Chapter 13
“I should stop now.”
Ji-won muttered to himself with a sigh, stretching his arms. Two-thirty. More time had passed than he’d thought. Figuring it was an awkward time to eat a late lunch, Ji-won ordered salmon rice bowl for his lunch-dinner combo as he fiddled with his phone.
I guess we can’t do dungeons together today. Should I just go with other guild members?
[Are you not logging in today?]
[No, I don’t think I’ll be online today]
The reply came only after Ji-won had eaten, studied more, and raised his alt character by 5 levels. Well, even for day trips, they usually play until late. And they’ll be drinking. Ji-won would personally push through a dungeon run even while completely drunk, but most people would definitely pass out.
He sent an emoji conveying his understanding and put down his phone without lingering attachments. Ji-won lay down on his bed. Maybe it was from studying so hard, but for the first time in a while, he felt lazy. He’d have to skip for today.
* * *
HolyKnightKnight, who had returned home much earlier than planned without even touching alcohol, immediately showered and went to bed after entering their room. It was from having their energy drained by being in a crowded place after so long. They weren’t sure how long they’d been sitting in that noisy, dusty place.
They had planned to sleep straight through until tomorrow afternoon but woke up earlier than expected. Despite telling everyone they wouldn’t be doing dungeons, now that they were awake with nothing to do, they wanted to log into the game. They deliberately set their status to offline so no one would notice them, collected their attendance rewards diligently, and started hunting.
After spending several hours swinging their short-ranged sword in a melancholy hunt, dawn began to break. HolyKnightKnight, who had confidently positioned their character in the center of a map full of monsters, logged off without hesitation. The screen showing a fairly long login time gradually faded as the game completely shut down, and a stark desert photo filled the large monitor.
Ten o’clock. After confirming that much more time had passed than expected, HolyKnightKnight took their hand off the mouse and slowly began stretching, rotating their wrist.
“My wrist hurts…”
But they had leveled up once. It felt like it had been a very long time since they last leveled up.
When hunting alone was barely enough, taking time to play with guild members made leveling even slower. Which led to playing separately in the early morning again. They had been tempted by the experience skill when joining, but at this rate, it seemed more disadvantageous for the same amount of game time. Still, there was definitely a reason why people made friends and guilds in games – it was easier and more fun than meeting people in real life, making them spend more time on it. Whether leveling up or hanging out with guild members, they were still playing games all day anyway.
Compared to the days of 24-hour intensive management, their current life was so idle that their body could barely handle the sudden change. It seemed like their brain was gradually reverting to its original state, perhaps because of the decreased level of information being processed. They would need to be careful not to get academic probation once they enrolled.
[Yep!!]
[Yes (emoji)]
Even though it had been a day since the orientation ended, late replies were still going back and forth in the group chat. HolyKnightKnight flipped their phone over as they watched everyone cautiously sending similar short responses like “yes,” “yep,” “yesyes” to the senior’s KakaoTalk message. The senior I want to reply to isn’t this one.
The orientation they attended as a proud Sewon University freshman was truly the worst. They had vaguely thought they would meet him if they went, but the face they were expecting wasn’t visible at all, not even a hair’s breadth, and there were just a frustratingly large number of people. They almost threw up. It wasn’t the kind of thought a freshman who had worked desperately for three years and even retook the exam to get accepted would have, but for them at least, it was an extremely negative experience.
“Jang Kwon-ju. I heard you went to the MT, so why are you playing games all day instead of meeting friends?”
A thin man suddenly walked in through the door without knocking and asked. Though his tone sounded scolding, his playful voice suggested he had no real intention of scolding.
Of course, noticing this, HolyKnightKnight – or rather, Jang Kwon-ju by his real name – replied without even looking at the door.
“It’s an OT, not an MT.”
“Anyway, you went to school. Your uncle was sad that you got into college but went back to your old ways.”
“Don’t put your hands on my desk.”
“Ah, okay. Okay.”
The man hastily removed his hands from the spotless, dust-free desk. Always so sensitive. The man pretended not to notice his cousin who was looking at the desk he had touched with an uncomfortable expression, and instead rubbed his hands together a few times.
“Is that game really that fun? Choi Jae-heon was happy saying he sold you his items and washed his hands of it.”
“…Really?”
“Yeah, he said he needed pocket money because he’s going to study abroad soon.”
Kwon-ju, who had already left a message full of curses a few days ago, turned serious. So it was study abroad money.
If he had known Holy Knight was such a garbage class, he wouldn’t have bought it no matter how cheap it was offered. The amount wasn’t important in the first place. When Jae-heon said he was quitting because he was tired of it and would sell it cheaply, Kwon-ju thought it would be good to establish a foundation before starting, but he couldn’t view the backstory positively at all – it wasn’t just that he was tired of it, there were other reasons.
