[Bonus Chapter] 21 - Chapter 02 Despair

"I survived…"

Amoura sat on the dark floor while breathing heavily, caught in disbelief from what had just happened. When she was trapped in the castle by those lunatics, she was shocked to find that they started to argue about how they were going to kill her!

That giant woman was trying to convince the others to let her take Amoura to her castle and torture her, while the man with the hat wanted to torture her in a show-like manner. Finally, the woman named Mother Miranda did something that absolutely shocked Amoura. She spread apart 4 pairs of black wings along her back and declared that the man with the hat could kill her however he wanted.

Amoura was desperately panicked by this, and when the man began to start making a countdown, Amoura's heart raced again.

Looking around, she was surrounded by zombies and there was only one way to escape. When the man's count reached 4 seconds, Amoura didn't think any further on whether it was the right decision and jumped into the only hole behind her. With the countdown reaching zero, the zombies started running after her, and Amoura accelerated even more at the speed she was running.

Since her hands were tied, she couldn't fight these monsters, and at that moment, louder than the noise of the zombies trying to devour her, the noise of her heart in her chest was beating so hard that she was afraid of having a heart attack.

Apparently this path had already been made perfectly for her to escape and continue her journey, since the whole rest of the place was full of traps. Fortunately, just when she thought she had no way to continue her escape, Amoura found a small space and took cover as a chainsaw came flying towards her.

Thinking quickly, she used the saw to cut through the metal bar that held her wrists and was finally set free. Now, without the noise of zombies or any of the lunatics talking, Amoura understood that maybe they thought that she had died.

The only thing she could think of at the moment was: "I survived?!"

Her heart was almost bursting out of her mouth from the panic she felt. The realism of this game, with the frightening way that those people, or monsters more like, were acting made Amoura really scared.

"I need a break…" she said as she continued to sit on the floor to calm down.

After considering her situation for a while, Amoura felt she needed a break and logged out of the game.

[WTF, I almost fell out of my chair with worry!]

[Amoura, are you okay?!]

[I need some water!]

[My heart is beating fast!]

Not only was Amoura shocked, but the viewers of her livestream were also shocked by what had just happened.

As Chapter 01 of the game was basically a calmer and more peaceful place, players and viewers had gradually gotten used to it, but when they arrived at the castle and saw such a sudden change of pace, many people could not keep up and were in shock!

The unluckiest streamers had lost their saves on 'Insane' mode because they didn't realize they had to race the man in the hat's countdown and had died. Others didn't take the opportunity like Amoura to break their shackles and continued to have their hands stuck in the metal, having to leave the castle unprotected. Fortunately, as soon as they left the castle, the game returned to its former calm.

Amoura, who had rested for 15 minutes, had finally calmed down and logged back into the game. When she walked out of the castle with a shotgun in her hand and finally stepped onto the white snow on the village floor, she was finally able to relax.

"How I missed this village… Before, I felt this place was like hell, but compared to that castle, this village is like heaven!" Amoura said as she bent down and hugged the icy snow on the village path.

Walking along the short road that apparently led back to the village, Amoura, who was already lost after so many twists and turns in the tunnel under the castle, was shocked at the path she was following. Instead of heading in the direction of the familiar village she was in earlier, she realized that the more she followed that path, the closer she was to actually still heading towards the castle.

"Damn… I'm heading back to the castle…"

She soon realized her confusion. She hadn't been hugging the snow in the village a few moments ago, but rather the snow in the space between the castle gate and the real castle.

"I haven't even entered the castle yet and I almost died in the game and had a heart attack in real life. What's inside this castle…?"

Amoura's voice was very uncertain, and not only was she surprised by this, but the reaction from the viewers on the livestream was priceless.

Her livestream, which had peaked at 3,000 viewers when Chapter 01 was released, now had nearly 6,000 people watching her play. Among these people, unlike before when most were F-Rank or E-Rank Players, now most were ordinary people and even some D-Rank Players!

The Rank F and Rank E players who normally watched her play were now almost all busy playing Chapter 02 on their own or completing Chapter 01 in order to experience Chapter 02 on their own. The story of this game was so interesting that they didn't want to get Spoilers on Amoura's livestream, and not only did these players not want to get spoilers on the livestream, but even ordinary people from Sandstone Bay found out about this game through their Player friends and decided to watch the streams for themselves to see how it was.

To the surprise of these ordinary people, unlike the other games they had already seen where the Players just stood there swinging a sword from side to side or shooting a bow at monsters that ran past, in Residual Devil, everything they were seeing was completely new.

