“Gentle, those are all monsters. Don’t even touch a single hair on them. The moment you do, the poison won’t wear off until you die.”
“The more troublesome part is that it’s not just you who dies. It spreads to us too. So don’t move. The boss hasn’t even appeared yet.”
If those women counted as minor mobs, then what kind of thing was the boss? I felt tense, imagining an even more intense and mesmerizing woman appearing, yet at the same time a strange anticipation swelled inside me.
“Hold me.”
“Come here.”
When the two women’s seductive gestures escalated to the point where they nearly stripped off everything they were wearing, I turned my back completely. Seeing that, ShutUp joked, asking why I was just standing there. The woman’s sighs mixed with moans grew louder and louder, forcing me to cover my ears too.
Wow, this was basically deliberate temptation. Thankfully, the women kept a certain distance and didn’t come any closer.
Then suddenly, the wind picked up.
Purple and blue leaves began falling one by one onto the calm lake. The leaves that landed spun slowly, drifting without strength. Just as they seemed to settle, a violent current pushed the dry leaves outward. Something massive was rising from the center of the lake.
What burst through the surface, like a thin veil being pierced, was the shape of a person. A figure that hadn’t been visible at first became clearer and clearer, like fog lifting away. Even as I stared, I rubbed my eyes, unable to believe it.
“Ah, what is this… This is cheating.”
Why was this happening?
How had the game developers recreated the girl I had a crush on during my school days so perfectly? Legs emerged above the lake, and she—Haejin—walked toward me. Even though she had just come out of the water, her shirt looked neatly pressed, and even the tightly fastened buttons of her school uniform were exactly as I remembered.
“Why is she….”
“Hyung….”
Hyung?
At the word “Hyung” coming from ShutUp’s mouth, I blinked and turned toward him sharply. Unlike the indifferent look he had when facing the two women earlier, he was staring at my first love with eyes full of raw emotion. But… why was he calling her Hyung? No matter how you looked at it, she was a woman.
Beside him, Enlistment reached out his hand and murmured, “Jaein….” From the looks of it, we were each seeing different figures.
The girl approaching me brushed her long hair behind her ear and smiled shyly.
But I knew this scene was fake. Because Haejin would never smile like that at me—every time she saw me, she used to flip me off and tell me to fuck off. Still, back when I had first fallen for her looks, this was exactly the kind of version of her I had imagined. If she’d really had such a shy personality, she probably would’ve been the queen bee of our neighborhood—no, the whole district.
I didn’t know how they’d recreated my first love, but it felt like some of my memories had been turned into data when I logged into the game. Otherwise, how could she look exactly like I remembered from school? Of course, only her appearance was accurate—her behavior was nothing like the real her, which made it feel unreal.
Haejin now stood where the two women had been earlier. The seductive women crawling along the ground had disappeared, leaving only her behind.
“Du-seon.”
She called my name. I quickly checked ShutUp, wondering if he had heard it, but he seemed to be looking at someone else entirely, his eyes reddening.
“Gentle.”
Enlistment, who had been standing a little farther away, finally seemed to come back to his senses and called out to check on me.
“Hey, Jun! It looks like you’re the only one completely charmed right now. He’s not answering even when I call him.”
“What? Snap out of it! Hey!”
We shook ShutUp together, but we couldn’t pull his gaze away from the front. Even when I stepped to the side and grabbed his face to speak to him, he kept staring straight ahead.
“What do we do?”
“What do you mean? We just let him die. Seriously, what the hell is he even looking at?”
“He called them Hyung. Is it his older brother?”
“Jun’s an only child though.”
I wondered who he was seeing that made him look so sad and resentful. In the end, we decided to just kill the boss quickly and told Enlistment to fire his skill.
“Using this fills my PG, so throw a Relax later.”
Enlistment gripped twin lightning blades in both hands. Curved like crescents, when he swung them, arcs of electricity matching their shape shot forward. As soon as the monster entered range, he slashed rapidly in multiple directions. The electric blades flew like boomerangs, crashing down on the boss from all sides.
