章節 12: Chapter 12 - Welcome To Scarlett Online
The old man saw Kazuya's family being dragged away by the goblins. He knew he would be powerless to do anything to stop them, but his willingness to lay down his life begged the question: where was Kazuya?
He looked at Kazuya's home and realized that it was on fire. He looked back at the spot where Emi and Haruno once were but couldn't find them. He couldn't follow, as he had an arrow lodged in his chest from behind. He was now on the floor, trying to crawl but failing terribly.
But he was determined to do something. So he crawled onto Kazuya's home. At first, the goblins paid him no heed, as he did not seem like someone who would survive for another minute.
Every movement he made as he crept to Kazuya's home felt like hell. He could feel every muscle in his back telling him to stop, to succumb to his impending death, and avoid all the unnecessary pain he was experiencing at the moment.
But he put that aspect of his mind in silence, as he felt that informing Kazuya of the situation would be the least he could do. After all, even if he could move properly, he wouldn't be able to track Haruno and Emi at such a dark hour of the night. The light from the burning village was bright, but not bright enough to properly illuminate all the dark areas of the forests and fields nearby, especially for the eyes of an old man like himself.
As the agonizing moments passed, the goblins noticed the distance he covered despite his fatal condition, leaving a long trail of blood on the ground from the farmlands to one of the houses. To ensure his immediate death, one of the creatures shot multiple arrows at the old man, and with sublime precision, they all accurately lodged themselves in his back, causing him to scream out in agony.
This was too much for the old man to handle, and he could feel the cold arms of death grip him like a baby in the arms of its mother, ready to swing him away into the afterlife.
But just a few seconds before he had given up hope entirely, he heard multiple banging sounds from the interior of Kazuya's home, and the final bang caused the door of the burning house to swing open, revealing an injured Kazuya aiding himself by a walking stick and looking outside like it was the first time in a long time.
"What have you been doing in there?" "What were you doing while your family called out for you?" the old man asked as he lay on the ground beside the entrance to the small house.
Kazuya looked at the man speaking and widened his eyes when he noticed the man's state—he had been shot with multiple arrows and was lying on the ground helplessly.
The old man looked back at him, seeing that he was also injured, and from the way he was leaning on the walking stick and the shape of one of his legs, that he was not in good shape either.
However, Kazuya recognized the man almost immediately. He was the same old man who had made a favorable deal with him earlier that day. It was thanks to him that he had enough food to bring back home earlier today.
"Bunji?" he called him, wanting to come to his aid. He felt awful that the man who offered such grace to him was in such a pitiful state, and he wanted to be of help in any way he could.
But the man refused to be comforted, and with the last bit of strength he had, he pointed in the far direction in front of the house, roughly around the area where his wife and child were dragged away by the goblins.
"Your family..." was all he was able to say before giving in to his death.
Kazuya clicked his tongue as he briefly stared at the culprits before looking behind the man to see a long trail of blood drawn on the floor from a far distance to where he was, right in front of his house, dead. It was from the farmlands, meaning that he possibly was with his wife and child on their way back and was probably separated from them because of the goblins.
He then looked in the direction the dead man was pointing at. It was the path his wife usually takes with his daughter to go foraging in the farmlands—the same place his wife said she was going to earlier that day.
It did not all make sense, but it was enough for him to figure something out.
Kazuya's heart skipped a beat as he began putting the pieces together. With his stick, he walked as fast as he could. He got close to the farmlands but ultimately couldn't move as fast as he was trying to and fell to the ground as they couldn't keep up with his momentum.
He tried to get up again, but when he did so, the walking stick broke, causing him to fall to the ground again.
But then he heard a familiar sound, a familiar cry, and he could tell whose voice it was in a heartbeat, as it was precious to him—it was the voice of his little child, Emi, crying out in pain.
It was nighttime, and there was no moon visible in the sky, so the area was very dark.
Kazuya looked around, breathing heavily as he tried to trace the source of the sound, and when he located the source, based on a disturbance noticeable among the many paths that weaved the large farmlands.
"Emi!" he cried out.
He crawled to where the sound came from as fast as he could, as he couldn't stand. The agonizing pain from his crushed foot was not enough to stop him from moving.
As he couldn't run, the best he could do was to crawl as fast as he could, and he did so with abandon, as his family's safety was all that mattered to him.
Slowly but surely, his daughter's screams faded into obscurity, and this scared Kazuya, as he rightfully feared the worst.
"Emi!" he cried out relentlessly, "Emi!"
He got to where his daughter's cries were coming from, and when he saw what was there, his body went limp for a moment, and his heart skipped a beat.
Right before his eyes were his wife and child, who had now been eaten alive by about a dozen of those strange creatures, whose mouths and faces were now covered in their blood as they feasted on the two victims like it was a buffet.
At that point, something in Kazuya's head snapped. A sudden rush of anger filled his soul. His eyes turned bloodshot as his breaths became deeper, and saliva dripped from his mouth as each deep breath came with a groan.
He tried to get up, but his crushed root failed him again as he fell back to the ground.
He was powerless to do anything while his wife and child were being eaten right before his eyes. He tried to crawl where they were, wanting to stop this, wanting to take them away from their half-eaten bodies with his bare hands if he had to—but he knew he could do nothing, as he was powerless.
Who was he kidding? He couldn't even stand to his feet on his own, let alone stand a chance against a dozen armed goblins.
Deep down, he no longer wished his family was safe, as that would be pointless now; rather, he wished he had the power to do something about this, that he could at least avenge his wife and child somehow.
It was at that point that a large holographic image appeared right in front of him, with a brightly lettered statement that read,
"WELCOME TO SCARLETT ONLINE"
He frowned when he saw this and then looked at the options set before him.
"START GAME" and "LOG OUT"
It was at that point that the memories flooded back into his memory—the memories of his real life with his mother, Kaori, his little sister, Neji, his best friend, and Erika.
Kazuya clutched his head as he was trying to comprehend all this.
Does this mean that Emi and Haruno were not real? that all the pain and anguish he was experiencing wasn't real?
Does it mean that this world does not exist? that everything I love and care about is just some digital fabrication?
Does that mean that all this is just part of a video game?
One would think that the realization that his wife and child were not dead would comfort him, that this unfortunate event wasn't real, but that was not the case with Kazuya.
He clutched his head and screamed out loud in denial to himself. He would not take all the experiences he had as fake; he would not act like his family and everything he cared about weren't real.
He could not accept that it was all fiction.
Even though he knew the truth about this world, about the reality behind everything he once thought was real, he pushed it all behind his psyche.
He would not leave this world behind, no matter what. He would put an end to the cause of all this to honor his dead family, treating them as truth and reality and not as mere fiction.
So with that conviction in mind, he clicked the "START GAME" option, knowing that he would soon be granted the power he needed to see this through to the end.
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