Chapter 002
If someone were to ask Nana to describe the current situation in a single sentence, she would put it like this:
This is Hell.
It wasn’t a mere exaggeration.
Zombies mercilessly tearing into living people.
The screams of neighbors who were once simple and kind.
Those who had turned into monsters hunting and biting their own friends, family, and neighbors.
Bright red blood soaking the blackened, dead earth.
If this wasn’t Hell, what was?
As Nana stood frozen like a statue, staring at the scene, a strange scent reached the tip of her nose.
She thought it was incredibly foul, fishy, and bizarre.
And the moment she realized the true nature of that smell, goosebumps erupted all over her body, and her stiffened frame collapsed to the ground.
“Ugh, bleaargh—!”
It was the smell of blood. It wasn’t the first time she had smelled blood in her life, but she had never encountered a scent this pungent and disgusting.
Fast… I have to get out of here… or I’ll die. Before those things find me…
Fortunately, the zombies hadn’t spotted Nana, who was on the outskirts of the village.
However, if she stayed like this, it was only a matter of time before they discovered her.
She had to run away immediately, but her body trembled so violently from the horrific sight that her legs gave out. She repeatedly tried to stand up, only to collapse back down.
Please, legs! Listen to me. Please!
Just then, the two young chicks that had escaped Nana’s arms burrowed back into her embrace, chirping “cluck cluck.”
Whether they were cheering her on or simply felt that her arms were the safest place in this hellish situation, Nana gained a small spark of strength from their tiny warmth.
Thanks to that, Nana managed to escape and became the sole survivor of Sweet Little Village—but she wasn’t happy about it at all.
Grumble—.
At the body’s honest expression of its needs, Nana’s consciousness, which had been wandering through her memories, snapped back to reality. Sighing, she pulled herself out of the bed she had been moping in and headed toward the kitchen.
Right. Even if the world is ruined, you still have to eat.
“Cluck, cluck—.”
At her feet, the two hens tilted their heads as if greeting her. The young chicks she had received as quest rewards had grown quite plump by now.
Nana took some chicken feed out of her inventory and poured it into a bowl on the floor.
“This is the last of the feed.”
The water is running out, the food is running out… how am I supposed to keep you guys fed? No, before that, I think I’m out of food for myself.
Of all things, she had sold off most of the harvest stored in her inventory the day before the zombies appeared.
Her food security was non-existent.
The few potatoes left in a corner of her inventory had been eaten long ago, and all that remained was…
Nana sighed, reached into a corner of the kitchen cupboard, pulled out the last remaining silver pouch, and poured the contents into a bowl. The pouch, tossed carelessly onto the table, had the words EMERGENCY RATIONS written on it in large letters.
It was an item given as a beginner’s gift, but since she’d never had a reason to eat it, it had been neglected in the back of the cupboard. Who would have imagined she’d end up eating them one by one like this?
“I want to eat the meatballs Auntie Dorothy made.”
Dorothy, who was famous for being the best cook in Sweet Little Village, used to give Nana food frequently, saying Nana was adorable for doing her errands (daily quests) every day.
“I want to eat the stew Grandma Marcella brewed, too.”
Nana grimaced as she barely managed to swallow the dry emergency rations left in her mouth.
She knew. She knew she was being ungrateful.
In a world where a zombie apocalypse had arrived, it was a huge stroke of luck just to have something to eat and to be inside a relatively safe building—even if the only remaining food was dry, tasteless emergency rations.
But even so.
“You said it was an error! You said things would go back to normal! But why hasn’t there been any change until now?!”
Wasn’t this just a form of hope-torture?
Nana irritably tapped at the system window. But the only message that popped up was:
<System maintenance is in progress for normalization.>
The “gradation of anger” rising from the endless hope-torture and tasteless rations was brief, but it had the effect of dampening her gloom.
“When exactly is this damn error going to be fixed?! No, was it even an error to begin with?”
