A sudden mutated creature.
Behemogigas hunt.
When the creature’s health bar hit zero, its entire body started to collapse, and then, it exploded with a “boom!” scattering chunks of flesh in all directions.
At the same time, maybe because the battle had ended, the third-person view screen in front of me and the joypad in my hands disappeared as well.
“Does it disappear when it’s not during battle…?”
I don’t know.
It was such a sudden ability that I couldn’t be sure of anything.
However, one thing was certain: thanks to this ability, we survived.
“Chanwoo-nim!”
“Levi…”
“W-What exactly happened…? Ah, no, first of all, thank you for saving me!”
In “Star’s Child,” it was mentioned that the survival rate of an individual android facing a Queen-level mutated creature was less than 1%.
Despite that, since I was unharmed, Levi, deciding that everything was over, immediately ran toward me.
Then, she bowed and thanked me.
“I thought it was all over! I expected to enter that mass of tentacles and meet a horrible end… but it’s all thanks to you, Chanwoo-nim!”
“No, even if you say that, I didn’t really do much…”
“What was that just now? My body moved on its own and, with movements I couldn’t usually make, I was able to defeat the Queen-level mutated creature in one shot!”
“Yeah. I controlled you during that.”
“Ooooh…! Does that mean Chanwoo-nim has the ability to control androids?”
Levi, now with the wide-eyed curiosity of a first-grader, looked at me with shining golden eyes.
I was wondering how to answer this.
It took me a moment to think, but I responded, “Ahem. Well, I guess you could say that?”
“Ooooh! That’s amazing! Chanwoo-nim!”
‘Honestly, if it was about ‘this ability,’ maybe, but as for the skill to control Levi, that was definitely my responsibility.’
‘Half of it was true, I had saved her, right?’
‘And since I didn’t want to be a ‘burden character’ who was constantly protected in an apocalypse world, I added a bit of a ‘white lie’ and called this mysterious ability my strength.’
“Humans are really amazing! I never thought a human could have such an ability!”
“Yeah, of course, you didn’t know.”
‘I didn’t know, either.’
‘I never imagined I had this ability.’
While Levi, who had been suddenly idolizing me, kept shining her eyes at me, I tried my best to act naturally and laughed awkwardly.
Then, Bubble bubble bubble
“Eh?”
“…Huh?!”
From the spot where the Behemogigas exploded without a trace, we unexpectedly got a reward.
***
“Is this… an Aestus kit?”
“Yeah, this is definitely an Aestus kit.”
There was no need to go through the trouble of moving the Behemogigas’ corpse now that the fight was over.
We didn’t have the technology to dissect it and craft equipment, and the disadvantage of mutated creatures was that they rotted quickly after death.
Excessive greed brings trouble.
As the saying goes, I decided not to pay attention to things that couldn’t be eaten.
So, with a sense of regret, I was about to leave, but then I wondered if Levi had hunted androids like her in the past.
We found other android bodies that had nearly melted away, scattered alongside the Behemogigas’ flesh.
Among them, we also found items that could be assumed to belong to the androids.
Especially the recovery-type items that would automatically recharge every time we arrived at a base or save point…
I had just gotten my hands on the “Aestus kit,” an item usually obtained during the tutorial.
“This… it says it can only be used three times since it was just replenished.”
“Then shouldn’t you save it?”
“Yeah, but since it automatically charges when resting at a base or save point, there’s no need to be too stingy with it.”
“Oh, I see.”
According to the setting in “Star’s Child,” the Aestus kit was only given to members of R.P.M’s 5th Division.
That means it was exclusive to the elite android unit, which was considered the best-performing among the androids.
So, outside of the androids from the 5th Division, the other players found the Aestus kit by chance during their adventures.
I never expected to acquire it in this way.
“This is the Aestus kit… this is the first time I’ve actually seen it!”
Levi, like a child discovering a new toy, kept her eyes shining brightly from earlier.
Today sure had a lot of surprising moments.
“I guess one of the androids that got eaten by the Behemogigas, a Queen-level mutated creature, was from the 5th Division.”
“Behemogigas? …Is that the name of this creature?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, that’s right.”
“…! Not only did you figure out every movement of the opponent, but you also saw through its true identity! As expected, Chanwoo-nim is the greatest human among humans! You’re amazing!”
‘What does ‘the greatest human among humans’ even mean?’
‘Is there some kind of higher level of human when it comes to androids?’
***
As we were heading back to the motel, Levi didn’t stop praising me like a little white dog.
Since I was the only human and had saved her once, it seemed like I had become some kind of divine being in her eyes.
“By the way, we still couldn’t find the solar panels today…”
“Haha… but, thanks to that, we were able to defeat the biggest enemy in the villa complex.”
