Let's Play That Trash Game

The young man who'd completed his public service was named Lee Bok-dong, and he aspired to be a pro gamer.

He'd even bought a pro-grade account for the purpose — a 680,000-won VIP package with video recording built in. Living off sub-minimum-wage part-time gigs, he still remembered how his hands had shaken handing over that kind of money.

He'd had that recording function running ever since the threats started. If things had gone according to plan, it would have been footage exposing the guild's atrocities. Somehow, the video had turned into a justice-served highlight reel instead.

Lee Bok-dong kept the recording rolling as he walked along the top of the fortress wall.

Every time he glanced around, scattered corpses and blood filled his vision. Bodies from ordinary combat were usually disgusting to look at, but the ones here were different. However they'd managed it, every single one had died from a single bullet to the chest. They were astonishingly clean. He wouldn't even need to edit it down for content rating.

Holy shit, this is insane. If I upload this, it's gonna blow up.

He planned to ask the man who'd created this scene for permission to post the footage. He'd helped with the shooting too, so he had a right to claim that, didn't he? Whether he'd actually been useful was another question, but still. If he could get the video up somehow, the income would be decent. As a start to his pro gamer career, this felt pretty good...

He kept walking, and among the corpses he spotted two men. An ordinary-looking one, and the man who'd made this scene.

The man ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠who'd created this scene was leisurely wiping blood from his blade. Lee Bok-dong approached. The moment that handsome face came into view, he recoiled.

Ah.

Lee Bok-dong was afraid of tall, good-looking men. They looked like the type who'd been schoolyard bullies.

This isn't reality, it's a game. Not reality, a game. That face is just character customization...

He repeated it to himself, but he still couldn't find the courage to speak. It wasn't just schoolyard trauma. When he thought about it, wasn't this guy actually terrifying?

The massacre he'd just witnessed couldn't be explained away as mere gaming skill. Combat in this game was extremely realistic. If you could slaughter everyone by yourself in here, you could do it in reality too.

The thought of asking permission to upload the video vanished. While Lee Bok-dong kept his mouth shut, Jijonmussang spoke up in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠an excited voice.

"Gaon, what did you used to do? Were you a soldier in real life? Wait, no — a guy who games over ten hours a day couldn't have been a soldier, right?"

Gaon answered at his leisure.

"Not a soldier. Just a badass."

"Ah, right! That was seriously insane! And you used magic too... that was magic just now, right?"

The blatant flattery seemed to put Gaon in a good mood. He smiled with satisfaction, then suddenly looked this way. Just as Lee Bok-dong flinched, Gaon spoke.

"You provided covering fire, right? Thanks. That made things a lot easier."

He had shot and killed one person. Exactly one. Jijonmussang had also shot one, and the rest had all been killed by that man.

"Ah, yeah..."

After answering, Lee Bok-dong worried whether he'd stammered.

Meanwhile, Jijonmussang asserted himself.

"I helped too!"

"I know. You were a help."

"I was a help? That's a relief. So, uh, the stuff that dropped here. Can I pick some up too..."

In that instant, Lee Bok-dong snapped to attention.

A pro gamer's main income: kill people, loot them, pocket the spoils...

This game had no inventory. Because of that, whether monster or player, everything they were carrying dropped to the ground when they died. And nearly every item in this game had real-world cash value.

Which meant this was his chance to make his first profit as a pro gamer. A very large profit, at that. Everything scattered around them was money.

As the two aspiring pro gamers watched anxiously, Gaon spoke without much thought.

"Of course you can pick them up. You too, public-service guy. Though I don't think we'll be able to take it all? We'll have to haul it by hand."

"We should look for a cart or something..."

The three of them climbed down the ladder.

Below the wall, new players were excitedly running around inside the fortress. Then one particular item was dragged out. The moment Jijonmussang saw it, he shouted with joy.

"A truck!"

He dashed over at once, and the new player readily handed the truck over to Gaon. It had been in the fortress warehouse, so it was his anyway, the player said, along with a show of respect for the feat.

"I was scared shitless I'd registered an expensive account and was about to die, so thank you so much. I'm aiming to go pro, so if we run into each other on the battlefield I should probably remember you... what's your name?"

"Gaon."

"Gaon? Ah, that's a Swordmaster's name, right? You're not actually a Swordmaster, are you?"

"If I were a real Swordmaster, would I go around announcing that a Swordmaster of all people is playing games in the middle of the day? I'd never reveal my identity."

"I wouldn't know what a Swordmaster thinks... anyway, thank you again! That was seriously insane."

With that, the new player climbed down from the truck. Jijonmussang took the ignition key.

Gaon was happy to receive praise for the first time in a long while; Jijonmussang was happy to have a means of transporting all that loot. Jijonmussang asked with a goofy grin.

"Looks like we can take it all. About splitting the loot..."

Gaon answered casually.

"I did kill pretty much everyone, but I couldn't haul it all myself anyway. I'll take half, and you two split the rest equally."

Neither the public-service guy nor Jijonmussang had any objections.

Thirty minutes later, the three of them had succeeded in loading nearly all the loot onto the truck. Whatever they couldn't grab, they left for the other new players. If they lingered any longer, the White Skull Unit might send reinforcements.

Soon the truck pulled out.

The moment they left the fortress, a city came into view. They drove toward it, and before long, guided by a city NPC, the truck stopped at the auction house.

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠player running the auction house was stunned by the cargo.

"Holy shit, that's a lot. Machine guns, a 4.2-inch mortar... where'd you loot all this from?"