The conversation those monsters had was so realistic that within minutes of the game they already felt that they were there, experiencing it personally, and when the man had been trying to kill Amoura, the viewers felt that they were the ones who were almost dying in her place, causing people with weak hearts to have to calm down while watching so as not to suffer a heart attack.

[It's a good thing Sandstone Bay doesn't have a castle, otherwise I wouldn't even go near it.]

[You're lucky, I'm a Rank E Player and my scheduled mission for tomorrow is in an abandoned castle outside the city! Do you think I'll have the courage to go? I'm already thinking about what excuse I'm going to use to miss it, even if I have to pay a fine, the money is not worth my life.]

[Friend of the previous comment, I only have one thing to say to you. "F"]

[F]

[F]

[F for respect!]

Reading these people's comments, Gabe was laughing his ass off. He had definitely been very scared while playing that part of the game in his previous world, and in this world these people were experiencing it in such realistic virtual reality, it was surprising that Amoura was still playing.

Looking at player data with Game Developer authority, Gabe found Amoura's profile and began analyzing her data. From the amount of fear she was feeling, the amount of skills she absorbed from the game peaked very high. Not only had she gone up in shooting skills, but also in escaping skills that were quietly developing.

Unfortunately, escape skills were not measured with virtual tests with numbers that exemplifief the level, because if that were the case, Amoura would probably see that the improvement in this aspect was frighteningly high.

"It's better that Players have a problem with monsters in games and learn to deal with it here than something like this happening in real life and having no experience," Gabe said to himself with a smile.

Amoura, who was approaching the castle with uncertain steps, realized that there was a carriage parked at the entrance of it. Clutching the shotgun she'd found on the way out, she approached very alertly, trying to see if anyone was there.

When she got within closer range, the carriage door burst open, startling Amoura to the point that she nearly pulled the shotgun's trigger on instinct.

"F*ck!!" Amoura screamed in fright as she looked at the man who had opened the carriage door.

Seeing that it was a man there, Amoura should have been a little less worried, but the man's appearance did not reassure her. This man apparently weighed at least 300 kg (660 lb), a frighteningly high weight for an apocalyptic world like the one people here lived in, where the available food was not as plentiful as in Gabe's other world.

Seeing such a fat man, Amoura was almost certain that this man was a monster and continued to point her gun at him, ready to fire at the slightest sign of threat.

Looking at Amoura acting so scared, the man laughed. "Athena Winters, don't be scared. I'm just a simple merchant."

Hearing the man speak to her in that way, Amoura's fear lessened a little, but she was no less alert and continued to aim the gun at him.

"How do you know me?" she asked.

"How do I know you? Everyone worth their salt has heard of you, the heroine in search of her daughter. But it's true that my being so close to the castle raises suspicions," he replied.

"Yeah, it definitely does…" Amoura replied with narrowed eyes.

"Haha, I'm just a humble merchant. Forgive my manners, you can call me Duke. Weapons, ammo, ointments, whatever you need I'll get you."

"Weapons?" Amoura became more alert and continued to aim the shotgun at Duke.

Duke just chuckled as he explained, "Don't be so afraid. I only seek profit. As long as you have enough money, not only can I sell you weapons, I can also help you improve your weapons, increasing the rate of fire, reloading speed, ammo capacity, and most importantly, I can help you improve the damage your weapons deal to more powerful enemies."

Initially Amoura had thought that Duke was just an ordinary merchant, but when she heard him talking about weapon upgrades, her attention was hooked. When he told her that he could help her upgrade her weapon to deal more damage to more powerful enemies, the first thing she remembered was the trouble she had had in the last mission she had participated in.

Her weapon hadn't done as much damage against Rank E monsters as it did to Rank F monsters, and she knew that this was a very big limitation that she would need a lot of time to improve on - that, and a lot of money. But hearing the possibility of improving her weapon's damage in the game against more powerful monsters entered a doubt in her head.

'If I can improve my weapon damage here, maybe there's a way to improve it in the real world as well?' Amoura wondered in surprise.

Not only was she surprised by this, but other livestream viewers were also surprised when they thought of this possibility.

Ordinary viewers didn't see anything much from this fat man's statement, but Players who were watching this or who were playing the game and met Duke, thought the same thing as Amoura: If this knowledge could be learned in-game, it could possibly have a huge impact on the lives of Rank E Players!

Even if it couldn't be brought about, if the game made weapons powerful enough to deal more damage to Rank E monsters available, even if the Player had to invest a stone of Mana in the game to bring one of the game's weapons to life, in the end the player could still come out with a profit!

[Bonus Chapter from Power Stones: 1/3]