The next day, the moment I logged into the game, the same familiar opening started up again.
Which meant I was getting beat up by 『rainfall』 today too.
[General]kk1234: Hey, wait a sec
[General]kk1234: For real, just a second
I shoved 『rainfall』 away to hold him at a distance, and while he was waiting for his cooldowns instead of cracking his skull, I hurriedly started typing.
A peace gesture, the kind an actually sane human being might make. I was trying to talk.
For me, someone who had never once solved anything with words in this trash game, this was a historic, nationwide-level decision. Not that 『rainfall』 had a clue.
『rainfall』 ignored me and started casting. I quickly interrupted his cast, and instead of following up with a combo, I went back to hammering my keyboard.
[General]kk1234: No, hey
[General]kk1234: Seriously, just a second
[General]kk1234: At least tell me why
[General]kk1234: I’m against violence
[General]kk1234: Why the hell are you chasing me around and beating me up?
[General]『rainfall』: Why, you ask?
Oh……. I thought he’d ignore me, but he actually answered. It’d been a while since this bastard gave me this much of a reaction. Other than yesterday, all he ever said was “die.”
[General]『rainfall』: You don’t remember?
If I remembered, would I be asking this?
He’s got a rare IGN and I still don’t remember him, so it had to be some “passed-by-in-a-blur” level encounter.
[General]『rainfall』: You really don’t remember?
I typed out, “I don’t remember a single thing,” and then deleted it.
This bastard’s way of talking was getting a bit more murderous. There was no way someone like 『rainfall』 would appreciate jokes, and if I provoked him and blew the one shot I had at a conversation, that’d be idiotic. If I said the wrong thing today, who knows how many more weeks he’d spend silently stalking me again.
<‘kk1234’ politely bows to ‘『rainfall』’.>
[General]kk1234: Yeah, my bad
[General]kk1234: Honestly I don’t really remember it well...
[General]kk1234: I must’ve… hit you, right?
[General]kk1234: But it’s not like I keep a log and beat people up on purpose every time I see them, you know?
[General]kk1234: Anyway, I’m sorry.
[General]『rainfall』: Okay
[General]『rainfall』: Then die
Ah, fuck…….
The real sinner here was me, for trying to talk to this crazy bastard.
『rainfall』’s body shimmered. This bastard always goes full drug-doping whenever he’s fighting me. Where the hell does this level of obsessiveness come from? I feel like I’d get chased less even if I borrowed from loan sharks.
[General]kk1234: Hey, come on ♡♡
[General]kk1234: At least let me know the reason before you beat my ass
[General]kk1234: Isn’t this kind of indiscriminate violence a bit much?
I didn’t think this would actually make him stop, but 『rainfall』 really did stop. He went quiet for a moment, like he was actually thinking about something. And then……
[General]『rainfall』: It’s something from a while back
[General]『rainfall』: From half a year before the first time I came to hit you
[General]kk1234: ??
[General]kk1234: Half a year?
…That was some real ancient history. The kind of time unit that pops up and you just don’t want to believe it.
[General]『rainfall』: You were beating up newbies, and when I tried to stop you, you killed me
[General]kk1234: Ah
[General]kk1234: Aha?
I don’t know.
How the hell am I supposed to remember that kind of thing? If I’d only beaten up one or two people, maybe I would…….
And half a year ago? Do you remember what you had for lunch six months ago? You’re basically telling me to count how many slices of bread I’ve eaten in my life. Who the hell remembers that?
[General]kk1234: And I did that, like, six months ago?
[General]『rainfall』: Yeah
[General]kk1234: Then why are you only beating me up now?
[General]『rainfall』: Back then, I didn’t really know PvP
[General]『rainfall』: So I’ve been learning and studying it for half a year
Is he insane?
Ugh, fuck……. I got goosebumps. It would’ve been creepy enough if some strong guy had just come straight after me, but this was on a different level.
Because… this is a game, right? Who studies PvP for half a year and chases someone around for an entire month just because they got killed once in a game? This was way beyond the realm of normal human understanding. I decided I was done trying to understand 『rainfall』.
