Chapter 197
Chapter 197
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 197
Chapter Title: 90. Fox Game (1)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Guessing Bureau Chief Kim Byung-cheol's ID wasn't that hard.
He'd already shown up during the IMZers incident.
Just like the other big shots who revealed themselves back then, Kim Byung-cheol had put in a little effort to recruit the IMZers.
At the time, there was no way to know who he was, but it turns out we'd been hanging out with someone who was pulling the strings in Korea from the very beginning.
Anyway, contrary to my worries, Kim Byung-cheol never approached me on the board or contacted me, and Kim Daram never asked me for any unreasonable favors.
A week flew by, and my daily life returned to its peaceful rhythm.
"......"
Peace is nice, but this was excessively peaceful.
The Legion Faction had absorbed everyone—good or bad—and now there wasn't a single human shadow in sight.
Only beasts or mutations occasionally stirred.
Sitting dazed by the stream, watching the blue rice shoots grow tall, last week's fierce battle felt like a dream from a summer day.
On the board, I kept hearing that Kim Byung-cheol was doing a good job.
Unlike the previous government, he was providing real jobs?
At the same time, there were tons of disses about the old government, and reading them, I could kind of see the point.
I could somewhat agree with that.
In fact, it seemed true that Kim Byung-cheol was earnestly trying to rebuild Seoul.
Defender sent me a message.
He could only send something like this now that things had stabilized.
Anyway, the future depends on what our Kim lady does next, but unless it's something really critical, I doubt my junior will call on me.
That's the vibe I got.
From the way she wore that fake eyepatch to tug at my sympathy.
While real life had settled into a stable phase, the internet world was unfolding something depressing.
...
...
Foxgames had vanished.
He'd shown gloomy signs last winter, but in the end, he couldn't bear life's weight and became one of those users who'd been gone for over a month.
His last post was this:
Probably some game code, but I had no idea what it meant, and even users who'd worked at game companies said there was no special message in his final code.
But at least we board users could read one meaning from Foxgames' last cryptic code.
It was the death rattle before dying.
In solitude and terror, pain and illness, above all, the crushing reality of endless imprisonment—even the strongest, most optimistic person crumbles.
Those people usually break mentally first, then their bodies follow.
Foxgames was repeating the exact behavior we'd seen from users on the brink of death.
The one difference: unlike others, Foxgames was a named user on our board, beloved for his mild, kind nature.
...
...
Unlike other friends who'd slipped away quietly, Foxgames' final path was followed by a flood of tributes.
A long-standing unspoken rule of the board was broken.
Until now, mourning or anything tied to death was forbidden, even if a user died or vanished.
It could be our turn next, and even in this doomed world, we wanted to focus on the good and bright things—that was our collective board consciousness.
But now, board users had dwindled sharply.
Sure, there were new users on dead people's devices, but too many familiar ones were gone.
Pretending not to notice was getting hard; ruin had crept right up to us.
This incident finally made our board users accept death, manifesting as tributes to Foxgames.
"......"
I didn't post a tribute.
I felt a special bond with Foxgames.
Though we'd never met face-to-face, he felt like an old friend.
I'd even gotten a super account from him once.
Sighing, I loaded up his final masterpiece, Monster Park.
I wasn't expecting it to work.
Quite the opposite.
No one mentioned it anymore, and with the admin Foxgames himself missing, there was no way it was still running.
But it connected.
The familiar message and ASCII art floated emptily on the screen.
For a brief moment, I felt a spark of joy, but it faded fast.
No one was there.
The lobby, once swarming with users, had zero active players.
Tap tap
I typed in a nostalgic command from memory.
cmd playercount
Hit enter, and...
One player.
Just me, huh.
With updates stopped and the creator gone mad in some cyber afterlife, no one wants in.
Games like this thrive on other people; lose that key asset, and players bail fast, leaving it a ghost town.
Foxgames' words idly crossed my mind.
Don't tell anyone my account is a special cheater account.
But now that the game's dead, who cares if it's super or cheater?
Meaningless.
Totally meaningless.
I sat there blankly, staring at the text blob that's barely a game.
"......"
Another one gone like this.
Looking back, plenty of users had vanished without a trace.
We just chose not to see.
Maybe I'd pulled a sudden exit too.
But somehow, it pissed me off a little.
He was someone I was close to, and it sucked that I couldn't do anything.
At least for him, I could've offered a house call service.
As long as it wasn't too far or dangerous.
I spaced out, stepped away to brew coffee, and came back.
Then a message popped up.
"?"
The message faded like mist, replaced by another.
That one vanished just as quickly, like a volatile substance.
*
I don't know much about Monster Park.
So I had to ask for advice on the game board.
This time, I owed the Legion Faction thanks.
Thanks to them reviving Failnet, various boards came alive—including the game one.
...
...
In my view, a couple of these trash-talkers probably pulled all-nighters in Monster Park.
So while Monster Park was treated like trash even on Failnet, as expected, there were a few dedicated "in-game hunters."
Mystery solved.
Not an internet ghost—someone used the item.
But who?
In this dying game world, using a rare camo item right in front of me, revealing themselves.
Unfortunately, I can't track the camo user.
Only the dev/admin Foxgames could, and he's probably dead.
There's an old saying on our board.
Daily poster gone one day: health issue.
Three days: dangerous.
A week: likely dead.
A month: 99% dead.
Three months gone? Foxgames is as good as dead.
He was our board friend but had tons of Failnet followers too, so after the first tribute, old players kept posting RIPs there.
...
The tribute train showed no sign of stopping, but amid it, the scum of humanity emerged.
Probably an industry insider.
Or someone pretending to be one, just a pre-war troll type who wants to shit on people.
Whatever they said, tributes continued, even foreign board users joining in.
As Foxgames' memorial ballooned exponentially, an unexpected contact came.
"Hm?"
Viva Bot.
Direct chat.
Why me?
Bad vibes from experience; I ignored her.
Tap tap
This SKELTON, with unprecedented named user armband history—how much greater could I get?
Seemed like nonsense, but I waited for Viva Bot's next line.
Then she typed.
"?!"
A small change.
But definite.
A tiny icon next to Viva Bot's nickname.
A shrunken My Melody character—the one I hate—tacked beside her name.
She soon explained.