The onion ninja.

We didn't have the best time.

I wanted to spend some hours or even days, figuring out exactly what my new item is capable of, distributing my newly acquired stat points, and having a relaxing time, but one thing keeps bugging me way too much.

It's the buzz. The bloody buzz is so loud and annoying I couldn't hear even my own thoughts.

"If it pisses you off this much, why not just go down to any other floor?" Blood had it easy. He just removed his ears using his evolution's power.

Blood actually connected his roots to my entire nerve system right after the fight, since he had some trouble guessing what my next move will be, and it would take us ages to synchronize the normal way - by fighting together a lot.

The only reason I didn't want to do this initially is because of how painful the process is. It took him four hours to connect, so a potion wouldn't help either. To make matters twice worse, I had to listen to the buzz for the entire time.

"I've already tried that. Even on the lowest floor we could teleport to, floor five, it was still just as loud. Ahh, it's so annoying!" I wanted to just pull my hair out and smash my head against the wall.

"Calm yourself, jeez. It's just a buzz, it can't be that bad." He was quite tired of my constant complaints about the sound.

"Oh, yeah? Then connect the nerves to my ears and listen to it yourself." I dared him.

"How did you figure out I wasn't connected to your ears?" He thought I didn't notice, huh.

"It's obvious. You would have already gone insane if you were connected. On the topic of going insane, the buzz is kinda doing that to me. I might just lose it if we don't somehow stop it." I was biting my nails.

It's a habit I had around the age of 12, but I managed to clear it up by 16. I used to bite my nails whenever I was stressed or extremely bored, and it looks like the constant stress I'm feeling right now is slowly breaking me.

"I think I might know the reason for this effect. It's probably a spell. If you think about it, the buzz was quiet and we barely noticed it when we entered the room and fought the sphere." Blood's explanation didn't make much sense.

"You moron! How does that have anything to do with it being a spell? I have [abnormal status resistance]. Do you even know what it does, huh?!" I screamed at the goat head.

"Yeah, you aren't gonna last much longer like that. Haah, do your best to resist it for a while and use your brain. Okay?" Blood calmly replied. It's natural for humans to reply in the same tone as the person speaking to them, and the goat head used this feat of human nature to semi-forcibly calm me down.

"O-okay. Right. Evolution cards. Yes! That should work. Please work." I pulled out the evolution card and tried to apply it to [abnormal status resistance].

The "status bracelet", as I've called it, instantly removed the card from my hand and applied it to [abnormal status resistance].

I was offered a choice. [abnormal status immunity], and [abnormal status resistance AOE]. AOE, area of effect. So the effect could be applied to my teammates as well. It's not like I have any aside from Blood, who is connected to me, so the effect is applied to him anyway.

"The choice is obvious. [abnormal status immunity]." That instance, I felt peace at mind like I never have before.

My entire train of thought finally went back on the rails, and at the same time, all of the pressure was released.

"Hahaha." I laughed lightly. A smile bloomed on my face.

"Has River.. lost it? What's with that expression? I've never seen that face before." Blood looked at my uncharacteristic smile.

This was my first time ever being properly happy in this world. I've had so much stress build up over the past few months of being in this world. Seeing people die. Being on the verge of death multiple times myself. Being alone for longer than I have before.

The sound put so much pressure on me that all of my built-up emotions started spilling out as rage, but one simple ability, [abnormal status immunity] removed the buzz.

The buzz, as it turns out, had properties of turning all of your emotions into anger, and since I had such a wreck of things on my mind, it had an especially strong effect on me. With the removal of the buzz, the anger also left, leaving all the other emotions behind.

"No way, you're not.. oh, you are. I thought you were some super-human, but it turns out you are still just a normal dude. Mostly." Blood decided to go to sleep since he felt awkward.

~~~

Ahh, what is wrong with you, River? I can't believe I actually cried. Me, crying? And Blood saw me as well. I wouldn't mind it if he was some girl I loved as that would tell her I'm not afraid to show my emotions, but no.

"I cried in front of a fucking goat head!" I really hope he doesn't bring it up and acts like nothing happened.

Damn, this is embarrassing.

I sat for a bit, relaxed, and tried to finally analyze what made me have such an emotional breakdown.

Up until now, I was fine. I didn't flinch at the sight of death or anything else. But, now that I think of it, I was just so preoccupied with other thoughts and the sheer shock of all those events happening at once that I had no time to handle my mental state.

"It was my mistake, I guess." If I thought about this earlier, perhaps I could have just sat somewhere under a tree and cried to myself.

In the end, it was a debuff that triggered my "realization"...

I analyzed everything that happened up until this point and accepted this as the reality for the second time. Everything felt a bit surreal, but now that my brain is functioning properly, I can tell just how real everything is.

man, emotions are so weird.

Right. From now on, I'm gonna watch my mental state and make sure this doesn't happen, and I'm definitely not letting this affect my character. Despite being confused for so long, I was still gaining experience from this world, and that means I can now accept things in the same way I always did, except this time I don't subconsciously tell myself that everything is fake.

Everything is gonna stay the same as always.

I went to sleep as well. The grass was comfortable.

~~~

"Haha, what was yesterday all about? Ya cried your ass off." This was inevitable. Of course, the damn goat head would take the chance to mess with me over this.

"I'm just 19, so I have the full right to cry whenever the hell I fell like it. Got it? Well, it's not like I'm planning to anytime soon." I'm not gonna let him get to me with his jokes.

"Yeah, yeah. I got it. But first, I need to test if you really do have the same tolerance to whatever is thrown at you." I don't like where this is going.

"Agh. Th-that's not.. very pleasant." I was struck with an overwhelming amount of pain, followed by an inability to breathe.

"Haa. haa." I gulped for air.

He made the whole nervous system send a signal of pain to my brain at once. Any normal human would die from the pain because the brain would just forcibly kill itself. That commonly happens to people who are burnt alive. They die from pain before the actual burns kill the person*.

(*Death from pain is not something I made up. You can look it up if you're interested.)

"Welp, you survived, so that must mean everything's fine. The only thing is, you stopped breathing, but that's understandable." He was uncomfortably calm.

"Fun fact! I could have died. And you can't open my inventory to access the potions, so if something went wrong I couldn't even get revived." I explained this to the goat head, but, in truth, I realized fine well that he understood the potential danger.

"If you die just cause I hurt ya a little, that would mean you weren't worth staying with anyways." I guess that's true.

"Don't forget, I can easily kill you if I wanted to. Don't get too cocky." I don't like speaking to my friend in that manner, but I've experienced a stupid amount of pain because of him already, so this is a sort of payback.

~~~

In the end, we stopped arguing and had a laugh about the sheer ridiculousness of what has been happening recently. I had a good time, I gotta say. I'm glad Blood joined my team. I would have had a way harder time without a friend to support me.

I feel so fresh now.

"So, my dear friend Blood."

"Yes?"

"How about we go beat the crap out of whatever the hell is up on the next floor." I summoned the manipulators and extended the teeth on my right hand.

"Great plan. I just happen to also be in the mood to beat someone or something up." We were hyped to finally take a break from thinking and just attack stuff, like we did up until now.