The Item That Changes Everything
Item. Though he had boldly declared victory in his mind, the moment another day began, Tae-oh found himself overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness. The blue status window floating before his eyes displayed only a single cold red heart. He had just one chance left. If he failed this time, it would truly be over. The fear that he might never again wake to the irritating clatter of a tin can crept over him like a slow fog.
How the hell am I supposed to do this?
Tae-oh sat on the creaking cot and stared down at his own palms. Assassination? He didn’t have that kind of skill. He wasn’t some North Korean special operative; he was just an ordinary guy who had finished his mandatory military service in modern society. Sniping? He would have been confident with a K-2 rifle, but the only long-range weapon available to him now was a bow. And of course, he had never even shot one before.
In the end, the only option was the same as before: endure and wait for that bastard to show up. But that wasn’t a guaranteed method. Tae-oh bit his lip.
This is driving me insane, seriously…
After experiencing two regressions, he had realized one crucial truth. The world did not repeat itself perfectly. A single word, a single action, could twist the future in subtle ways. Combat was the same. A single misplaced step or a 0.1-second hesitation could completely change the flow of battle.
What if he played it too safe this time, or conversely, acted too aggressively, and for some reason the Heart Soldier never appeared before him? Or what if it spawned in another platoon’s sector far away instead of his own? If the war ended without him obtaining the heart, there would be no next time.
“None of these answers work. Goddammit. What the hell am I supposed to do?”
No matter how hard he racked his brain, no proper solution came to mind. Time, which had dragged unbearably during his days as a private, now flashed by in the blink of an eye. The sound of a bugle signaling the start of training echoed through the barracks.
Tae-oh decided to move his body first. He had to start with what he could do right now. He turned his head and looked at Kyle, who sat beside him. Feeling Tae-oh’s gaze, Kyle stared back with a dumb, open-mouthed expression.
Ah… I have to do that annoying favorability grind again.
Tae-oh let out a sigh and forced a smile.
“Hey, if you tie your shoelaces like that…”
“Haaap!!”
The new recruits’ shouts rang across the training ground. Tae-oh had done this enough times now that he found it somewhat manageable. The fact that he could move his body violently while still thinking about other things only reinforced that feeling.
As he thrust his spear through the dust-filled air, Tae-oh kept asking himself the same question. But no sharp solution emerged. The problem was those three days. In South Korea, time had been so abundant it was practically called “killing time,” yet here it was a desperately scarce resource.
Once again unable to find any answer, Tae-oh finished the morning training and headed to the mess hall.
The mess hall reeked of the recruits’ sour sweat. Tae-oh chewed mechanically on the rock-hard rye bread while clutching his head.
At least give me something sweet! My brain isn’t working at all!
His stress had passed the critical point. The pressure from having only one heart left twisted his stomach, and his nerves were so frayed that even the smallest sound made his body tremble. Eventually, the emotions he had bottled up exploded.
“Agh! Fuck! What the hell do you want from me?!”
Bang—!
Tae-oh slammed the table and screamed. For a moment, every conversation in the mess hall stopped dead. Hundreds of eyes turned toward him at once.
“Another one’s losing it.”
“Leave him be. Who knows if he’ll be dead tomorrow? Maybe the ones still sane are the weird ones.”
“Like you?”
“Want me to kill you right now?”
Whispers rose from the surroundings. Pitying glances mixed with tongues clicking in disgust. But Tae-oh didn’t care. He kept shouting.
“Yeah, that’s right! I’m fucking crazy! In a shitty situation like this, being sane would be the weird part, wouldn’t it?!”
Tae-oh stood up, breathing heavily. After letting it all out, he actually felt a little better.
“Fuck, this tastes like shit. Is there even a PX around here?”
“What the hell is he saying?”
“Something about blood, I think. He really is insane.”
Tae-oh tossed aside the half-eaten piece of bread and stormed out of the mess hall. He collapsed in a shady spot beneath a tree at the edge of the training ground, gasping for air.
“Haa… fuck. I really want a cigarette.”
That was when someone tapped him on the shoulder from behind. Tae-oh turned his head irritably.
“What?”
