Seeing Ilhwiilbi’s chat, a hollow laugh slipped out of me in disbelief.
I forced the trembling corners of my mouth up and deleted the screenful of curses I’d just typed into the message window.
What? The end?
Maybe I’d been wrong. I’d assumed he’d be like the other lunatics, but this bastard Ilhwiilbi was on a completely different level even among those freaks.
He was only this persistent because I’d kept responding to him, wasn’t he? Letting out a heated breath, I adjusted my posture in my chair and calmly started typing.
TodayIsSunday: Yeah, do whatever the hell you want
TodayIsSunday: End or no end, I’m done giving you attention
The moment I sent that, I immediately deleted Ilhwiilbi from my friends list. I was sick of even looking at him.
[Guild] TodayIsSunday: Let’s move
[Guild] MeowMeowRawr: ㅇㅅㅇ??
[Guild] Maha: What
[Guild] Maha: What happened lol
[Guild] TodayIsSunday: He said he’d keep pulling that crap till the day he dies
[Guild] TodayIsSunday: So I told him to do whatever the hell he wants^^
[Guild] Astaroth: lmaoooooooo
[Guild] Maha: wow
[Guild] Maha: guess he really is a legit psycho;
[Guild] Yeoyeorang: The obsession with Sunday is insane
[Guild] sky004: You seriously don’t know why he’s acting like that?
[Guild] MovieIsSoSo: Isn’t it because Sunday helped him?
[Guild] sky004: He’s acting that crazy over just that?
[Guild] Maha: How are we supposed to understand what weirdos think
[Guild] Ryupe: fr
[Guild] Ryupe: I mean if you think about it, Heunjeok was kinda like that too without any big reason
[Guild] IOnlyHave6000Won: true
[Guild] MeowMeowRawr: Anyway if it’s over then are we going in?!?
[Guild] TodayIsSunday: go go
Maybe because the party leader Meow had pressed raid entry, the screen went black. Staring at it, I pressed hard against the deeply furrowed space between my brows.
***
A week passed after that.
Ilhwiilbi, the idiot who’d spouted nonsense about seeing this through to the end with me, spent the entire week asking for my location over server shouts and chasing after me every single day without fail.
Even when I got pissed off and entered a raid dungeon to shake him off, Ilhwiilbi would stand at the entrance like a stone totem until I came back out. The guy was seriously, thoroughly insane.
I even deliberately entered a high-difficulty dungeon that took a long time and came out two hours later, but Ilhwiilbi was still standing in the exact same spot waiting for me. The first time I saw that, it was genuinely horrifying.
The guild members who’d followed me into raids and watched the whole thing unfold kept whispering more and more as the days passed.
[Guild] rxrx78: Sunday used to go around dragging Heunjeok behind him
[Guild] rxrx78: and now it’s Ilhwiilbi...
[Guild] Astaroth: At this point maybe Sunday is actually the problem
[Guild] TurnTheLightsOn: Ahem!
[Guild] TurnTheLightsOn: Watch your words
[Guild] sky004: Honestly everyone already noticed and is just pretending not to
[Guild] Maha: lol
[Guild] Maha: one obsessive guy like Heunjeok is whatever, but if even Ilhwiilbi’s like this
[Guild] Maha: doesn’t that make it kinda suspicious?
[Guild] TodayIsSunday: You seriously wanna die?
[Guild] Yeoyeorang: scary 😭😭
[Guild] IOnlyHave6000Won: 😭😭
These bastards were having the time of their lives while I was the one suffering. Not a single one of them was taking Ilhwiilbi seriously.
And fair enough—unlike Heunjeok, who used to wage war against us with his entire guild every other day, Ilhwiilbi was just one fragile little newbie. On top of that, whenever he ran into guild members while tailing me, he acted so innocent and well-behaved that it was beyond ridiculous.
[Guild] rxrx78: But unlike Heunjeok, Ilhwiilbi
[Guild] rxrx78: isn’t really causing any damage, is he
[Guild] TodayIsSunday: what kind of bullshit is thatㅡㅡ
[Guild] TurnTheLightsOn: waiting alone until our raid ends
[Guild] TurnTheLightsOn: is kinda pitiful T_T
[Guild] Yeoyeorang: A newbie following around a veteran? That alone is sooo cute!
[Guild] MeowMeowRawr: Ilhwiilbi-chan is kawaii^.^
[Guild] TodayIsSunday: If he’s so cute then you guys take him and get lost, fuck
[Guild] Maha: lmaoooooooo
[Guild] LookAtOurTeamPersonality: lmaoooooooo
[Guild] MeowMeowRawr: sry that’s a bit much
See? Just from this chat alone, it was obvious how hard Ilhwiilbi had been working to act like a sweet, pitiful newbie in front of my guildmates.
Sneaky bastard...
I was trembling with bottled-up rage when a server message popped up at the top of the monitor.
[Server] Ilhwiilbi: Oil where are you? 20k gold
Here we go again.
Letting out a short sigh, I used a shout.
[Server] TodayIsSunday: Seitsu
The moment I gave the name of the city I was currently in, the reply came flying back.
