Chapter 14
[Hey Han Ji-won]
[Are you gaming.. ㅠㅠ]
After sleeping for quite a while and waking up, Ji-won found these KakaoTalk messages from Mingyu. Judging by the time, they seemed to have been sent shortly after orientation ended, but because he had fallen asleep much earlier than usual, he ended up checking them more than twelve hours later.
[??]
He casually sent two question marks, and true to Mingyu’s habit of taking his phone even to the bathroom, the notification “1” disappeared instantly. Then, as if something truly unfair had happened to him, Mingyu spammed crying emoticons.
[(emoticon)]
[(emoticon)]
[(emoticon)]
[Stop it already]
[Okay ㅠ why did you see this so late?]
[I went to bed early]
[You’re saying you slept during prime gaming hours?]
Mingyu, one of the friends who had dragged Ji-won out on Christmas Day despite his refusal to join drinking gatherings because he’d rather level up an alt character, responded in disbelief. It’s true though. Mingyu, who said he’d believe him for now, began explaining in detail why he had called Ji-won. The source of the problem seemed to be that X-Man event he had whined about not wanting to do multiple times.
[That X-Man thing was a total disaster]
[They told me to act like I’m 20 and we were figuring out how to address each other based on age]
[But one guy who seemed like he’d taken the exam three times kept being formal and using honorifics]
[Everyone felt weird and the atmosphere got awkward so I just revealed everything]
[It ended so badly and I got chewed out…..]
Wow, how did he figure that out? Is it because he took the entrance exam three times so he’s more perceptive? Ji-won had this prejudiced thought as he gave a perfunctory response.
[lololololololololol]
[No, this isn’t the time to laugh ㅠㅠ]
Thinking his reaction might have been wrong, Ji-won sent several different consonants in a row, but Mingyu just told him not to say anything and continued his gloomy story.
[I really think joining student council was a mistake, I don’t even have close friends there]
[Can’t you please come with me to the opening ceremony?? Student council members must attend ㅠ]
Opening ceremony?
Ji-won, who had no intention of going, fell into contemplation. If he went, he’d have to sit at a table with juniors and make conversation, and they’d probably drink too. He didn’t mind meeting new people, and since it was Friday, drinking itself wasn’t a big issue, but spending time on the first day of the new semester bothered him.
[Please please]
[I’ll buy you a really delicious meal]
[Forget the meal, want to play Arc?]
[Sorry, I can’t do that……]
He absolutely won’t budge. Ji-won had once taken Mingyu to a PC room when their military leaves coincidentally overlapped and made him create an Arc Serenity account, but Mingyu had fled before even finishing the tutorial, saying he’d rather shoot guns. Ji-won had planned to try one more time, but seeing Mingyu’s firm resistance, he realized that RPGs just weren’t his thing and gave up immediately.
[What kind of meal are you going to buy?]
[I’ll buy you something expensive with my part-time job savings please please]
Since he was mentioning the savings he had said he would use to replace his phone, it seemed he was truly desperate. Finally, Ji-won promised to attend the opening ceremony with him and turned off his phone. He needed to make up for not running dungeons yesterday and going to bed early. He’d have to run his alt characters too. With thoughts that ordinary people wouldn’t have, Ji-won habitually turned on his computer and logged into the game.
He casually sent greetings in the guild chat and was organizing the resources collected in the guild storage when suddenly HolyKnightKnight appeared before him. Weren’t they hunting? He greeted them cheerfully, and they abruptly brought up a topic without any context.
[HolyKnightKnight: It really existed]
[Hando: What??]
[HolyKnightKnight: The X-Man thing..]
[Hando: lolololololololololololol]
[Hando: Really?]
So there’s another school that does this old-fashioned event. Ji-won adjusted his posture to focus on the conversation after giving an appropriate response to HolyKnightKnight, who seemed genuinely surprised. The story from a freshman’s perspective seemed much more interesting than the lamentations of a senior like Mingyu.
[HolyKnightKnight: lol yes]
[HolyKnightKnight: It was there.. in my group]
[HolyKnightKnight: But it was so obvious it was just funny]
Sasa-nim is perceptive too. It’s not easy to figure out who’s who just from hearing about it. From Ji-won’s perspective, having been fooled like an idiot, it was fascinating to see both the third-time exam taker Mingyu mentioned and the second-time exam taker in front of him being so sharp.
[Hando: So was orientation fun?]
[HolyKnightKnight: No..]
