I Reincarnated Into a Healing Game… and It’s a Zombie Apocalypse?! - Chapter 98

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 98

Ash was smiling gently, but his eyes were as cold as the Siberian Steppe.

Caught in the tense standoff between the two men, Nana kept her mouth tightly shut and fidgeted with her flower crown.

It was like sitting on a bed of thorns.

“But Adrien. What happened to your ankle?”

Ash’s eyes stopped at Nana’s feet. Looking at the bandaged area, Ash’s expression drooped like a sad puppy.

“You even have bandages on… Where did you get hurt?”

“Oh, it’s nothing serious. I just twisted my foot a bit.”

“It’s not nothing. Does it interfere with walking? Does it hurt a lot?”

“I’m really fine. It’ll get better if I rest a bit.”

“That’s such a relief. I thought you were seriously injured somewhere and my heart dropped.”

Ash let out a sigh of relief and brushed his chest, then met Nana’s gaze and spoke in the gentlest voice in the world.

“It’s okay if you can’t dance, so don’t push yourself at all. I don’t want you dancing while you’re hurt either. Just staying by my side during the festival is enough.”

His smile with drooping eyes like a puppy was exactly like a large dog.

Perhaps that’s why.

Ishanka’s voice that suddenly interjected felt eerily heavy and sunken.

“That won’t happen.”

“Hm? What won’t?”

Ash pretended not to know and asked back. Ishanka stepped forward and closed the distance with Ash. Once again, tense tension filled the air.

“I said Nana won’t be dancing with you.”

Ishanka’s low voice was filled with hostility. However, Ash didn’t back down.

“Hmm. I wonder? Isn’t that something for Adrien to decide, not for a mere employee to interfere with?”

“…”

“Right, Adrien?”

Nana, caught between the two men, was flustered.

The gentle Ash she once had feelings for, and Ishanka who was obsessed with her for reasons unknown.

Others might envy her for having two suitors, but as the person involved, Nana just felt a headache coming on.

“Right, take this, Adrien. You have to drink it while it’s fresh for it to taste good.”

Ash ignored Ishanka and held out a milk bottle to Nana. As Nana hesitantly reached out her hand, Ishanka intercepted and snatched the milk bottle.

“I’ll check it first.”

“Haha, what? Are you worried I poisoned it?”

Ash laughed cheerfully, but his eyes still weren’t smiling at all. Ishanka also met that gaze without backing down in the slightest.

“It’s also my job to keep pests away from Nana.”

The two men’s gazes clashed like sparks flying. In the atmosphere that seemed like a fight would break out any moment, Nana finally couldn’t stand it and stood up abruptly.

“I can’t watch this uncomfortable situation. I’ll go inside first, so please reach an amicable agreement between yourselves.”

Then Ash immediately backed down.

“Sorry Nana, I won’t do it again…”

He looked at Nana’s expression with drooping eyes as if nothing had happened.

Nana felt a strange sensation.

In the past, her heart would have melted at that expression.

Ash was her favorite and target character from when she started the game, and he was actually someone she had feelings for while they were getting close.

But now, even seeing that dejected large dog-like expression, she felt no particular emotion. Far from excitement, just a dry observation that the person looked a bit down.

Rather, what Nana was concerned about was something else.

“Please stay seated. Moving your injured foot too much will make it worse.”

Ishanka gently guided Nana back to sit on the sofa. When his low sigh touched her ear, Nana’s heart began to beat irregularly.

‘Why am I like this?’

Heat rushed to her face instantly and her chest pounded. Clearly her rational mind defined him as just a worker, but her heart seemed to be calling him a lover.

An unknown, unfamiliar emotion surged like a massive wave and swallowed Nana whole.

Ash’s expression hardened as he noticed the strange current flowing between the two. Just as he was about to part his lips to confront something he couldn’t bear.

“Ash Miller! You said you’d be right back, what are you doing here!”

A thunderous shout echoed from beyond the fence. The three people, startled, turned their heads simultaneously to see Mrs. Laura standing there with her hands on her hips, glaring fiercely.

“Did you forget today is butter-making day?! There’s a mountain of milk piled up and you have time to chat? Let’s make a bet whether your arms will survive or the milk will spoil first!”

“No, no! I was just about to go!”

“If you don’t finish everything before sunset, you’ll go without dinner!”

The man who had been having a power struggle with Ishanka was nowhere to be found, leaving only a son being scolded by his mother.

