Ch. 3

Still Alive (1)

“Ha…”

She exhaled a deep breath, gradually understanding the situation at hand.

However, the more she understood, the more she was overwhelmed with emotions.

She tried to control her emotions, but…

But the more she understood, the more her eyes blurred.

The darker and darker emotions kept swelling up, threatening to engulf her.

“Shit. Shit… Goddamn it! If they were going to send me back. What the hell did I… go through all that… all the trouble for.”

A feeling of exhaustion washed over her.

This reality of having everything taken from her…

Consumed her like a despair so great that it was almost unbearable in itself.

It was like feeling pain unlike any pain she had ever felt before.

All that she had accomplished in that world, all that she had achieved, only to return to this reality now.

All the hard work she had put in, the perfection of her skills after hundreds and thousands of repetitions.

The energy that had been accumulating in her body as she continued to grow.

The equipment and rewards she had earned by completing quests so hard and exhausting that she wanted to give up.

Now all of that had been taken away.

It was as if she had lost the will to live.

Her eyelids fell heavily over and over again, her vision blurred, and she could only see the unfamiliar shape of the room.

The feeling of omnipotence that came from the energy that filled her body.

The equipment items and consumables she had struggled to acquire.

The memories were so vivid that even now that she was back in the real world, she could still recall them clearly.

Her gaze was interrupted by a strand of silver hair that tickled her face as she lowered her head.

“….”

Her own character.

No, the woman she had become.

Even now, she was still Rin.

That’s right. She was back in the real world, and she was still the character she was in the game.

“You made me into a woman, and I stayed that way… and you took away everything I’ve achieved…”

She clutched her white hair fiercely, trying to gather herself.

Tear after tear blinded her vision.

Her eyes were unfocused and her head was spinning.

A hard reality to accept.

But a reality she must accept.

She was reminded of novels in which the protagonist suddenly returns to the original world after falling into the otherworld.

The story ends with the protagonist living a normal life before falling into the other world.

Returning to the real world as a reward for all their hardships.

That was always their ending.

And now, her too.

She was in the same situation…?

“…Don’t be ridiculous.”

The euphoria of returning home.

No more danger from monsters. The freedom of not having to live in constant fear of the unknown.

She didn’t feel any of those emotions.

It was just the state she had achieved.

The rewards she had earned by surviving dozens of near-death experiences.

“Don’t be ridiculous…”

Only dark emotions filled her heart, like resentment toward someone who had taken all of that away from her in an instant.

Only dark resentment and hatred filled her heart.

Someday… She had thought of returning to her original world someday, but not in this form… She didn’t want to return.

She had already adapted irrevocably to that game-like world.

Washing was inconvenient, transportation was poorly developed, and she was semi-forced to move with the great currents…

But…

Still, she was happy with herself in that world.

A reward for moving in the name of a quest.

Perhaps she had gotten carried away with the progress she had made and the equipment she had acquired.

A sense of presence from the energy that filled her entire body.

A sense of being alive.

The joy of killing monsters.

At some point in that world, she amassed unimaginable wealth, but she never sought safety.

She had traveled to all sorts of places, risking all sorts of dangers.

Because…

Because it was satisfying.

It was the most satisfying life for her.

She lost track of time in that world, and life in that world was a paradise unto itself.

Constantly threatened.

Uncomfortable.

It was not a comfortable life, and it was chaotic.

And yet, she liked it.

She liked herself living that life.

She liked that she was living that life, even though she didn’t feel any interest or value in anything in her original reality.

Every moment. The sensations in that world that made her feel alive were like a drug in themselves.

A life lived in danger.

She was living in that life, feeling emotions like pleasure and joy.

She was constantly getting high. She adapted to that world.

She clutched at her hands in a daze through her blurred vision.

“….”

And then a self-deprecating chuckle escaped her at the futility of her feelings.

Slender.

Frail.

She felt no strength.

The familiar red aura no longer emanated from her hands.

It was as if she had become an ordinary woman.

Only an overwhelming sense of helplessness weighed her down.

As if this was real.

As if she were nothing more than a powerless woman.

She kept clenching and easing her fists.

Reality, that name, weighed so heavily on her.

“How am I supposed to… You expect me to live…”

How?

How could she be sent back to reality so abruptly to live?

Her mind was filled with such thoughts.

The feeling of omnipotence that she was alive.

In this reality, where she no longer felt the joy and pleasure of killing monsters.

-How should she live her life from now on?

The first time she fell into the world of gaming, she thought about it every single day…

It had come back to haunt her now.

—–

How much time had passed since then.

She pushed herself up, feeling weak. She wiped her blurred vision.

She began to rummage through the items she could see around her.

Information about her.

She was Rin’s form now, but it never occurred to her that she might not have anything about herself.

She tried to face this reality somehow, enduring the heavy feeling that kept trying to sink in.

Even though her feelings of injustice and resentment continued to swirl, and her feelings of endless lamentation for this world soared.

And yet, she forced herself to move.

Step.

Rattle.

Through her dazed consciousness, she frantically searched through cabinets and under desks for information.

Even though it occurred to her that someone, an absolute being, was playing with her. Still, she had to keep her eyes on the prize.

And soon enough, she found something like a wallet.

She put the wallet on her desk and opened it to reveal all the different things inside.

Credit and debit cards from unfamiliar brands.

But most of all, a card that caught her eye: a woman with a familiar face.

Her silver hair was neatly tied back, as if she had been photographed.

A striking woman of mixed race.

A woman whose beauty was undeniable.

A card of a character who looked like she couldn’t possibly exist in real life, but had been made all too real.

It wasn’t a character.

There was too much evidence that it was a real person.

Now… it was her, a real person.

“Han…Serin.”

She read the name on the card, followed by what she thought was an awkward voice.

“Han Serin, Han Serin. Han Serin…”

As she continued to mumble it out loud, it sounded familiar, as if her initial awkwardness was a lie.

[xx0516-xxxxxx]

-Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Korea XXX

As she scanned through the rest of the information, she was struck by a sudden thought.

“What was my name originally?

My name was…’

—–

Then she got an eerie feeling.

She kept trying to think of it, but… but she couldn’t remember her name.

“Han Serin.

It just kept coming back, as if it was her name.

Her original name.

The self that was a man, not a woman.

She couldn’t think of it.

Then suddenly.

“Rin.”

She remembered the name she made for her game character.

“……stupid asshole.”

She let out a small sigh, a hollow tone escaping her.

Now she could remember the name she had given her character in the game, but she couldn’t even remember her own name.

Her original appearance.

Her personality.

Things like the college she went to.

She remembered them vividly.

Strangely, the name didn’t come to mind.

She didn’t understand herself for not remembering it.

“Han Serin…”

She hesitated for a moment, and eventually just said her name now.

The future her.

And the her of now was Han Serin.

The man she had been was nowhere to be found.