Deadline Is Raining in the Status Window - Chapter 272

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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After resolving the final task and completing the main story, I found myself dealing with all manner of unreasonable demands. I floated upside-down with my legs crossed, continuing to assess the situation.
“So Cha Cha really is Ursula’s sore spot, isn’t he?”
While I’d neglected the other children’s upbringing, I’d lavished attention on Cha Cha alone. Dr. MacDwell harbored some unresolved feelings, so he indulged Cha Cha’s every whim. But as someone with connections to the other children, I felt a pang of sympathy for the Machine King, Serpent King, and the three Dragon Kings.
Perhaps that’s why I wanted to tease Cha Cha.
“But listen, Cha Cha.”
“Huh?”
“What if I kissed you, but you couldn’t return home?”
Cha Cha’s face drained of color, then flushed crimson, cycling through every hue imaginable.
It was a possibility Cha Cha had never considered. He’d simply planned to force a situation to get a kiss from me, but what if I didn’t love him enough for him to return to land? What if he had to stay here forever? No—worse than that, he’d taken it for granted that I loved him, and now he was spiraling into panic.
“Wait, Evan—you don’t like me?”
“I’m speaking hypothetically. I might not love you as much as you’d like.”
“What do you mean? I never even thought about that.”
Cha Cha’s face crumpled. So right now, there was a possibility I didn’t like him? Was that why I was speaking so coldly—because I could predict the outcome? What if I really didn’t like him? What would happen if the kiss proved it?
Cha Cha’s breath caught in his throat, and the world spun before his eyes. It was absurd. He felt like crying. The thought that the person he loved might not love him as much in return was truly terrifying. He wanted to flee this place immediately.
“Waaaah! Evan, you’re a stupid idiot! I’m not kissing you!”
Familiar with the spacecraft’s layout, Cha Cha opened the door and stormed out.
Pretending to reflect on whether I’d teased him too harshly, I spoke candidly to my companions who’d traveled with me.
“About the way home—I think there might be a method that doesn’t require me to kiss Cha Cha.”
“Go ahead and spill it, you troublemaker.”
“If we count affection as love, couldn’t I kiss Kanna and leave?”
The moment I finished speaking, Kanna began hiccupping. She tried to say something between gasps, but the timing of her words, her stammering, and her hiccups aligned so perfectly that she couldn’t manage a single coherent sound.
“Do you love Kanna?”
“If we count deeply caring for someone as a friend as love, then isn’t it love?”
“That’s… just another way of saying you’re insane.”
It was something Reina had long known—that I was insane—but she felt compelled to say it again. It was like gathering momentum for her next outburst.
“Who kisses their friends, you lunatic!”
“If just touching lips counts as a kiss, I think I could manage it.”
“Hic! Hic-hic! Hic!”
“Ugh! Gross! Insane! You disgusting maniac!”
If Kanna would just consent, I’d press my lips against hers. As I spoke without a shred of shame, Kanna’s hiccups accelerated.
Since verbal responses seemed impossible, I decided to try another approach.
“If you agree with my proposal, nod your head.”
“Heeee! Ack! Hic! Hic-hic!”
Kanna nodded. I cupped her face in both hands. Reina screamed and begged to be let out of this room.
“Smack.”
My lips touched Kanna’s lightly and withdrew. Nothing happened in the Dungeon.
“I suppose affection doesn’t count.”
With those words, I collapsed forward. My skin cycled between purple and normal, a clear sign that Kanna’s poison and my universal poison immunity were clashing against each other.
“Are you insane?! Did you use a skill?!”
“K-Cha! K-Cha! Relax! Just relax!”
“If you tense up twice, I’ll kill you myself!”
Reina Letem quickly hoisted me onto her back and searched for an exit. When she’d seen the Underworld King in the underground, he’d been wearing white robes and throwing some kind of medicinal attack, so he might have been a doctor of sorts. Reina Letem punched straight through the titanium wall with her burning fists to save the King of Ten Thousand Demons from the Poison King.
Leaping over the wall that crackled and melted away, Reina Letem called out to the Underworld King, desperately appealing that I was dying. The ceiling of the corridor then opened, and Cha Cha poked his head through.
“Why is Evan suddenly dying? Are you lying to catch me?”
“Hey! Does this purple look like a lie to you?!”
“No! Evan, don’t die!”
Watching my skin shift colors like a chameleon, Cha Cha was startled and jumped down. With no gravity, the childlike adult easily took me from Reina Letem and floated toward the Medical Facility while carrying me.
