Chapter 15
On course registration day, Ji-won, dressed in a hoodie with a light padded jacket, solemnly opened his front door, only to immediately pull his foot back inside when the cold air hit his face. After being discharged from the military and barely going out, his sense of seasons seemed completely dead.
After arming himself with a long padded jacket that covered down to his ankles, a scarf, and a mask, he opened the door again and found it much better than before. While others did their registrations at PC cafés, he felt anxious doing it alone at home, so he had decided to go out, but as he walked in the bitter wind, he desperately wanted to turn back.
“Hello.”
“Welcome!”
Greeting the part-timer as he entered the PC café, Ji-won habitually entered his ID into the machine and charged his time. With less than an hour left until course registration, he added a generous four hours, thinking about gaming afterward. Since he’d come all this way, he might as well play some games too. After charging with crisp bills, Ji-won looked around the spacious interior.
Before taking his leave of absence, Ji-won had been a freshman who wore only a coat even in the dead of winter. Having just entered university, looking stylish seemed more important than avoiding the cold, and the desire to make a good impression on people right in front of him outweighed the anxiety of possibly catching a cold. On days when he dressed lightly out of laziness, people would ask if he was sick.
Now he realized it had all been pointless, but he still didn’t want to run into anyone he knew looking like this, so he deliberately chose a seat in a corner. After rubbing his face, which was swollen from the cold wind, Ji-won turned on the computer and immediately ordered a bowl of ramen.
[Please liberal arts classes please liberal arts classes]
[Dear God (emoji)]
“Your ramen is ready.”
While occasionally checking his friends’ KakaoTalk messages praying to their respective gods, Ji-won started eating the ramen that had just arrived. It always tasted especially delicious when someone else cooked it, compared to always making it himself.
After filling his empty stomach with the warm broth, Ji-won pushed the half-empty bowl aside and logged into the game. Since he’d come here after a long time, he needed to make good use of his time. Logging in from a PC café gave an experience gain buff and increased basic attack power, making it perfect for leveling up his alt character with relatively poor items.
[Guild][Ddaji: Guild master hi]
[Guild][Ddaji: What class was 1549??]
[Guild][AltChar1549: Priest hahaha]
[Guild][Ddaji: Oh right]
All of Ji-won’s alt character nicknames followed the “AltChar+number” format. As soon as the login notification appeared, Ddaji caught it immediately and greeted him warmly. While Ji-won was responding, he simultaneously received a whisper from HolyKnightKnight.
[HolyKnightKnight>>AltChar1549: Guild master, is this your alt?]
[AltChar1549>>HolyKnightKnight: Yes haha were you hunting?]
Though he knew they were always hunting when alone, he asked anyway, but strangely there was no answer. Thinking they might be busy, he immediately moved to an appropriate hunting ground and started hunting, but soon a familiar character appeared. The outfit was identical, so it must be the newbie he knew.
[AltCharIm1549: ??]
When he asked why they had come, a party invitation flew in instead of an answer. Finally understanding why they had come all the way here, Ji-won smiled as he typed on the keyboard.
[AltCharIm1549: Sasa-nim, go hunt on your own hahaha priests level up quickly because of their wide attack range]
[HolyKnightKnight: Priest hunting is difficult though]
[AltCharIm1549: Really? haha]
As if priest hunting could be more difficult than a Holy Knight. The reason priests were rumored to be difficult to level up wasn’t because of the character’s hunting ability itself, but because of their glass-like body that died quickly after a few hits from monsters and their relatively weak attack power. Even those issues could be somewhat resolved by matching appropriate items and applying self-buffs, so it wasn’t a major obstacle for Ji-won.
[HolyKnightKnight: I’ll help you anyway]
It made him uncomfortable to see a newbie who should be rushing to reach max level circling around trying to help with his alt character’s hunting. But considering all the help he’d received so far, he thought he might have done the same if the roles were reversed, so he accepted the party invitation without further refusal.
