Chapter 7: “The Grapple-Optimized Warrior and the Menstruating Saint”

It was three days ago.

That is, on the night of the third day since I became like this.

I tried to start my stream, actually did start it, but had to turn it off before playing even one game.

Suddenly, I was in pain.

I staggered up from my chair and lay down on the bed.

My head was pounding, and my body started shivering as if I’d caught a bad cold, so I quietly closed my eyes.

My breasts felt sore, and a sharp pain tugged at my lower abdomen, making sleep a struggle.

It wasn’t because the pineapple pizza I’d eaten had gone bad.

It was just… the new body acting up.

I was somewhat prepared.

I wasn’t the type to make a fuss.

But, still, it was a bit shocking.

Waking up to a strange, uncomfortable feeling as something slipped out from down below, and seeing one corner of the bedspread soaked red—who wouldn’t be startled by that?

I cleaned myself up, went to the convenience store, and bought some pads.

After searching the internet for instructions, I put one on as best I could.

That was it.

It didn’t even hurt much.

If I had to describe it, it was like a razor lightly scraping over the skin.

It was tolerable.

Aside from that, there was nothing else—just a vague sense of unease and a hint of melancholy that would wash over me.

But I didn’t have the kind of soft feelings that would have me crying over a sudden shift in mood.

If a man over twenty cried over something like this, he’d have to give up his manhood.

I mean, I’m not a man anymore, and there’s nothing to give up, but you get what I’m saying.

What bugged me most was the money I had to spend on pads and the cashier’s eyes that kept glancing at my chest.

Only when I got home did I realize it was because my hardened nipples were practically poking through the thin white shirt I’d just thrown on.

That little incident was the extent of any change in my daily routine due to my period.

Oh.

There is one issue.

With the blood constantly flowing down there…

I can’t do it.

The pent-up urge builds up in my body, stacking like bricks.

Yes.

These days, I’m feeling a little… frustrated.

…Just a little.

Opening the minimap, ‘Saint’ checks the battlefield.

The situation is grim.

The second line of defense has already fallen, revealing a path right up to the core, and even the NPC released by the broken line, the Mercenary King ‘Lindberg,’ was steadily being hunted down by the enemy.

The overall advantage or disadvantage was spelled out clearly in the score.

7 CH 32.

1/4/5, 1/6/4, 2/11/3, 4/7/1, 0/3/0.

The ‘Saint’ hadn’t done particularly well, either.

0/1/7.

If it were a winning game, the KDA would be respectable for a priest, but in a game going this badly, you can hardly say I made a big impact.

It was a game where everything was entirely in the enemy’s favor.

One team member had completely given up and was hiding in the core.

It was the mage with a 0/3/0 KDA.

I could somewhat understand their feelings, but still, they could at least try to play…

From the start, the skill gap was too great.

We had one Yellow 1 at 0 points, with the rest at Yellow 2, while the opposing team had an Orange 50, all Yellow 1s, and one Green 1 supposedly included for balance.

With it being a late night on a weekday and queue times getting long, we ended up with a match like this.

I could understand it to that point—facing an Orange 50 wouldn’t be bad if we could focus on exposing the gaps in the Green 1 player.

The problem was that this “Green 1” was one in name only.

In other words, they seemed like a secondary account.

An assassin skilled in sneak attacks, usually targeting the backline, was handling a frontline sword-and-shield warrior specialized in direct combat with ease, ultimately killing him.

The assassin’s high mobility allowed him to roam the battlefield, and with the skill gap, no one on our team could win a 1:1 against him.

It felt inevitable that we’d lose the game.

That’s clearly where the fault lay.

As our front line crumbled under the enemy’s tactics, our mage and priest in the backline were left to be toyed with by the enemy as well.

But the warriors and rogues were all complaining about how unfair it was.

Claiming they lost to a lucky shot, hit the wrong keys, or didn’t get team support—excuses filled the team chat.

In an instant, the team chat became a political battlefield.

The players who were defending themselves started pointing fingers at each other.

I wished they would focus a bit more on the game instead of typing.

The ‘Saint’ hadn’t said a single word in this game chat.

I don’t know if the mage was silent by nature or if they’d muted the chat, but they said nothing either.

The mage had already given up on the game, and it seemed like he wasn’t even looking at the game screen, since he wasn’t responding even after taking a lot of blame.

With the mage gone, the team turned to the next target: the Saint.

[Pupupupupulin: What the heck is she doing without healing?]

[GoodbyeMyPretty: I would’ve won if she’d just healed once. Did she not hear the call?]

[KoksiNaNaYa: Why is the priest going head-to-head with the enemy warrior anyway?]

[Ivanter: Looks like she keeps getting smacked, damn it.]

[Pupupupupulin: She was out of position from the start.]

[Pupupupupulin: Geez.]

[KoksiNaNaYa: Oh lol.]

[KoksiNaNaYa: How can we win when the only thing the healer can do is heal, and she’s not even healing? lol]

[Pupupupupulin: You understand lol.]

[GoodbyeMyPretty: No shield, no cleanse, can’t even heal, why even play a priest?]

[Ivanter: lol]

[KoksiNaNaYa: There she goes getting smacked again.]

[GoodbyeMyPretty: Heal-spammer, out zzzz]

Thud.

The sound of a foot hitting the ground came through the speakers.

What was caught on the screen was the image of the enemy team’s warrior.

The “Mercenary King” had not been executed yet.

That warrior had just ignored the frontline and stormed straight into our backline.

With the Mercenary King still alive and an enemy warrior deep in our backline, under normal circumstances, the frontline would have either regrouped to stabilize quickly or moved to save the priest who was under attack.