[Server] Ilhwiilbi: omw wait for me babe^^
[Guild] rxrx78: You complain about Ilhwiilbi every day
[Guild] rxrx78: but when he asks where you are you always answer, what’s that about
[Guild] Maha: You’re just playing with him at this point lol
[Guild] LookAtOurTeamPersonality: be honest
[Guild] LookAtOurTeamPersonality: you kinda like Ilhwiilbi, don’t you?
[Guild] sky004: omg
[Guild] TodayIsSunday: shut it
[Guild] TodayIsSunday: he’s gonna come to me anyway
[Guild] TodayIsSunday: might as well be the one taking his money
[Guild] TurnTheLightsOn: lmaooooooo
[Guild] IOnlyHave6000Won: Who’s calling who crazy here seriously lmaooo
[Guild] Yeoyeorang: you’re both the same LMAO
[Guild] Maha: sounds like fate-bound rivals to me
Right then, 20,000 gold arrived in my mailbox. Should’ve done this sooner. Even if I didn’t answer, one of my guildmates or some random player would’ve told him where I was anyway.
I was using the 20,000 gold Ilhwiilbi had sent me to repair my weapon when I saw the owner of the gold sprinting over from the other side.
[All] Ilhwiilbi: hiiii
Seriously, why was he so weirdly cheerful all the time? Ignoring his chat, I continued repairing my weapon.
[All] Ilhwiilbi: Oil
[All] Ilhwiilbi: raid again today?
Raid again today?
Yeah. In fact, I was planning to do the latest hell-mode raid, the one that took a full five hours. The only reason the guild was especially crowded today was because so many people had gathered for the raid.
Of course, there was no reason to explain any of that to Ilhwiilbi. The whole reason I was doing a five-hour raid in the first place was to shake him off.
[All] Ilhwiilbi: do you normally raid this often?
[All] Ilhwiilbi: once you geared up that much don’t you not need to grind raids so hard
[All] Ilhwiilbi: don’t you do life quests?
Whether I answered or not, Ilhwiilbi kept chattering away. I ignored every bit of it again and moved straight to the raid save point.
[Server] Ilhwiilbi: Oil current location 20k gold
The moment I vanished in front of him, Ilhwiilbi hurriedly threw up another server message. I’d already expected even this, so I used another shout.
[Server] TodayIsSunday: In front of Burning Ruins
Ding. Along with the notification sound, another mail arrived. I’d shaken 40,000 gold out of Ilhwiilbi in a single day. Massive profit.
Maybe he’d used the save point like I had, because Ilhwiilbi caught up almost immediately. For a newbie, why the hell did he even have a save point set at the raid dungeon veterans used?
I joined the party my guildmates had already formed. The moment they spotted Ilhwiilbi stuck to my side like glue, their reactions came in full force.
[Party] Yeoyeorang: omg
[Party] Yeoyeorang: Ilhwiilbi followed you again
[Party] Maha: is he gonna wait again this time
[Party] TurnTheLightsOn: he’s insane lmaooo
[All] MeowMeowRawr: Ilhwiilbi-chan is kawaii ㅇㅅㅇ!
[All] Ilhwiilbi: Meow is kawaii too~
[All] MeowMeowRawr: kyah >< lol
They’re really having fun with this. If he clicked that well with Meow, why was he still following me, the one who never gave him the time of day? I genuinely couldn’t understand it.
[Party] rxrx78: c’mon
[Party] rxrx78: it’s gonna take 5 hours, how could he possibly wait
[Party] LookAtOurTeamPersonality: agreed, no way he’d wait that long, that’s just gross
[Party] TurnTheLightsOn: hmm when I was that level
[Party] TurnTheLightsOn: I had a ton of shit to do...
[Party] Yeoyeorang: it hurts me to watch a newbie waste time like this
[Party] Maha: his own fault
[Party] Astaroth: if it were a raid newbies could enter we’d take him
[Party] TodayIsSunday: says who;
[Party] TodayIsSunday: just ignore him
[Party] Maha: Ilhwiilbi waits 5 hours? or doesn’t?
[Party] Maha: place your bets go go
[Party] Astaroth: He waits!
[Party] rxrx78: I vote no
[Party] sky004: 5 hours is too much
[Party] IOnlyHave6000Won: but he could just leave it on and do something else right
[Party] TurnTheLightsOn: then why even leave the game on? 😭😭
[Party] IOnlyHave6000Won: um.... uh....
[Party] IOnlyHave6000Won: to wait for Sunday?;;
[Party] Ryupe: when you put it that way it really is absurd lol
[Party] TodayIsSunday: there’s no way he can wait lol
After setting my raid skills and equipping my gear, I smiled deeply.
[Party] TodayIsSunday: So then
[Party] TodayIsSunday: let’s clear this real nice and slow^^
[Party] TodayIsSunday: understood, everyone?
[Party] Ryupe: damn
[Party] Astaroth: daaaamn....
[Party] TurnTheLightsOn: damn
[Party] Maha: madness vs madness
After being handed party leader, I left Ilhwiilbi behind and pressed raid entry.
As the screen slowly darkened to black, I caught one last glimpse of Ilhwiilbi standing there all alone.