Self-Introduction

The ego dwelling in this ring clearly knew Luna Moon and Hayden.

If it didn't, the title Luna Moon's Friend would never have taken hold, and it wouldn't have reacted to Commander Hayden at all.

But that was as far as my reasoning got.

Among the NPCs who knew Luna Moon and Hayden, I couldn't think of a single one who might be sealed inside a ring like this.

A friend of Luna Moon who was also glad to see Hayden, no less…

There was no such NPC in the Safe Zones. Not in the game I played, at least.

This "world" clearly diverged from the game in places.

This world was not identical to Safe Zone.

I had to keep that in mind from here on out.

The ones who believe they know everything are the ones most likely to ruin everything.

For now, I would set the problem aside and think it through later.

Aside from the way it had glowed and floated up when I first found it, and the way it grew warm whenever I met Hayden, the ring was nothing special.

Beyond the warmth, I wasn't even sure it had any real ability — so it didn't seem likely to do me any harm.

I pushed thoughts of the ring aside, lay back on the bed, and went over the system one more time — then realized something I had completely forgotten.

I've been leaving Home Protector's friend request on read all day.

We had been possessed into a game where people died without a second thought, and yet someone had built a soft, fluffy little system called "friend requests." Whoever stuck us in here was a real piece of work.

I opened the public chat room. The other players didn't seem to have said much since morning either.

No, wait… once you're mutual friends, one-on-one chat becomes available, right?

Home Protector had already sent me a friend request. The others might have friended each other and been talking privately the whole time.

"Hm?"

When I opened the friend request list to accept Home Protector's, requests from other players were waiting there as well.

Dentist. That one had seemed pretty guarded — surprising that he sent a request first.

Ssapasuble and Druggy didn't send friend requests.

Either they didn't feel the need for one-on-one chat, or they were quietly wary of me. One or the other.

I accepted only Home Protector's request, then, after a moment's thought, tried sending one to Tibalom.

No.

Instant reject?

This bastard was watching the whole time while pretending not to.

I clicked my tongue — and a one-on-one chat came in from Home Protector.

He'd been one of my subscribers, so of course he knew exactly which routes I would take.

And I, for my part, knew perfectly well which route Home Protector would be running in the Tobacco Area.

This unemployed freeloader had no shame.

Fair enough. That wasn't exactly within the range of predictable outcomes.

Yeah… thinking about it, what would Home Protector have even known?

I was the one who first posted about the convenience store, after all.

Most of the players in the public chat didn't seem to hold any real malice toward me either.

At least not on the surface.

The only real problem was that Tibalom had landed in a zone practically designed to breed a grudge against me.

Come to think of it, Shin has no complaints even though he's in the Love Area.

The Love Area's NPCs were all… lunatics, basically.

A different breed of lunatic from the Knife Zone NPCs, but lunatics all the same.

And what had he meant when he said the other players had agreed to serve him?

Among the Love Area guides I'd posted, there was a "cult leader route," but that was a strategy that only worked on NPCs.

Unicorn.

My home zone.

The only ones who had opened the system so far were the eight from Candy, Cola, Tobacco, Beer, Chicken, Cocaine, Love, and Knife.

It was possible the Unicorn Area's player simply hadn't opened the system yet.

But given the circumstances, it was far more likely an ownerless zone.

It was a shame there was no player grinding away in my place to develop the area — but the geographic advantages remained either way.

In Unicorn, you only had to prepare for flying monsters, which made it more than worth taking as a second stronghold.

Home Protector was probably thinking the same thing, which was why he was asking.

But I pretended not to know what he meant.

If you already know, why ask?

Hmm.

I'd said it before — low-difficulty zones were hard to turn into proper shelters.

Home ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Protector knew the Tobacco Area wasn't suitable for that either, which was why he'd rather attach himself to me.

But still.

His answer left me a little disappointed.

I thought duking it out with this guy over Unicorn would have been high-stimulation content…

Disappointment aside, the fact remained that I needed someone to manage the zone.

I'd planned to leave that role to my honorary father, Commander Hayden Goodman.

But taking out insurance isn't a bad idea either.