However, we had one team member who had abandoned the game, and the Green 1 rogue was using his mobility to kite the Mercenary King and two other players.

There was no chance of getting any help.

The rogue’s playstyle was downright dirty.

It wasn’t even a direct confrontation, but his sneaky tricks were enough to make me understand, if only a little, why our frontline was getting frustrated and overextending.

As infuriating as it was, he was good.

His skill level was at least at Orange rank borderline.

There was no way Yellow 2 players could withstand that.

Just bad luck…

Roaar!

A battle cry, slightly clumsy compared to a berserker’s roar, came from the enemy warrior.

Thud, thud, thud—the sound of a charge powerful enough to make the ground shake.

There was nothing particularly weapon-like in his hands.

He wasn’t even wearing knuckle guards like Golden Sun.

Just bare fists and his body.

He charged forward as if his body was a weapon in itself.

I hurriedly chanted a holy spell, but it was just a short, quick-cast prayer made up of a line or two of scripture and couldn’t stop the force of the charge.

With no other choice, I put away my primary weapon, the Bible, and pulled out my mace.

I entered the command, and the ‘Saint’ swung the mace with both hands, gripping it like a baseball bat.

It was a clean hit, striking the enemy warrior’s thigh precisely at the right moment.

It was a powerful attack that would’ve caused significant damage even through armor, so his health loss would be severe from taking it bare.

But the charge didn’t stop.

I recognized this player.

“OptimalChargeMuscleBuild4Years.”

What a twisted nickname.

He was a role-player who increased the number in his name every year.

He was famous for taking the “Master of Shield” specialization but selling his given shield at the shop right at the start of the game.

His two sub-specializations were both in grappling, with most of the remaining points spent increasing his character’s body size.

With traits like “Enlargement,” “Giant’s Heir,” “Hidden Techniques of the Monster,” “Thick Bones,” “Tough Skin,” and rounding out with “Pain Resistance” and “Physical Arts,” he had a fully tank-built character but with no shield, making his tanking oddly ineffective.

In an instant, a shadow loomed over the Saint.

“OptimalChargeMuscleBuild4Years” had closed the gap.

He was nearly twice as tall as my character due to his size-dedicated build.

His physique filled the screen, making his presence larger than life.

“Guhk!”

The Saint let out a soft but pained groan.

Just from getting rammed, her health dropped by about a third.

The character soared briefly into the air, only to crash to the ground and roll clumsily.

As she rolled, perhaps hitting her head, she immediately passed out, and the screen went dark.

An attack as brutish as this—

If it were just a buffalo, that might be tolerable.

But to have a character over three meters tall charging at you with that kind of ferocity felt like facing down a tank.

The Saint finally came to and opened her eyes.

Her hazy vision refocused like a camera lens.

“Oh.”

The grapple had been executed perfectly.

Lying spread out on the ground, the Saint was pinned by a massive warrior.

Her limbs were trapped under that brutish body, preventing her from moving.

Even though I frantically hit the keys, the Saint could only squirm and twitch feebly.

This was the second time I’d gotten caught.

That I only had one death out of a score of 7 to 32 wasn’t because I was good.

My teammates’ frustrations were filling up the chat.

Leaving out the baseless insults, every message was just a request for heals.

But stuck in this position for the entire game, how was I supposed to heal?

The Saint struggled to break free from the grab, but the enemy warrior quickly took action.

He clenched his fist and slammed it into her stomach.

A piercing scream echoed across the battlefield, a pained cry from the girl character, and her pain stats shot up instantly.

Blood spurted from the Saint’s mouth, splattering onto the warrior’s face.

With bloodshot eyes, he swung his other fist.

The Saint had no way to resist.

She couldn’t even scream—only a retch escaped her lips, and just as she was about to vomit, the warrior’s rough hand covered her mouth, forcing it all back down her throat.

The warrior didn’t finish her off; instead, he just sat on her, pinning her down.

This was the enemy team’s strategy.

With a teammate having abandoned the game and the rogue wreaking havoc, they essentially had the game in the bag.

But since we hadn’t surrendered, and the game was dragging on, they decided to have their grappler warrior, “OptimalChargeMuscleBuild4Years,” pin down the main reason for the prolonged match—the healer.

If they killed her outright, she would just respawn and go back to supporting the backline from a distance.

But keeping her barely alive was effective, albeit nonsensical.

It was a strategy that worked due to the specific circumstances of this match.

Since shortly after the mage left, the Saint had been immobilized, unable to act.

Out of habit, I input a command, and the Saint mumbled a prayer, “May Mother Gaia’s grace bless this land…”

But just as she finished, there was a loud slap, and the screen flashed white.

A hand, almost as big as her head, struck her cheek.

The disruption canceled the casting.

The warrior slapped her a couple more times, piling up debuffs like “Stun Residual,” “Dizziness,” and “Frontal Lobe Damage.”

Even with her cheek swelling and her delicate lips bruised and bleeding, the Saint still looked beautiful.

It was… strange.

Something about this felt oddly familiar.

If this had been a week ago, before this strange transformation, I probably would’ve been typing crude, excited messages in the chat.

But now…

Now, it felt as if it were actually happening to me, as if I were pinned under this merciless brute.

As usual, the chat filled with vulgar messages, yet unlike before, I found myself just typing “harassment” over and over, like a parrot, without keeping up my usual character in the chat.

It felt like those words were directed at me, not the character on the screen.

But…

If it truly bothered me, I could’ve just muted the chat.

So maybe…

Maybe it wasn’t entirely unpleasant…

What am I even saying?

It’s just that… my body feels so much more… sensitive than before.

And because I haven’t been able to take care of my needs, all these wild thoughts keep eating away at my brain.

Damn it.

It’s so annoying.