Gray Memories 5

Just like that, I managed to graduate from the facility without incident. From what I heard, the place had been established by the government to train agents capable of assassinating the assassins sent after their own leaders or other high-value targets. Of course, after I escaped I made sure every adult connected to the facility was dead, so I never learned anything more.

I slipped into the shadows. With the skills I had learned, I began earning money. No matter how rotten the place had been, the techniques they taught were undeniably effective. No matter how many bodyguards a client had, I could slip through them and fulfill any request. And whenever I saw someone on the news who rubbed me the wrong way, I paid them a visit and killed them too.

Then the promise I made with Lee Baek came back ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to me—the things we had said we would enjoy together.

I started with anime. From the so-called masterpieces that everyone praised to the absolute trash people recommended online, I watched them all. Some were fun, some moving, some heartbreaking, some hilarious. Of course, there were also absolute disasters like Steel Blood or Danganronpa 3.

After that I moved on to dramas and movies. Dramas never really clicked with me, but movies were fantastic. I rewatched masterpieces like Schindler’s List and Roman Holiday over and over.

Then I decided to try games as well.

Some guy in a team game called me out for secretly taking the Bladebeak and told me my mom was a whore. I had zero interest in people who didn’t even exist in reality. But then he claimed the person who introduced him to the game was a filthy slut, so I tracked him down and killed him. He was some forty-something waste of space still leeching off his parents. On the way back from that job I bought a console and decided to try Dragnity Fantasy 1.

The opening was mind-numbingly dull. Demons revive, the world is in danger, the emperor gathers the strongest people from across the globe to defeat the Demon King—pure, clichéd nonsense.

“Fucking waste of money.”

It was an old game, so I had spent a fortune tracking down a physical copy, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and I immediately regretted it. I couldn’t understand why the internet called it a masterpiece.

“Is this that goddamn Clementine effect or something?”

I forced myself to play for just one hour with my eyes half-closed. Before I knew it, I was completely hooked. The relationships between the characters were genuinely interesting, the level design was flawless, and the way your playstyle changed depending on how you used the sacred relics was brilliant. I ended up playing straight through the night. Even after nine hours I was still only in the early zones—typical for me, since I always cleared every hidden item and achievement before moving on.

But something felt off. Lee Baek had said there was a boy in Dragnity Fantasy 1 who looked like me. No matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find any boy—only old men and adult males. I started to worry she had just been teasing me and I had fallen for it.

Then, around the mid-game area, I finally met him. The boy’s robe slipped off, revealing the name Werner along with an illustration. It was a simple portrait, but I knew instantly. That bastard looked exactly like me. Same facial features, same hair, same build. He was even an orphan. It was so identical I wondered if the developers had stolen my face without permission.

“Well, I already leveled everyone else up a ton. If he joins now he’ll just be dead weight…”

Except he wasn’t. Werner’s wide-area attacks specialized for field battles were practically invincible. His sacred relics were also tailored for that playstyle, reducing MP consumption and letting you fire off pre-stored spells instantly. That explained why players had spent so much money rolling for him when the mobile version came out. His performance there was just as broken, earning him nicknames like “Minion Farmer” or “Field Reaper.”

Still, as I played I noticed Werner and I weren’t completely the same. Unlike me, Werner was sociable. He called every companion “big brother” or “big sister” and stuck to them like glue. I called every man I met “old man” and every woman “auntie.”

And unlike me, Werner put others first. When rocks fell, he pushed Squar out of the way and took the hit himself. When poisoned, he gave the antidote to a girl whose life was in greater danger. He was nothing like the selfish bastard I was. I had only survived the facility because I was that selfish.

I kept slaughtering demons, taking down hidden bosses and even the Demon King. Time flew by. After seeing the ending I felt something was missing, so I started again on the highest difficulty without using any healing items. Then I tried never using a healer in battle even once. After that I played blindfolded, using only my feet… I kept repeating the game in every way I could think of. Once my playtime hit 999:99 there was nothing left to do. Every self-imposed challenge and degenerate run was finished.

When the game was finally over, my life felt empty again. Werner on the screen was smiling with his companions, but I had no one beside me. No friends, no first love… They were all dead. Or rather, I had killed them.

I logged onto the internet and found countless other shut-ins just as addicted to the game as I was. I started hanging out with them. Eventually the community’s admin, “Main Tank,” handed the management rights over to me because he was getting married and vanished without a trace. That fucking bastard.

An internet community was like a cage full of wild animals. All kinds of bizarre people would do the most grotesque things just to get attention. The worst one was some old grandma’s… I don’t even want to say it out loud.

That day there were far too many people I wanted to kill. Those phantom thief bastards had even sent me a warning letter before posting the disgusting images. I had already warned them, so I killed every single one who posted them. It wasn’t just for me—it was for the sake of the entire community.

After carrying out that justice and buying about twenty shrimp burgers on the way home, I found the community in flames.

After pushing past the nonsense from those beastly bastards and doing a search, I finally learned the truth.

Dragnity Fantasy 2 was coming out.