When he looked back, an unfamiliar man was standing there. The guy had a somewhat hollow face and unfocused eyes. His complexion was deathly pale, as if he hadn’t eaten for days, and a faint smell of burning lingered on his body.
Despite Tae-oh’s sharp reaction, the man spoke in a low voice.
“You okay?”
“Does it look like I’m okay when I’m about to die the day after tomorrow?”
Tae-oh snapped back and tried to turn away again. But the hollow-eyed man suddenly held out his hand. On his rough palm lay several dried leaves that looked strangely familiar.
“??? What are you doing ???”
Instead of answering, the man simply pushed his hand closer. The leaves on his palm were from a thoroughly dried plant. At first glance they looked like common weeds, but they carried a subtle, faint glow.
“If you light them and inhale the smoke, or chew them for a long time, it’ll help. You said you wanted a cigarette, right?”
Leaving only those words, the man staggered away without waiting for a reply. His retreating figure was so bizarre that Tae-oh could only stare blankly after him. Especially those eyes. The unfocused gaze that seemed to stare into empty space felt as if it were looking at something invisible right in front of him.
What the hell is wrong with that guy? His eyes look like he’s staring at a status window or something.
Tae-oh grumbled as he looked down at the dried leaves in his palm.
Still… I guess he was just being nice…
As he absentmindedly ran his fingers over the leaves, Tae-oh’s heart suddenly sank. A blue text had appeared in his vision.
Meditation Herb
“!!!!”
The tiny letters floating above the blade of grass were clearly information provided by the system. Tae-oh’s heart began to race.
“Th-this is…!!!”
It was an item. In games, the term referred not only to weapons, armor, and equipment, but also to consumables that granted special effects. And the Meditation Herb in Tae-oh’s hand was something he knew very well.
It was a famous crafting material from the MMORPG Imperial Conquest.
It exists? In this world?
Come to think of it, it made perfect sense. This romance-fantasy world and Imperial Conquest shared the same universe. So it was only natural that items from the game could exist here in reality.
Tae-oh recalled the effects of Meditation Herb. And at the same time, he understood why the man who had given it to him had such strange eyes.
He was a junkie, wasn’t he?
In the game, Meditation Herb was a kind of stimulant. It dramatically increased the user’s focus and temporarily accelerated cognitive speed. It was also an item noted for having an addictive quality comparable to hard drugs when used raw without combining it with anything else.
Of course, right now it wasn’t just text on a screen.
Tae-oh’s eyes began to change.
“If I have this, the story changes completely!”
His previously blocked mind began to spin rapidly. A bitter smile crept across Tae-oh’s lips. A single ray of light was shining down on this life that had been nothing but despair.
He carefully tucked the Meditation Herb into his chest.
A crafting material was exactly what the name implied: a material. It existed to create a specific finished product. And there were established formulas for combining these items.
In the case of this Meditation Herb…
If you grind Meditation Herb together with Musk Tree leaves, you get a cigarette with a very mild hallucinogenic effect.
Tae-oh was what players of Imperial Conquest called an “old fossil.” He was an expert among experts who had memorized the vast majority of the hundreds, thousands, or possibly tens of thousands of item crafting recipes. Those formulas were far more familiar to him than any real-world cooking recipe.
The Musk Tree was a common tree that grew everywhere in the mountains of this world. There was even one right behind Tae-oh. He carefully plucked a few leaves and gathered them.
Then he placed one leaf of Meditation Herb and three Musk Tree leaves on a rock and began crushing them. He rolled the resulting powder inside another Musk Tree leaf to shape it into a cigarette.
One perfectly formed leaf-cigarette remained in his hand.
Tae-oh called out the status window in his mind.
Status window.
Meditation Cigarette
“I-it worked!!”
Luckily, torches were scattered plentifully around the camp. Tae-oh lit the cigarette and took a deep drag.
“Sssuuuup!!!”
And then he exhaled.
“Huuuuuuuu…!”
Thick white smoke clouded his vision. And with it came the overwhelming power of nicotine! A powerful effect that instantly cleared the mind.
“Khhhhahahahaha!!”
Tae-oh laughed like a madman.
“Kwaaahahahahahaha!!”
Item crafting. With this, obtaining the heart might not be so difficult after all. That thought began to take root in his mind.