Chapter 23 - Memories Of A Past Life

Kazuya and Orihime took turns taking as many bodies as they could carry to a faraway location in sacks, one bunch at a time, until they were all taken away.

They had killed 26 black elves in total, and now was the time to harvest their livers. Kazuya watched as Orihime brought out a knife and began cutting into the corpses, skillfully bringing out their livers and placing them aside. He watched as their blood spilt on her body, making her look like a crazy maniac, but she never gave a damn. 

She was like a professional butcher who didn't care about gore, even though it was a sentient victim she was cutting apart.

As she had harvested about six of them, she looked at Kazuya, who was just standing there, looking at her like she was a mysterious spectacle. "Are you going to help me with this or not?" she asked, feeling slightly frustrated. 

Kazuya smiled, "No, I think you are doing quite well without me; besides, I have no experience in this whatsoever." "Moreover, you are the huntress, remember?" he asked. 

Orihime frowned, looking at him intensely. "You are a terrible human being," she said to him. 

Kazuya chuckled in an annoying manner, one that made Orihime click her tongue angrily. 

"I just love it when you show your true nature," Kazuya said to her. "At first, I thought you were just an overly optimistic brat who was naive about life." But now I find myself liking you more than I thought I would."

"How did you learn to hunt so well, anyway?" asked Orihime. "I went on the mission with you today, ready for the possibility of you screwing it up due to your lack of experience." But thanks to your help, I could harvest more than twice as much as I could have on my own."

"I don't know," Kazuya admitted as he remembered the times he slaughtered the black elves, one by one without fail, "everything just came to me on instinct, I suppose."

"I hate to blow up your egotistical brain, but you seem to be a lot more skilled in hunting than I am," she said to him, "and that wasn't a compliment."

A couple of minutes later, she was done with harvesting the livers from the corpses. She wrapped all the livers up in a bag and handed it over to Kazuya, who looked at her with an arched brow. 

"Come on, Kazuya. "I have tried harvesting all the livers by myself; now I know you are far from being a gentleman, but at least have a conscience," she said to him.

Kazuya sighed as he took the sack from her. "So, where do we go from here?" he asked. 

"We head into the city to sell it to the physicians," she said to him. 

"Why not sell it to the healing mages and alchemists?" asked Kazuya. 

"Because the physicians know the full value of the livers more than the mages and alchemists." "The alchemists and healing mages aren't specialized in natural remedies, so they wouldn't appreciate the value of any natural medicine -- even if it were a wonder drug," she explained, "Now come on, let's go."

After she said that, the two of them went down the hills into the lowlands, where the town was located. On their way down, they found some merchants and commercial travelers readying their vehicles for takeoff, and they wanted to inquire how much exactly a full trip to Magdal would cost. 

Orihime, being the one with more experience living in town, went to meet one of the travelers for inquiries. 

"Good morning," she said, and the elderly man looked back at her. 

"Good morning to you, huntress," he greeted back. "It seems you have been hard at work recently." He could tell she was a huntress by the blood stains all over her clothes and light armor. 

"Well, there is no better way to live without work," she said to him, surprised she could make up the adage on the fly. 

"Well said, Huntress," the traveler replied. "So tell me, where do you wish to go?"

"I just want to inquire for now," she replied, "how much would you charge for a trip to Magdal?"

"Well, that's a place that might take a while to travel to," he said as he combed through his residual hair with his fingers, thinking about it, "and I would charge about 70 silver pieces, at least." "It is a long journey, so it can't be as cheap as the ones we are used to."

"I understand," she said to him before turning to meet Kazuya, "let's go sell those things."

The two of them went into town, heading straight for the physicians' hub deep in the area. After about twenty minutes of trekking, they finally got to the hub. It was a sick bay filled with so many ill people. Kazuya wanted to step inside, but he heard Gaichu's voice yell at him from within his head not to get in, or he would get infected. 

So as Orihime was getting ahead of him, he grabbed her by the arm, gently but firmly pulling her back. She looked at him with a slight frown, wondering what that was about. 

"What is it?" she asked him. 

"I don't think it's safe to get in there," he said to her, "can't we just call out one of the physicians instead?"

"Why?" she asked. 

Kazuya kept quiet, not wanting to tell her about Gaichu—at least not yet. Gaichu's presence was a confirmation that this world wasn't real, and he wasn't sure how anyone would take it, as he didn't take it very well when he found out. 