This damn game was notorious for its terrible management even before she was possessed. She started the game knowing that, but once she was actually inside, nothing was more infuriating than the incompetence of the developers.
“I’m literally going to starve to death! The ground has turned black, the plants can’t grow and are all dead, I can’t even go outside because of the zombies, and now I’m out of food! Pretty soon, I’ll have to eat these chickens!”
She had spent her days inside the house with the two chickens she cherished, having piled up a barricade in front of the door to keep the zombies out. If not for these chickens, Nana might have gone mad from loneliness and agony.
Venting her frustrations out loud made her feel even more wronged. She had possessed the protagonist who was promised a flowery path after escaping a grueling reality. She thought she would enjoy the game world and then live happily ever after with her chosen romanceable character.
It wasn’t even a hardcore dating sim, and the body she possessed was that of a fallen noble’s daughter.
She had to do farm work while completing daily quests every day, but for Nana, whose dream was to return to farming, even that was a joy.
“This shitty, trash game can’t even fix a single error! What about my farm?! What about my healing life?! If it was going to be like this, just send me back to my original world!”
She hadn’t worked so hard in this game just to starve to death. If she had to be possessed, why did it have to be this kind of game! If I was going to be possessed, I’d rather have been a fish in an aquarium game. At least they’d be swimming freely underwater without having to worry about becoming zombies!
The thought that all she had left was starvation made her so upset she felt like crying.
Just then, a loud fanfare suddenly exploded in front of Nana, and something popped up.
<Congratulations. You have awakened with the Class: Farmer.>
“Awakened? Farmer? What is all this about?”
Instead of fixing the error, they give me this…?
Nana’s face twisted. She was so bewildered that the tears she was about to shed retracted. As she unconsciously touched the message in front of her, the text in the window changed.
<A new version has been updated to normalize the game. Features will be added gradually.>
<Player Adrienne Roseton of Sweet Little Village has awakened as a Farmer. Land owned by the Farmer is declared as Farmland, and areas declared as Farmland will have their pollution purified. Plants within the Farmland will grow twice as fast as their original growth rate, and humans cannot trespass onto the Farmland without the Farmer’s permission.>
<Passive Skill: ‘Hand of Blessing’ has been activated. The Farmer can now be active outdoors, and plants that have passed through the ‘Hand of Blessing’ will grow 10% faster than their original growth rate.>
<Inventory functionality has been expanded.
The inventory, which was previously only accessible through the storage chest inside the house, is now automatically linked to every pocket touched by Adrienne Roseton.
You can use the inventory freely, anytime, anywhere.>
“Wait, wait. Awakening? Farmer? Originally, there was no such thing as a ‘Farmer’ class; the whole point was that you run a farm from the start. But a job change? A class?”
Nana was momentarily dazed by the sudden flood of information.
These were features familiar to anyone who had played games, but they were foreign concepts within this specific game.
Of course they were.
Even though it had a high degree of freedom, healing and romance were the main focus, so item stats or combat power weren’t particularly important.
“I must really be about to die. To be seeing hallucinations like this.”
Ding!
<Do not worry. You are perfectly normal.>
She thought it was just a simple system message, but it could understand her?
<Would you like to declare your current place of residence as a Farm?>
“…So I really did change classes? But why of all things a Farmer?”
If she were going to get a job change, a combat-oriented class suited for a zombie world would have been better. Out of all those many classes, why did it have to be a Farmer, which had nothing to do with fighting?
Her head felt like it was going to explode. As she tried to ignore the popup while clutching her throbbing head, a new message popped up to block her path.
<Land declared as a Farm turns into Farmland, and all existing pollution is purified. Plants within the Farmland grow twice as fast as their original growth rate, and humans cannot trespass onto the Farmland without the Farmer’s permission.>
<Would you like to declare your current place of residence as a Farm?>
…It felt like a desperate salesperson. Fix the error instead of doing this.
Nana touched the ‘Accept’ button. It was an action done without much thought, under the impression that she had nothing to lose anyway. However, as soon as she accepted, the air around her changed.
