132
“N-Now, you mean?!”
“It won’t even take 30 seconds to enter.”
Going somewhere without needing a carriage, and taking less than 30 seconds without doing anything. Everyone looked at Yeon Ji-ho with confused expressions. Meanwhile, Yeon Ji-ho opened his laptop and gently tapped the built-in mousepad to access his mailbox.
Eventually, the mouse cursor clicked on the hyperlink written in the email. Click. With that simple touch, the laptop screen turned white.
Simultaneously, Set embraced Yeon Ji-ho tightly. Yeon Ji-ho’s eyes widened in surprise at Set’s sudden contact. Set, who had abruptly hugged Yeon Ji-ho, cleared his throat and said:
“…I thought something was happening.”
As Set was feeling awkward, Apophis, who was looking at the laptop screen from the opposite side, blinked and said:
“It’s asking us to create a character?”
“Ah. This is how you do it. Hmm…”
Let’s make the face like this, and for clothes, should I just put on some ordinary armor? Oh, I should make the hair color gray. Oh? The eyes are heterochromatic. Then I’ll go with heterochromia.
“…Isn’t this Your Excellency?”
“What?”
Surprised by Isquis’s observation, Yeon Ji-ho alternately looked at Set’s face and the screen. A miniature version of Set was captured on the screen. Yeon Ji-ho closed his mouth.
He usually had a habit of creating characters according to his preferences when playing mobile or computer games, and he had made this one without thinking. Come to think of it, it was just Set. At that moment, Yeon Ji-ho painfully realized once again that Set was his favorite.
Feeling embarrassed, Yeon Ji-ho hurriedly adjusted the character. From light gray hair and heterochromia to black hair and black eyes. For clothes, let’s just go with black.
Then it was time to decide on a name. Yeon Ji-ho didn’t ask for opinions from those around him and just wrote ‘Ji-ho’ before logging in. Everyone was shocked.
“Y-You’re naming it Ji-ho, sir?! What if it dies?!”
“…Ji-ho. Let’s change it.”
“Ah, really, it’s fine! This is just a character!”
“At least use my name…!”
Yeon Ji-ho listened to everyone’s complaints with one ear and let them out with the other. If the character had looked like Set, he might have been a bit concerned, but since it resembled himself, he didn’t feel particularly attached to it.
Finally, the login was complete. Yeon Ji-ho’s eyes widened as he discovered a world made of pixels.
It was, in other words, a beautiful temple.
At the very center was a huge tree occupying half of the map, and beneath it stretched a snow-white building reminiscent of the Parthenon temple along with a garden. Although it was just a map made of pixels, it looked like a place where gods would live.
But the moment they saw the temple on the screen, everyone except Yeon Ji-ho had the same reaction.
“Huh? Isn’t this… Yggdrasil?”
There was only one reason for their surprise. The tree filling the narrow screen was Yggdrasil, the divine tree and the world tree supporting the world.
***
The reason why the four people immediately recognized Yggdrasil, which they had only heard of in legends, even through the small screen, was because of the fruits attached to each of its countless branches.
Yeon Ji-ho started moving the character by pressing the arrow keys on the laptop. As ‘Ji-ho’ moved forward, the beasts nearby all reacted with admiration, going “Ooh.” It was when the character Ji-ho arrived in front of Yggdrasil.
“Oh, someone’s coming.”
From the side, a character of the same size was scurrying over. The appearance of the character who also arrived in front of the tree was ordinary. Navy blue hair, round eyes, and even a shabby tracksuit. Above his head, the word ‘ishkur’ was floating in white.
Eventually, Ishkur said:
“Hello!”
A speech bubble popped up above Ishkur’s character. While Yeon Ji-ho was still hesitating to reply, another speech bubble popped up.
“You’re ‘Ji-ho’, the reader of , right?”
Yeon Ji-ho was startled for a moment about how he knew his name, but then made an embarrassed expression when he saw the yellow ‘Ji-ho’ floating above his character’s head. Yeon Ji-ho typed a short reply on the laptop.
“Yes”
As a speech bubble also appeared above Yeon Ji-ho’s character, Set, who was watching from the side, suddenly said in a subdued voice.
