My name is Lu Mao. People used to always talk about how wonderful otherworlds were. If I hadn't been cornered in the starting village by demonized pigmen and killed eight times on my very first day, I might have actually believed them.
As he quietly chopped wood in the tavern's backyard, Lu Mao reflected on his first few days in this otherworld. It seemed that aside from various agonizing memories of dying, there was barely anything else worth remembering.
And now, looking at his system interface which showed only three rollback attempts remaining, he couldn't help but feel a bit lost.
【Host, I will now tell you in the most blunt, direct, and straightforward way: you must leave this place immediately and search for the Hero's party.】
【Successfully joining the Hero's party will grant you an additional rollback attempt.】
If Debao said to leave immediately, then there was no rush to leave.
“The Hero's party? What even is that? Can they compare to a Soul Transformation Stage powerhouse?”
Lu Mao dismissed the system's suggestion with disdain. He was already fully prepared to cling to a powerful thigh.
【Host, I will now tell you in the most blunt, direct, and straightforward way: though the Soul Transformation Stage is powerful, his motive for taking you in is highly suspicious.】
【If the host continues to stay here, you are highly likely to be dragged into unknown events.】
【According to the system's predictions, the Hero's party has already entered the eighth floor of the dungeon.】
【If you delay any longer, the probability of the host meeting the Hero's party will infinitely approach zero.】
This actually made Lu Mao begin to waver.
If he had the Nascent Soul of a Soul Transformation Stage powerhouse covering for him in this Western fantasy world, surely he wouldn't have to die anymore...
There was one time when he had been impaled through the abdomen by a demonized pigman's tusk. Suspended in midair, he had watched helplessly as his own intestines spilled out of the gaping wound, only to be chewed up mouthful by mouthful.
He hadn't died right away—the system had determined that abdominal impalement did not count as a fatal wound, so he lay on the ground, fully conscious.
When the first bite was taken, the sheer pain knocked him unconscious.
But the second bite woke him right back up.
He rolled back and forth between fainting and waking from the pain, completely helpless, able only to watch the pigman snout around, devouring the things it had ripped from his stomach.
After the rollback was triggered, he stood in the starting village completely unharmed, without a single scar on his body, as if nothing had ever happened.
Yet the sensation of his intestines being chewed between someone else's teeth from the moment before lingered—the temperature and angle of the tusk as it pierced him, the path it took from his back through his abdomen, were all vividly etched into his nerves.
With each rollback, his memories were not wiped. This was his most precious asset, but also his greatest terror.
Though he still had his life, he didn't want to die ever again.
If possible, even if he had to spend his whole life as an ordinary, powerless person working for the tavern owner, he would do it. He didn't want to go on adventures in this otherworld anymore.
But all of this was predicated on the tavern owner actually treating him well—if...
“Hey! What are you dazing off for? Hurry up and get to work, or I'll whip you!”
His train of thought interrupted, Lu Mao had no choice but to swing his axe in a wide arc and continue splitting wood.
Strange to say, after splitting seventeen or eighteen logs as thick as bowls in a row, his arms were only slightly sore.
Three days ago, he couldn't even finish a one-kilometer run in PE class. Yet now, he could swing a rusty axe and chop an entire pile of wood—something was off.
He looked down at the blisters on his palms. They were still there, but the popped ones had stopped bleeding, replaced instead by a thin layer of newly grown skin.
Was it the effect of that sip of wine?
“Just because your hands stopped doesn't mean your brain should too.”
Chen Jiu's indifferent voice drifted over from the back door. He held a coarse clay bowl in his hand. “Come eat when you're done. I have some instructions for you tonight.”
Lu Mao took the bowl. Inside was a dark, mushy glob of paste that looked highly suspicious.
To be honest, it looked a bit like runny dog crap.
Well, it smelled a bit like it too.
As for how it tasted... he didn't dare to try.
He looked up at Chen Jiu, but the man had already turned and walked away, the hem of his short robe vanishing past the doorframe.
What was that law again? If it looks like shit, smells like shit, and tastes like shit, then it is shit.
Lu Mao felt he was trapped in exactly this dilemma.
Now, this lump of “Schrödinger's crap” only needed a single bite to confirm its true nature.
“System, scan it.”
【Host, I will now tell you in the most blunt, direct, and straightforward way: this is not crap.】
Well, that was it. Since Debao put it that way, even if it wasn't crap, it probably wasn't much different.
