At Most, I'm a Bacterium on an Ant's Foot

Lu Mingfei lay spread-eagled on the grass outside the Church of Elleh, staring blankly up at the sky.

The clouds drifted and shifted, resembling dragons, tigers, roast duck...

How wonderful it would be if he could have a bowl of instant noodles with a sausage, washed down with a bottle of Nutritional Express.

Lu Mingfei let his thoughts wander, recalling his days of conquering all corners of the internet café, thinking of StarCraft, thinking of the food back on Earth.

It did not even have to be good food.

Because now, he had no need to eat. He had no sense of taste, could not die, and any injury could be healed with a sip from his Flask.

A long, long time had passed since he emerged from the Stranded Graveyard—so long that Lu Mingfei could no longer count the days. Nor had he made any deliberate effort to keep track.

Because his mind had already been occupied with keeping track of something else.

The number of times he had died.

If Lu Mingfei remembered correctly, he had died exactly forty-seven times.

The feeling of his chest being crushed beneath a massive horse's hoof, of being cleaved down the middle by a halberd blade, of a longsword piercing his abdomen before he was hacked to death... What Lu Mingfei least wanted to remember was being swarmed by those bizarre bat-like monsters, having his throat torn open, blood gushing out, then watching them rip chunks of flesh from his body.

Every kind of death had seeped into his bones. That pain, that terror...

How could anyone get used to it?

Yet those forty-seven deaths, coupled with his scattered conversations with old Galle, had finally allowed him to piece together the outline of this world.

On this land called the Lands Between, Limgrave, where he currently was, belonged to one of the demigods, Godrick.

Ever since Marika, goddess of the Lands Between, had smashed the Elden Ring to pieces with one blow, everyone on this land had gone crazy.

Lu Mingfei rubbed the golden motes pulsing in his palm—Runes, the lifeblood, souls, and source of power of living beings.

This was the power that dispersed after death. According to Galle, the privilege of harmonizing this energy rested in the hands of Finger Maidens.

Yet at this moment, the Runes transformed into energy for his body at his command.

It had to be another cheat the little devil had secretly slipped him.

As for why he was in this place?

Ha.

Lu Mingfei did not know either.

One second ago, he had been carrying out a mission at the Three Gorges reservoir, watching with his own eyes as the red-haired girl's chest was split open by a dragon's tail, blood spilling everywhere.

In that moment, he had been desperate beyond measure.

To save that girl, he had staked a quarter of his life. He had watched the devil's hand strike his palm, and when he heard the words "Contract established," a wave of relief had suddenly washed over him. Then, the next second—

Everything went black, and he was thrown into this godforsaken place.

Just as Lu Mingfei was about to enter the cemetery plaza that had brought him his first death, the little devil appeared.

Then he told Lu Mingfei:

"I know almost nothing about why you came here. This world is rejecting me.

"Even for me, getting here was not easy. And something seems to have sealed the entrance. Just entering has already exhausted most of my strength."

"So, I prepared a beginner's gift pack for you."

"All you have to do is walk into that plaza."

Then Lu Mingfei saw that monster.

Its knotted arms spread out like a spider's, countless joints grafted with human hands. One side wielded two ornate straight swords in its paired hands, while the other held a beast-crested tower shield.

Its back hunched like a beast's, yet atop its neck sat the face of a human youth. On that handsome face shone eyes glittering with golden light.

At the time, Lu Mingfei had been so frightened that he could not even raise the knife in his hand.

And even if he could raise it, what then?

It was nothing more than an ant facing an elephant.

"No, I'm not even as good as an ant. At most, I'm a bacterium on the skin of an ant's foot... the kind that gets scraped off."

That was what he thought.

Then he was split in two.

Just as Lu Mingfei was on the verge of death, the enormous monster turned to ash before his eyes. An unknown force entered Lu Mingfei's body and vanished.

The devil appeared again, smiling as always.

"This power, and this death, are both included in your beginner benefits, brother.

"From now on, you have to learn to adapt to this feeling, so I let you experience it properly.

"How was that? Thoughtful, wasn't I?"

"Besides that, there are three bonus pieces of information."

"1. I gave you a way to grow stronger."

"2. You have something like storage space bound to your soul. Normally, you would need to learn how to open and use it yourself, but I have given you permission."

"3. Go find Dragon Communion."

After saying that, the little boy let out a nearly imperceptible sigh.

"There is too little time. This is all I could learn, all I could do. My power has been exhausted. I'll be offline for a long time, brother."

"You'll have to walk the road ahead by yourself."

"Lu Mingfei, it is time for you to grow up."

Then he vanished, as though he had never existed at all.

Lu Mingfei discovered that he could not truly die.

After every death, he would awaken again at a place known as a Site of Grace.

So Lu Mingfei set out in search of "Dragon Communion."

After leaving the Stranded Graveyard, there were roughly three paths.

The first was guarded by a huge knight called the Tree Sentinel.

Of his forty-seven deaths, at least thirteen had been bestowed by it.

That knight's senses were terrifyingly sharp. The moment he entered its field of vision or made a sound, that golden halberd would descend with a deathly shriek through the air.

Its overwhelming strength meant Lu Mingfei had never even entertained the fantasy of defeating it.

Lu Mingfei chose to go around it.

At the cost of six deaths, Lu Mingfei lit the Site of Grace at the Church of Elleh.

