I paid for two bags and came out with both hands full. But then Jun snatched the bags I was carrying right out of my hands.
“Unbelievable. He won’t even carry the stuff for the person who paid, but he’ll carry Du-seon’s.”
“Just look at him—he’s obviously frail.”
I’m not, though. I’m not frail.
I wanted to argue that he was just ridiculously well-built and that I had the standard Korean physique, but I held it in. We’d been snapping at each other back at Hanwoo Alley, and I didn’t want to stir up that kind of mood again.
Jun said I could sleep over, but I was thinking of leaving depending on how things went. No matter how close a friend’s place was, sleeping somewhere else always felt uncomfortable. Maybe it was because the pillow wasn’t mine—it just didn’t feel right.
Honestly, I was just curious about the inside. You never know. If that building ever went up for sale later, other real estate agents wouldn’t even get a chance to see his place, so it felt smart to check it out now. And those string cheeses inside that bag… I also had a secret ambition to sneak one or two out with me.
A familiar alley came into view, along with my real estate office with its lights off. Then I walked into Jun’s building—the one I only entered when running errands. Their tone was still a little sharp, but compared to before, the atmosphere had softened a lot. When we all got into the elevator together, their conversation became clearer.
“I thought you were a bottom.”
“What, are you blind?”
They kept getting heated, tossing around words I didn’t understand. Then Jun pointed at me.
“Guys who look exactly like that tend to be bottoms. Pretty face, you know. Doesn’t even look twenty-eight—total baby face.”
“Hmm… yeah. And he’s kind of small too. Just look at that neck line—his skin’s so pale…”
The two of them started whispering about “soft flesh” and stuff.
Seriously, is it even whispering if the person right next to you can hear everything? What the hell? Why are they suddenly critiquing my appearance? Pretty and pale? I didn’t know exactly what “bottom” meant, but in this situation it definitely didn’t sound like a compliment.
They looked down at me like, ‘That’s the culprit right there.’ I hadn’t done anything wrong, yet I felt myself shrinking under their gaze.
Jun and Bin’s eyes clung to every part of my body, heavy and sticky. On top of that, Jun glanced down at me and slowly licked his lips. His tongue—red and wet like raw meat—slid back into his mouth. Bin didn’t make such blatant gestures, but his usually easygoing gaze sank into something quiet and heavy, filling the air with tension.
Ding—.
When the elevator reached the seventh floor and the doors opened, the two of them stepped out, chatting softly again. An inexplicable sense of danger crept over me, and I moved a beat slower than they did.
Should I… just bolt like this?
Instinctively, I pressed the button for the first floor. The elevator doors began to close slowly.
Yeah. You can’t ignore a gut feeling like this. Right, exactly.
As the doors slid shut, I saw Jun pause while opening the front door and turn back. When he noticed me still inside the elevator, he urgently reached out an arm, but it didn’t make it in time.
Thud.
The elevator doors closed, and I watched the numbers drop—fifth floor, third floor. The desperate look on Jun’s face right before the doors shut wouldn’t leave my mind. My heart started pounding as if something were chasing me.
What was that…?
It was the face of a hunter who’d just lost his rabbit.
Right. Jun was gay. Well… even so, I wasn’t into that at all. Did he see me as prey? He’s insanely picky about looks, though. Before reaching the first floor, I checked my reflection in the elevator mirror.
“Well… I guess hunters don’t pick rabbits based on their faces.”
Shivering, I stepped out of the building. Maybe it was just the alcohol talking. Sometimes drinking makes your libido spike, doesn’t it? Since Jun was gay, I figured it could happen.
Buzz—. Buzz—.
The moment I stepped outside, Jun called. Ignoring it would make things weirder, so I answered and vaguely said I just wanted to rest at home, but his voice came through with a threatening edge.
[Come back. You’re having a beer before you go.]
“My stomach feels off… I’m gonna head home today.”
[…You knew and ran away, didn’t you?]
I wasn’t entirely sure, but admitting I ran because I knew felt uncomfortable. Like a witness saying they recognized the killer—people like that always get killed in movies.
“Ah, the bus is here!”
So I used a bus that wasn’t even there as an excuse and hurriedly hung up.
[Haven’t you heard you should be careful of people who buy you beef? Pure intentions only last until pork, they say.]
Han-woo’s words were dead on. Even after I hung up, Jun called again. Of course, I didn’t pick up. I could just say I passed out drunk later.
***
“Haa…”
After barely making it home, I lay down on my bed and replayed what had happened earlier.
Jun’s face as he tried to grab the elevator felt genuinely terrifying. For a moment, it almost felt like reality had turned into the game, like ShutUp was rushing toward me to link.
Thinking about the game made me sit up. Maybe because I’d been startled earlier, the alcohol had worn off a bit, but once I got home my mind felt even clearer. It was Friday night, and since I didn’t open the real estate office tomorrow, staying up late to play wouldn’t be a problem.
“If I log in now, ShutUp probably won’t be there.”
Even though we’d cut the partner link and couldn’t see each other anyway, I was oddly conscious of it. I stepped out of my room, drank some water, then sat on the sofa, put on the helmet, and logged into the game.
<<Welcome to Blood Planet.>>
<<Moving to your last login location.>>
As soon as I logged in, my level had dropped to 45. The more I played this game, the lower my level got—it felt like I was constantly losing out.
Getting mixed up with high-level players only drags me into fights. I should just focus on hunting.
My login point was the center of the lake where I’d died yesterday. It was the pavilion, and beneath the water those eel-like creatures that attacked me before were swimming around leisurely.
