Chapter 147: Naked, Sick, and Furious

Ren woke up to the sensation of a thousand tiny hammers pounding against the inside of her skull.

She groaned, her voice a dry rasp, and tried to lift her head. It felt impossibly heavy, like a bowling ball balanced on a toothpick. A wave of nausea rolled through her, forcing her to squeeze her eyes shut until the world stopped spinning.

She was cold. Bone-deep, shivering cold. And wet. And sticky.

And the smell.

Oh god, the smell.

It was a pungent cocktail of stagnant water, rotting vegetation, and something distinctly biological that Ren prayed wasn’t what she thought it was.

“Where…” Ren mumbled, her teeth chattering. “Where am I? What happened?”

[System: You are in a holding pit, Host. A glorified hole in the ground, really. The fox abandoned you. He sprinted into the forest like his tail was on fire, leaving you at the mercy of the self-proclaimed tiger Queen and her wasteland boyfriend.]

The memory hit Ren harder than the rock Vara had used to bash her skull in.

“That selfish asshole!” Ren hissed, her eyes snapping open despite the pain.

She scowled into the darkness. “I knew it! I knew he was a flighty little opportunistic rodent! Of course, he gave me up to save his own ass!”

She let out a frustrated breath, which misted in the cold air. “Why am I even surprised? What did I expect? Him to pull a sword and fight a duel for my honor? He’s a trickster fox, not a knight. I’m not his girlfriend.”

’But we were friends, weren’t we?’

A small, hurt voice whispered in the back of her mind. ’Maybe? Kind of?’

Ren shivered violently, curling into a ball to preserve whatever body heat she had left. The flu was in full swing. Her joints ached, her skin was burning up, and her throat felt like she had swallowed a handful of thumbtacks.

She moved her legs to tuck them closer to her chest and realized two things simultaneously.

First, the ground beneath her was a slurry of mud and cold water.

Second, she wasn’t wearing Vex’s fur cloak anymore. In fact, she wasn’t wearing anything at all.

“Are you kidding me?” Ren shrieked, her voice cracking. “Why am I naked again? Is this a cultural thing? Do the inhabitants of this world have a personal vendetta against clothes?”

She looked around frantically, but the pit was pitch black save for a sliver of moonlight filtering through a grate of heavy logs high above.

“Great,” she muttered, wrapping her arms around herself. “Naked, sick, and sitting in a puddle of… please let it be mud. Just mud.”

She reached up to touch the source of the pounding in her head. Her fingers grazed a tender lump behind her ear, and she winced as she felt the sticky wetness of drying blood. A minor concussion. Just what she needed to go with the fever.

Choo!

Ren sneezed, the force of it making her head throb painfully. She sniffled miserably.

“System,” she whispered, wiping her nose on her shoulder. “How long was I out?”

[System: Three hours, Host. It is currently the dead of night.]

“Why am I not dead?” Ren asked grimly. “I thought Vara wanted to turn me into a throw rug.”

[System: Oh, she does. But the self-proclaimed Queen decided that torturing you while you were unconscious would be ’boring.’ She said she wants to hear you scream. Apparently, agony is best served as breakfast. She is waiting until sunrise.]

Ren gulped. A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold racked her body.

“Sunrise,” she whispered. “That gives me…” She tried to do the math, but her brain was fuzzy. “Not enough time.”

She grit her teeth, her jaw clenched to stop the chattering. “I need to get out of here. Tonight.”

Ren planted her hands in the muck and tried to push herself up.

Yank.

Her left leg stopped short.

Ren frowned and kicked out. Something was holding her back. She reached down, her fingers groping in the dark until they wrapped around a thick, rough vine knotted tightly around her ankle. She followed the length of the vine—it was short, barely two feet long—and found it tethered to a massive, jagged boulder embedded in the mud.

There was no slack. She couldn’t even stand up fully.

Ren tugged at the knot on her ankle, picking at it with her fingernails. It was wet, swollen tight, and complex. Impossible to slip.

She pulled until her fingernails bent back, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Dammit!” Ren cried, slapping the mud in frustration. Splatters of muck hit her face.

[System: Analysis complete: Restraint integrity is at 100%. Escape probability is… well, let’s just say you should start drafting your last will and testament. It looks like you’re going to die here, Host.]

[System: Look on the bright side! At least you had a pretty solid run. You kissed three incredibly handsome, high-level Beastmen. You had lots of sex with two Beast Kings. You really lived the dream.]

“Are you serious right now?” Ren scoffed, wiping mud off her cheek. “Those are my ’accomplishments’? I’m about to be tortured to death, and you’re reading me my dating stats?”

[System: I am just trying to boost morale! It is quite an impressive resumé.]

“You are such a pervert,” Ren accused, sneezing again. “Weren’t you the one who told me just yesterday, and I quote, ’I am a Gourmet Hunter System, not a breeding system’?”

[System: I am a lover of romance first, and a foodie second. ]

“Excuse me?!” Ren argued, her indignation momentarily overriding her fear. “Food is never second! Food is life!”

She struggled against the vine again, pulling with all her might.

“I can’t die yet,” Ren grunted, sweat mixing with the dirty water on her skin. “I wanted to introduce good food to this savage world! I wanted to bring civilization! I wanted to open a restaurant!”

She slumped back against the cold rock, panting.

“I believe in the power of food,” Ren said, her voice gaining strength despite the wheeze in her chest. “Good food can solve problems. It can fix relationships. It can bring people together. It can cure the darkness in people’s hearts! I bet even Vara’s shriveled, prune-like heart!”

She looked up at the grate.

“I am not dying tonight,” Ren decided.

The fear in her eyes hardened into steel.

“I am not giving up on myself. My life ended abruptly in my world when I was at the peak of my career. I worked too hard to get there. I am not going to forget my dreams just because I’m in a tight spot.”

She scoffed. “So what if my customers have claws, fangs, and bloodlust?”

Ren let out a dark chuckle.

“I worked in the service industry for ten years,” she whispered. “I have dealt with lunch-rush Karens who would send back a salad because the croutons were ’too crunchy.’ Compared to a suburban mom demanding to speak to the manager, a violent beastman is a walk in the park.”

Ren took a deep, rattling breath. Her nose was red, her hair was matted with mud, and she was shivering so hard her teeth clicked together like castanets. She looked like a wreck.

But her green eyes were burning with a terrifying, manic determination.

She clenched her fists, ignoring the pain in her head and the ache in her bones.

“System,” Ren declared, staring at the impossible knot on her ankle. “Tonight, we’re breaking out!”

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