I didn't even need to run into the annex. From the annex… no, from that cramped old shack, Belsus came rushing out.
Looking just as dumbstruck as I was, Belsus saw me and stopped in his tracks.
“What happened… What is going on? Are you hurt?”
Rambling incoherently, Belsus hurriedly approached to check on my condition first. His thick hands gripped my shoulders and pulled me slightly.
“…Ah!”
At that moment, the screams of the plants echoing in my head grew louder. As I grabbed my head instead of my ears and cried out, Belsus startled and backed away from me.
Once I adapted slightly to the ear-piercing screams, the reality of my situation hit me again, bringing a belated wave of emotion. My frustration burst out.
“Why the hell is this happening?!”
[Your level has decreased.]
[Your level has decreased.]
[Your level has decreased.]
Dozens of unread message windows were stacked on top of each other. Even as I closed one window after another, they kept appearing. My sanity was slipping away in real time.
My level.
[13 tomato plants have withered.]
[4 basil plants have withered.]
[12 onion plants have withered.]
My field.
[You receive a penalty for the dead plants.]
[You receive a penalty.]
[You receive a penalty.]
Wait a minute.
Amidst my agony, I suddenly snapped my head up.
I frantically ran to where the underground storage was located. I was supposed to open a trapdoor-like cover and climb down a ladder.
But there was only bare dirt.
[Remaining crops: 0]
‘Right. Since I reverted to Level 1, the storage itself was just deleted.’
The fresh vegetables I had gathered to sell to the system all at once, hoarding enough to fill the warehouse to the brim.
They had all evaporated without a trace.
“What is this… What do I do…”
Muttering blankly, I trudged back and tried to open the house door.
The hinges caught, and it wouldn't open. The door, which had reverted to its initial state, was too decrepit to function properly. Even though I knew the door was the least of my problems, I lost all reason and fixated on it, violently pulling at it until it made loud Bang! Bang! noises.
Eventually, blood splattered from my fingertips. Belsus grabbed my wrist from behind.
“Heean. You are breathing too heavily. I'll fetch some water from the well, so take a deep breath…”
My movements were restricted by the brute force stopping me. A feeling of something erupting in my chest surged up. Overcome with rage, I screamed.
“This is all I have!”
My thunderous voice brought an eerie silence to the area.
If I couldn't save the crops, if I couldn't maintain the farm, how was I supposed to feed Belsus?!
“This is the only thing I can do…” I muttered weakly.
Collapsing powerlessly, I looked up and took in Belsus and the area behind him in a single glance. That was when I saw it.
The plants within a 5-meter radius of Belsus, specifically the stems of the plants exactly within that circle, were rotting further, crumbling into dust and collapsing.
Thinking my eyes were playing tricks on me, I rubbed them hard. But it was real. Right before my eyes, in real time, the 5-meter radius around Belsus was sinking into decay.
It was like looking at a plague-bringing spirit, a god of pestilence.
“Hey, you…”
Unable to finish my sentence, I slowly stood up like a marionette with cut strings.
I looked the bewildered Belsus straight in the eye with pupils that had surely lost their focus, pointed downward, and blurted out.
“It's you. The plants around you are rotting in real time.”
To the naked eye, it looked like a 5-meter radius, but… Belsus's influence must have spread throughout the entire farm overnight.
But why?
Only then did Belsus look around him. As he gazed toward the fields, the screams of the plants grew louder. I winced. I felt like I was going to lose my mind.
“I did…”
Belsus looked back at me. As his gaze moved away from the fields, the screaming died down.
“I did…”
Muttering the same words once more, Belsus slowly seemed to grasp the situation, looking as though he might collapse on the spot.
Strangely enough, seeing Belsus so devastated brought my senses back a little.
It wasn't Belsus's fault. If anyone was at fault, it was me for failing to manage this.
“I'll fix this. Just stay outside the farm for a bit until I sort it out.”
I spoke in a much clearer voice, pulling Belsus far away from the fields. Towards the entrance.