The two periods at the end seemed to emphasize that it was really terrible. Well, orientation can be an opportunity to make close friends before even starting college, but it can also become an unpleasant memory if not handled well. But still, it’s an event marking the beginning of university life that they had been looking forward to… While Ji-won was wondering what to say, an unexpected question came.
[HolyKnightKnight: How did you start playing this game, Guild Master?]
[Hando: Oh]
[Hando: I just started because a friend asked me to play together when I was in elementary school lol]
As a child, Ji-won was an ordinary kid who preferred running around and kicking balls in the playground rather than playing games. His mother said he couldn’t sit still, and whenever she took her eyes off him, he would run far away and play with kids whose names he didn’t even know. Jung-hoon, who had created a character for him and got him started with gaming, was the culprit behind his current state.
[Hando: What about you, Sasa-nim??]
[HolyKnightKnight: I started because someone asked me to play together]
[Hando: Ah lol was it a friend who asked?]
While asking as if it was obvious, Ji-won found it curious. As far as he knew, they didn’t have any acquaintances in the game. They didn’t seem to have a separate friend chat, and except when hunting, they were always with him or other guild members.
[HolyKnightKnight: Not exactly a friend…]
[HolyKnightKnight: But something similar, I think]
What’s “something similar” to a friend? Ji-won rested his head on his right hand and tilted it, staring intently at the chat window. Looking at the carefully typed messages, he thought they probably would be quiet and calm in real life too. He briefly stopped his imagination when he realized he was picturing them wearing glasses and studying. He had never been curious about the face of the person behind the screen before, but the persistent image in his mind was drawing its own picture.
When was it? In high school, when Jung-hoon was the guild master, Ji-won had attended a simple guild meetup and realized then: the game character and the person behind it are completely separate things. He definitely had fun, but when meeting them again in the game, things didn’t quite match up, making him wonder who he had actually met.
So he shouldn’t let his imagination run wild. After briefly thinking about something else and turning his attention back to the screen, he found other guild members who hadn’t been there before surrounding his character. Startled. It seemed that guild members who had entered while he was unintentionally away were talking to HolyKnightKnight about dungeons.
[HolyKnightKnight: But the game seems to have less to do than I expected]
[HolyKnightKnight: It’s quiet]
Quiet and not much to do. The guild members stepped in to explain in response to this statement from a newbie who had started less than three months ago.
[Ppojjo: That’s because there was no major update this vacation haha]
[Ppojjo: And once you hit max level and start running dungeon raid bosses]
[Ppojjo: A new world opens up..]
[Chelling: You’ll witness the rare spectacle of all kinds of provocations and nationwide lunatics gathering~]
It wasn’t strange that they felt that way, partly because they had started during a season when the game was taking a break, and partly because they had only been hunting and running lower-level dungeons. Newbies tend to leave quickly if they get bored. Ji-won hurriedly moved his fingers.
[Hando: It’ll be fun in summer lol]
[Hando: I think you’ll easily hit max level by then]
Considering that they had been hanging out at the guild headquarters chatting occasionally, while also managing daily quests and dungeons, their progress was incredibly fast. It was also evidence of how much time they had invested. Hunting was simple grinding that usually gets boring after just an hour, but the guild members had gathered and marveled at how they could continue sitting in the same spot for four or five hours.
[HolyKnightKnight: lol okay]
[Chelling: In summer, we’ll grind events like crazy together^^haha]
[Ddaji: Sasa-nim, my nickname is Gacha Runaway Train]
[Ddaji: You’ll have fun!!]
[Watermelon Doctor: Fun=Disaster]
Among the guild members expressing their expectations for the summer event, HolyKnightKnight didn’t say anything more. Ji-won also had high hopes for the major update. Whether new bosses or dungeons came out, there would be a lot more things to enjoy along with minor events. Even though the semester hadn’t even started yet, he was already looking forward to its end.
As if reading Ji-won’s mind, a KakaoTalk message arrived from Mingyu.
[Course registration notice is up]
[Want to coordinate?]
End of semester… Come to think of it, he hadn’t even registered for courses yet. This talk pulled Ji-won, who was about to half-immerse himself in the game world, firmly back to reality, and he replied immediately.
[Let’s just take what we each want]
This semester, he’d have to attend classes on his own. Ji-won, who had long since thrown away any excitement about returning to real-life as a student, accessed the school website while thinking about the boring school life he could already imagine. Better make my schedule in advance.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