The Dungeon faithfully recreated the interior of an old space station, so it had nearly every facility imaginable.
“How did it come to this?! Isn’t Evan supposed to have universal poison immunity?!”
“The truth is, this cursed assassin can create poisons that exceed universal immunity.”
Reina Letem proudly held up Kanna, who was sobbing.
“Why?!”
“Because Evan appointed her as the Poison King.”
“That can’t be!”
The opponent was the Poison King he’d only heard about in rumors. Since even Kanna didn’t know which poison had affected me, Cha Cha had only one option available.
“Let’s boost skill immunity! We have no choice but to trust Evan’s natural healing!”
Cha Cha fluttered his white coat and pulled out an experimental solution, blending it with other nutrients to create an IV drip. When he tried to insert the needle into my vein, it snapped with a sharp crack.
“Why is Evan so tough?!”
“L-Let me try!”
Kanna, who was both the Poison King and the Assassination King, cut off a strand of my hair, twisted it carefully, and sterilized it. The idea was that if it was part of my body, it might pierce my own skin—a method only Kanna, who possessed the skill to pierce human flesh with hair, could accomplish.
“I-It went in! The needle!”
“What is this purple thing doing?!”
“I have no idea. A monster, that’s all.”
The gorilla monster who could pierce titanium alloy with bare hands called another monster a monster. Everyone around me is a monster. Cha Cha made a mental note never to provoke me again.
When had he first made that vow? It was when my friends stormed into the Underworld. Even then, that purple monster was a monster. Cha Cha sank into nostalgia.
“Evan will be fine now. Because Evan can’t possibly die!”
Cha Cha spouted sophistry, but Kanna and Reina Letem accepted it. Evan could get sick, but she couldn’t die. With the nutrients already hooked up, she’d recover. The two took a breath and headed to the Dining Hall that Cha Cha guided them to. The pink-haired childlike adult retrieved water bottles and space rations from the refrigerator and handed them over.
“Open the solid food and eat it with a spoon. For the soup types, tear open the package and it’ll warm up in three minutes.”
“T-That’s amazing.”
“What kind of Dungeon has a place serving food?”
“Well… it’s modeled after a space station?”
When Reina Letem asked why a space station would need to exist in space, Cha Cha explained the era when Mother was actively managing climate control. Back then, there were so many artificial satellites and so many abandoned ones that multiple space stations were necessary to repair and retrieve them.
“I thought maybe the Old Humanity traveled to other planets too.”
“Terraforming costs astronomical amounts, and there’s not much to gain from it. It’s not easy to venture beyond planets because of space debris either.”
That money was better spent launching climate control satellites. That’s how the Ursu series was born.
Cha Cha went on at length about ancient history, but Reina Letem couldn’t understand any of it. She simply finished her meal and deliciously ate the banana-flavored solid ration dessert.
“We can’t stay here forever. Why don’t we hurry up and kiss, then clean up?”
“Evan is lying right there! You can’t kiss someone without permission while they’re sleeping!”
“Then if I wake Evan up first, I can do it?”
“That’s….”
This was going to take a while. Reina Letem ate her banana-flavored dessert while worrying about the consequences this situation would bring.
Reina herself didn’t care whether she disappeared for a few days or vanished for a year—home was home. Kanna was probably the same way, but as the head of the Assassination Company, she’d send people after her in about two weeks.
The real problem was Evan Laef. If Evan Laef, dispatched by imperial order, went silent for even a few days, the Emperor with those abyssal eyes would paint the world in chaos while searching for her.
Reina suspected it was because of a skill, but even before all of humanity became mana users, Cecilia had possessed the talent to render others utterly helpless. Now that Emperor Cecil wielded mana, even Reina felt her breath catch whenever she stood before her. A suffocating dread and terror seized her—as if defying a command would summon death itself. And Evan Mitchell had transformed that already terrifying woman into a monster.
“Evan, you should find another way to handle this.”
When Gerth had ordered it, Reina had heard the rough details while Evan Laef was doing her nationwide apology tour, but she’d often lamented whether there couldn’t have been a better solution. The Emperor’s power had grown far too immense. Evan Laef had always cursed about authoritarian regimes, but now the Emperor’s unilateral rule had begun with the nobility’s opinions completely disregarded.
“Just kiss her already and get it over with!”
“This gorilla doesn’t have a shred of delicacy! If Evan really comes to hate me because of you, are you taking responsibility?!”
“Hey, how did you even know I’m a gorilla!”
“Evan told me!”
“Evan Mitchell, you bastard!”
“Don’t wake Evan up! Evan is in pain!”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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