[AltCharIm1549: Then I’ll just get to level 140 haha]
I need to finish quickly with full buffs. After drinking the potions he had purchased with his main character and transferred in advance, Ji-won started hunting at a rapid pace. HolyKnightKnight, who had been standing still nearby, also began to move and help with the hunt. Though much slower, the monsters were relatively low-level, so they disappeared in wisps when just grazed by the sword.
While efficiently dispatching monsters with minimal movement, the alarm Ji-won had set went off. Five minutes until course registration. Thinking he should log into the website now, Ji-won stopped attacking and asked for understanding.
[AltCharIm1549: I’ll be right back after doing my course registration]
[HolyKnightKnight: Okay]
After moving his character safely to town and minimizing the game window, Ji-won took a deep breath and opened the course registration site. Even though he had done this twice before, he couldn’t help feeling nervous. In his freshman year, he had been lucky enough to successfully pick the liberal arts classes he wanted, but he couldn’t guarantee that luck would continue.
Ji-won moistened his dry throat with water while displaying a picture of the pre-made schedule on the screen. 58 minutes. As he stared intently at the clock changing by the second, suddenly the screen froze, and the rapidly increasing numbers stopped abruptly.
“Huh?”
What’s wrong with this? In panic, he shook the mouse back and forth, but the cursor refused to move. It seemed like the web browser had an error, so he quickly tried to call the task manager, but it was unresponsive. With nothing working, he had no choice but to force shutdown the computer, but by the time the monitor turned completely black, it was already the top of the hour. Worse, when the computer finally turned back on a while later, it demanded the PC café ID and password again.
“Haah…”
By the time he clicked on the site link, it was well past the hour. This was truly a disaster. Ji-won rubbed his face dryly and stared blankly at the site that wouldn’t even connect. Seeing the long queue of waiting users, he could completely understand how his classmate felt when failing to get concert tickets for their favorite singer.
After waiting for a long time to access the site, the faint hope he had been holding melted away as soon as he saw the screen that looked like it had already been swept through.
“It’s all over, all of it…”
The classes were already filled and turned white thanks to the early birds who had snatched up all the good time slots. Looking at the low-rated lectures waiting for students to choose them, Ji-won sighed deeply and had no choice but to select what remained, filling in a new schedule in real-time.
His eyes darkened as he looked at the schedule that was completely different from what he had originally planned. Why did it have to lag right then? Was it because he wasn’t focused like others and was leisurely hunting instead?
[Did everyone get what they wanted?]
[Yeah perfect except for one haha]
[No.. barely got tennis]
[Complete disaster]
Ji-won replied with just three letters to his classmate asking about everyone’s schedule status, then closed KakaoTalk and carefully examined the schedule on the screen once more.
Out of 5 days, 4 had classes starting from the first period, and 3 of those had huge gaps between classes. It seemed like it would get a good reaction if he shared it with friends who were just starting a schedule competition in the group chat, but Ji-won, engulfed in despair, didn’t do that. If he was mocked now, he’d feel twice as depressed.
Was this punishment for just playing games leisurely all vacation? Once he got home, he wouldn’t want to go out again. He tried to think as positively as possible – that this was a divine message to go study at the library during those gaps, or an opportunity to maintain the regular wake-up time he had regained after being discharged – but it wasn’t easy.
Did he deserve to hunt with his alt character at a PC café after messing up his schedule? Though he no longer felt like staying there, he felt he should at least say he was going home, so he started the game again. Seeing his familiar alt character in town, he belatedly remembered there was an open chat, but since he was already logged in, he just typed in the chat.
[AltCharIm1549: I think I need to go home]
[AltCharIm1549: So I’ll log off first ㅠ]
[HolyKnightKnight: Okay I was about to leave too]
As soon as he typed that, HolyKnightKnight’s character disappeared, making Ji-won feel even more sorry. So I really made them wait for nothing. Feeling concerned, he finally sent a few potions he was going to use himself via mail and logged off.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
