But I refuse! 4 - or 'How I realized I became the MC/Cuck of a RPG game and decided to use all tricks and tools to dodge 'em issues!' (NTRPG Fantasy Games, SmartGamer!SI)

Liese was sure something was up with Blade.

While it was easy to say that her childhood friend has always been a meek and weird kid, it was also true that something had made him more... active. It wasn't like he was a pest or anything, but at times it felt like he was older than her and something.

Still a child, but always berating her interest to explore more of the forest. True, she recently tripped on some slimes and her mommy had told her a lot on how slimes would do bad things to girls, but that didn't mean she was unreliable.

In fact, Liese was the most reliable friend Blade had!

The blonde huffed as she could feel Blade's protective gaze behind her as they were busy with another trip in the forest. Blade was incredibly calm as he patrolled the rear, giving Liese the burden of picking herbs and other items that could be used to either consumption or to be sold.

The girl should have been picking a stick too and helped guarding, showing how good she had gotten in swinging some tree branches, but the task she got was so boring and painfully plain that she couldn't do it. And even trying to do something 'distracting' was rewarded with a flat look that was just as searing to someone like Liese as the glances her mama would give her for saying something bad.

And yet, if she did a nice job, she would be rewarded with a headpat. At first, Liese thought that Blade was just trying to treat her as a puppy, but the more time passed and the more she felt this was a nice reward. Especially when she had her head on his lap and letting him play wiht her hair while caressing her head.

The little blonde couldn't fault her friend for 'growing up' as her mommy explained, telling her about the fact that Blade's losing his daddy had made him the 'man of the house'. It made sense within the small mind of the girl, even more when she realized this would do well for her if Blade was to be the man of her house.

That put a rest to a few days of oddities, but it didn't stop the suspicions she held over Blade's interest in the old home of the chief. True that he had been tasked a few times by his mother to check it to make sure nothing was left unprotected, but Liese was also sure that her friend was checking the place even without being asked.

Did he find something interesting there?

Nah, Blade wouldn't keep that sort of secret from her. Or... would he?

Liese wasn't utterly convinced about his promise that nothing was happening there, but she didn't feel like checking the old place alone. After all, it was the place where the creepy old chief lived. It was big but it was so dusty and it was also somewhat 'smelly'.

She couldn't say what it was with it, but whenever she visited with her parents as they discussed things with the chief, the girl would feel something very unsavory staining the walls and the floor. Maybe it was the smell of an old man, after all the chief was the only old man in the place.

As her curiosity kept on growing, Liese also started to notice that something else was in the forest during the nighttime. She heard her father complaining of strange noises coming from that direction when they were all holed up at home, but Liese and Blade only spotted a few hints of what it could be.

"Look at that, it's scorched!"

The path was burned to a crisp, as if someone had used a fire spell or something of the kind but...

No one at the village could!

"It's possible that it is some high level monster that is still afraid of humans," Blade reasoned with a calm tone. "Which means we can't stray too deep or we could face a scary monster. Scarier than slimes."

She shuddered, then huffed. "I-I know that. There's no need to whine about it, Blade."

"...Whine?"

"Y-Yeah, whining."

Liese was thus cheek-pinched into surrendering to her friend's own view of the matter.

Despite these shortcomings, Liese had taken a step into noting all those details in journal in her room after asking her mother to find something of the kind in her father's 'secret room'. She knew there was one since her dad mentioned it at times, and her mother was, despite being confused, aware of it as she found it with ease.

What was odd of that request was that then dad was now sleeping out of the house, bound to a chain to a dog house and wearing a dog mask and barely any clothes. Mom didn't tell her why, only that her dad had done something rather unforgivable and he deserved some punishment.

She wasn't sure what could have caused her kind mommy to be so brutal with her dad but... it definitely felt deserved as he didn't complain about his conditions despite how inhumane those were. Was that a normal husband-wife behavior?

Oh well, Liese left these thoughts for later- after she was done with this mystery! She had an old book that Blade's dad had given her for her birthday about monsters. He told her that it would have helped her be ready to face monsters and be careful about those.

Some of the pages were not advised to be read by children, but Liese had given it a look and... It was fair to say that monsters were freaky and scary.

However, her focus was on fire-type monsters like Salamanders, drakes and dragons. But she doubted a big dragon was behind this situation, as the monster that had been destroying the slime colony in the area seemed to focus precisely on those rather than target humans.

Liese felt that something about this wasn't right. There was no way for a mindless mob to be behind this sort of attacks so... who could be behind that? Nothing came to mind and the journal didn't expand on it on potential low-level fire-using monsters capable of that sort of behavior.

Still, the worst part of those crazy days was something she noticed while getting carried back to the village by Blade. It became a common habit of them for Liese to be carried on his back, giving her the chance to put her tiny feet to rest after a lengthy herb-gathering quest.

Still, those days had been difficult to keep calm and not buzz about the strangely feminine aroma that came from Blade, as if he had been talking with other girls beyond her. When asked about it, he said that it was a new perfume his mother was using but-

But his mother didn't use perfumes!

She even asked and the woman was blissfully unaware of what she was talking about, meaning that Blade had lied to her and was seeing another girl. Who and where? Also, how?

Pink eyes burned with many queries, and little hint to find a solution to all of those. Life may have gotten as slow as usual at the village but...

Liese was going to find out who was the skank trying to steal her future husband from her!

AN

Next time, Blade discovers fast-travel, take the demon girls to a new dungeon and... the new chief arrives!