Lament of the Slave

Chapter 122: Hangover

With the annoying rays of the morning sun streaming through the window, an aggravated growl echoing through the room reached my ears. It did not belong to a beast hidden somewhere in a dark corner. No, it escaped from my throat. How could I not growl, though? The sun stung my eyes even though my eyes were closed. Worse, it made my head hurt. Even throwing myself onto my belly and burying my face in the pillow didn't help.

With that I may have solved the sun problem, but the noise remained.

Someone from the adjacent brothel was already awake and apparently taking a bath. The innkeeper was working in the kitchen downstairs, and even the noise of the street was coming through the window into the room and to my ears. Slapping them to my head was a half-assed solution made in desperation, a solution that, much to my dismay, didn't do much either. I could still hear them all.

Sure, I could have pushed out the noises. To some extent, it was already feasible for me. There was a catch, though. It required focus, and to focus, I needed to be awake, the opposite of what I was trying to achieve.

An anguished howl into the pillow helped me get rid of some of the anger, frustration, and tension, but it didn't aid my sleep.

Instead, it drew my attention to another irritating thing, my mouth. It was as dry as was my throat, and the odd aftertaste made me think I'd eaten something rotten. It took courage to smell my breath. Courage and a strong stomach, as it turned out. I almost barfed. Seriously, I could already taste the bile in my mouth.

Close, it was so close, and I would have made a hell of a mess on the floor.

Still, it wasn't enough to get me out of the warm bed. That in itself wasn't even as comfy as I would have liked. Straw mattresses hardly ever were. Throw in a rough linen pillow and an itchy blanket, and you have a first-class annoyance. Still, I really wished to succumb to blissful sleep.

I didn't!

The last straw that got me out of bed was the system.

Although no new notifications were buzzing in my head, the unread ones nagged at my mind. It was a hard-to-describe feeling that I would liken to something you had to do, something important that you couldn't for the life of you remember, that nagging feeling at the corner of your mind.

Eventually, I gave up the effort to sleep, and after another grunt into the pillow, I rolled back onto my back. Pissed, and despite the headache that seemed to be getting worse by the minute, I looked at the notifications.

You were poisoned

You were poisoned

You were poisoned

What the hell?! And it just kept going.

I knew that too much alcohol wasn't good for one's health, but this was a bit too extreme. Or was it? Could what I was drinking last night still be considered booze for a normal human? Absolutely not!

Well, what else do we have here? Let's see....

[Eleaden Standard Language] reaches lvl 5

I certainly talked a lot, more than usual.

You were poisoned

You were poisoned

[Eleaden Standard Language] reaches lvl 6

You were poisoned

More of the poisoning. Yada, Yada...

You were poisoned

[Behemoth] reaches lvl 2

You were poisoned

Wait, what? Looking again, I indeed saw that the [Behemoth] had gained a second level. With a bad feeling welling up in the pit of my stomach, I checked the next notifications.