Don't Take the Blame
"No." The painted woman immediately said, "You're the one with something wrong in your head."
"Anyone without a problem in the head couldn't have asked that question just now." The female Player chuckled. "Looks like the conditions for the game to choose Evolvers are still pretty lax. Someone like me, someone like you—we both somehow became Players."
The painted woman still wanted to say something, but another female Player sitting beside them put down the book in her hands and said, "Stop asking her. She has a genetic disease called 'youth.' Once she grows to eight or nine, she stops growing."
The painted woman changed seats and went over to ask, "Then what will she look like when she's old?"
"Naturally, she'll age in the form of this body," the woman said. "Wrinkles, age spots, loose teeth—all of those will appear. She won't stay young forever."
"And they can't have children, either."
"Normally, fewer and fewer people would be born with youth disease. However, the groups descended from their common ancestor carry the same gene, so occasionally, descendants with the disease are born. That's why they keep appearing, though they're rare in the game."
The painted woman nodded and took some of her own snacks to share with the female Player who had the genetic disease.
The other woman wasn't unreasonable. Seeing that the painted woman really did have something wrong with her, she accepted the offering calmly.
The female Player reading the book seemed highly knowledgeable and eager to share. As she ate the snacks the painted woman had given her, she said, "Actually, there are quite a few strange diseases like this in the game."
"I remember a case in a medical record that described something similar. It said that a certain race occasionally