Chapter 67
Chapter 67
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 67
Chapter Title: 41. Dream
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This story is my own embellished version, spiced up with a bit of imagination, of what Rebecca read on the Viva! Apocalypse! US board where she hangs out.
Before launching into this unbelievable tale, she complained about running low on food and lured me over to her turf.
As I handed over the supplies, she blurted out,
"Got any empty spots over there?"
I didn't give her a straight answer.
It was something I'd been mulling over for a while, but I still couldn't make up my mind.
I was used to going it alone, and I worried whether I could really adjust to having a neighbor right next door. Plus, switching from my lone-wolf survivalist ways to group living wasn't something I could just flip a switch on.
Instead, I offered her some meat and put off the decision for another day.
"Skeleton juicy—one serving."
I'd given Su the canned Imperial peaches from Woo Min-hee, but Rebecca swiped half of them.
As Rebecca munched on the peaches, she said to me,
"You mentioned that amazing story before, right?"
She strummed a guitar she'd scavenged somewhere, like some kind of bard.
When I told her her playing was godawful and to knock it off, she chucked the guitar aside and whispered to Su to start the story.
"Listen up, Skeleton."
The setting for the tale was China.
In this place called Hangzhou, there's apparently a stunning lake known as West Lake.
On the gentle hills overlooking the lake, luxurious villas packed the landscape—homes of China's top tycoons. One genius inventor went around these villas, peddling his wild pitch.
War is inevitable. Few countries will take in Chinese people anymore. Even if they did, we wouldn't be satisfied. So why not build our own paradise just for us and hole up there?
The heaven this inventor described wasn't some celestial realm guarded by the Jade Emperor and the Monkey King. It was a virtual world crafted through coding, programming, and sheer manpower.
Drawing from classics like Journey to the West, Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Investiture of the Gods, and the masterpieces of Jin Yong and Gu Long—blending Chinese elements with Japanese flair and even bits of the American culture they despised—he created another world spanning a massive 144 square kilometers.
The fact that it lacked hanbok, gat hats, wraps, and bubble tea might mean the inventor was less patriotic than your average Chinese.
Anyway, this virtual world was built with obsessive, almost paranoid attention to detail. Nearly everything you could touch interacted realistically, governed by individual data and algorithms.
For example, if a user picked a roadside flower, it would vanish, leaving a sprouted seed object instead. After 24 hours, a new flower would regenerate—unless someone planted another flower or destroyed the seed in the meantime, in which case nothing would ever grow there again.
This level of interaction spanned almost the entire 144 square kilometers of the virtual world.
The possibilities were endless.
You could farm, fish, forge weapons to hunt mobs and level up, build castles with the construction tools and become their lord, or wage massive sieges with guilds vying for control.
The landscapes—famous Chinese landmarks mixed with global wonders and infused with Chinese fantasies—were the virtual world's crowning glory.
Boldly, the inventor named his creation Butterfly Dream, after the famous Zhuangzi tale.
But his true ambition lay beyond the perfect virtual world.
The virtual realm was just one ingredient.
What he envisioned as the ultimate Butterfly Dream was this world fused with an impregnable bunker equipped for total self-sufficiency.
No worries about external threats, sustained by on-site life support, leisurely immersing in daily fantasies within his creation.
Like an endless summer dream that never ends.
Unable to change reality, he'd craft a new one and wait out the storm inside it. That was the inventor's vision.
His grand plan didn't succeed right out of the gate.
Building this paradise demanded obscene amounts of money.
His initial targets were ordinary workers.
Like Viva! Apocalypse! that had taken the world by storm, he'd build capital through monthly subscriptions, then, when crisis hit, evacuate people to Butterfly Dream centers across China's provinces for eternal slumber in the dream.
The inventor, Zhang Suoqing, tried stirring buzz on Chinese SNS with eccentric stunts, aping his idol Melon Mask. But unlike Melon Mask, he lacked the fortune and the track record.
The public ignored him mercilessly.
But he wasn't one to crumble after one flop.
He pivoted, targeting China's vaunted 0.1% elite.
Even that didn't go smoothly.
Pouring billions into a mere virtual world and cohabiting with unwanted randos in a controlled environment? To these Qing dynasty royals, it felt like marching into exile.
One VIP hurled an ashtray at the inventor's face, mocking him.
"Does it hurt? Bet it does. Your reaction's what makes it fun— that rage twisting your face, and you swallowing it down anyway. That's the spark only a living human can give. Think about it: what's the point of raging at a doll all day?"
Rubbing his bruised eye socket, swallowing fury and shame, the inventor—Zhang Xiaowei—hatched a chilling idea.
He staged a fresh investor pitch, totally revamped.
Gone were the scruffy jeans and black tee mimicking Melon Mask. Instead, he showed up in an overly shiny tuxedo and bowtie, bowing obsequiously to the investors, a sycophantic smile plastered on his still-swollen face.
The investors weren't impressed, but he pressed on shamelessly, outlining the "changes."
"VIP investors will receive martial artist accounts in the Butterfly Dream world. Martial artists start as wuxia masters with otherworldly power and fortunes far beyond normal players. What do you do with that power? Exactly—stomp, kill, and toy with the worthless free-to-play peasants logging in."
He fiddled with his bowtie and added,
"Yeah, the NPCs will be filled with those free loaders."