He looked down at the bowl again, steeled himself, and used a spoon to dab a tiny bit into his mouth.
It was salty, with a hint of meatiness.
“Stop staring at it. It's not poisoned.”
From a corner of the backyard, Lumu called out as she stood beneath a withered tree, the tip of her tail drawing circles in the air. “The master spent a whole hour busy in the kitchen. Personally cooking for a newcomer—tsk, why don't I ever get that kind of treatment?”
There was a faint hint of jealousy in Lumu's tone.
Lu Mao didn't say anything. He picked up the bowl, his face contorted in hesitation.
Could this thing really be eaten?
Lu Mao stared at the dark, mushy glob in the bowl. He held his spoon over it, not daring to put it in his mouth for the longest time.
Its appearance was simply too hideous—so bad that it reminded him of the school cafeteria's “stir-fried mooncakes with tomatoes and dragon fruit” that had been mocked all over the internet.
At least with that dish, you could still make out the outlines of the tomatoes, dragon fruit, and mooncakes. With this bowl of stuff, you couldn't identify a single thing.
It looked as if someone had stewed some kind of meat, some kind of grain, and some unidentified black seasoning together in a pot, and then casually mashed it up with a rolling pin.
After a brief mental struggle, he finally began to tentatively shovel it into his mouth, bite by bite.
【Physique +1】
【Physique +1】
【Physique +1】
With every bite Lu Mao took, a system notification chimed.
【Detected that host's Physique has broken through the level limit. Current Level: LV2】
【Unlocked Passive: Rapid Healing (Basic)】
Wow, this is actually delicious!
Staring at the now-empty clay bowl, Lu Mao really wanted to shout—
Boss, another bowl!
But that was obviously impossible.
After reluctantly licking the last remaining trace from the bowl, Lu Mao suddenly noticed someone snickering at him.
He looked up guiltily and, sure enough, met Lumu's half-smiling eyes. The succubus leaned against the withered tree, the curve of her lips practically saying, “I saw everything, and I am definitely never letting you live this down.”
“Tastes good?”
“It was alright...”
Lu Mao placed the bowl back onto the stone platform, trying his best to make his movements look composed.
“Just alright? You licked the bowl so clean it's reflecting light.”
“I'm avoiding food waste! Haven't you ever heard that every single grain is the fruit of hard labor?”
Lumu tilted her head, clearly unfamiliar with the poem, but she didn't plan to press the matter further.
She straightened up from the withered tree and walked toward the tavern's back door. As she passed by Lu Mao, the tip of her tail brushed lightly against his shoulder, seemingly by accident.
“Let's go. The master is waiting for you in the front hall. Since you licked the bowl so clean, make sure you do a clean job of whatever he instructs you to do next.”
Lu Mao followed her through the back door and walked down the narrow corridor toward the front hall.
The lighting inside the tavern was as dim as ever, with the moss lamps overhead casting a soft, warm glow.
The front hall was empty; it seemed no new customers had arrived. Only the figure in the black-and-white short robe remained behind the bar counter.
Chen Jiu sat on a high stool, holding a polished, gleaming glass in his hand, with a roll of parchment spread out on the counter before him.
Hearing their footsteps, he didn't even look up.
“This map covers most of the information regarding the dungeon. While it might not be as reliable as your system, it still holds some reference value.
“Take it and go have a look around the ninth floor.”
“Go to the ninth floor? To do what?”
Having just received the parchment, the realization that he was being forced into another adventure made Lu Mao's heart tighten, and he couldn't help but ask.
“If the master tells you to go, you go. Why do you have so many questions?”
Lumu voiced her displeasure from the side.
To her, this guy who had mysteriously barged into the tavern seemed to hold slightly more importance in the boss's heart than she did.
It was rather annoying.
“A rather unusual adventurer party just entered the ninth floor from the eighth floor. I want you to see if you can infiltrate their ranks.”
The eighth floor? An adventurer party? Could it be the Hero's party the system mentioned?
Lu Mao's mind raced, though he kept his expression neutral.
But Chen Jiu was an old monster who had lived for countless years. Even though Lu Mao masked his reaction well, he was ultimately too young, and Chen Jiu caught the slight stiffness in his expression.
“Oh? It seems you know something. Did your system tell you?”
Rate on N.U.