“…Speak a little further apart.”
Set seemed to have already figured out how to move the character by watching Yeon Ji-ho’s fingers move, and he stretched out his hand to move the character one space to the side. In fact, the two characters’ lips were almost touching, so Yeon Ji-ho followed Set’s suggestion without saying anything.
“?”
However, as soon as Ji-ho’s character moved, Ishkur took a step closer again. As the characters stuck together again, Set’s expression crumpled.
Set didn’t hesitate to press the arrow keys repeatedly with his finger. This time, it was quite a distance away, not just one space.
It was then that Ishkur came trotting over. From that point on, Set started to lose control. He covered all the arrow keys with his large hand and started running away while pressing them firmly.
“Where are you going, reader!”
Ishkur was quite persistent too. He chased without resting while the character Ji-ho went around the entire map, circling Yggdrasil which occupied the whole map. The more this happened, the more Set’s face wrinkled.
“Set. I’ll move this now.”
“That’s not…! He keeps following you!”
“Hmph.”
When Yeon Ji-ho narrowed his brows and made a wind-like sound, Set’s hand trembled and slowly moved away from the keyboard. Yeon Ji-ho didn’t miss this opportunity and inserted his hand to stop the character that had been just running away.
Immediately, Ishkur came closer again.
“Why do you keep running away!”
“I wasn’t running away, I was just looking around the map”
Yeon Ji-ho finished typing with a brazen face. Then Ishkur’s speech bubbles, which had been popping up incessantly, stopped for a moment. At that moment, Yeon Ji-ho felt as if he was staring at him for some reason.
“I see. That’s perfect! I wanted to introduce this place to you too”
“…?”
At those words, Yeon Ji-ho started to examine every corner of the screen that he hadn’t noticed until now. The place where character Ji-ho was standing was, well, at the tip of a small branch that had branched off from one of Yggdrasil’s large branches.
There, a large fruit was dangling.
“The fruit of Yggdrasil… This really feels like a story from mythology.”
It was then that Apophis, who had been watching from the side, made a comment. Yeon Ji-ho glanced at Ishkur’s speech bubble, which was chattering alone, and said to Apophis:
“The fruit of Yggdrasil?”
“It’s a famous story in Asterra. It’s said that within each fruit of Yggdrasil, there’s a different world, and the place we live in is one of them.”
In Asterra, it was believed that another world existed within each fruit of Yggdrasil. Any Asterran would have recognized this tree on the screen as the mythical Yggdrasil at first glance.
“Ji-ho, he’s talking to you.”
Yeon Ji-ho’s head turned back to the screen. One of Ishkur’s speech bubbles had popped up.
“Will you follow me?”
Ishkur’s character, which had been jumping up and down beside him, started to move in earnest as character Ji-ho moved one space. Yeon Ji-ho easily followed the path he was heading.
Soon, the two characters were able to stand on one of Yggdrasil’s small branches. A delicious-looking bright yellow fruit was in front of the characters.
“When you’re ready, press F in front of the fruit!”
Indeed, as character Ji-ho approached the fruit, a guide comment ‘Press F to execute’ flashed briefly. Yeon Ji-ho hesitated for a moment with his index finger in front of the F key.
“…Shall I go in?”
It was then that Set quietly reached out and wrapped his hand around Yeon Ji-ho’s shoulder. Not only that, but those gathered around the laptop were all sticking together like a single organism. Yeon Ji-ho took a deep breath and finally pressed the ‘F’ key.
Then the screen turned white. Eventually, three dots appeared, pulsating one by one, indicating that it was connecting. Character Ji-ho was moving somewhere.
Finally, the connection was complete. The moment he saw the place that appeared, Yeon Ji-ho’s eyes widened even more than when he had encountered Yggdrasil.
Antique-colored wooden wallpaper. A kitchen facing the living room in a ‘ㄷ’ shape. A corner sofa facing the floor-to-ceiling window instead of a TV. And…
A black-haired character sitting on the sofa with a laptop on their lap, and four characters perfectly surrounding them.
An astonished exclamation burst from Yeon Ji-ho’s mouth.
“W-What is this…?”
“…Us, here?”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
Thanks so much for the chapters!