If I kept him here, he would definitely end up seeing the farm return to its absolute genesis state. I gathered my wits and decided to temporarily isolate Belsus outside.
Just in case, I emptied my pockets and shoved money into his hands. Even though all the equipment and buildings had vanished, thankfully the money remained.
“If you get hungry, buy something to eat with this. If you run into any trouble, solve it with money. Understand?”
Looking like his soul had left his body, Belsus left his arms hanging limp and didn't even take the money I offered. Feeling anxious… I directly stuffed the cash into his clothes.
Every second counted right now. I wrestled with the status window to somehow save the plants, and even grabbed a shovel to turn over the soil.
Belsus seemed to stand at the entrance for a long time before quietly slipping away.
After torturing myself with the meaningless hope of finding a living plant among the dead, I returned to the entrance.
But a letter was left in that spot.
[I am sorry. I am so sorry. I am the cause.
It seems I have been cursed to harm plants after hearing the song of a man I encountered yesterday.
If I cannot resolve this, I don't deserve to return. I will stay away until then.]
I finally realized the gravity of the situation. The letter fluttered and dropped from my hand.
I immediately sprang up and sprinted out of the farm.
I felt a brief sensation of floating before landing with a thud in a back alley of the city.
“Bel…!”
I barely stopped myself from screaming Belsus's name loud enough to wake the whole alley.
Belsus was the name of a wanted man. It couldn't be carelessly yelled out in public. Yet, we hadn't even thought of an alias. Because the two of us going outside together was extremely rare…
“Hey! Come out right now! Where did you go?!”
I screamed at the top of my lungs, but I was the only one left in the alley.
Belsus was someone who had evaded pursuit for twenty years. If he made up his mind to hide… a dull farmer like me might never find him for the rest of my life. I might never see his face again.
Lost and bewildered, I stood in the alley, unable to move for a long, long time.
---
I eventually returned to the farm alone.
Looking at the farm in a state of utter mental breakdown, my sanity stripped away even further, it was objectively far more serious than before.
Every single vegetable had rotted to the point of being completely inedible. The plump crops that had been so vibrant just yesterday now merely exuded a foul stench.
Thud, thud. A rotten tomato rolled onto the ground and went Splat!, splattering pungent, rancid liquid everywhere.
A horrific stench of food waste permeated the air, but I didn't even have the energy to gag.
‘I've seen this… in the game.’
Being human, I had failed at farming before. It happened when I was hospitalized for overwork in the past. When I logged in after three days, all the plants requiring special care had rotted.
‘But the level and buildings were supposed to be maintained. Why has everything been wiped out this time…?’
It felt as if the crops held a much greater weight now than they did in the game.
Of course, in the game, I had never been cursed through Belsus as a medium, so that might be why.
“Argh…!”
My stress exploded for the first time in a while. Tearing at my hair, I squatted down on the filthy ground.
Even if Belsus was the cause, we should have been discussing it together to find a solution! I was already overwhelmed trying to restore the plants, and now I had to find Belsus too? This was driving me absolutely insane.
[The spare master key has been returned.]
Realizing Belsus had even returned the key, I experienced a spike in blood pressure unlike anything I'd ever felt in my life. My blood boiled, and I grabbed the back of my neck.
This bastard ran away from home? I will absolutely find you.
You are mine. Where do you think you're going? Do you have a death wish?
{It seems I have been cursed to harm plants after hearing the song of a man I encountered yesterday.}
A curse received from hearing a song.
A bard's song.
There are only two bards in this game. Bard and Persephone.
There could be another person, but the probability of such an individual wandering some random city back alley and suddenly placing a curse on Belsus was far too low. Because I'm a transmigrator, I was certain of this.
‘But it's strange. Of the two, the man is Bard. But there's no way Belsus wouldn't recognize Bard's face, right?’
My deduction hit a dead end. I pondered for a long time over what I might have missed.
Then, from a somewhat unexpected place, something flashed in my mind. It was from a conversation with Archer.
—"But Persephone… she was a bit strange. I guess you could say she was… uh… bulkier than I thought… Was it because she was bundled up so tightly in clothes?"
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