A New Beginning
Noun and Seolhwa moved to the wolf habitat together with five of the young men.
[Seolhwa, you can't go too far.]
[Yeah.]
We circled the area around the wolf habitat and found a small group.
And then.
Two wolves were sprawled on the ground.
[That’s them. Let’s follow quietly.]
[Yeah!]
The village youths also bent down and followed behind.
When we got close enough, the wolves that had been rolling on the prairie suddenly charged.
Thud!
[Oof.]
I managed to block with my shield, but damage still went through.
Noun and Seolhwa took on one wolf each, and the youths handled the rest.
[Seolhwa, hit them from behind.]
[Yup.]
Crack. Crack.
While the wolves’ attacks focused on me, Seolhwa swung her sword fast and cut one down.
Critical!
A critical hit marker appeared over the wolf, and it died.
At the same time, one of the village youths finished off a wolf too.
[These NPC guys are fighting well.]
As Seolhwa said.
[Three more should be fine.]
We found a pack of three wolves together and charged toward them.
While the NPCs blocked two wolves, Noun and Seolhwa took one down, and the NPCs plus us finished the last two.
After focusing on wolf hunting for about three hours.
An NPC approached.
[We should eat.]
1) Eat.
2) Fight.
I looked at the hunger meter at the bottom of the screen from the NPC’s words.
31%.
Choosing option 1, I set up a spot far from the wolf habitat.
I took food from the item window and ate with Seolhwa.
Next to us, the village youths ate the food they each brought.
[Sonya is pretty, right?]
[Not bad. Interested?]
[No. No.]
[Look at Cain talking to the NPCs.]
It was a little awkward, but the village youths chatted while eating.
Seolhwa, strangely, didn’t type anything in chat and just focused on the NPCs’ conversation.
Honestly, this wasn’t that strange.
If you knew how the hero characters in the game were going to turn out…
We ate and started hunting again.
Noun and Seolhwa spent the full ten hours we had contracted with the NPCs and headed back to the village.
[If you ever need help again, just say so.]
When we arrived at the village, one NPC said something and went inside with the other youths.
[Seolhwa, aren’t you tired?]
[Yeah.]
It was already seven in the morning.
We had stayed up all night hunting wolves.
Maintaining a certain distance from the other wolves had drained our concentration a lot.
[Seolhwa, let’s finish the quest after we sleep.]
[Yeah. What time are you logging in, Cain?]
[I’ll log in at one in the afternoon.]
[Okay. See you then!]
We ended the game and collapsed on the bed.
**
Ring. Ring.
“Ugh…”
It was 12:50.
I wanted to sleep more, but thinking of Eunhye’s promise, I forced myself to get up.
I turned on the computer with the familiar motion,
and after quickly washing up in the bathroom,
“Oppa, you’re up?”
“Huh? Yeah.”
“You were tired from the exam, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“I’m going to boil ramen. Want some?”
“Mom?”
“She went to work.”
“Yeah…”
Even on the weekend, Mom was working.
Seven days a week.
She was going to keep doing that for another twenty years.
I had grown up watching my mom go to work every day since I was little.
That was probably why.
I wanted to break free from the shackle of economic poverty.
I studied hard.
I even got a job at a big company.
Of course, the desire to surpass Kim Juho was also one of the fuels.
But
The past life wasn’t good at all.
No, it was very bad.
This life, I absolutely had to
live a better life.
For myself.
For family.
Half-closed eyes opened wide.
I had to grow the hero character a little faster.
Because I had to let Mom rest even a little sooner…
“Oppa, I’ll boil the ramen.”
Even though I felt sorry for my younger sister,
“Thanks.”
Right now I wasn’t playing.
I was preparing for the future.
Game hero.
There was a path here.
I logged into the hero and ate the ramen my younger sister gave me while waiting for Seolhwa.
12:59.
One o’clock.
[Cain’s here?]
[Yeah.]
[Let’s go to the fox habitat.]
Seolhwa said and led the way.
Thinking about the hero system, there was no way the fox had respawned.
Since this was a game that valued realism abnormally, monsters didn’t respawn.
Instead, they increased in number through complex processes like in real life.
[None here.]
[Right.]
As expected, there wasn’t even one fox in the fox habitat.
[The village people must have decided to exterminate them on purpose.]
[Yeah. Even so… It’s been a day, and the monsters still haven’t appeared.]
Seolhwa still didn’t know about the respawn system in the hero game.
This place wasn’t like other games where monsters suddenly appear.
Like on Earth, they come out from the mother’s womb and grow.
After going through that process, the fully grown foxes we knew appeared.
[Let’s go back to the wolf habitat.]
[Huh? We don’t have five anymore.]
Seolhwa was right.
For now there were none, but the wolf meat and wolf hide we got yesterday were in the inventory.
Selling those should somehow make five.
After selling the wolf meat and hide, it came to exactly five.
Adding what I already had…
[Cain, why are you in such a hurry today?]
[Huh?]
[Normally you put safety first. You seem eager today.]
[Did I?]
Seolhwa was right.
When dealing with the hero game, I always put safety first.
Today, because Mom went to work even on the weekend, I was impatient.
After taking a deep breath and calming myself,
Deer and wolves.
I thought coldly.
I debated whether it was better to use five to hunt wolves.
Even considering everything,
It was better to pay for the wolf habitat bus.
Since I couldn’t spend a golden weekend hunting deer without foxes.
[Even if I think about it, wolves seem right.]