“And I still feel bad that I couldn’t feed you deer meat, Chanwoo-nim.”
“Ah, right. Now that you mention it, we didn’t eat anything today…”
Grrrr.
‘Come to think of it, not only did we fail to find the solar panels, but we couldn’t even properly gather food for the day.’
‘Of course, we did get three Aestus kits, which could repair an android’s body, but it was still a bit disappointing.’
‘Plus, the growl of hunger I was hearing wasn’t even mine.’
‘Maybe it was because of all the calories I spent fighting that queen-class creature.’
It seemed like Levi, who had said she could go without food for more than three days, now had a beggar’s stomach, too.
“…! I’m, I’m sorry…”
“Haha. No, it’s fine. After moving so much, it’s actually weirder that you’re still fine.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Androids were ultimately made based on humans, right? So, it’s just a natural biological phenomenon.”
“Biological phenomenon…”
“By the way, is it really okay to head back to the base like this?”
‘We hadn’t eaten yesterday, and now we were starving again today.’
‘If we kept going like this until tomorrow, Levi would be in trouble, and I would probably collapse from exhaustion and fall into a bad condition.’
That means it would be great if we could find something to eat on the way to the motel…
“Nibble nibble nibble.”
‘…Nibble nibble?’
That’s when I heard it.
A sound like something was being chewed next to me.
I turned my head to look.
“…Levi, what are you eating?”
“Mushrooms, Chanwoo-nim.”
Levi had already picked mushrooms and was eating them.
I had no idea when she had gathered so many while walking, but she had piled mushrooms up on her chest and was happily savoring them.
“Even so, eating them raw is a bit… Why don’t you wait a bit and clean them at the motel before eating?”
‘Is it because she’s an android that she doesn’t mind unwashed microbes or something?’
‘Come to think of it, in games, eating raw mushrooms doesn’t raise hunger much, as long as they’re not poisonous.’
And unless it’s a poisonous mushroom, you don’t really get food poisoning either.
“Nibble nibble. Chomp chomp. Nibble nibble.”
By the way, she was eating so deliciously.
If we were on Earth in real life, Levi could definitely be a mukbang YouTuber.
I wasn’t sure if it was because I was so hungry right now, but seeing Levi eat raw mushrooms made my own mouth water.
‘So, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to try one, right?’
I figured she had gathered so many anyway.
Thinking it was okay to grab one from the mushrooms piled on her chest…
Slap!
“?!”
“……”
I reached out, but then?
“Le, Levi?”
“You can’t eat it.”
Levi swiftly smacked my hand away as it was about to get close to her chest.
It wasn’t a big physical hit, but mentally, it was quite a shock.
It felt like the first time a child who usually followed me around refused to take a bath with me.
‘Is it because I didn’t ask for permission and tried to take it without asking?’
I thought I must have been wrong.
I quickly planned to apologize for trying to take the mushroom without asking.
But then, something else came out of her mouth, something that made me feel even worse.
“I still don’t know if the mushrooms are safe.”
“…Huh?”
“So, I’ve been possessing ‘Gimisanggung,’ as you mentioned, to taste-test them.”
‘What the heck.’
‘Does that even mean?’
‘So, if I summarize Levi’s words:’
‘She was basically saying that she still doesn’t know whether the mushrooms she was eating are safe, and that she’s been testing them by possessing her body and consuming them.’
‘She was literally testing them on herself.’
“Le, Le, Levi?! What are you doing?!”
I heard something shocking.
She was eating so naturally, like she was chewing on snacks, I thought they were edible mushrooms.
But looking closely, I could see that some of the mushrooms she had eaten had bright, poisonous-looking spots.
“You’re going to die if you keep this up?!”
“Don’t worry. That’s what the Aestus kit is for, right?”
“No, even so…!”
The Aestus kit is only for rebooting androids whose functions have stopped working.
That means even if the toxins in her body are cleared, she’d still feel the pain from things like stomach aches or headaches.
‘Is she really fearless?!’
As I was desperately thinking about how to fix this, I suddenly heard:
“…Ugh! Ugh!”
“Levi!”
Levi, who had been holding all the mushrooms in her arms, dropped them to the ground and began to groan in pain.
“My, my chest… my chest…!”
She was breathing heavily, clutching her full breasts with both hands, as if in agony.
She was rubbing her chest so intensely that her battle suit even got damaged.
Then, as if reaching her limit, she finally stopped and…
Gulp.
“It’s bad! Chanwoo-nim! Something strange is coming out from around my areola!”
“Oh.”
Food that can satisfy both hunger and thirst.
She started spilling white, android-made breast milk everywhere.
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