I’m the Only One With a Different Genre - Chapter 8
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- I’m the Only One With a Different Genre
- Chapter 8 - It's Alright to Get Hurt in the World of Gags (2)
Before Lania could say anything to stop it, flames were already flying towards me.
“Yikes!”
In an instant, time began to flow sluggishly.
Click.
My body straightened up.
Click.
My waist rounded into a circle.
Swoooosh…
The leisurely approaching fireball whizzed past the circular ring I made with my body and dropped to the ground. I kept rolling on the ground, turned twice, and came to a stop on one knee with my arms outstretched.
Kabooom!
Like an X-warrior, a colossal explosion burst forth behind me. Smirking with pride, I was about to revel in it, but then…
Whoosh!
“Eek.”
I turned my head at the smell of burning wood.
“Aaaah! Fi, fire!”
I hastily stripped off my top and frantically flapped it to extinguish the raging flames, but only fanned them into a fiercer blaze.
“It seems to burn pretty well on its own. Time to leave, Master.”
“No, noo. I have a debt to that guy.”
“A debt?”
I couldn’t properly hear what Lania and Mia were saying.
‘The dungeon! If we stay like this, all the kids might die!’
I wasn’t sure how much this place was different from the gag world, but I knew all too well when it came to the matter of life and death.
‘I have to save them!’
As a member of the gag tribe who rides roller coasters without safety belts, avoiding danger simply wasn’t in the cards for me. With a resolute expression, I headed towards the underground dungeon.
Bang!
I forcefully opened the door and descended into the dungeon.
“Kids! Come out, now! There’s a fire!”
“Wha, what?”
“Ugh…ughuh…”
Children, not well versed in speech, bit their tongues and widened their eyes in surprise. In the meantime, the blaze grew, and pungent smoke started seeping down into the dungeon.
Clank! Click-clank!
I quickly pulled out the keys and opened the locked door, beginning to pull out the children who were sitting there with dazed expressions.
“No, nooo!”
“Waaaaah!”
Believing they were being abducted by a sorcerer, the children began to cry and sat down, refusing to move.
“Aaaah?! Kids, don’t cry! Okay? Good, right?”
Flustered by the chaos, I struggled, and finally picked up a child. Just then, Noah emerged from the next room with a furrowed brow, yelling.
“Stop it! Do you want us all to die?!”
Sniffle!
An already crying child became utterly petrified from the harsh scolding. Noah then addressed the children,
“You can’t speak, but you can understand, right?”
When Noah looked each of the children in the eye and asked, they hesitated but eventually nodded. Noah took Nero’s hand firmly and said,
“You heard it too, didn’t you? That sound.”
“Eh? What sound?”
I looked at Noah and the children, oblivious to the story. Without paying attention to me, Noah said to the frozen children,
“And look over there.”
Whoosh!
The flames could be seen flickering like a tongue beyond the wide-open door that Noah pointed to.
“The fire is real. If we stay like this, we might all die. So stop fussing and come with us. You don’t want to die here, do you?”
I clapped inwardly, impressed.
‘Wow… The characters from the original work really are different.’
Following Noah’s words, the children started exiting one by one. The fire had broken out, but it had not spread too far, so it was not too hard to escape, or at least it appeared to be possible.
“…Wait, what about that kid?”
Noah said with a look of panic.
“That red-haired one who shared a cell with me—”
“!”
Before Noah could finish, I dashed into the building that was ablaze.
“Wait..! You—”
Noah’s words were drowned out by the roaring flames and became inaudible.
“Jess! Where are you, Jess!”
Before I knew it, the inside of the house was engulfed in flames. I covered my mouth with my sleeve and pushed through the blaze. The tops of my feet were scorching and gruesomely transforming, but I didn’t pay it much mind because it hurt less than expected, and instinctively I knew it would heal by tomorrow.
“Jess!”
“Whimper…”
“!”
I found the little anthropomorphic girl, Jess, in the kitchen, where the flames were just beginning to spread. Jess, curled up inside a cabinet, had her tail wrapped in her arms and tears welled up in her eyes.
“Ah…thank goodness.”
“Uh?”
Jess’s mouth was smeared with food crumbs as if she had eaten something in the meantime, bringing a burst of inadvertent laughter from me out of relief.
I took off my shirt, soaked it completely in clean water reserved for cleaning, and not believing it to be enough, I grabbed an apron that had just started to catch fire and drenched that in water as well. With the remaining water, I doused my own head, then wrapped Jess’s body with the wet cloth.
