gauging my mood.

I finished preparing myself as I looked down at her. Then, in a voice that trembled slightly despite my best efforts to stay calm, I asked:

“…What is your name?”

“Pardon? Oh, I… I am called P-P-Paf.”

“…”

Ah. My target for the compliment was a human being. Not a coin.

I felt a surge of intense shame regarding the nonsense I had just performed with the coin. I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide, but unfortunately, there was no hole large enough to accommodate me here.

I tried to hide the coin, the other Paf, in my pocket to save face. However, the sight of the human Paf sniffing and wiping her wet eyes with her sleeves weighed on my mind.

“Here, take this.”

I put the “Coin Paf” in the hands of the “Human Paf.” Her eyes, already round, grew even wider as she looked up at me.

“Oh… w-why are you giving this to me?”

“It is a gift. Use it to buy yourself some chicken skewers later.”

“What?”

“Do you dislike chicken skewers? Then buy something else.”

The girl’s face, which had been darting between the coin and my expression in confusion, finally brightened. She clutched the coin tightly with both hands, looking much like a hamster with a sunflower seed, and gave a radiant smile.

“No, no! I love chicken skewers so, so much! Thank you, Priest!”

She certainly didn’t seem to be lying.

Ping!

────【 Sub Quest 】────

Give ‘Paf’ a compliment!

(1/1)

D-0 (1h 11m 38s)

Success!

────────────────

Wait, why did that work?

The text from the help window suddenly crossed my mind.

It is only considered a compliment if the target feels joy from the player’s words and actions.

It seemed that as long as the target felt joy, whatever I said or did was counted as a compliment.

I had been obsessing over cliché phrases like “You are kind,” “You are pretty,” or “You are wonderful” because the quest told me to compliment her. I suppose I was being too narrow-minded. They call it a compliment, but it is effectively no different from building affinity in a dating simulation game.

Of course, this quest I just completed had one difference from a dating sim. It was a one-time occurrence. Unlike those games where one must accumulate affinity until a target is fully won over, this compliment quest ended the moment it succeeded once.

…It really is over, right?

Making others happy through words and actions was, quite frankly, a burdensome task for someone like me, who is not naturally affectionate.

I was lucky this time, but things will certainly become difficult next time. I really hope the system gives me a different kind of quest for the next one.

In any case, the sub-quest was a success, so all that remained was to collect the reward.

────【 Sub Quest 】────

In a few moments, Skill Draw Ticket (x1) will be granted as a reward.

────────────────

***

After verifying the situation with the human Paf, my suspicions were confirmed.

I was currently being detained in an annex of the Hayut Castle for the assault on the Cardinal.

The human Paf left after guiding me to the annex dining hall. Now, while I waited for my meal, I had only one concern. Exactly how long could the system justify calling something “a few moment”?

Two hours had already passed since I successfully cleared the sub-quest, yet the status window remained stuck in this state.

────【 Character Stats 】────

Name: Lucariel Nebella Sarachephon (Kang Je-in)

Level: 0

HP: 100/100

Class: Priest

Title: The Scoundrel Who Assaulted a Cardinal Despite Being a Priest

Skills: None

Main Quest: Loading…

Sub Quest: Generating Reward…

────────────────

It wasn’t even generating a skill, it was just handing over a single skill draw ticket. Why was it taking so long?

My frustration must have shown on my face.

“I-I-I am sorry, Priest. I will hurry…!”

The hands of the maid setting my meal on the table became frantic. She had informed me that she was in charge of my meals starting today.

“…It’s fine. Take your time.”

I spoke because her trembling hands looked dangerously unstable, but my words didn’t seem to help.

…Is she trembling even more now?

I probably should have just stayed quiet. Cursing the original Lucariel’s foul reputation under my breath, I began to eat the tomato soup.

I had only taken a few spoonfuls when a change finally occurred in the character stats window. However, it had absolutely nothing to do with the reward I had been so desperately awaiting.

HP: 100/100

HP: 99/100

HP: 98/100

Clang!

The spoon slipped from my hand and rolled noisily across the table, but I didn’t care about that. I couldn’t see anything else right now.

“Wait, why is it suddenly dropping when I haven’t done anything…?”

HP, short for Health Points, usually serves as an indicator of a character’s physical strength or vitality in games.

And if HP reaches zero, that character dies.

If I die like this… what happens to me then?

Just then, a help icon appeared next to the HP gauge. I hurriedly pressed it.

────【 Help 】────

If HP reaches 0, the player will face death.

────────────────

“Ha, damn it, seriously…”

Even while I was facing this grim confirmation, my HP continued to drop by one point at a time. In other words, I was slowly dying right now.

Exactly when did my HP start to decrease?

Ah…

It was after I started eating this tomato soup.

There is really only one way to kill a person using tomato soup.

“…Poison.”

Right. This was poisoned.

“Hic!”

I froze at the sound of a hiccup coming from behind me and turned around.

The person responsible for serving the tomato soup stood there. It was the maid who said she was in charge of my meals from today. She was desperately covering her mouth to stifle the continuous hiccups.

“…Was it you? Did you put poison in this?”

The moment I saw the terror pooling in her trembling eyes, my suspicion turned into certainty.

Yet, I didn’t even get the chance to interrogate the woman who had tried to assassinate me.

“What…!”

Trembling all over and appearing lost, the woman reached for the soup bowl on the table.

By the time I managed to snatch the bowl away from her, half of the remaining soup had already disappeared down her throat. Almost immediately, she began to scream.

“Aaargh…!”

The woman clutched her chest, writhing in agony, before coughing up a mass of bright red blood and collapsing to the floor. She did not move again. She was dead.

The amount of poison the maid ingested was the same as mine. The fact that I was still conscious after consuming a poison that would cause sudden death in a normal person was likely because Lucariel’s body was abnormally sturdy.

However, I couldn’t afford to relax. Even at this very moment, my HP was still dropping.

HP: 70/100

I need to stay calm and think. Was a poisoning incident involving Lucariel ever mentioned in the original story?

No, it wasn’t.

Then was it just never mentioned, and the original Lucariel went through this as well…?

I couldn’t be sure. But it was possible.

If so, how did that bastard survive? Ah, was it some kind of “villain buff”…?

Come to think of it, the original Lucariel was a man born with physical abilities that anyone would envy. He had to be incredibly healthy to carry out a massacre all on his own.

Right, a major villain won’t die just from swallowing a bit of poison…

HP: 60/100