Arcana Online

Logging out didn’t make my character vanish like in other games.

If I didn’t log out in a safe place, I’d come back to find her standing there in the buff.

I took off the VR gear—no, the gear—and returned to the real world.

A bleak reality.

A world with no family, no friends, not a single person I knew.

I wanted to go back, but my stomach had started staging a riot and demanded food.

Even if I ate in the game world, that didn’t mean I’d feel full in reality. That would make no sense.

I got out of bed, stopped by the bathroom, then went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. I took out the triangle kimbap and water I’d bought yesterday, then boiled some ramen.

Warm food that somehow wasn’t warm at all.

After eating, I wanted nothing more than to return to the world inside the game, but that wasn’t possible. Because of the gamer protection feature, if you stayed logged in for too long, you were locked out for a while afterward.

I went back to my room, tossed and turned on the bed, and struggled to fall asleep.

*

*

*

When I woke up, ate breakfast, and logged in again, it was morning in the game world too.

The real world and the game were in a one-to-one time ratio.

Stretching from the bed in the inn, I got up, opened the door, and headed downstairs. Bell noona was already working early in the morning.

“Good morning!”

“Oh my, you’re up early. Want breakfast?”

“Yes!”

When I answered with a bright smile, she patted my head and said I was cute.

I had missed this touch.

A warm touch.

Smiling happily, I heard her laugh again and call me cute before she went to fetch the food.

I sat down in a chair and waited, and before long the meal arrived—an absurd amount of food, enough to make me blink.

The table was completely covered.

Bell noona looked at me with the sort of eyes that said, You can eat all this again today, right?

“Thanks for the meal!”

“Eat lots, dear.”

After breakfast, I tried to pay for the room, but she refused flatly.

“What kind of child has money? Don’t worry about a thing. Stay here comfortably.”

“I can’t do that!”

“You can!”

And with that, I was kicked out.

She picked me up, set me outside in an instant, and shut the door, telling me to go have fun.

The inn lady is scary...

So, should I head to the hunting grounds for now?

No. Information first.

I hadn’t been able to check the guidebook or the system last night.

Besides, I was a summoner and level 7—there was no way I could keep bashing monsters to death with a staff forever.

I headed for the town library to gather information.

I wanted to find out how a summoner was supposed to obtain summons.

When I got to the library and read ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠books about summons, my knowledge went up.

Reading the books raised it quite a bit.

But the information I wanted still wasn’t there.

How to actually obtain a summon, that was.

Disappointed, I sat by a window in the corner and basked in the sunlight when a thought suddenly flashed through my mind.

Wait. I could just check the community boards, couldn’t I?

I logged into one of the large communities that existed in Arcana Online and checked the latest posts.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

I checked the general opinion of summoners and searched for how to obtain a summon.

There was nothing useful. Most of it was clickbait.

One post claimed that if you killed 9,999 ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠slimes, you could get a slime summon, but it had hundreds of curse-filled comments underneath it.

After that, I checked the system and the guidebook too, but nothing stood out.

Getting no information at all, I headed for the hunting grounds.

Guess I should at least go hunting.

Today, it was time to challenge goblins, who were stronger than slimes.

More than that, hunting alone made me lonely.

Was it really possible that a game ranked number one had no players in it at all?

I even deliberately moved to Channel 1004.

The “angel” channel—how cute was that? So why was there nobody here?

As I made my bitter way toward the hunting grounds, I browsed the game system and noticed a streaming button.

What’s this?

The system said I could broadcast my screen in real time. If I turned that on, would it make me feel less lonely?

When I tried to start streaming, it made me set a bunch of things first.

Profile picture? Could I just upload a picture of myself?

After I finished the settings and pressed the stream button, it activated.

And then a tiny chat window appeared beside me. Huh, that was pretty neat.

Since nobody had come in, there wasn’t a single chat message.

Still, should I go look at the rabbits on the way?

When I entered the hunting ground packed with rabbits, the ones that spotted me started swarming over.

“Kyaaah! Don’t lick me! That tickles!”

The rabbits came up to me, licked my cheeks with their adorable little tongues, and even offered me carrots as gifts.

That was when a chat message popped up.

“W-what?”

Startled, I checked the chat window and saw that someone had joined.

“Um, hello? Isn’t this just how they’re supposed to be? They’ve been like this since the start for me.”

“My unique trait?”

What mattered more than the warning message was this.

I’d lost my precious viewer!

My only viewer disappeared, and I was alone again.

Well, fine. So I wasn’t supposed to reveal my trait.

I’d learned something new.

I waited for another viewer to show up, but no one else came in after that.

This wasn’t that nobody was joining. It was that they couldn’t join.

I hit end broadcast and comforted myself with a little self-righteous victory.

By the time I reached the goblin hunting grounds in a gloomy mood, the name tag above them was marked in red.

[Young Goblin]

So aggressive monsters were shown in red?

The slimes hadn’t been red, though. What was that about?

I walked up to the goblin and swung my staff.

With a cry of “Kkuek!” it flopped over with a wet thud, then got back up?

The goblin rubbed the back of its head and stared at me blankly.

That look is terrifying!

Clutching my staff tightly with trembling hands, I swung again and smashed it on the head. The goblin collapsed and dropped an item.

After putting the item into my inventory and turning to hunt another goblin, I spotted a small cave.

It definitely hadn’t been there a moment ago.

It looked dangerous at a glance, but as if possessed by something, I stepped into the cave.

Against my will.

Once I was inside, I heard a voice.

“Child, this way.”

“Who’s there?”

“Come this way.”

Following the voice deeper into the cave, I found a set of iron bars.

But something was off.

They were far too thick to be ordinary iron bars.

At least five times thicker and sturdier than normal, and when I touched them, the surface was smooth but crackling with some strange current. This wasn’t the steel I knew.

There was also a warning written in front of the bars.

The moment I raised my trembling hand and broke the seal, something dark flew at me, only to vanish in a burst of brilliant light.

Thanks to that light, I caught a brief glimpse of what lay beyond the bars.

Something huge.

And honestly, the thought that came to mind right then was that I was probably in serious trouble.