[Yeah.]
After calmly thinking, Seolhwa agreed.
So.
We started hunting wolves again.
For ten hours.
Without wasting even a second.
**
We played the hero game for more than thirty hours over the weekend.
“Ah… I’m too tired.”
In front of the apartment complex.
I stretched while waiting for Eunhye.
I wanted to go to school and sleep quickly.
Now I was used to staying up late during class time.
Thanks to that, I went to school like a zombie,
and when school ended, I came home brightly.
“Doun, are you very tired?”
“Here. Let’s go quickly. I want to sleep in the classroom.”
“Yeah.”
As soon as we arrived at the classroom, I collapsed.
It looked uncomfortable from the outside, but actually it was very comfortable.
My body had adapted to this position.
Ding. Ding.
The first-period bell woke me from my short sleep.
Korean class.
I took out the Korean textbook and was about to fall asleep again,
but
“Take out the midterm exam papers.”
I took out the Korean exam paper from my bag.
“Question 1, number 1.”
“Question 2, number 3.”
“Question 3…”
The teacher spoke the correct answers aloud and wrote them on the board.
“... Question 2.”
He called even the last answer.
“Ah…”
“Too bad.”
“I thought it was number 2!”
Sorry sighs came from all around.
“Oh…”
In contrast, my exam paper was neat.
I waited to mark only the wrong ones, but every single one was correct.
So I didn’t mark anything on the paper.
Science class.
…
“Wow…”
After living thirty-five years, I received a score I had never received before.
Perfect scores on every subject.
I had expected it.
The problems themselves weren’t that difficult.
Even middle-school Korean, English, and math were too easy for me.
The problem was that it was a memorization subject, but even that I could recall thanks to studying with Eunhye and Naeun in the past.
Ding. Ding.
After the last class ended, the closing bell rang.
[Everyone did well on the exam? Don’t play around and go home early. Bye.]
“Wow!”
“!@#%$”
“$%^&&”
The students gathered and left the classroom in groups.
After they all left, I also left the classroom.
I didn’t need to hurry.
After all, I had to wait for Eunhye.
[Doun, you did well on the exam?]
[Uh… so-so.]
It was embarrassing to say I got perfect scores on every subject with my own mouth.
[Oh.]
[What about you?]
[I got an average of 91 points!]
[Oh. You did well.]
[Yeah… But it was worse than last time. My average dropped by three points.]
I felt a little sorry.
Eunhye had a reasonable reason for her score to drop.
Because she had spent a lot of time investing in the hero game with me.
On the contrary, getting an average of 91 while playing that way was amazing.
I was… an exceptional case.
[Doun, let’s go home quickly.]
[Yeah.]
**
The next few days passed peacefully.
When I had no money, I hunted deer.
When I had money, I hired NPCs to hunt wolves.
While doing a little boring hard work and growing the character,
A problem suddenly arose in real life.
[Doun. Did you cheat?]
[Huh?]
A student who couldn’t study at all got perfect scores on every subject.
From the teacher’s perspective, it was understandable to suspect.
But
For me who was being suspected, I didn’t feel good.
[Do you know your own score?]
[Yes, it’s 100, right?]
[Really… Doesn’t it seem strange?]
[What?]
Perhaps because of my complaint-filled tone.
The teacher shook his head several times and said something else.
[Have you received anything like a pinch problem book?]
[No.]
[Then how did you get this score?]
[By studying.]
[No… That doesn’t make sense…]
Drdrdrk.
[Teacher.]
Lee Naeun entered the teacher’s office.
[Naeun, what’s wrong?]
[Doun stayed after class to study with me.]
Naeun defended me.
[We know that, but this score can’t be explained by that.]
[Why? When we studied, Doun knew a lot.]
[Naeun, do you know Doun’s score?]
[No.]
Naeun said confidently.
She didn’t know my score and yet defended me.
I was grateful,
but memories of her not helping me in the past made me feel weird.
[Doun got perfect scores on every subject.]
[What!?]
Instantly Naeun froze.
[But… Even so. There’s no way Doun did a bad thing.]
This way, the problem wouldn’t be solved.
I had to step in.
[Teacher, I took the exam based on content that came out of my head. Re-take or whatever, please just send it.]
It was good to get a high score,
but I didn’t want my sleeping time disturbed because of it.
The hero game was more important than exam scores.
A golden rest time was better than class time because I could sleep lying on the desk.
[Doun, what did you say?]
[My words are simple. I didn’t cheat. Re-take or whatever, please just send it.]
[Re… Really… Okay. First, go back to the classroom.]
[Yes.]
Drdrdrk.
I opened the teacher’s office door and came out into the hallway.
Naeun followed and stood beside me.
[Doun, is it really perfect on every subject?]
[Yeah.]
[D… Doun. Even if you got perfect on every subject, I believe you!]
Naeun’s trembling eyes looked so cute when she said she believed me.
Cute?
Was that what I was thinking?
Instantly I was flustered.
No matter how much I liked Naeun with body and mind, I had avoided thinking about her…
[Naeun, I’m tired, so I’ll go to the classroom first.]
[Yeah, Doun, I believe in you! Keep up the good work!]
[Thank you…]
Somehow, at some point, when calling Naeun, I stopped adding the honorific and just called her by name.
Had my heart’s boundary loosened without me realizing?
Or had I forgotten that betrayal?
How could I forget…
My thoughts soon stopped.
I had arrived at the classroom.
Now it was time to sleep.