Yet whenever he ventured out, he still could not avoid drawing the attention of that massive guard once or twice.

In the instant the halberd came down, Lu Mingfei could sometimes see his own terrified reflection in the curve of its blade.

The second path was hidden along the cliff wall to the right of the Stranded Graveyard, where hordes of monsters rested on the rocks.

They inspired even greater fear in Lu Mingfei than the Tree Sentinel.

At least the Tree Sentinel gave you a quick death. The bats, however, gathered together and toyed with you using their sharp claws without killing you immediately, until you bled to death.

So exploration of the right side had to be set aside for now.

The third path led to a barren beach on the right.

Demi-humans—those ugly ape-like creatures—occupied the area.

The only thing that drew Lu Mingfei's attention was the island across the sea, but the raging currents cut off any hope of crossing.

No value there.

Lu Mingfei's primary prey was the Godrick Soldiers wandering through the woods before the Church of Elleh.

These soldiers were clearly among the people Galle had spoken of, those whose minds had gone wrong after the Elden Ring was shattered.

They possessed a certain degree of intelligence, patrolled along fixed routes, and had a simple set of attack patterns.

But they could not communicate, could not speak, and had extremely poor perception. They basically hacked at anyone they saw.

They could be killed.

A backstab to the heart killed them in one blow, while fighting them head-on required paying a price.

That was experience bought with more than ten deaths.

Killing these enemies granted a power called Runes, and Runes could be converted to strengthen Lu Mingfei's body.

Growing stronger...

That thought made him perk up again like celery soaked in water.

As long as he grew stronger, he could keep moving forward, leave these woods, and find the "Dragon Communion" Lu Mingze had mentioned.

After paying with more than ten lives, he finally figured out every soldier's patrol route, then assassinated them one by one.

However, after finally killing every soldier in the area, Lu Mingfei followed the guidance of Grace out of the woods, only for an even crueler reality to unfold before him.

An entire checkpoint full of well-equipped Godrick's Warband soldiers, with complete unit types, war wolves, and a commander.

If he alerted even one of them, the surrounding soldiers would swarm him, and their blades would chop him into mincemeat.

The spear knight clad in exquisite armor was like an insurmountable wall.

Not only was he vastly stronger than ordinary soldiers, he also used a technique Lu Mingfei had never heard of, unleashing terrifying thrusting power in an instant and skewering him clean through.

It was simply... impossible to defeat him.

Death after death, cycle after cycle, brought him nothing but the fear of facing death again and again, along with physical agony.

Nothing else.

Lu Mingfei suddenly fell into confusion.

What...

What am I doing?

Why am I fighting these powerful enemies?

I'm not the protagonist of some story, not a hero who slays dragons, nor one of those Tarnished who wants to become king.

I'm just a pathetic loser no one cares about.

Ah, right.

I think I wanted to grow stronger.

And after growing stronger?

Go back to my original world and save a certain girl.

Hold my head high and make others see me differently.

But—

How was I supposed to go back?

So... I never knew how to return in the first place.

Then what was the point of doing all this now?

So I was still running away.

I had been avoiding that fundamental question all along, forcing myself to sink into the cycle of "survival and death," numbing myself with battle and deceiving myself with an illusory future.

Actually... there was no way back at all, was there?

And so, Lu Mingfei broke down once more.

On the church lawn, Lu Mingfei lay on his back, his unfocused gaze fixed on the clouds in the sky.

His breakdown was not hysterical. It was a complete surrender.

He chose to rot in place as his way of resisting this absurd world.

"Old Galle, tell me, what do people live for?"

The traveling merchant dressed like Santa Claus, who had been fiddling with a fiddle-like instrument in his hands, froze for a moment and turned his gaze toward the strange guest beside him.

As a merchant, he had seen all kinds of Tarnished:

Ambitious schemers, warriors, desperadoes...

Yet he had never seen anyone like Lu Mingfei. Timid, weak, and completely without ambition.

Every Tarnished who came to the Lands Between was filled with ambition. They wanted to rely on their talent for battle to either achieve great deeds or become kings.

Yet ever since Galle met Lu Mingfei, he had never seen any ambition in him.

At times, he was as dejected as those undead unable to return to the Erdtree. At other times, he was as energized as celery soaked in water, like a complete lunatic.

But Galle did not dislike him.

The nomadic people had a rule:

"Being alone is good too—though others may despise and abandon you, there is no need to seek anything."

"Only those who harm us must never be easily forgiven."

In this broken age, lone merchants were often targeted, but Lu Mingfei had never harbored evil intentions toward him.

He was so pure that he was almost foolish. After killing someone for the first time, he had even crouched in a corner and dry-heaved.

Yet Tarnished were ultimately descended from warriors.

He improved at an astonishing pace and was clever-minded, rapidly growing from a weakling who could not even use a small knife into someone... skilled at stabbing people in the ass with a small knife like a sneaky little bastard.

All in all, he was a good person.

The strings trembled lightly, and Galle's voice carried over with the wind:

"Customer, perhaps you do not know this, but from ancient times to the present, we nomadic people have never been favored by the golden blessing.

"Driven to wander and reduced to hardship, we instead managed to preserve our sanity after the Elden Ring shattered.

"To have a place to settle, to be able to trade with you while clear-headed... I am quite content.

"After all, you are an important customer of mine."