As soon as I start casting the Bonus Spell, I started feeling as if something was being drained from my body, and I was assaulted by in indescribably unpleasant feeling. Taking a pained look at my HP and MP bars, I saw that my MP pool was being rapidly depleted.
I recognized this dreadful state all to well, because I felt like that once before: when I used Warp for the first time, and it drained me of almost all of my MP, making me feel depressed as shit. It is exactly the same as that time, but somehow it feels much worse. But never mind that. The Bandit! What about the Bandit I used Equivalent Exchange on?! I still can't see him well, but I am sure that I heard as strange noise as if something was popping, or exploding, followed by a wet noise of something falling onto the ground. Does it mean I succeeded? If I did, then that's great, but oh God a part of wished that I didn't.
I wonder what exactly have I done to him? Oh great, the negative effects of MP loss start to kick in. Wonderful, simply fucking wonderful! Did I kill that guy? And if I did, then for what, some additional trinkets or a useless weapon he was probably carrying on him?! If I knew it was going to end like that I would have agreed to do this fucking job for free. Haha, do the job, not that's rich! Without my weapons granted to my buy my cheat-like abilities I am nothing, a literal piece of sentient trash that cannot do anything on its own, has no talent in any field outside of being a living failure. An absolute worst human being to ever walk the surface of this wretched shithole we call world!
Incompetent, perverted, cowardly, lazy, insignificant. Why is someone like me even alive? What purpose does my meager existence have?! Now that I think about it, how stupid of me was it to think that a life in this new, fantasy-like world would be fun and exciting? So far, it has turned out to be just one annoyance after the other, absolutely not worth living in here! And that's coming from someone who couldn't find a place for himself back on earth so he decided it would be best if he tried to fucking kill himself!
Feeling tired and exhausted with all that shit, I fell on my knees, catching every breath with great difficulty.
「Master!」
I haven't even realized when Roxanne appeared behind me. That's right. If she is here, then it means someone else can come in here at literally any moment as well… like more Bandits… ugh, what the fuck am I doing? I hurriedly collected myself and started paying more attention to my immediate surroundings, scanning everything with Identify.
Meanwhile, Roxanne placed her hand on my back and patted it gently. As she did so, the surroundings gradually began to get brighter, to the point where I could see that someone was approaching the room we were currently in. It was Alan-san. Great, just fucking awesome. The last thing I need is him finding me in such a sorry state, when I don't even have an idea what exactly happened to that Bandit over there! Man, fuck this shit! Not only I feel like I'm dying of depression and dark thoughts, but he's definitely going to ask question when he finds me.
This is bad! If he sees me the way I am now, there's no way he won't get suspicious, and he might just figure out that I am not from this world! That's right, I am not a member of this world. I am a filthy intruder. I wonder will I be branded as a murderer now, or perhaps a blood-hungry beast? Will I be executed, or just stoned and chased out of the city if I'm lucky? Either way, Roxanne seeing me like this was one thing, but when Alan-san sees me, that's going to be it for me. Persecuted, disfellowshipped, and quite possibly killed, those were the only options left for me.
「Roxanne… Th-This is…」
The finally realized that I was neck deep in shit. This is it for me. The literal end of the line. But at least now I see how it is. From the very beginning, everything was a clever trick, a scam orchestrated by that bastard, Alan the Slave Merchant! A conspiracy aiming to get rid of me! I new there was no chance for someone like Roxanne to be so nice to me just because!
「Michio-sama, are you okay…..」
「?!!!」
「!!!!」
「What in the world happened here?」
When Alan came inside the room with a lit lantern, we could finally see what happened to the Bandit who fell victim to my spell. There was literally nothing left of him. In the place where he was supposed to be, there was nothing but a big pool of blood. Witnessing this sight straight out of a horror movie, I desperately tried to hold up the urge to vomit.
「Can you stand up, master?」
Roxanne asked me worriedly, giving me her hand to help me get up from the floor.
「A Suicide Bomb? I had no idea Bandits had access to such items. I heard stories of how gruesomely effective it is, but this… you're lucky you made it out alive, Michio-sama. Suicide Bombs usually claim the lives of those who are both on the using and receiving end of it.」
「Are you okay?」
「As I said, he's lucky to still be breathing. Since Suicide Bomb is an item, its effects are instantenous, so I imagine he only had a split second to get some distance between them.」
「Something like that always happens when such an item is used?」
「Pretty much. Which is why I am all the more amazed that Michio-sama is not in a much worse shape.」
「That's because master is amazingly strong!」
Roxanne and Alan were having some pretty bizarre conversation, which didn't center on me being a murderous monster for some reason. Does that mean I am in the clear? I sure hope so. Item… Item Box… Fuck, of course! Why didn't I thought about it sooner?! For now, I just need to shut up and take one of those MP Recovery medicines I bought from the Adventurer's Guild. If I do that, my head should be cleared just enough for me to get a proper grasp at my current situation. *Sigh* I really am an idiot.
I silently summoned an Item Box and took the two medicines out of it. I should have bought more of them exactly for those kinds of occasions. Me being a cheapskate has apparently finally come to bite me in the ass.
When I took the medicines, my head felt much better because it was no longer in depressing turmoil. With that problem dealt with, I slowly rose from my knees. My entire body was hurting, most likely because of the fact that when Equivalent Exchange sucked all of my MP, it proceeded to drain my HP next.
「Master, are you really okay? Maybe you shouldn't be standing up so soon?」
「Thank you for your concern, Roxanne, but I am fine, really.」
Now, I have to sort what the fuck happened in my mind. Let's see… looks like initially Equivalent Exchange decreased my MP and the Bandit's HP in equal amounts, and when I ran out of MP, it switched to sucking my HP instead. In other words, if my total HP and MP were lower than that Bandit's, I would have been the one to bite the dust instead of him. It turned out to be quite the dangerous gamble, but thankfully I somehow managed to come out on top this time. But let me be clear on one thing, ok? I absolutely, positively don't want to go through something like that ever again.
「We allowed one of the Bandits to escape, but other than that all of them have been swiftly dealt with, so we should be safe for now. Thank you for your help in settling this matter and sorry for putting your lives in an unnecessary danger. If it wasn't for your warning, someone would no doubt end up injured or worse. No amount of words can describe how grateful I am for everything that you have done for us.」
When I could finally stand up myself without Roxanne's aid, Alan-san bowed to us with words of praise, which probably looked neat, but unfortunately my vision was still kinda blurry from all that magical HP sucking I went through. For a moment it looked like things could have gone so south that I could have hit fantasy Mexico here, but as long as the client is satisfied with the quality of our work I guess we have nothing to complain about.