That day marked his greatest triumph.
He raked in billions on the spot, and soon after, he was swamped with more tycoons lugging sacks of cash—ten bodies wouldn't have sufficed.
When Beijing fell and the Party splintered into warlord factions clinging to their fiefdoms, he summoned the VIPs to one spot.
Fittingly, it was around West Lake, where he'd first hawked his dream.
Having secretly cut deals with various warlords already, he proudly unveiled his colossal luxury bunker.
"When war breaks out, we'll dream an endless dream here."
Most VIPs at the inaugural gathering were thrilled, though some asked if there was room for their mistresses and lovers.
Grinning, he assured them there was plenty.
Next, he procured NPCs for the VIPs.
He opened free Butterfly Dream experience centers across the mainland.
Nice was a stretch—they were dingy underground dens like the opium holes rampant in late Qing, crammed with dozens of VR rigs and packed sardine-tight with people.
For near-free access, he told the masses,
"You'll experience a world you've never known. Come in—this is your new paradise. Almost free. But remember, there's no such thing as a free lunch."
Few cared what he meant by "free lunch."
To escape the horrors, people dove into Butterfly Dream like starving wretches scarfing hot food.
And it was paradise: hunting, building, raising animals, weaving, painting, composing music—dozens of bottomless content streams with infinite potential. In bleak times, it was a perfect refuge for the dispossessed.
Butterfly Dream skyrocketed to China's dominant online escape.
Its popularity sparked street fights over access vouchers and armed gangs seizing centers.
As a hardline faction in Shanghai geared up for war with Taiwan, he quietly gathered the VIPs at West Lake.
"Time to dream."
That day, unprecedented "martial artists" appeared in Butterfly Dream.
They could one-shot max-level (100) warriors who'd grinded for ages.
These intruders demolished homes players had built over hundreds of hours, slaughtered users, and wrecked their possessions.
One built a fortress, publicly slapped a lord to death in front of his retainers with a single palm strike, then hung the head from the gates. Another demanded kowtows in a crowded market, massacring refusers.
In a way, these martial artists were no different from monsters.
Yet with no other joys or comforts, ordinary folk clutched empty bellies in filthy free centers, desperately reshaping virtual lives.
Strategies varied.
Some bootlicked martial artists into voluntary slavery. Others hid in remote villages. Some leveraged real-world charms or connections to join late.
Anti-martial artist groups formed too.
Pooling game system knowledge, their verdict was unanimous: impossible to kill a martial artist unless they logged off long-term.
Martial artists had ~2,500 HP; normals dealt 1 damage max, no matter what.
That's 2,500 unflinching hits.
One user crunched the numbers: to solo-kill one uninterrupted, you'd need 3 hours 12 minutes of nonstop beating without taking a hit.
And they'd just respawn upon return.
Practically impossible.
Once that sank in, they eyed hacking or real-world hits.
But no one knew the VIP bunker's location, and before any hacks, nukes from the US and allies vaporized major cities.
Surviving plebs got abandoned in monster zones or culled in warlord hellscapes.
They died cursing the martial artists.
Ironically, the martial artists' downfall came after theirs.
Deprived of playthings, martial artists roamed the virtual world seeking new kicks.
The uneasy alliance held for about a year.
Then content dried up.
They realized nothing beat toying with people—and turned on each other.
Virtual beef spilled into reality soon enough.
Bang! Rat-tat-tat!
The bunker became a battlefield.
A VIP with guards seized advantage, but a military VIP rallied survivors for a counterattack, flipping the tide.
Amid bloodbaths, the inventor emerged—as if drawn by fate.
The world had turned ashen gray.
A colossal monster—the first he'd seen, yet instinctively knew—glanced at him and lumbered off into the gray.
He barricaded in his inner bunker sanctum, the admin shelter.
There, he accessed the Viva! Apocalypse! English board his idol had inspired.
Banned by the Party, but under their wing, he'd sneaked US access pre-war, chatting in youthful English.
He posted one-way messages like a mountain bird, no pleas for reply—just persistent spam.
US users eyed the Chinese nick oddly but shrugged it off; their board was as madhouse as Korea's.
Some time later, sensing death near in the corpse-filled bunker, he logged in one last time to his creation's fantasy.
An unbelievable scene unfolded.
Martial artists lay dead.
A normal user wielded a wooden club, relentlessly bashing a frozen martial artist avatar.
1! 1! 1! 1!
Pathetic damage pops.
As the inventor approached, voice chat crackled.
"You the last one, you piece of trash?"
Unmistakably human.
A plaything user's voice, brimming with fathomless rage.
That fury had whaled on the 3-hour-12-minute tank.
As the inventor opened his mouth, the user vanished.
The world-creator knew it was a logout, but dying and delirious, he saw it differently.
To him, it was a monster.
He posted his tale on Viva! Apocalypse! English board in calm prose, ending with a curt final thought.
Mysteriously, he uploaded a selfie. Heavy shadows, low-res noise obscured details, but his exposed lower face was ashen gray, skin like weathered bark.
"What do you think, Skeleton?"
Su showed me that unmistakably inhuman face.
"Looks like a monster."
"Right?"
Word from Incheon: the first evac fleet sounded its horn on arrival in Jeju.
The Jeju government welcomed them warmly and grandly.
For some reason, the news felt like a dream from some distant world.