This game has a modern bathroom thanks to a Korean patch. My cabin also included a bathroom.
However, there was no bathtub yet. I pointed to the well.
“Wash up at the well over there.”
I’d been waiting for just this moment. I handed him the large towel and soap I’d prepared. And also decent clothes to change into. They were the light top and pants given as basics in the starter pack. It was worth receiving them in Belsus’s size instead of mine.
Belsus didn’t accept them right away. He froze stiff. When I looked up, his pupils were quaking.
Now what?
“What money did you use to buy all this?”
Ah, that’s it? I frowned first. Belsus’s eyelashes trembled with eyes asking what all this is when I have nothing.
Over just a towel, soap, and clothes!
I feel so wronged I need to upgrade the farm quickly. I need to make it into a palace.
“What about yours?”
“I’ll take care of myself. I always live more luxuriously than what I’m giving you, so don’t worry. A landlord can’t live more pitifully than a lodger, right?”
Belsus turned his head to glance at the wooden house where I live. It looked like wind would blow right through between the loosely woven wooden boards, and you could see wood grain that had turned black from blooming mold and dying.
“Understood.”
Did this bastard really understand?
Then, like before, a sensation of my fingertips and toes standing on end occurred and my spine grew cold. My body trembled once involuntarily.
‘Again……’
Belsus read my mind.
When Belsus uses the Reading ability, he becomes like a different person for a very brief moment. Should I say his appearance like a white-skinned wild beast simultaneously shines intimidatingly and viciously?
He’s a sucker, but his outward appearance is really badass.
In the game, when did Belsus burn with intensity in his eyes to read an opponent’s inner thoughts?
First, to determine if the opponent is a bounty hunter.
And to confirm whether he hasn’t earned the opponent’s hatred.
The latter.
“……”
Even I don’t know what thoughts were stolen from my head and escaped to him.
Belsus had a silent expression. When his eyes met mine, he lowered his head slightly and moved toward the well.
Only then did I exhale the breath I’d been holding. The strangely tingling sensation in my spine and back skin finally left.
‘This feeling is strange……’
Not only the physical sensation but psychologically too. The feeling of what’s inside me being read. It’s subtly shameful too.
Then conversely, Belsus must feel it when I read him too.
I quickly shook my head to blow away the lingering sensation.
“But by any chance……”
Belsus, who’d gone to the well, spoke up. I turned that way.
“How much water can I use?”
“……It’s unlimited, so use as much as you want.”
“Still, if it harms this place……”
With a feeling of my patience being tested slightly, I crossed my arms and let out a crooked scoff.
“If you don’t wash enough, I’ll come wash you myself.”
Then Belsus immediately took off his clothes in a flutter and started pulling the rope to draw up a bucket full of water.
Ah, right. Only then did I come to my senses with a start and looked at the chat window again. I hurriedly scrolled up to read all the conversations that had gone back and forth while I was briefly away.
‘Phew.’
There wasn’t much content.
As expected, being the crazy veterans of the <Tower of Colossus> game, they knew the previous version’s game story inside out. Since everyone would know the scenarios of the characters chosen by others, there was nothing to ask.
The game was still in the very early stages to have their eyes blazing fiercely as competitors, and only one day out of the year had passed.
However, they didn’t completely open up, as they didn’t particularly share how they were currently following the game routes. They only exchanged idle chat like the surprise of possession or stories from playing the game before.
So the time limit of one hour passed.
[Thief]: Let’s each prepare for the dungeon at our own locations~
We have a big dungeon about once a month.
To the people in the game, it’s a natural phenomenon that strikes suddenly without warning, but from our perspective playing the game, it appears as a regular dungeon that comes once every month.
‘Since it’s a game-manipulated dungeon, probably only origin characters and possessors can enter.’
Even possessors who are far away and hard to meet must come to that dungeon. It’s no different from a kind of ‘regular meetup.’
How and to what extent they build their strength until then is up to them.