[General]kk1234: You a stalker or what?;
[General]『rainfall』: It’s useless trying to diminish what I’m doing with a malicious word like that
[General]kk1234: That was just me speaking from the heart
[General]kk1234: Getting revenge because you got killed once? For this long? That’s literally what a stalker is, fuck
[General]『rainfall』: It’s a little different
[General]kk1234: ?
[General]『rainfall』: You’re pretty famous, you know, for beating up newbies
[General]『rainfall』: Do you really have to play by hurting other people like that?
[General]kk1234: ??
[General]『rainfall』: I’d like it if you reflected on all the harm you’ve done to other people until now
[General]kk1234: ???
[General]kk1234: I just beat up some people in a game, that’s all
[General]kk1234: That’s literally what the system is for, beating people up??
[General]『rainfall』: Right
[General]『rainfall』: It is a system that’s there to let you beat people up
[General]『rainfall』: Then die
Lunatic.
Actually insane bastard…….
I’d known he was crazy, but I had no idea what to do with this bastard who was truly_really_insane_final_form_crazy.
****
Cutting through the water as I swam, my focus eventually slipped, and my mind started to wander.
“Our Seojin has always been such a well-behaved kid.”
Like my parents said, I’d been a very quiet kid since I was young, the kind who never gave them trouble. I did what I was supposed to do without anyone telling me, and I never caused incidents.
It wasn’t because I was temperamentally some docile child. The reason I grew up that way was my cousin who lived nearby.
My cousin was a hopeless case, constantly pulling bullshit that skimmed the line of criminal behavior. My aunt would often come over to our place to vent about him. Then my mom, who has serious empathy, would cry along with her.
I grew up watching that.
I kept telling myself over and over, I’m never going to put Mom through that. That was how I started pretending to be a “good kid.”
Back when I was little, faking being a good kid when it didn’t fit my personality made me stew inside…. But as I grew up, I learned how to draw lines where I needed to and laugh things off enough to function in society.
Of course, I still needed ways to blow off stress sometimes. In that sense, games were a great outlet. So long as I wanted to, I could completely separate them from reality.
I just never imagined that the thing I started for fun would suddenly grab me by the ankle because I vented some stress in it.
“Hoo…….”
I couldn’t focus purely on swimming the way I usually did, but moving my body still helped clear my cluttered head a little. Swimming was another way I’d been relieving stress since I was a kid.
The random thoughts faded… and I even forgot about 『rainfall』 for a brief moment…….
Well, only to remember him again after I finished working out, for as long as I hadn’t been thinking about him.
After moving around for a while, I got hungry. I had plans afterward anyway. I tossed my bag into the car, went into the café, and my friend greeted me.
“Yu Seojin!”
“Yeah, yeah.”
I gave him a half-assed greeting and went over to sit down. On the table sat one overly-sweet frappuccino and one iced Americano. I frowned at the frappuccino that looked like it could give me diabetes, then grabbed the Americano and chugged it. I felt a bit of the rage simmer down.
“Something happen? Here.”
“Yeah.”
What Younghu handed me was the handheld console I’d borrowed about half a year ago. Originally, I hadn’t planned on caring about it for a while. But I’d gotten pissed off thanks to 『rainfall』, so I figured I might as well get it back and play it again, which was why we’d met.
“Thanks for letting me use it. The Americano is your rental fee.”
“Did your conscience die or what….”
“So why’re you suddenly asking for it back?”
“If you haven’t finished everything, you can keep it.”
“Nah, I started playing it and it was fun, so I’m just gonna buy my own. You said this thing’s been gathering dust because you’re always on Aurora, right?”
Right, that was a thing… a past where I was obsessed with Aurora.
“Finally sick of Aurora?”
Younghu is the only friend who knows I play Aurora. We’ve been friends since elementary school, so you could say we know each other’s bottom-of-the-barrel selves pretty well.
We actually tried playing Aurora together once, but I nagged him a bit while we were playing and he sulked and bailed. I didn’t bother chasing him. It was hard to tell if he was playing with his hands or his feet—Lee Younghu is god-awful at games.
“It’s been a shit game for ages, I’ve been sick of it forever.”
“You say you’re sick of it but you play it every day…. Did you really quit? If you quit, treat us with the gold you get from selling your account.”
“You crazy bastard, I didn’t quit, okay?”
“Then?”