And someone who pretended to join me only to betray me later could be its own kind of high-stimulation entertainment.

I asked — but instead of an answer, a system message arrived.

An item trade window!

I hit accept first.

I wasn't a smoker, but I wanted to confirm as quickly as possible that trading with Home Protector — who was in an entirely different zone — was actually possible.

The moment I accepted, a cigarette icon appeared in my inventory window with the number 12 above it.

So you can exchange goods even across different zones.

At a glance it looked like a feature designed so players could help each other survive.

But if the only things players could realistically trade were food supplies, the resource gap between low-level and high-level zones was enormous.

In other words, even if trading was possible, players from low-level zones would have no choice but to hand things over one-sidedly to players from high-level ones.

What player would help someone else for free?

Even Home Protector was only passing over items from his own zone because he wanted something from me.

After Home Protector left for bed, I tried sending Tibalom another friend request. Instant reject again.

If he's rejecting me cold, at least that means he's still alive.

Even Home Protector wanted to coast under me — so why was Tibalom refusing my help?

I needed him to survive if I was going to get my hands on that one-shot-one-kill item…

…Hmm. Maybe he was rejecting me precisely because he knew I had an agenda.

The next day was busy from the start.

The commander wanted to bring me into the officers' meeting and formally declare that I was his son, and when I said I needed to meet the other officers, the servants meticulously groomed me down to the cuticles of my fingernails.

This was a somewhat new experience.

In the game, once you cleared the illegitimate ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠son route, the system simply informed the NPCs that you were the commander's bastard — no bothersome introduction process required.

"We'll enter midway through the officers' meeting."

Meursault was clearly the commander's aide, yet somehow he had ended up handling my education and, for all intents and purposes, being assigned to me. He briefed me on today's operation.

"The officers currently know nothing about your existence. The point of this operation is to make them accept you before they've had time to think and form judgments. So feel free to act as impulsively as you did when we first met. That said, anything too eye-catching could draw excessive attention, so keep your greetings polite, but…"

While I was being dressed, Meursault seemed less interested in my appearance than in controlling every fold of my brain, constantly trying to inject model answers into me. I ignored him.

When it became clear I wasn't absorbing a word, he soon gave up, looked me over once I was finished, and muttered to himself.

"With your hair swept ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠back, you truly are the spitting image of His Excellency."

Only you Western-type NPCs think that.

For the record, aside from the black hair and black eyes, I didn't resemble Commander Customization in the slightest.

"It's fortunate you take after your mother less. No one will question the bloodline."

Fortunate that I didn't take after my mother.

The commander himself had taken one look at me and said I resembled Luna Moon.

Come to think of it…

The only image of Luna Moon I had was the skeleton in that grave.

If the commander said I looked like her, maybe she had been East Asian too.

An East Asian rare in this world's setting… and with healing abilities on top of that.

Was Luna Moon also like us…

No — the assumption that Luna Moon was a player was hard to sustain.

At least for those of us who possessed through that convenience store, the starting point was the same even if our arrival times differed.

If Luna Moon had been a player, she would have possessed a full ten years ahead of us.

That left the questions of why she alone had come ten years early, and why she had appeared as an NPC inside the game.

Well — given that she was clearly connected to whatever the "secret of the apocalypse" was supposed to be…

If I kept working the routes, I'd learn the truth eventually.

As we headed to the officers' meeting hall on the top floor of the mansion, Meursault cautioned me once more.

"Mind your words and conduct in the officers' meeting. Every one of them is a viper. You mustn't come across as too arrogant, nor as too easy to dismiss."

I'd been ignoring everything he said from the start, but he kept at it with impressive dedication.

As if my thoughts had shown on my face, Meursault gave me a light glare and added,

"You should also be careful about letting your thoughts show on your face. Understood?"

"Understood. But if I can't be too arrogant and can't be too dismissible, what exactly am I supposed to do?"

"Walk the line without crossing it, but don't hold back what needs to be said."

"That's not an answer. What does that actually look like?"

"You're doing an excellent job of it right now. Just keep that up."

This bastard had a surprisingly sharp tongue.

Anyway — the aide had given his blessing…

Time for a pleasant round of self-introductions with the officers.