“So he dumped it on me because he’s going to study abroad.”
“Why, are the items bad?”
Based on what the guild member had told him, and from what he could tell, they were definitely good items, but the character’s performance wearing them was pathetically poor. Didn’t the guild members look at him with pity when he first joined? Every time he saw classes that could fly around and instantly kill scattered monsters with their area-of-effect skills, he remembered Jae-heon who had lied without changing his expression, saying the class was quite good.
“No. But could you please leave?”
“Why? Didn’t you turn off the game?”
“I’m going to sleep…”
Even though he’s a freshman about to start college, he’s really like an unemployed person. A guy who plays games all day tapping on his keyboard, asking someone to leave so he can sleep when the sun has been up for quite a while – the man let out a dry laugh. He didn’t used to be like this. Game addiction is scary.
“Do you even know what time it is if you’re going to sleep now?”
“Yes.”
“Uncle said he’s playing golf with Chairman Shin tomorrow. Thanks to you, he’ll have something to talk about.”
He tried to make a joke, but there was no response. Completely ignored, the man cleared his throat once and quickly closed the door, disappearing to avoid the displeased gaze that was about to come his way.
Only then did Kwon-ju, who had kept his body in the chair all early morning, lie down on the bed and check the calendar hung prominently in the middle of the wall of his room that was almost embarrassingly large to use alone. About three weeks left. He had intended to sleep, but now that he was lying down, he was wide awake, so he pointlessly checked his KakaoTalk where there were no new messages.
At the very top was the 21st freshman group chat, and right below it were the guild announcement channel and his 1:1 chat with the guild master. It was a list of relationships so narrow it was almost sad, but he didn’t seem to mind as he blankly stared at it before clicking on a profile with no picture set.
He didn’t know exactly how old the guild master was since he hadn’t asked, but the guild master he knew was a college student. Given that he had completed his military service, he must be older than Kwon-ju. Kind, friendly, and not speaking frivolously even in the game. Maybe because they only met online, the conversation was quite comfortable.
[No, I don’t think I’ll be online today]
[(emoji)]
The emoji replying to the message he sent looked somehow familiar. Since no one else among his KakaoTalk contacts in the past five years used emojis, it was obvious where he’d seen it. It seemed to be a consistently popular character. Kwon-ju exited KakaoTalk as the face he couldn’t stop thinking about surfaced again.
Regardless of the guild master being a nice person, the person Kwon-ju wanted to talk to all day wasn’t some nameless person in the game. The face that appeared vividly as if he’d seen it last night when he closed his eyes, the pleasant voice that floated appropriately. Not just those fragments, but even the shape of the hand holding a pencil or the small mole on the neck – he remembered everything.
He checked Instagram for the first time in a while to see if any new posts had been uploaded, unable to wait even though he had just checked a few days ago, but it was still the same. Unable to shake off his lingering feelings, Kwon-ju clicked on the most recent post and quickly scrolled down to a reply that wasn’t there the last time he looked. It was posted just yesterday.
[┗ hahahahaha sorry sorry]
[┗ That’s why I said let’s do it together hahaha]
It seemed like a belated response to his friends’ comments asking him to pay attention to real life, not just the game. So he’s still playing the game enthusiastically. He had worried that his interest in gaming might have waned after finishing military service, but fortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case.
After reading the replies to others several times, Kwon-ju suddenly became aware of his own creepiness and pressed the back button. It was quite amusing that he always secretly looked and felt self-loathing, yet had no intention of stopping, but he didn’t actually find it funny.
“Games…”
He had said that as soon as the college entrance exam was over, the first thing he would do was take out the computer he had stored away. Though he was usually an active person, when talking about Arc Serenity, his excitement was evident in his voice. He should have recorded it. It was so happy that even the listener felt joy – it would have been effective to listen to when feeling depressed.
A twenty-one-year-old who had just finished the college entrance exam couldn’t possibly find games boring. He probably would have been immersed in any game for a while, not just Arc Serenity. But despite the abundance of various easy-to-enjoy games, the reason he chose Arc Serenity, which had barriers to entry and required buying expensive items, was all because of his first love.
His senior in his childhood memories always smelled refreshing. He wanted to ask what cologne he used, but never managed to ask until graduation day. That regretful feeling kept coming back to him. The question that never made it past his lips kept circling in his mind. So…
“Haah.”
Finally unable to withstand the waves of emotion washing over him, Kwon-ju abruptly got up from his bed. He should exercise a bit before sleeping.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