Jijonmussang answered that question with pride.

"From those bastards who were farming newbies!"

"Wait, there? That place is completely fortified — a small group could never hit it. How..."

Regardless, he gave them a price. Everything in the truck was transferred to the auction listings, and with that, today's earnings were a success.

The auction house player guaranteed they'd get at least 8.6 million won. In barely an hour, they'd each made millions.

"If we made this every day, we could put up a building! First day as a pro gamer and we're already hitting it big. This is too good..."

At Jijonmussang's words, Gaon asked.

"You've been saying 'pro gamer, pro gamer' this whole time, but aren't pro gamers e-sports athletes? All we did today was loot. Can you really call that pro gamer work?"

Lee Bok-dong explained in his place.

"Uh... around here, if you make a living from the game, they call you a pro gamer. Whether you earn money as a mercenary or by selling gold."

"Those people are just gold farmers. Nobody calls them pro gamers."

"Well, in this game there are more people playing to make money than people playing for fun. There are so many of them that people decided not to use a slur and just call them something nicer..."

Gaon was incredulous.

"Half the people playing to make money? What is that. How does a game economy even function like that? Demand has to be way higher than supply, doesn't it?"

"Money keeps flowing in from outside. Anyway, it's clear that people playing this game to make money are the majority. This game's content is war, and pretty much everyone who enjoys that is playing to make money, I bet."

At those words, Gaon's face hardened. Jijonmussang, still buzzing from the incredible haul, didn't notice the change in expression.

So after they parted ways with Lee Bok-dong, Jijonmussang asked in an utterly delighted voice.

"Today was fun, right?"

Gaon answered with a blank expression.

"Yeah, I guess. But I had fun — everyone else probably didn't."

"I had fun, though?"

"Because you made money, right?"

"Exactly!"

"For as much as we made, those guys lost."

"They had it coming, didn't they?"

"They did. So this time I'll let it slide, but... I don't know about keeping this up."

The indifferent answer threw Jijonmussang.

"What?"

"Doesn't seem like a game you can play for fun. You can loot whoever you kill, so every time, money gets stolen and stolen back. I'd feel bad every time I took someone down, and that's... yeah. I figured it'd be pretty gambling-heavy since they said it made money, but I thought it'd be about the usual Korean game ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠level, you know? This feels like it's gone way past that."

"Wait, why can't you enjoy it if you're making money..."

"I wasn't trying to game to make money. Sorry."

"No, wait..."

Jijonmussang kept begging — why, come on, let's just keep playing — but Gaon's mind was made up.

He could tell well enough why Jijonmussang was pestering him to keep playing together. Because this guy fights well, he wants to team up and make money, right? In that case, it was even harder to go along with it.

If that guy starts making money regularly because of me? Then I really won't be able to quit whenever I want.

Just thinking about it was horrifying. He didn't want a messy situation like that. All he wanted was to kill the surplus of time he had.

He explained that point in as much detail as he could, but Jijonmussang showed no sign of getting it.

"Please..."

It was already getting messy. Gaon congratulated himself for deciding to quit this trash game, and said:

"I'm logging off."

The virtual reality gaming device was crude and simple — a phone booth with a single chair, and a headset besides. At a glance, it was hard to believe anything so unremarkable could render a perfect virtual world.

Gaon stepped out of it and sighed.

It was a shame to drop it so soon. It had been fun, that much was certain. He'd actually moved his body and done something, for the first time in decades.

That said, there was no reason to keep going if it meant mental exhaustion. He was a Swordmaster in real life, after all. He could go out and do things in reality too. The problem was that he didn't want to.

Out of habit, Gaon pressed the computer's power button. He sat down in front of the monitor as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

He almost launched his usual online game without thinking, then stopped. A gloomy thought crossed his mind. What did he even do when he wasn't gaming — when he was eating, for instance?

Wiki-diving. Always good for killing time.

He typed 4 Fantasy Online into the wiki. True to its fame, a long article came up.

He clicked the Characters section without thinking. Then his eyes went wide.

Gaon focused on one name in the Swordmasters section.

2.5.1. Gaon. That's my name, isn't it?

It couldn't be a namesake. You could count every Swordmaster in history on your fingers and toes, assuming those were intact. Then and now, Swordmasters were vanishingly rare.

So the Swordmaster Gaon written there was undoubtedly him. Which was absurd.

Wasn't this a WWII-setting game? But during World War II, Gaon had been in another world entirely — neither Earth nor As.

And that Ban Ji-sung guy too...

Still, curiosity got the better of him. He started reading slowly. The article began like this:

Gaon felt his face heat with embarrassment, but he kept reading.

The article went on and on about how powerful the in-game boss version of Gaon was, how infamous he was among players because of it — in other words, how incredible he was.

Gaon didn't get praised much in his daily life. He reread the same sentences over and over, grinning as he went through the article.

Then his face went serious.

At the very bottom of the entry, it said this:

Gaon couldn't take his eyes off those words for a while. His face flushed. He clenched his fist. Then he sighed.

He scrolled the mouse gloomily. Going back to the start of the section, he found this:

After finishing even that, he collapsed onto his bed. Amid a swirl of emotions, he found himself thinking complicated thoughts for the first time in a long while.

Gaon sighed, and sighed, and sighed again.

Meanwhile, his phone rang. He picked up, and as expected, it was Jijonmussang.

"You want to keep playing together?"

A desperate voice. There was even a hint of tears in it, as if trying to provoke sympathy.

Gaon accepted the request for reasons other than sympathy.