I used the Return Scroll ShutUp had given me and headed back to town. As expected, the banner was gone. In Adventurer’s Village, it wasn’t easy to find party members around my level. With no other choice, I moved to Velvet Town, where there was a level-40 hunting ground.
<<Moving to ‘Velvet Town’.>>
If Adventurer’s Village felt like a medieval countryside with single-story buildings and stone paths, Velvet Town had tall fortress walls and far more shops. There were personal stalls set up in the plaza, and interestingly, guard NPCs stood near the town entrance.
Like most game settings, European-style buildings filled the scenery. With a name like Blood Planet, I’d expected a sci-fi background, but the view was similar to any other fantasy game. Still, because it was virtual reality, it felt like traveling through Europe.
In the alleys, <donkeys> and <dogs> wandered around. Looking closer, they were picking up junk items players had dropped on the ground. They were basically robot cleaners designed to keep the floor from getting cluttered.
In the middle of Velvet Town, there was a fountain and an open-air theater. Apparently, events were sometimes held there, and GMs would gather to chat with players.
Party boards were set up throughout town, allowing players without a group to post their profiles and look for teammates. I uploaded mine too, writing [Relax skill available] under special notes.
Looking around, there were quite a few Guides waiting. Most parties ran with three Psychics and one Guide, so even though there were many Psychic players, turns rotated fairly evenly.
I sat on a bench beside the board and watched people passing by. Then one player suddenly shot an arrow at a wandering donkey. The donkey collapsed, dropping junk items—including plenty of potions.
Huh? You’re allowed to kill those?
In Adventurer’s Village, players spammed skills everywhere, yet the chickens roaming around never died. Something felt off, so I looked around. There were far more players here than in Adventurer’s Village, yet no one used skills recklessly inside the town.
“Don’t tell me… PK is allowed inside town too?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
Someone plopped down beside me and answered my muttering. Above his head was the name [SonOfWindKimTaepung].
“You just started, right? Looks like you only stayed in Adventurer’s Village.”
“Y-yeah. But if PK’s possible… why isn’t everyone attacking each other?”
“See that?”
He pointed at a drowsy-looking guard NPC. The guard, eyes half-closed, carried a shabby bow on his back. All he did was occasionally turn his head or check his quiver, standing there like a statue.
“What about the guard?”
“If you PK inside town, you become a Chaos character. Your user ID turns red. Then those guards attack you—might look weak, but most people die in one arrow.”
Blood Planet’s motto was to create an environment where PK was possible anywhere. Instead of banning it in towns, they installed control mechanisms like those guards.
If you got mad, you could kill someone. But it meant avoiding the guards’ line of sight. In reality, people often wandered too deep into town and got ambushed in alleyways.
If you became a Chaos character, you could reduce the penalty through hunting and return to normal. But most Chaos characters became targets for other players in hunting grounds, since they dropped double the items when killed.
“You didn’t know about the guard and still picked this spot? Pretty lucky for a newbie, being in a plaza like this.”
Most people don’t read instruction manuals even when buying new products. Same with games—I hadn’t read the rules in detail, so I had no idea why the guards existed.
“Are those guards there to help beginners? The game’s kinda friendly.”
“Nope. They’re there to protect GM characters.”
“Huh?”
Apparently, GM characters sometimes came to the open-air theater to hear feedback or run events, but Psychics had once banded together and attacked a GM. Even though they were GMs, they weren’t invincible—they were just demonstration characters with high stats, but not enough to handle dozens of players at once.
Some said they did it for fun; others joined because they didn’t like how the game was run. After that incident, the developers created guard NPCs to protect GMs.
“And when you kill a GM, they drop items.”
The problem was that the weapon the GM carried was extremely expensive. It had really happened. Whether it was intended as an event or not, people got obsessed, and whenever a GM appeared, crowds gathered. But after guard NPCs were introduced, things calmed down—though even that didn’t always stop them.
“There are only, what, one, two… five guards at most. No matter how fast they shoot, they can only kill five people at once. Now imagine dozens of Psychics rushing in together. Kill, loot, and run. That’s why GMs don’t show up unless it’s a special event now. Still, they kept the guards.”
They could place more guards, but apparently they kept only a few to encourage PK activity.
“These days, spawning a GM actually boosts player numbers. People love it. It’s like hide-and-seek or treasure hunt events. There’s even a ranker using a weapon they got from a GM—the one carrying a flaming ring.”
“Moment?”
“Yeah. That guy.”
Moment’s weapon definitely looked far superior to anything other players had. Seeing gear like that probably made people even more obsessed.
<<Would you like to accept the party invitation? [Accept / Decline]>>
“You posted on the board, right? I’m level 50. Let’s hunt together.”
“Sure.”
After forming a party with him and chatting for a bit, two Psychics passing by approached us and asked to join. Since levels didn’t show even after forming a party, I asked, and they were 48 and 51—similar to Kim Taepung’s level.
The four of us discussed where to go, and Kim Taepung suggested heading to <Malak Island> and circling the coastline. Since it was wide open with few hidden players, and most people there came in parties, he said it was less likely we’d get attacked.
“But isn’t that on the way to the high-level hunting ground, <Tower of Corruption>? Will we be okay?”
“We should stick close together. Just in case, don’t equip any expensive items. And lightning sometimes strikes there, so bring non-metal weapons too.”
Following Kim Taepung’s advice, I reorganized my weapons and armor in storage. Since I’d lost my staff, I bought a level-appropriate one from the nearby weapon shop. Once we were ready, party leader Kim Taepung used Warp, and we moved after him.
