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[Translator - Tangrine ]
[Proofreader - Seeker ]
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Chapter - 15: A Lucky Day
“If I had to describe this girl’s life with a tag… it’d be something like hated Potion.”
“Like a love potion?”
“Something like that. But far more malicious and terrible.”
The Hated Potion, Zara.
The second ruin of Endless.
That causes despair in players who manage to avoid the ending caused by the ‘Witch of Suicide.’
“Zara… is hated by the world. People, beasts, disease, fate… everything is unbearably harsh to her.”
“So she destroys the world? Because she hates this cruel world?”
“No.”
“Huh?”
“The world hates Zara, but Zara loves the world. If you asked who the kindest person in this world is, it would probably be Zara.”
“…Can someone like that be hated?”
“That’s the cruel twist. A kind person is hated without reason.”
Zara is a kind, gentle, and compassionate person.
She’s full of consideration and enjoys helping others.
No matter what’s done to her, Zara forgives.
She’s a girl with a personality so lovable, it’s impossible to hate her.
Because of that, most players who first meet Zara want to help her, feeling she doesn’t deserve the harsh treatment she receives.
Zara quickly opens her heart to the player.
And then the world ends.
“…What?”
“Zara is a girl who takes on all the misfortune of this world. Biblically speaking… she’s a scapegoat. A poor sacrifice bearing the suffering of others.”
“……”
“The moment she becomes happy, all the misfortunes she bore are released. Some are minor but terrible enough to destroy the world.”
At first, the released misfortunes seem manageable.
The player spares no effort to protect this ‘innocent’ scapegoat, working to stop the sins unleashed on the world.
But how could Abraham stop the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah alone?
In the end, the world is destroyed just because one girl found happiness.
“That’s just… too cruel.”
“Yes. It is cruel.”
Zara can’t be saved.
Realizing this, the player starts avoiding her, keeping their distance so they won’t raise her affection.
But no matter what, the player inevitably runs into Zara.
And if the player doesn’t treat her cruelly.
Zara ends up liking them.
All because of that one small kindness.
Like fate.
“Can you imagine what happens after that?”
“Something horrible, I’m sure.”
Eventually, the player also becomes like everyone else who hates Zhara.
They begin to harass her, insult her, and abuse her without reason.
To prevent the world from ending, this innocent girl must suffer endlessly.
The executioners of that punishment are all the sinners, including the player.
“Well, it'd be nice if that were the end of it… but another problem pops up afterward.”
The player torments the innocent girl.
But if it really stopped the end of the world, maybe it could be rationalized.
But that’s not how this world works.
A righteous hero who refuses to forgive the ‘sinners who tormented an innocent girl’ might decide to destroy the world in retribution.
“Anyway, it’s a real garbage game.”
Endless is a garbage game.
From start to finish, it's filled with elements designed purely to hurt the player.
It makes you get attached to an NPC, only to force you to hurt them with your own hands.
The developers of Endless don’t have human hearts.
Maybe they’re just too human in the worst way possible.
“The only people who’d enjoy this game are masochists who like to suffer.”
“Want me to hit you?”
“Unless you want to see a garter-belted Gigachad with a whip, shut up.”
“Yes, sir.”
=======
It was a beautiful day.
Birds were singing, flowers blooming. The sun was so bright, it almost hurt to look at.
A perfect day to be run over by a carriage.
Crash!
The carriage hit the girl's body.
Because of the dazzling sunlight, the coachman didn’t see the girl.
"Tsk! What bad luck."
The coachman merely clicked his tongue in annoyance and moved on.
His passenger’s status was far too noble to be delayed over some filthy beggar.
And so, the girl was left behind.
From the gathering crowd.
“Tch tch. Can’t even watch where she’s going?”
“Ugh, move it! Damn beggar just lying in the street like a nuisance.”
“At this rate, someone’s going to have to clean up her corpse. What a bother.”
The scorn was utterly undeserved.
The girl was clearly the victim, and the fault lay with the coachman who hadn’t been watching the road.
But no one stood up for her.
No citizen was willing to reach out a hand to a beggar.
Any respectable person wouldn’t waste their time on something so insignificant.
A moment later, the girl who’d been hit by the carriage stood up.
She brushed the dust off her ragged clothes, then smiled brightly to herself and muttered.
“Heheh… I didn’t get hurt too badly today.”
Getting run over by carriages or caught in sudden accidents was a part of her daily life.