As he briefly wandered into thought, a sudden headache struck him, and he clutched the sides of his head, groaning in agony. It felt like spikes were being driven into his head from multiple directions. 

The world he was in suddenly vanished, and glimpses of his other life began appearing before him. Faces that were supposed to look strange to him felt familiar, places that were supposed to make him feel lost made him feel at home, and foreign thoughts he had never known felt welcome in his mind for no reason. 

The sudden exposure to these faces, places, and thoughts sent his mind into a downward spiral, as he wasn't sure what to think of any more, and with the conclusion to that came a sudden blackness, taking him out of consciousness entirely. 

Kazuya opened his eyes and saw Orihime's widened gaze over him with a slight smile on her face. "Sir, he's awake!" "He has woken up!" she cried out, like it was a miracle. 

Then she looked back at him. "Are you alright, Kazuya?" she asked him, still with a heightened tone. 

"Will you please shut up, woman?" "Your voice is all over the place," he said to her, trying to endure his aching head. Then he saw an elderly man walk toward him with a small bowl containing a strangely colored liquid. 

"Please drink," he said to Kazuya. 

"He's a physician; just drink it," Orihime said to him. 

"What happened? "What are we doing here?" he asked her, looking around. 

"You collapsed right outside the bay, and I had to take you in for treatment," Orihime answered, "Now please drink, unless you don't want the headache to go away."

So without further reluctance, he drank the medicine, and it was just as bitter as he imagined it to be. 

Then he looked at Orihime. "Have you sold the livers yet?" he asked. 

"Are you joking?" After collapsing and screaming with severe nosebleeds, I thought you were going to die. "What makes you think selling body parts was going to take priority over tending to you?" she asked. "Was that about anything, anyway?" "What happened to you exactly?"

"I don't know..", he replied, "and for now, I don't care." "Go sell those livers now, then we can worry about other things, including the payment for my medical care."

Orihime nodded before leaving to bargain with the physician. 

As she left, Kazuya began wondering what that was all about. Then he remembered what Gaichu had told him earlier, and he wondered if the memories of his other life were beginning to clash with his present life. He also wondered why he was beginning to have sudden issues along with it. 

Then he heard Gaichu's voice audibly come up within his head again: "You might want to log out now, Kazuya." "I don't think your body can take much of this anymore," it told him. 

"What do you care about?" "This isn't my real body, remember?" he responded. 

"Yes, but these attacks usually come as a general warning to players from the game engine itself. "You need to log out soon, or your real body may suffer because of it," Gaichu warned. 

"What do you mean by that?" Kazuya asked silently. 

"I mean that if you do not log out soon, the game will eject you automatically, and if it does, your life in the real world may get affected by it," Gaichu explained. "Please, log out of the game now, then have a meal, and take an 8-hour long bed rest...

...Then you can log in again and safely continue from where you stopped. "Playing this game for such an extended period is not healthy."

"I don't care," Kazuya replied. "I will do what I have to before I even think of leaving this place. Do you understand me?"

"Understood. But I will recommend some herbs for you to take to deal with further attacks in the future, as they will only get worse from now on. They will also keep your immunity in check in case you may have gotten infected during your brief stay here. You might also want to give some to your partner as well. "Goodbye," Gaichu explained before vanishing out of his head. 

Then Orihime came back with a bag of silver coins and a smile on her face, showing that she now had all they needed to start their journey.

Author's Note: I know Kazuya is currently being an idiot, and some of you should already be fed up with his behavior by now.

But please try to be patient with him. He is a work in progress, recovering from the loss of his family and struggling to come to terms with the fact that they weren't real in the first place.

Trust me, he won't always remain this way. But healing takes time, learning, and experience.

I want his change to feel organic, not forced.

So please try to stay for the entire first volume (Sentients Against Us) if you wish to witness his transformation into the protagonist you would always root for. 

Read about his gradual transformation from a selfish man obsessed with revenge to a selfless hero who sacrifices everything.

Oops! Spoiler alert!

But it's true, the chapters are already out now, and they won't be locked by premium. So please try to be patient with our protagonist; I'm sure by the time you are done with the first volume, you will find it very rewarding at its conclusion. 

Thank you so much for reading this far. I love you all.

Have Fun!"