Popular NPC in a Gender-Reversed Game

Yor visited the imp hunting ground.

As expected, the news spread quickly throughout the community.

Though it had only been a day, so much had happened in that short period. Plus, with famous streamers beside him, there was plenty of material to be dissected and talked about.

As a result, people were eagerly discussing what they'd seen on the broadcasts.

[This was taken from the sky, the atmosphere is amazing.] (Picture) Look at how the sky and the ground are both red. This game is good in many ways, but the realism and graphics are definitely the best.

[How many wrists did the graphic designer lose making this...] [No, it’s another world, seriously.] [Could it really be something like that? It’s starting to feel like it.]

[What’s up with that pit?] [That’s where the imps come out from.] [That’s where the imps are born from? Wow, it’s huge.] [When you say it like that, it sounds a little strange…]

[The orb that Yor picked up looks pretty nice.] If you have that, doesn’t that mean you can safely avoid the imps while roaming around? It’d be great for investigation and easy for picking up dropped items too. You could even hunt with it on.

[That’s how Remegaton people make money, right?] [It’s actually kind of lame.] [But it’s not all-powerful. If you mess with the imps, they still aggro.] [Seriously?] [Yeah, if you watch the stream from yesterday, Yor was attacking, and the imps charged at him. It doesn’t let you completely ignore them.] [But it’s weird, considering how much they were rampaging. It would be strange to just ignore them.]

A lot of discussions were going around.

Most of them were like, "It was fun," "It was amazing," and other impressions. However, in the middle, there were a few more meaningful comments.

[Was that pit always this big...?] I’m pretty sure it wasn’t as big when I saw it.

[?? What do you mean?] [Yeah, I was curious about how the hole looked, so I went inside to check it out. I even went undercover to do some map exploration.] [But when I saw it back then, it was smaller… What’s going on?] [What the hell, why are you being so creepy about it?] [I’m not sure either. Maybe it just looks bigger from the sky?] [You probably just misremembered. It’ll be fine, let’s not worry about it.]

The theory that the imp pit had gotten bigger since the last time was spreading. Of course, it wasn’t official. It was just a claim made by a few users.

In the end, after some chatter, the topic was quickly buried.

[But more importantly, I think I have a fetish for tattoos...] (Picture) Just seeing this made my lower half react automatically. Almost masturbated right there in the library, but I held back... for real. If it wasn’t for the library, I would’ve done it at least twice.

[Please don’t.] [Shit, so the weird smell in the library was you.] [No, I held back.] [I’m not into it. It just reminds me of the bullies I had to deal with in school.] [Ahh…] [Are you a lesbian?] [Was he handsome?] [Even though his head was empty, I remember him being really good-looking. I remember a few times my pants were wet when I got home.] [You bitch, that means it was a reward.]

And so, the conversation eventually shifted to matters of romantic interest.

After leaving the imp hunting ground, I immediately boarded a carriage and headed home.

"Then, we’ll be on our way." "See you later."

Though it had only been a day, my home, which I hadn’t been away from for long, looked rather familiar and comforting. There was no real need to clean since I hadn’t been gone for too long.

As I lingered outside my house for a moment...

Thud.

“Ugh...!”

Suddenly, my blood surged, causing my skin to rise.

Feeling a sharp pain, I immediately entered the cave and drank some holy water.

It wasn’t even a berserk state, but my blood was acting on its own.

The tattoo that had spread earlier subsided quickly, but the side effects were still lingering.

When I overuse my abilities like this, my body sometimes loses control and goes wild.

It felt like a demon, the origin of my blood, was demanding payment for the use of its powers.

Of course, a moderate amount of holy water could easily control it. Though, when my mind becomes unstable, it does pose a problem.

After drinking the holy water, I felt a bit more relaxed and took a brief rest at home.

Once I felt better, I immediately headed toward the depths.

The reason was simple. I was going to meet Barbatos, as I had something to ask.

Since I still had plenty of food, I just packed a few snacks for the others, assuming they’d like them.

“...Hmm?”

When I arrived at the altar, Barbatos greeted me.

“Why are you here so soon? I thought you just came a few days ago.” “Is it bothering you?” “No, it’s not that, but you’re not the type to visit so often, so I was just asking.” “I just came because I had some questions.”

I set down the snacks and got straight to the point.

The first thing I asked was about the orb. I showed it to her and briefly explained what abilities it had.

“So... have you seen this crystal orb in the demon realm?” “Hmm... I’m not sure. We don’t really have a need to use things like this, do we? Why would we need to avoid imps?”

She tilted her head and answered.

I immediately understood and nodded.

‘Well...’

Since they were of the same species, there was no reason to use items like this to avoid imps.

That meant it wasn’t something that came from the demon realm.

From what I’ve heard from otherworldly beings, they’ve never gotten anything like this from catching imps.

Since she didn’t know, I moved on and asked something else.

This time, it was a more personal curiosity.

No matter how I thought about it, the imp pit seemed too sudden.

I could somewhat understand that the kingdom fell because of Belled.

That guy had a peculiar power, and since he didn’t take on the whole kingdom but only killed the king, the citizens fled.

But the imps were different.

Even though they said there were no strong demons, the sheer number of them was too much. If a country went to war with them, it would be defeated easily.

I asked Barbatos about it, and she turned her head and responded.

“As for the pit... I don’t know much about it.”

She gave the same answer as before, but this time, there was a different nuance.