[Bard]: Even so, as Koreans in an unfamiliar foreign land, we can’t let each other die…
[Bard]: If your life is in danger, let us know through chat. Those who can help will help.
What’s slightly disappointing is that I ultimately couldn’t find out what Kaline, who missed Belsus, is doing from the Archer’s mouth.
The chat turned off and I was alone under the night sky for a moment.
Soon the sound of splashing water from a bowl onto his body completely stopped.
I turned around and strode toward the well. Belsus, who was standing naked, flinched in surprise.
My Kuma also has a somewhat muscular physique. Because I have to do farm work.
But Belsus was on a completely different level. If I’m about 1.5 times the build of an adult woman, Belsus is three times. Does this even make sense?
Even though he’s emaciated now…… the skeleton alone looks about three times as big.
But if there’s only skin over those bones, the story becomes a bit different.
*Thud*, I placed both palms under Belsus’s chest.
I swept down from the serratus anterior to his sides, gauging. Belsus was flustered. However, he didn’t avoid it while holding his hands awkwardly.
‘His ribs are showing. Ugh.’
What do I do about this massive muscle loss?
Well, I’m not the one who has to do muscle training for him. Belsus is a survivor who lived on the streets for a long time and built his own strength to not die.
If he can just eat proper meals, and if I just provide a safe space like this, Belsus will train on his own and return his body to normal. Just like in the game.
Properly, very properly…… if he just eats his meals.
“Hey.”
“……What is it.”
“Don’t do anything for a while. That’s the landlord’s order. Eat four meals a day and fatten up. You can do that, right?”
Belsus seemed confused, but when I glared and urged an answer, he slowly nodded. When I gestured for him to go, he fumbled to put on his clothes and entered the barn, smelling of soap.
‘By the way…… I think I saw something strange earlier.’
I tilted my head to forcibly deny what I saw in reality. Because there was a weapon between Belsus’s legs that even I, a fellow man, had never seen in my life.
No matter how much a person loses weight, that part doesn’t shrink, huh. No wait, what if that’s the shrunken size?
What about my mental health from seeing that?
I shook my head vigorously to ventilate my mind. If I’m shocked by every little thing like this, I can’t accomplish great things. I had my mission.
Alright. Then.
‘Let’s make dinner right away……’
What am I even doing? Even while thinking that, I started my second act that wasn’t in my fate.
I opened the chest in the ground and took out potatoes that were still piled high and a few eggs with rough surfaces. Fresh spinach too for dietary fiber intake.
I entered the cabin and lit a fire in the fireplace. As I tested earlier, smoke rose nicely through the chimney.
It was worth working hard while Belsus slept to clear the blocked chimney until my whole body was covered in soot.
Most of all, I was fortunate Belsus didn’t see that unsightly appearance. A landlord has dignity.
‘I’ll need to procure firewood soon too.’
I cracked all the eggs into a pot and chopped in the spinach. After loosening it with a ladle, I placed a cauldron over the fire. I put a little water in the cauldron and placed the pot inside it.
While the steamed egg was cooking, I attached a pan next to the fire and sautéed thinly sliced potatoes with salt, pepper, and oil. I carefully tore off one chunk of the pork left over from lunch and rolled it around next to the potatoes to cook it.
That pork, once cooked to a certain degree, was chopped finely and placed in front of Belsus, whose eyelids were still mercilessly trembling, though more human-like than when I gave him potato soup at lunch.
“Aren’t you eating?”
“I ate inside.”
He eats well.
Though it was very troublesome during cooking, watching Belsus diligently pack food into his stomach piece by piece brought a smile of satisfaction to my face.
It was fascinating that I felt this way even while looking at a man who, though gaunt, was twice as large as me with a flawless appearance like a bird of prey.
Then our gazes met directly as he stared at me blankly.
I hurriedly organized my expression.
“What are you looking at? Hurry up and eat.”
Even though I snapped quickly, Belsus’s gaze didn’t leave me. Did I stare too much? I had no choice but to lower my head appropriately.