Today was a lucky day.
She could still walk.
Her bones hadn’t been crushed under the wheels.
That alone was more than enough to count as good fortune.
“See? I’m lucky.”
Grinning to herself, the girl, Zara, cheerfully got back on her feet and continued walking.
A little later, while crossing a bridge over the town’s river, she spotted a child playing
dangerously atop the narrow railing.
The child was walking on the narrow railing with his arms outstretched.
And then his balance slipped.
His arms flailed wildly as his body started to fall.
“Hey! Watch out!”
Zara sprang into action.
She leapt over the railing, caught the boy with one hand, and gripped the edge of the bridge with the other.
With strength that seemed impossible for such a small girl, she pulled the child up.
But just as she was about to pull herself back up.
Chomp!
The boy bit her hand.
“Ack?!”
Her grip slipped. And Zara fell.
Splash.
The river was foul.
If filth and plague had a home, this river would be it.
Soaked to the bone and stinking of rot, Zara dragged herself to shore.
“Hack—cough! I’m glad the kid’s safe. I am so lucky…”
And yet—her trials weren’t over.
Later, she found a store on fire and threw herself into the flames to put it out.
She leapt between a rampaging mercenary’s sword and a defenseless elder.
She was burned. She was stabbed.
All in the name of helping others.
But her kindness was never repaid.
“You pushed my boy off the bridge, didn’t you?! How dare a filthy beggar—”
The mother of the boy she’d saved slapped her across the face.
“Thanks to your filthy water, I can’t sell my goods anymore!”
The shopkeeper, whose store she saved from burning down, lashed her with a whip.
“Tch. Next time I see you, you’re dead.”
She was beaten. She was cursed. She was ignored.
But Zara still thought of herself as lucky.
“Heheh… I can still walk, at least…”
After a miserable day, Zara trudged back to what she called home.
It wasn’t much of a home—more like a pile of rotting planks barely shielding her from the wind.
Truthfully, calling it ‘homelessness’ would’ve been more accurate.
She lay down on the hard ground.
As she stared at the rotten plank above her, and muttered to herself.
“Today was a lucky day. I got hit by a carriage, but I didn’t get hurt too badly. So I could help that kid on the bridge. If I hadn’t been able to walk, he would’ve fallen… So I’m really glad.”
She reeked of sewage.
“Because I fell into the river, my clothes were soaked, and I could use that to put out the fire. If it had spread, it would’ve been dangerous for everyone.”
The burns on her arm throbbed.
“I really am… a lucky person.”
She was one of the unluckiest people alive.
“At least I can still sleep under this roof. I feel safe because I know it’ll be okay even if the dew falls in the morning.”
As soon as she finished talking to herself, the rotten plank collapsed.
A loose plank came crashing down and struck her face like it had aimed for her.
Groaning in pain, Zara stared through the gaping hole above.
“…Wow. The stars are beautiful tonight. If not for the broken roof, I’d have missed such a lovely sky.”
She gazed at the stars for a long, long time.
As the cold seeped in through the broken ceiling, she shivered.
“…Still, it’d be nice if people were just a little kinder to me. Being alone gets… lonely.”
And just as she whispered that, a muscular man appeared before her.
Out of nowhere. Like a ghost.
-“Zappy, don’t fear loneliness. That’s what pussies do.”
“Kyah?! Who are you?!”
Zara flailed at him, but her hand passed through his body like mist.
-“I’m Gigachad. Your inner self. Your hidden potential.”
“…Aha. I’ve finally gone insane, haven’t I?”
Zara accepted this turn of events with a calm nod.
After all, she had terrible luck.
Going mad out of nowhere and seeing hallucinations was hardly unusual for her.
Maybe she’d eaten a poisonous mushroom or gotten cursed by a crazy witch.
“Maybe this was a good time to go crazy. I was getting a little tired of talking to myself. Heheh…Today really was a lucky day.”
==========
“…With luck that bad, how is she even still alive? Shouldn’t she have died ages ago?”
"She's a celestial being."
“…What?”
“Not just that. She’s got the Demon King’s bloodline, the Spirit Core, and the Star of Misfortune. She has all the talents that can kill people."
“…But she’s the kindest girl I’ve ever seen.”
“Exactly. For someone who’d never hurt anyone, those kinds of talents are just one more form of cruel misfortune.”
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[Translator - Tangrine ]
[Proofreader - Seeker ]
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