Ch. 7

Still Alive (5)

The game Another World was nothing but a figment of my imagination.

So I tried to explore and enjoy it, but…

I couldn’t shake off the feeling that the scenery and cities I passed by weren’t enough to satisfy me.

So, I decided to go back to my original destination and try to hunt monsters and feel the sensations of my body.

I flexed my flail, which I hadn’t held in days. That was all it took for me to lose track of time and keep moving.

Except… after a few hours of killing monsters, I realized that even this game, Another World, was a no-game.

It reminded me of the notoriously bad Dark Ark.

Torturous grinding.

Endless repetition.

The illusion of freedom.

There were no monsters in this virtual reality that reacted differently to each action.

In the end, it was all just a game.

[PvP Arena].

“I was somewhat intrigued by the prospect of engaging in battles with others. However, the man I encountered as an outlaw fell short of my expectations, and I didn’t hold much hope for PvP either.”

…….

A familiar sensation enveloped me as my vision went dark once more.

I blinked, and then I was in another world, this one all black.

I saw a sphere-shaped connector.

As a newcomer to virtual reality, my senses were strangely disoriented and I couldn’t think straight.

I focused on the sensation of clenching and unclenching my hands.

My hand still felt like I was holding a flail.

I released my hand a few more times, and as if on cue, I felt nothing.

“This is amazing.”

Virtual reality was definitely more amazing than I thought it would be.

Unlike virtual reality, the feeling of being in a game world, the feeling of moving another me was new in itself.

The old, flail-wielding me. It wasn’t exactly the same, but it felt a little bit like the me in Dark Ark.

It wasn’t quite the same, but I felt a little bit like me in the Dark Ark…full of power, energy, or whatever…but it was still better than this nothingness in the real world.

But the feeling of hitting a person, that’s what I didn’t need.

It was nothing more than attacking a character in a game, not a real person, but it bothered me strangely.

‘It’s strangely addictive.’

I had already killed hundreds of people in the world of Dark Ark.

The idea that I would feel guilty or hurt for attacking a character now was ridiculous, and the difference between hitting a monster and a human was stark.

As if Another World itself encouraged PVP. I could clearly feel the momentary sensation of hitting a human compared to the sensation of killing a monster.

It even felt like the game was asking me if I wanted to feel this sensation and not PVP.

Gurgle.

I felt hungry for a moment, even though I was lost in thought.

I checked the time and realized I had been playing Another World for about six hours.

I grabbed the nearby smartphone and browsed the delivery app. After ordering a few things to eat, I stood up from the connector and collapsed onto the softer side of the bed.

Phew.

“Huh…”

I leaned back, dazed by the softness that seemed to embrace me.

With a small gasp, I loosened the stiffness in my body from being in the Another World for so long.

I felt my stiff body loosen up.

I suddenly wondered how expensive a bed like this could be, but as I lay down, I realized that this was real.

This was real.

There was no danger.

No worries.

None of that.

And a reason to live in the world.

I was lacking something that really mattered most to me right now.

With more time on my hands, more time to think about myself, only this thought filled my mind.

“….”

In the inns of each city in Dark Ark’s world, I could hear various sounds just by being still, but now, in contrast, only the silence of the large room filled me.

The comfortable and cozy reality seemed to lure me in like a tempting bait.

Suddenly, I realized that I had been living in the Dark Ark world day after day, craving adventure.

A huge sense of power filled my body.

The crimson aura I had accumulated through years of training.

The legendary equipment and ancient artifacts I had painstakingly collected.

All of it in exchange for this cozy reality. I felt as if someone who had sent me to this world was mocking me.

“…”

For the moment, life was indeed without lack.

A past self whose name I couldn’t even remember anymore.

Now, in this gender-swapped existence as Han Serin. Aside from a few physiological factors that I had gotten used to, I even thought that I was living a much richer life than before.

It’s not that I don’t have enough to live for now, but if what’s flooding me now is actually time, it was time.

The 2.7 billion sitting in my bank account. Considering my extravagant nature, it’s safe to say that I don’t really worry about money.

Based on the information I’ve gotten from my PC over the past few days, it doesn’t seem like the prices of essentials like food and clothes have gone up that much.

If I live alone, I’ll probably not have to worry about money until I die.

