I’m gonna die.

I’m absolutely gonna die.

If I were to compare this feeling to something, it was like seeing a meteorite hurtle toward you from the sky–a feeling of overwhelming despair in the face of certain death.

Eh? Why was I feeling like this, you asked?

It was from Kohaku shaking me around……

「W-what does she look like!? What’re the colors of her hair and horn!? What was she wearing!? Even the way she speaks, too….! No, wait, it’s a waste to just ask about her from you!! Ah, but I want to know!! I’m curious!!」

Just as I had assumed, her strength easily exceeded four digits. And she had been shaking me to death with that strength, not even noticing that my HP was suddenly being reduced. By the time she shook me the third time, I could already feel my consciousness fading.

It was kind of like…it was as if my whole entire body was shaking….like my internal organs were beginning to shift away from their normal places…..ahhh, I was going to die….

「I-I give-…」

「Aah!? Sorry!」

「Guee.」

Because I was let go of so suddenly, I fell down and flopped to the floor. Not moving, I just lay there.

「Sukuna? Don’t die, SUUUUUUUKUUUUUUUUNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!」

No, I wasn’t dead, okay….

☆

Rising up, I told the concerned bartender that I was okay and that he didn’t need to worry about me. Since I was still unsteady on my feet, I sat on the floor.

Uummmm, it felt like I was still shaking.

「I-I’m sorry….」

「No…..it’s fine…」

「Aren’t you unsteady?….That’s right, Sukuna, come here.」

Saying that, she sat in seiza and beckoned me to place my head on her thighs. Basically, she was positioned to give me a lap pillow. (9: seiza, is when you sit on your knees on the floor or something, just google it)(Cassie: It’s kneeling on the floor with both legs tucked under you)

I did what she said. Using her thighs as a pillow, I could feel a soft sensation enveloping the back of my head. It honestly felt really good.

Hmmmm, a lap pillow should really be called a thigh pillow, right? I wonder why it was called a lap pillow?

「The Kishin-sama that I met that time copied my body (utsushimi) as a temporary form.」

「I-I see. I’m kind of happy, yet kind of disappointed…..So, in the end, Sukuna also doesn’t really know much.」

「I have no idea what she looks like at all.」

At that time, Shuten had copied my avatar down to the finest detail, to the point of looking like a mirror image of myself, so I had no idea how she really looked.

What I did understand, though, was how to reach that place.

Wait. Thinking about it properly, I wondered how Kohaku planned to release Shuten from her seal. I was given directions from Shuten about it, but Kohaku shouldn’t have met her.

「Now that I think about it, you mentioned reviving Kishin-sama….about that, do you have any ideas? 」

「I do have one…..Do you know why the God of Creation sealed Kishin-sama?」

「I have no clue.」

「One time, Kishin-sama let her anger consume herself, and she destroyed three human countries, reducing them to scorched, barren lands. According to one theory, a bad human had stolen something important to her. This was before she became a god, while she was still just a normal kijin.」

Kohaku, who sort of destroyed her village, and Shuten, who destroyed three whole countries…didn’t kijin seem to have too much trouble handling their emotions?

「From the other side of the edge of the world, the God of Creation saw this violence…..Right now, according to the tales inherited through kijins, she is sealed at what is now called 《Forest of the Edge》. Which means….」

「There is a clue at the Forest of the Edge, is it?」

「That’s right.」

I see, the kijin had been properly informed that Shuten was sealed at the Forest of the Edge.

Perhaps this was how the story route was supposed to go; first, gathering information from NPCs like Kohaku, and then aiming for the shrine at the Forest of the Edge.

「Kishin-sama also told me to go to the Forest of the Edge, I think.」

「I see, as I thought, the legends were true.」

「What I was told was this――」

To Kohaku, who put her hand to her chin in thought, I told her as much as possible about what I knew.

That you needed to search for the shrine at the Forest of the Edge. That you needed to be at least over level 50. That the ornate hairpin fixing up my hair would act as a key to the world called the Underworld, and that there seemed to be strong enemies in the Underworld.

「To get through the Underworld, I know I’m not enough by myself. I think that I would absolutely need Kohaku’s help.」

「…..Haha, you are the light that pierced through the muddy darkness clouding my path. The dream that I had given up on, to think that I could see it again.」

While Kohaku said that, she tilted her head down, a bit of a smile on her face.

「For now, this, the power of the strongest kijin, shall I entrust to you. For the purpose of releasing Kishin-sama from her seal.」

「Yeah, me too. To make Kohaku’s dream to come true, and for my own goals, I’ll do my best.」

What was important were the mutual benefits involved. Rather than doing free volunteer work, this was a contract we could both believe in.

The promise exchanged between me and Kohaku, it was that kind of thing.

After all, it had only been a few hours since we had officially met each other.

「Sukuna. After this, could I have a bit of your time?」

「I’m totally fine with that, but what’s the matter?」

After paying the tab, and before leaving, Kohaku called out to me.

「Sukuna, you have the《Unarmed Combat》 skill, right? I was thinking of teaching you the 《Dance of the Oni (Oni no Mai)》 」

「Oni no Mai?」

Hearing my curiosity, Kohaku had a fierce smile as she said this:

「It’s what Kishin-sama left behind, a martial art that only kijin can handle.」

☆

「Phew…..it kind of feels like every day is just too eventful…..」

Several hours later.

After a severe training session with Kohaku, I finished gaming and returned to reality.

Rin-chan was still playing. I considered making some meals, but I was kind of incapable of making any professional meals.

「That’s right, let’s take a look at the BBS.」

Since I had nothing to do for a while, I decided to open the official BBS of WLO.

As long as you had your player ID you could take a look at it from any device. Of course, you could look at it while inside the game, but that feature was limited only to safe zones like towns.

As for why I decided to take a look, it was because actually, the whole time I was talking with Kohaku, I hadn’t stopped streaming.

Obviously the number of comments decreased as I stopped responding, but there were more watchers compared to when I had first entered the Forest of Magic, and my stream had even entered the Top 10 category of stream rankings.

Since I figured that information would be leaked eventually, I thought I might as well just share the info.

「Let’s see, kijin……ah, found it, I found it, the exclusive BBS.」

There were a lot racial options in WLO, but the ratio of humans to the other races was 40%, which was extremely unbalanced.

The remaining percentages were distributed like this: 30% beastkin, 10% elf, and the last 20% were all the other races combined. This was because of how specialized the abilities of races other than elves, beastkin, and humans were.

For example, whereas kijin are biased towards physical stats, fairies specialized in magic. Dwarves, on the other hand, were the best at smithing amongst the crafter races, and halflings were better with handicrafts.

Because your playstyle would become rather limited the moment you chose one of those kinds of races, a lot of people chose the three races that had more freedom.

By the way, although I lumped them together into the beastkin group, there was a wide variety of animals to choose from and they were actually considered different races. This was one of the reasons why demihumans had such large numbers.

Now then, what I was trying to say was this.

That the number of kijin players didn’t even amount to 5% of the total player population of WLO. They were a minority even amongst its minority races.

Since there weren’t many people who played as them, then there would be something like an exclusive BBS for them.

「Ahaaー…..as I thought.」

It was as expected.

The kijin-exclusive thread was really getting fired up over the contents of my stream.

Around the time I met Kohaku, the number of posts had significantly increased, so that was likely what they were talking about.

「Ah, this kind of cliche sure is interesting.」

To me, who hadn’t really been on a BBS before, even before I went through its contents my attention was grabbed by its layout and style. Before sharing my first post, I spent thirty minutes on it.