While walking, Sarah realized several things. Firstly, she had no idea how she should sustain herself. She hadn’t seen a single clean water source, nor had she seen anything edible. At least she saw nothing that she knew. And she wasn’t sure if she should try her luck on the various berries and weird-looking vegetable things.

Secondly, it was questionable, how much walking around would do her any good. The swamp didn’t seem to end. The only thing changing was the mushiness of the ground, and the thickness of the trees and shrubbery surrounding her.

One time, she even came by a wide field without any trees. She tried walking into this field, but after a few steps, her left foot sank so deep into the mud that she fell over. Maybe she even ripped something in her leg. There was a quiet but unsettling snap when she fell over, her leg stuck deeply in the mud.

Even worse, some kind of giant leech actually managed to penetrate her dense skin, while her foot was stuck in the ground. She immediately ripped it off, but the wound bled for a long time.

Her SP was running low. She was awfully hungry and thirsty, and the sun started to go down. By now, the wildlife seemed to be fully awake. The swamp around her was full of the sounds of birds, insects, and other unidentifiable beings. Really spooky. At least the mosquitoes didn’t manage to penetrate her skin.

She sat down in the middle of a grassy clearing with surprisingly dry and stable ground. She was a few meters away from any trees or shrubbery. And the various spiders and other things they might contain were also far away, which calmed her down immediately.

While sitting there in the last light of the day, she came to a difficult conclusion. She would have to trust in her poison resistance and drink the murky water of the swamp. Unless she wanted to die of dehydration. She bled a lot the last day, and she had some difficult experiences. She also started to feel pretty woozy. As far as she knew, humans couldn’t survive very long without water.

Her whole body shuddered while thinking about it.

"When I’m already at it, I can also eat those different berries that grow around here. It can’t be worse than the spider poison." She told herself, trying to be optimistic.

With hesitant steps, she walked into a swampy area not too far from her clearing. Between dense greenery, she saw the slight shimmer of water.

She took a deep breath and put her hands in the water. She scooped up some water and tried to identify if there was something in it. But in the disappearing light, she couldn’t see anything.

Before she could change her mind, she swallowed as much of the liquid as she could. A foul taste assaulted her mouth, and she felt some bits and pieces in the water. She immediately swallowed the water and started gagging because of the putrid taste. It felt like her stomach was also churning because of the disgusting stuff she drank.

She sat there for a few minutes, waiting to see if something happened. But her stomach seemed fine, more or less, and the system didn’t mention any poisoning. So back to drinking again.

Holding back her reflex to vomit, she scooped up one handful of murky water after another until her stomach felt bloated and started to churn.

While sitting there and waiting for her sick feeling to go away, a system prompt surprised her.

The infection couldn’t be resisted. You are now infected.

Parasites couldn’t be resisted. You are now infected.>

"Uhhh," she said while looking at the screen. "Shit damnit!" she started to scream while holding her bald head. "Why didn’t you warn me earlier when I took the first sip of this disgusting soup?!"

It was a really gross feeling. Her body was now infested with who knows what. While thinking about that, she wanted to vomit everything out. But she knew, that her body would need the water. So she kept it in. These infections and parasites wouldn’t kill her, but dehydration would. Probably.

The problem was that the infection could lead to diarrhea. Which was a high possibility because the infection was in her stomach. In this case, she would die anyway because of dehydration. Great.

While agonizing over her hopeless situation, she came up with a crazy idea. Her poison resistance didn’t seem to work against organisms that entered her body. But it was really effective against the poisonous substances in the water. What if she consumed so much poison that everything inside her died? A mad laugh escaped her lips.

"Let’s see who dies first." She said it madly while patting her stomach.

She stood up and tried to find the berries she had seen before. While looking around, she saw some kind of flower growing next to a bush.

"Ah, might as well," said Sarah, who grabbed the flower and started chewing. It didn’t even taste that bad. Very grassy and sweet.

From this point on, she started to eat everything that came into her sight. Berries, flowers, weird plants, some bean-looking plants, and many other things. She couldn’t even properly see what she ate because it was so dark.

After her mad eating spree, her mouth, throat, and stomach were burning as if on fire.

While groaning, she fell to the ground, holding her stomach and shuddering. For a while now, her body has tried to vomit. But she suppressed it, trying to keep everything inside.

When the system prompt came, she fixed her gaze on it.

Warning! You ate something acidic. It is corroding your insides.>

While waiting for other system prompts and feeling like her insides were melting, she avoided looking at her status screen. She didn’t want to see how much her HP had dropped.

After some time squirming on the ground, she couldn’t help herself and vomited. It smelled putrid, acidic, and bloody. That was not good.

Suddenly, her eyes started burning, and she grabbed her face while screaming. She felt a warm, sticky liquid coming out of her eyes, and she couldn’t see anymore.

"Shit." She said in a coarse voice, wile regretting her stupid idea.

Parasites have died due to a highly toxic and acidic environment.>

Even though she couldn’t see anymore, she saw the system prompt. And she couldn’t help but laugh while realizing what it meant.

"Go fuck yourself, you little shits," she said in a coarse voice while blood started to pool in her mouth.

While feeling like she was blacking out every second, she tried to roll over to her side. It would suck pretty bad if she drowned in her own vomit while unconscious.

Not long after she managed to roll over, her premonition came true, and all thinking stopped.