On top of that, the insurance money that arrived in another account amounted to billions. In reality, I was so financially at ease that I lost my sense of money.

–Ding.

The sound of a text that rings at the right time. It means that the food delivery has arrived at my door.

Clink.

I returned to my room to find the food wrapped in a sleek material waiting outside the door.

“This is comfortable…”

The words came out of my mouth as I sat down in my chair after turning on my PC.

I slowly began to search for information about ‘Another World’ while savoring the spicy taste of the food in my mouth.

I had seen countless posts about Another World in the past few days while I was adjusting to this world, but I hadn’t paid much attention to them.

But since it’s the only thing that interests me right now, my eyes naturally went to Another World.

I started searching with game-related tags, and not many other games even made it to the main page.

Almost every article, game update, and even community was about Another World.

I opened a few windows on popular sites and clicked on a few of the main articles.

The praise was overwhelming.

-A game ahead of its time! Surprising the world beyond Korea!

-It’s a miracle that virtual reality is so perfectly realized.

-The game company ‘Another’ has 360 employees who have realized virtual reality so realistically…

-‘Another World’, the first game by ‘Another’, broke all records set by other companies around the world.

-Leading companies such as Company N and Company P have revealed their ambitions to develop virtual reality games.

-A new world beyond the limits of a simple ‘game’.

-Achieved a record-breaking 65.55% market share in the ‘Another World’ game industry.

In addition to that, there were articles that even the access rate of PC games has decreased significantly due to ‘Another World’, the name of the next-generation game console and virtual reality game.

However, the technology for ‘virtual reality’ games already existed in their own world.

It’s called VR.

However, most of them were crude and didn’t fulfill the expectations of “virtual reality” that most gamers had.

The technology had improved over time, but the comparison to what I had just experienced in Another World was ridiculous.

Then I frowned at the pain in my mouth.

“No… I thought I asked you to do it in stages.”

No, it’s a level 3 spicy, even if it’s really bad.

Ever since I came to this world, I had become a voracious eater, ordering a variety of foods, but some restaurants didn’t check my order properly.

……

The popularity of Another World was so great that there were tons of community sites dedicated to just talking about it.

Some sites were simply about the game and recruiting party members.

Others were for people who weren’t interested in Another World, but just wanted to chat about it because the community site was so big.

The user base was really diverse.

And one of the larger communities was:

Another Level

Another Level was exactly what the name implied. It was a place for people who were “serious” about playing Another World.

In fact, it was a kind of graveyard site for the half-crazed “gamblers” of Another World.

The top of that Another Level site now.

There was a controversial post with over a thousand comments that day, where the most popular posts with the most views were usually located.

[No fucking way is this not a hack?]

Author: Assholedestroyer

(In-game play footage)

– Holy shit, I have a 99.4% hit rate and not a single attack is a clean hit.

-At the end, I casted a bolt from super close range and she hit me with a shitty weapon. Is this even possible?

Since Another World is obviously an online game, there’s definitely a PAY TO WIN element to it, or in other words, buying equipment or character specs with real money.

Even if the game company tried to stop it, there was virtually no way to stop users from making cash transactions among themselves.

And ‘Assholedestroyer’ was one of the users who was notorious on Another Level’s site.

He was a PK user who beat people with so-called real specs.

He would often take the initiative to attack all kinds of users for no apparent reason, just because he ran into them.

[What the hell, who did this guy lose to?]

[He got screwed over, lololololololol]

[But if this guy is so bad that he gets kicked, it means the female character in the video has pretty high specs]

[Looking at the location in the video, it’s the elf forest where you can’t go without good items, so I guess that female character also has some good items?]

[Never mind that, the video shows the character is so pretty, who is the creator?]

[But the more I watch the video, the weirder it seems]

[Parrying is not something that no one uses, but it’s still strange that she blocks them all in a row like that]

[But I know there are only five hackers who work on security for this game’s engine, is there a hack?]

[There was a hack once before; it was one of the internal developers who got caught using a hack to raise his character’s specs, lololololololol]

[That guy also got his salary cut and spent it all on the game, lololololololololololol]

[In the end, she jumps forward and parries four times in a row in the air; that’s definitely a hack, damn, lololol]

[The weapon in the video is a Crescent Flail, but it was proven to have crappy performance, so didn’t the people who used it die already?]