Normally, I’d never bring up in-game stuff like this to Younghu. It’s always better to keep game and reality strictly separate. But right now, I was pissed off enough that I wanted to vent to anyone.
“I ran into a lunatic…….”
“Someone crazier than you?”
“…….”
“No such thing.”
I started looking around for a blunt object I could use to crack Younghu’s head. Maybe because he sensed it, he quickly leaned back away from the table. I let out a deep sigh, and he snickered like some bored callout-board troll with nothing better to do.
“There’s this bastard who’s been chasing me for a month straight, you know?”
“What!? Isn’t that a crime?”
Eyes wide, Younghu blurted it out loud, and people turned to look. Embarrassed, I gestured for him to sit down. Then I lowered my voice.
“In the game.”
The tension drained out of Younghu’s face, and he let out a long, deflated sigh.
“Ah, right. And here I was worried. Getting tangled up with someone in a game is just……”
“I’m being serious.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Younghu’s interest visibly died, and he started scooping whipped cream with his straw. I held back the urge to smear that cream all over his dumb face and chugged my Americano like a maniac.
It had already been a month since 『rainfall』 started chasing me.
Even on the callout boards that had been gloating at first, people had started saying things like, “『rainfall』’s kinda creepy, honestly;” and my guildmates who’d always laughed their asses off had started to worry and say, “Want us to beat him up with you? Just pay us 100 million gold.”
But I didn’t want to resort to something that petty. Once I found out 『rainfall』 was hitting me over a grudge from six months ago, I wanted to do it even less.
Half a year ago—now seven months ago—『rainfall』 had decided to get revenge for what happened and spent that time sharpening his skills. With his kind of funds, he could’ve just thrown gold at people who hate me and hired them to shank me. Even so, he’d chosen to study on his own and, in the end, he beat me himself…….
In that situation, if I borrowed other people’s hands just because he was annoying, it’d feel like losing. So I didn’t want to. But to keep playing the game while 『rainfall』 kept popping out like some cockroach, I was sick of that too. Total stalemate.
“Maybe I should just quit for a bit.”
“There you go again. I’ve never once seen you actually quit after saying that.”
“Shut up.”
I glared at Younghu for poking right where it hurt.
Of course, even after all this, I probably still wouldn’t quit. I could see it myself.
The people who really quit don’t say shit like this; they just log in less and less and then disappear one day. The kind of guy who runs his mouth about quitting while logging in every day—someone like me—is never gonna quit.
Yeah. Even if I don’t actually quit… it’d still be better to take a short break. Maybe after that, even 『rainfall』’s head will cool off a bit?
“Then I’ll take a break until the next update.”
“Then let’s go somewhere, man.”
“I’m busy.”
“You said you’re taking a break from the game. Let’s call Junho and the others and go to the beach for a night or two. It’s summer, you’re just gonna rot at home? Huh?”
“I could still go on a 1-night-2-day trip even without taking a break.”
“You never go, though.”
“…….”
Well yeah, because I have daily events to run every day. When I hesitated, a sharp light flashed in Younghu’s eyes.
“Hey, you’re going, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Hell yeah!”
Honestly, I’d been planning to burn my whole vacation on games… but I guess I should live a bit of my real life until this trash game updates. This summer, they were just going to half-ass some events and sell a few packages anyway. For a trash game, its top-tier specialty was “no-updates.”
If I took a break and ended up losing interest in this trash game and quitting, that’d be fine too. And if I ever wanted to play again, by that time, 『rainfall』’s head would have cooled off at least a little.
And then…….
****
New Season “Ascalah” Update Notice
Hello.
This is [GM] Laon from Aurora, the fantasy world of countless journeys shared together.
On September 1st, a new continent, “Ascalah,” will appear before all our adventurers.
A new region and dungeons will open, a large-scale questline connected to existing quests, the new class Astrologer, and many other pieces of content will be added.
The level cap will be raised from 90 to 120, and existing classes will receive balance adjustments and motion changes as part of this update.
Please check the patch notes for detailed information about the update.
[Go to “Ascalah Season – Adventurer of the New Continent” Patch Notes]
[Go to Ascalah Season Pre-Registration Event]
[Go to Adventurer of the New Continent Special Package Info]
A massive update announcement went up.