Ash hurriedly said goodbye with a tearful face.

“I’m going. Adrien, we’ll see each other at the festival, right? For sure!”

As soon as Ash disappeared, Ishanka picked up the milk bottle on the table and began drinking the milk straight from the bottle without hesitation.

“Ugh! What are you doing?!”

Gulp, gulp. His adam’s apple bobbed greatly as he tilted his head back. A drop of white milk flowing down the corner of his mouth and sliding down his sharp jawline looked strangely wild and sensual.

Nana unconsciously forgot to stop him and swallowed dry saliva.

“I was checking if there was anything harmful in it.”

“Ch-checking what! You drank it all!”

“The milk turned out to be quite rich as I drank it.”

“…”

Nana’s mouth fell open at his shameless attitude. But Ishanka didn’t care and put down the empty bottle with a thud, calmly driving the point home.

“Don’t even look at anything that bastard brings from now on. Drinking it is absolutely out of the question.”

“Why are you really like this? You two should be strangers to each other, so why are you so desperate to devour Ash? He’s just a friend.”

“A friend?”

Ishanka let out a hollow laugh as if incredulous and knelt at Nana’s feet again. Gripping the loose end of the bandage, he spoke as if spitting out the words.

“Who in the world looks at a friend with those eyes?”

“What kind of eyes?”

“The eyes of a male desperate to devour someone.”

Ishanka’s light purple eyes persistently bore into Nana.

“I told you, didn’t I? That I wouldn’t just stand by and watch other men sniffing around you.”

No matter how much she thought about it, she couldn’t understand why this man was so hostile to others, or why he was so obsessed with her when he was supposed to be just a worker.

Nana looked out the window as if trying to cool her confused mind.

The May sunlight was particularly hot.

* * *

A week later.

The village was bustling in preparation for the festival. People were running around everywhere in the town square and streets, hanging decorations, moving flowers, and tying cloth.

Among the people, Nana was organizing strings to hang glass lanterns for the festival. In the process, she accidentally stepped backward and caught her foot on a glass lantern that hadn’t been cleared away.

Nana tried to dodge to the side to avoid knocking over the lantern, but her feet got tangled in the process.

“Ah.”

Just as her vision shook greatly and her body was about to fall backward, someone quickly caught her waist as she was about to crash to the ground and pulled her into their arms.

“Be careful. You almost got seriously hurt.”

A low baritone voice fell from above her head—it was Ishanka.

“Oh, y-yes. Thank you. You saved my life…”

Nana answered hastily. When his deep body scent hit her nose, her heart sank.

As Nana hurriedly turned her head to hide her inexplicably flushing face, she caught sight of fragments scattered on the ground. It seemed that one lantern had fallen and shattered while she was dodging.

“Oh dear, Uncle Tom said those glass lamps were made to exact count and it would take time to get more…”

Still, at least no one got hurt.

Just as Nana was about to look away with that thought, her movement stopped.

Red blood was dripping from Ishanka’s hand that was holding her.

“Isha! Your hand is bleeding!”

“Ah. I felt something brush against me earlier, it must have been glass.”

Ishanka glanced down indifferently at his bleeding hand.

“Let’s treat it first. The wound might get infected.”

“Scratches like this heal on their own if left alone. Don’t worry about it.”

“What are you saying! When a worker gets injured, it’s the employer’s responsibility…”

Just as she was about to press further with those words, a sense of déjà vu washed over her as unfamiliar memory fragments overlapped the scene before her eyes.

“Don’t you know that a farmer’s body is their lifeline? What if you dismiss it as a small wound and it gets seriously infected later?!”

“But I…”

“An injured worker is the employer’s responsibility, so stay still. If you keep refusing, I’ll tie you down somewhere to treat you.”

‘What is this memory?’

It was definitely something she had never experienced, yet strangely it didn’t feel unfamiliar.

Incomprehensible fragments of memory rushed in like waves, scrambling her thoughts. It was then that Nana, unable to overcome the confusion, began to stagger.

Crackle.

Sparks flew through the air and her vision began to distort irregularly. A System Message appeared in the twisted void, as if viewed through a broken window.

【 Welcome to the Hidden Dungeon… 】

【 Dungeon Quest progre…ss… 】

【 @#$^… Unknown interference detected… System is… 】

The randomly appearing text windows crumbled like grains of sand with a thunderous roar. Her entire field of vision was covered with gray noise and static.

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