Clang—! Clang—!
But the lightning blades that looked like they would slice the monster instantly were deflected by some unseen force, scattering around like falling leaves.
“Hey! Are you out of your mind?”
The one who blocked Enlistment’s attack was none other than ShutUp. Behind his back, I saw Haejin’s lips curl upward. Of course, to ShutUp she probably looked like that Hyung of his.
“Don’t touch him.”
“Hey! Wake up! That’s a monster!”
Wondering if using a Cure spell might snap him out of it, I raised my hand—but ShutUp grabbed my wrist hard and shoved me back.
“Don’t try anything stupid.”
“We came here to kill the boss, not have a lovers’ quarrel.”
“Gentle, calm down. We can’t start fighting among ourselves.”
Enlistment stopped me from getting closer to ShutUp and tried to calm things down.
Shrrk—.
At that moment, a long shadow rippled across the ground. Before I could react, vines stretched out from the forest and grabbed my ankles. Everyone was bound—except ShutUp. Enlistment and I had even our hands tied, forced to just watch.
That was exactly what it felt like.
Interferers, get lost.
If ShutUp reached the boss and made contact, and then turned on us, it would be a complete wipe. Just like that, my dream of transferring servers felt even farther away.
“Yeah. Look at you, acting all high and mighty. Telling me to get my head straight earlier—serves you right.”
Watching ShutUp approach the boss, I wondered if he was really going to do that right in front of us. I even thought about logging out, but with my arms bound I couldn’t even open the menu.
At least Enlistment had been tied facing the other direction, so he didn’t have to watch. Instead, he kept bombarding me with questions—“Is Jun still like that?” “What are they doing right now?”
“Don’t ask. I don’t really want to look either.”
ShutUp finally reached the boss and extended his hand.
He touched her shoulder.
In the party window, a poison mark appeared. Honestly, I didn’t even need to check—his body was already turning a dull purple.
“…Why did you leave me?”
She simply smiled. To me she was Haejin, but to ShutUp she must’ve looked like that Hyung.
“Did it feel good leaving like that? Was I really that annoying to you?”
Haejin nodded.
…Huh?
Something felt off. The form that had been Haejin flickered like a glitching screen, then suddenly changed into the appearance of a man.
“Who… is that?”
“What? What is it, Gentle? What are you seeing?”
Enlistment twisted his neck as far as he could, unable to see, and kept firing questions at me.
“Is it a guy? Tall? How old does he look? What color hair? Long?”
“Uh… just average.”
Unlike the striking looks Jun usually went for, this man looked completely ordinary. The kind of person you’d pass on the street and later wonder if you’d even seen him at all.
I saw the man say something, but I couldn’t hear it. Whatever it was, it made ShutUp look furious.
“Don’t talk bullshit!”
With that shout, ShutUp pulled the man into an embrace. Even as the poison spread across his purple-tinted body and his HP steadily drained, he kept holding him.
“Ugh, that idiot.”
“He’s definitely dying. He came in here acting all confident too.”
We were basically resigned, talking idly about never coming to a place like this again and maybe just running normal dungeons from now on.
“Ghk—! Khk—!”
“Wait, what now?”
Suddenly, choking sounds echoed out. At first I thought it was ShutUp dying—but it was the opposite.
ShutUp had grabbed the man’s throat with both hands.
The expression of an abandoned stray vanished from his face, replaced by that of a predator clamping down on its prey. His hands tightened around the man’s neck like fangs piercing flesh.
With a crooked smile that was hard to tell if it was a sneer or a grin, ShutUp spoke almost cheerfully.
“That’s enough playing around, right?”
Bzzzt—!
Electricity erupted from his entire body. It shot out like long spikes, piercing through the man from all sides. He gripped the neck so tightly that the man’s face turned bright red, looking ready to burst.
“Krr—Kraaagh!”
Maybe because it was a monster, its body began mutating in a last desperate struggle. Multiple tentacle-like legs sprouted like an octopus and wrapped around ShutUp, trying to restrain him. But even as his body was bound, ShutUp didn’t let go of the neck. Instead, he released even more power.