Jess was very frail from malnourishment, so I could wrap most of her body with the damp cloth. Jess looked up at me with teary eyes, while her ears and tail trembled pitifully. As calmly as I could, I spoke to her with a reassuring smile,
“We’ll be outside in a moment, so keep your eyes closed, okay?”
“Uh-huh…”
I turned around with Jess wrapped in cloth, only to see that the dark crimson flames had already crept into the kitchen.
‘Slavery is really sad at times like this.’
To prevent escape through windows, the kitchen had none; the walls were built very thick. To escape from here, the only way was through the fiercely burning entrance.
I murmured with a forced smile,
“At least… I hope my hair doesn’t get burned.”
In the ferocious world of gags, everything else gets to be healed,… but not hair. That’s probably what makes it funnier. *Chuckle*
Determined to save my eyebrows and hair, I ducked as low as possible and made my escape from the house.
Boom!
From behind me, the sound of the house’s pillars falling and furniture collapsing could be heard. Odil’s home, which had always felt too cramped whenever I’d complain, seemed all too vast on this day.
Sssss!
I emerged from the house, greeted by the scent of searing flesh.
“Gasp!”
Perhaps it was having inhaled too much murky air, but once outside, I felt my breath return.
“Lian!”
“Bro!”
The children gathered outside ran towards me. Collapsing to the dirt floor on my knees, I looked at Jess whom I had been holding.
“Haah…”
Jess slowly opened her eyes and looked up at me. Fortunately, there seemed to be no injuries. Gently, I put Jess down on the ground then I lifted my hands to check my hair.
It’s there! All there! Except for the ends that are slightly singed!
“What a relief!”
“What are you relieved about! Have you lost your mind?!”
Noah, looking at my skin which was red and peeling away, was visibly upset. My feet, especially, were in serious condition—a burst of skin, bleeding, with pus forming.
“Oh, it’s fine. It will heal quickly.”
“Hmmm. That’s quite an interesting story.”
Before Noah could get angry, an alluring voice came from behind. Turning my head, I saw Mia looking at my feet.
“To heal this fast…”
She gazed at my healing feet with sparkling eyes. Though it was happening slower than the naked eye could perceive, to her eyes, it seemed strangely observable.
“You said earlier you had nowhere to go, right? Then let me take you along.”
“Oh, that’s a good idea. Just don’t kill me until I become an adult, okay?”
Standing with her hands clasped behind her head, Lania snickered as if pleased. Mia’s expression twisted slightly at the notion of avoiding lethal experiments, but soon she nodded resignedly. Lania approached me, leaned down, and whispered in my ear.
“Is this repayment for the cookies I ate earlier?”
With that, she spun on her heel and disappeared down the dark street. People who had been sneaking around the raging house, looking for things to scavenge, were scared off by the sight of Lania and fled.
“Okay, shall we go now?”
Mia grabbed my arm, the skin peeling from burns. The touch had no hint of consideration, but… my nerves were being sold to a different sort of pain.
Squeeze.
“Urk!”
Soft and… inexpressible in words, a pouch of wisdom pressed down on my elbow.
‘What a reward… thank you.’
Staggering with that thought, I managed to stand up.
“Um, would it be alright if these kids came with us?”
“Huh?”
She crinkled her features as if she was wondering, ‘Why is an insect speaking?’ upon my request. I waved my hands fervently as I spoke.
“Th-they’re like my siblings. Without the kids, I’d be so sad I might die from depression.”
“Does that relate to your physical condition?”
She asked skeptically, and I nodded frantically in response.
“Yes, yes! If I get emotionally distressed, my physical state could get ex-tr-emely worse…”
“Hmm, well if it’s like that, there’s no helping it. But…”
She bowed her head towards me. Upon my burn-scarred chest, Mia’s large and magnificent bust was pressed. Sweets breaths were inhaled simultaneously. Frozen, I gazed dumbfounded at her beautiful face.
‘The school Madonna doesn’t even come close.’
Mirrored in Mia’s glasses was my face, stiff as stone. Luckily, I wasn’t wearing an idiotic expression.
“The experiments might get a bit more intense, okay?”
“Yes, yes.”
More intense. What exactly could that mean? Oh, the experiments? She said experiments, right? More intense experiments? Somehow, that sounded rather good.