Ikezawa was certain he had never tasted anything so vile in his life. The flavor was akin to simmering a month-old, grime-encrusted sock with a can of surströmming for hours.
Even after vomiting it all up, an acrid aftertaste lingered, rising from his throat to invade his nasal passages and prickle at the back of his skull.
Earlier, Lingsha's overwhelming scent had masked the medicine's foul odor, allowing him to drink it down without hesitation.
Having emptied his stomach, Ikezawa stared grimly at the remaining concoction and took a deep breath.
Though it tastes absolutely dreadful, he thought, this is ultimately a potent elixir that can make me stronger!
"I wasn't prepared last time," he muttered to himself. "I won't throw up again!"
With renewed determination, he tilted the bowl back and gulped down another mouthful.
"Gah—!"
Lingsha, who had snapped out of her focused state, watched in stunned silence. She knew better than anyone how wretched the medicine was. Ikezawa's initial gag reflex was understandable, but what baffled her was why he would dare to take a second sip, fully aware of how revolting it was.
Then, something even more absurd happened. Ikezawa wiped his mouth, his expression hardening with determination. "I'm starting to get used to the taste," he declared, "and there's nothing left in my stomach to throw up this time."
"Alright, let's do this!"
He gulped down the remaining Chinese medicine in one go, hastily tossing the stone bowl aside. He clamped both hands over his mouth, struggling to control his throat and force the bitter liquid down.
Lingsha watched in stunned silence, mentally giving him a thumbs-up. Incredible, she thought. She couldn't think of any other word to describe it.
As soon as he finished, Ikezawa suddenly recalled scenes from various anime where the female lead confidently serves up a dish so awful that the male lead has to choke it down, only to declare it delicious—a surefire way to win her heart.
With a pained smile, Ikezawa flashed Lingsha a thumbs-up. "Mmm... Delicious!"
Lingsha pressed a hand to her forehead and shook her head gently. "Maybe wipe the vomit from your mouth first before you start lying."
As she spoke, Lingsha took two steps back. There was no way she could continue researching herbs in this place, with vomit covering the ground. It was utterly disgusting.
Meanwhile, Ikezawa was inwardly terrified. He worried that if all of Lingsha's medicines tasted this awful, what would he do in the future?
Wait, does the game actually have a setting where Lingsha's Chinese medicine is notoriously foul-tasting? Ikezawa pondered. The answer, of course, was no. The game had never mentioned anything about it at all.
In the end, Ikezawa convinced himself that the problem must lie with the quality of the herbs in this world, or perhaps that all Chinese medicine simply tasted this way. He refused to suspect Lingsha herself.
Truthfully, as long as Lingsha didn't do anything wildly out of character—like pulling out a baseball bat and starting a fight, or digging through the trash—Ikezawa would never doubt her identity.
After all, the game's plot only revealed a tiny fraction of its characters' lives. A player's understanding of a game character was like a fan's knowledge of their favorite star—superficial and incomplete.
Isn't it perfectly normal to find that a celebrity is different in person from how you imagined them?
You wouldn't suddenly suspect a celebrity of being a fake just because they always step forward with their left foot in online videos, and then, by chance, you see them in real life stepping forward with their right foot first, would you?
Lingsha glanced at the meager pile of herbs remaining on the ground and the vomit nearby, too tired to clean it up. Instead, she sought out Granny Xi and requested permission to gather fresh herbs.
Without hesitation, Granny Xi granted her request and summoned a young Beast-Eared Girl. "Li," she instructed, "take them around the area to collect herbs."
Lingsha recognized Li—she was the one who had kicked a Velociraptor's head clean off yesterday.
It's worth noting that everyone in this tribe had single-character names. Granny Xi's true name was simply "Xi," with "Granny" added as an honorific.
Li twitched her ears and grinned at Lingsha and Ikezawa. "Leave it to me! I'll protect you with everything I've got!"
Actually, Li could have gathered the herbs on her own, but Lingsha insisted on accompanying her, claiming, "You might miss some of the herbs I need." As for Ikezawa, he had nothing better to do and followed Lingsha around like a lost puppy, sticking to her side wherever she went.
Li turned out to be quite the chatterbox. After leaving the Mountain Cave, she skipped ahead of the group, leading the way while chattering incessantly:
"I'm the strongest of all the teenagers! If any monsters show up, I'll smash them to bits!"
"But don't worry, the Hunting Teams have already cleared out most of the monsters around here. It's really safe, so nothing dangerous should happen. Besides, what happened yesterday was a rare exception."
Li was still talking when Lingsha suddenly interrupted her. "Can you tell us more about the Heavenly Flaw?"
Finally, a talkative and somewhat naive young girl—perfect for learning more about this world, Lingsha thought.
Lingsha gazed at the girl before her. Li had shoulder-length pale yellow hair, and her ears drooped limply on either side of her head instead of standing upright. Standing at around one and a half meters tall, she was undeniably adorable.
Li tapped her chin with her right index finger, pondering. "The Heavenly Flaw? To be honest, I don't know much about it. All I know is that every so often, something changes about that tear in the sky, and then a bunch of monsters come pouring out."
"Ah, we're here!" As they spoke, the trio arrived at a small basin. Lingsha surveyed the area, noting that the land within a hundred or two meters ahead was noticeably sunken compared to the surrounding terrain. Within this depression, extraordinary medicinal herbs grew in dense clusters. A single careless step could likely crush entire patches of them.
Li suddenly snapped her fingers as if remembering something. "Oh, right! I think Uncle Ge (the leader of the Hunting Team) mentioned that these herbs only appeared because of the Heavenly Flaw's anomalies."
Lingsha was taken aback. Isn't that exactly how Birth and Attachment-type Dimensional Rifts work?