[Infinite] A Caretaking Relationship

Si was gravely injured after a great battle. With no keeper to care for them, they felt their body slowly fading away in the void.

Just then, someone drew them into another world through a contract.

It was a strange world. Eerie puppets were taking to the streets in place of humans. People whose appearances, voices, and names had been stolen screamed, but in the end their lives were taken too.

The keeper who had made a contract with Si had fallen into a deep sleep from weakness. To survive, Si took control of this body.

The blood moon rose in the sky, and another round of slaughter began in the Puppet Town.

A young man with exquisite features, as beautiful as a flower made of glassine paper, sat quietly in his room. Outside the door, a strange puppet kept knocking.

People and monsters hidden in the darkness were all waiting for the beautiful young man to meet his end.

The moment they entered this other world, Si learned through their keeper's memories that all sorts of beings in this world coveted their keeper.

The keeper was named Shen Kaixian. By human standards, he was a delicate beauty with fair skin. By the standards and tastes of monsters, he was a fine-looking, delicious meal. To Si, his keeper had a delicious soul and was the perfect bait.

They quietly wondered whether the puppet outside could sate the hunger that had been growing ever stronger in the depths of their soul since they arrived in this world.

*

The people of the Nether Gate noticed that the famous pretty vase Shen Kaixian had changed.

He no longer clung to powerful players, asking them to carry him through dungeons, and he no longer used his much-criticized bewitching skill to beguile dungeon NPCs and even bosses.

But some people had seen several shadows radiating from behind Shen Kaixian. In the crisscrossing blood-red and knife-bright light, his face looked terrifyingly beautiful.

So when Shen Kaixian awoke from the weakness of his soul, he discovered that people had upgraded him from a delicate flower to a man-eating one. Everyone had to take two steps back when they saw him.

Shen Kaixian: ...? Isn't that how people treat the Nether Gate dungeon bosses too?

*

Shen Kaixian discovered a bug in the Nether Gate. He restarted the Nether Gate and replayed the dungeons from his previous life, using every means available to collect all the items dropped by the bosses. He wanted only to return to the time before everything happened and bring that person back.

When he opened his eyes, he had returned to the starting point. But the person he wanted to find had not come back. Instead, there was now an aberration coveting his soul.

The aberration could eat, had a foul temper, and was completely black from head to toe. The first thing it said when it saw him wake up was, "You're so weak."

Shen Kaixian: Return it! I want to return it! Give me my ex-boyfriend back!

Hot-tempered tentacle-type gong x spoiled, cowardly, and arrogant shou who pretends to be well-behaved

The story is primarily from the gong's perspective, and it is a one-to-one pairing.

Theme: There is always a way to survive, even in the direst circumstances.