Before, it felt like she genuinely didn’t know, but now, it seemed like she was hiding something she knew.

This wasn’t unusual. She sometimes hid information when talking.

So, I decided to push her a little.

“If you keep acting like this, next time I come, I’ll bring fewer snacks.”

“Th-That’s not acceptable!”

“Then tell me, you bastard.”

Eventually, Barbatos hesitated and said:

“Well... it’s a natural phenomenon.”

“...?”

“Belled didn’t sacrifice anything to make that happen. He just made a hole. The barrier between dimensions got thinner, and that’s why the pit appeared.”

“Barrier... what?”

“You should think of it simply.”

She explained that every world has a kind of protective barrier.

A thick curtain preventing one world from interfering with another.

But if that curtain wasn’t there, any world could interfere with another.

And demons knew how to break through it.

Unfortunately, she didn’t explain the method in full detail.

“Hmm...”

I nodded after hearing that.

Honestly, it sounded like a lot of vague talk. Suddenly talking about worlds and dimensions was a bit hard to grasp.

But I could understand the conclusion.

“So, the big imp pit opened up because the barrier thinned out?” “Exactly. Us demons worked hard to break through it.”

She said it almost proudly, though it was a little irksome considering I was the one being invaded.

So, I gave her a hard smack on the forehead.

Smack!

“Ah!”

Afterward, I had a brief conversation with Neria before leaving the altar.

The next day, I headed out of the cave to meet with the knight commander. I had business with him too.

Fortunately, I was able to meet one of the commanders quickly. One of them was working on assigning living spaces to the refugees, and it turned out they were nearby.

“Oh~ Long time no see.”

As I approached, Odellia waved warmly at me.

She was probably noble too, but the way she acted so casually sometimes made it hard to tell.

Unlike others who tried to maintain some formality, she didn’t bother with any of that.

Though that made her the easiest knight to talk to, her personality was quite good overall, excluding her tendency to be a bit of a snob.

“Here, take this.”

As soon as I saw her, I handed her the orb.

“This is...?” “You’ve already heard the news, right? This is the orb that lets you avoid the imps.”

With otherworldly beings now everywhere, there wasn’t really any secret anymore.

She was probably already aware of it.

When I handed her the orb, she looked a little surprised.

“Is this... really for me?” “Yeah.” “That’s... unexpected. I was actually planning to ask you for it if we met. I want to analyze where it came from and use it for my investigations. It’ll be really useful.”

She continued, looking a bit overwhelmed.

“But didn’t you always ask for something in return? It feels a little strange for you to just give this to me without asking for anything in return.”

“Well, you’ll make better use of it than I will. For public purposes.”

After seeing the imp pit and talking with Barbatos, I had a change of heart.

My primary goal was still a peaceful life.

One day, I’d capture the demon that is the source of my blood and live a normal life, free from berserk states.

But, as I kept seeing what was happening recently... it felt like the world might collapse before that happens.

Whether I liked it or not, this was where I lived.

Even if I escaped the berserk state, if the world collapsed, it wouldn’t matter.

‘But I still don’t want to join Remegaton.’

So, I decided to help as much as I could, within my limits.

Giving away the orb without hesitation was the result of that change in heart.

“Thank you. I won’t forget this kindness.”

Odellia said, and then went off to lead the refugees again.

After finishing my business, I returned home.

“Now, I can finally rest.”

I had finished most of the things I needed to do.

I had cleared up some of my curiosities with Barbatos, and passed the orb to the people who could use it properly.

Now, I could just relax like usual.

In this empty cave, there wasn’t much to do other than think.

“...”

In my head, I kept thinking about the moment I was teleported into the sky a few days ago.

It had been such an intense experience for me too.

‘How did that happen?’

I knew that skilled mages could teleport, of course.

After all, Sephir had once disappeared in front of me, turning into ice.

But that was when it was just him moving.

I had never heard of someone teleporting four people in an instant.

If that’s possible, why bother with physical combat? Just throw the enemies from the sky.

‘Could they really be that powerful of a mage?’

I briefly wondered about that, but somehow, I didn’t think so.

He had fought with a rapier.

If he were that much of a mage, he’d have just used magic to corner us.

There was no reason for him to fight with a sword.

Then what was it...?

“Ah.”

As I thought about it, I suddenly remembered something.

I actually had a way to contact the 2nd faction leader.

When I received the extermination order last time, Sephir had drawn a symbol for me, saying it was a direct connection to the 2nd faction leader.

Since I was now aligned with the knights, I didn’t think I’d need it much anymore, but it could be useful.

I hadn’t used it in a while, but now seemed like a good time to try.

So, I immediately drew blood and used the symbol.

Lately, I’ve been drawing a lot of blood.

After completing the symbol, I infused mana into it.

Hummm...

An ominous energy began to rise around me.

-Response received.

At that moment, a husky voice came from beyond the symbol. It was the voice of the one I had met a few days ago.

Hearing that voice, my anger suddenly surged.

‘...Now that I think about it, this bastard.’

From the first time I met him, he had been throwing insults.

And the last time, he was the one who threw us from the sky, clearly intending to crush us.

Thinking about that made me angry.

-Who is this? Isn’t it customary to identify yourself when you contact someone? Answer me.

My response, naturally, came out harsh.

“It’s me, you bastard.”

-...!

Suddenly, a flustered voice came from beyond the symbol.