Splash!
Unable to endure any longer, the monster dragged ShutUp with it and plunged into the lake. The murky purple water swallowed them both, turning quiet again. But Enlistment and I still couldn’t move.
“What a pointless way to die.”
“Enlistment, what even drops from killing that thing that made us come all the way here?”
“You get something that boosts CH. Apparently it’s good for linking when you equip it.”
“So my precious Level 1 is going to vanish for something that useless. I thought it’d be some expensive drop….”
Enlistment whispered that it would sell for a lot if I traded it. But what did it matter now… it was already over.
KWAJJIJI—!
“What the hell is that?”
Then it happened.
A bolt of lightning struck the exact spot where ShutUp had fallen, like a lightning rod drawing down the sky. After slamming into the lake, it split into countless branches that spread across the surface. It wasn’t just from above—powerful electricity surged from beneath the water too, making the murky depths flash again and again.
“What? What is he doing?”
“Jun’s completely lost it.”
As if something had truly snapped, the vines binding Enlistment and me suddenly loosened. Enlistment turned around, saw the scene, and burst into excited laughter.
ShutUp was drawing out every ounce of his power, unleashing electricity nonstop. Creatures from the lake floated up to the surface, lifeless—electrocuted. I’d seen something similar on TV before, a method called battery fishing where electricity was used to stun fish. Of course, that was illegal in real life.
Just as I reached out, tempted to grab the items floating on the water, Enlistment stopped me.
“I’ll have my pet pick them up. It’s dangerous.”
He summoned a bird onto his shoulder and gave it a command. The bird flitted around like a hummingbird, darting across the lake and grabbing items in its beak.
Looking at the party window, ShutUp still wasn’t dead.
“Wow… he’s relentless.”
“Haa… haa….”
I turned toward the rough breathing beside me and saw ShutUp standing there, his body blotched purple from poison. Without a word, he tossed something like a hairpin onto the ground. The summoned pet swooped down and swallowed it.
At that moment, my body flashed twice. I had reached Level 47. Checking ShutUp’s PG, it was almost completely full. Yet he was still releasing electricity in bursts.
“Hey… Jun, calm down.”
“What, you told me to get a grip earlier, and now you’re the one who got completely sucked in….”
“Fuck. Shut up.”
Normally, with how rude he always talked, I would’ve let that slide. But this time felt different. What, was it romance when he did it but scandal when someone else did? We almost got wiped because of him, and now he was acting like this—unbelievable.
“What? Fuck? Hey, you shut up!”
“Ah, seriously!”
ShutUp’s large hand suddenly lunged toward me. If he touched me, I’d instantly get poisoned—but I didn’t back down. Right now, my pride mattered more than my level.
“What? Go ahead. Grab me! Do it! Teamkill me!”
“Gentle, stop.”
Enlistment grabbed my waist from behind and pulled me away from ShutUp. ShutUp cursed again and began forming a sphere of electricity. At that rate his PG would max out and he’d faint…
“Hey! You’ll faint if you keep that up!”
Ignoring me, ShutUp kept enlarging the sphere before hurling it into the center of the lake. A massive crown-shaped pillar of water shot upward, then collapsed as electricity rippled across the entire shoreline.
“Tsk tsk. That temper of his.”
“I said shut up!”
ShutUp formed a Thunder Spear in his hand and threw it straight at me. The sharp projectile pierced through my body and embedded itself into a tree behind me. Since we were allies it didn’t deal damage, but it was more than enough to feel threatening.
And just like that, ShutUp collapsed onto the ground.
I froze in shock until Enlistment shook me.
“Let’s just Return to the village. Jun fainted and logged out anyway. We’ll split the items without him.”
“Ah… yeah. Maybe.”
The moment he threw that Thunder Spear, his eyes had been filled with killing intent. My body was fine, but my feelings were hurt.
Did he really have to look at me like he wanted me dead? Was I really more worthless than some random monster?
The face of that man ShutUp had looked at so desperately earlier lingered in my mind, refusing to fade.
