The First Major Update
The hunt on the fifth basement floor had ended successfully, yet every day after that I returned to the dungeons to continue the grind.
Leveling up rapidly on the fifth floor, I immediately pushed the challenge to the sixth. The sixth floor was filled with skeletons. They all came at me in close-range attacks, and while it was still easier than the fifth floor, the experience points and drops were far superior.
While I was growing stronger by defeating skeletons on the sixth floor, Hyemi entered the room.
“Oppa.”
“Hyemi. Why? Need pocket money?”
Since the first time I gave her allowance, whenever Hyemi needed cash she called me Oppa.
“Oppa, I only come when I really need money, right?!”
Hyemi pouted.
“No… Hyemi, what is it then?”
She flashed an artificial smile at my question.
“Oppa, I have plans to eat out with friends tomorrow. Could you give me some?”
“With friends? How many?”
Hyemi patted my shoulder as she entered the room.
“Three.”
I pulled out ten thousand won from my wallet.
“No… just go yourself.”
“Huh? Me? Can I come along?”
“Yeah… no, of course!”
Hyemi switched between casual speech and honorifics.
I already had over twenty million won in the bank, so giving her allowance was no burden at all. Feeding her friends at the restaurant was also manageable. But asking her to eat together… that felt like wasting time. In that time I could at least clear a few skeletons on the sixth floor. Besides, if I ate and had dessert afterward, I’d burn through the time it would take to take down two or three skeletons.
“Hyemi… I’m busy….”
“No! Oppa! There’s not much vacation left, and you’re just going to stay inside playing the game all day? You need to go outside and feel the sunlight!”
Hyemi was unusually persistent today. Maybe her real intention was to make me go outside and get some fresh air.
“Oppa! Lunch with friends tomorrow, remember?!”
“Yeah… got it.”
This morning’s reflection in the mirror came back to me. My hair had grown long and looked unkempt, and for a while I hadn’t seen sunlight, so my skin was pale. For her sake, and for my own health, I needed to get some sunlight.
[Seolhwa, I’ll log in a little late tomorrow.]
[Why!? Is there something wrong?]
[No… my sister wants to go eat outside. Sorry.]
[No. Then what time will you log in?]
[I’m not sure. Probably after three in the afternoon.]
[Got it! I’m fine. Come whenever you’re ready. You can even come at dinner time!]
I thought Seolhwa would be disappointed, but she wasn’t. It almost looked like she was hoping I would log in even later.
[Seolhwa, is it really okay for me to log in late?]
[Yeah! It’s really okay!]
Her reaction felt strangely warm. If she had hated my company, she wouldn’t have been so understanding.
I leveled the sixth floor diligently that day as well and logged out from the inn.
The next morning.
Today I overslept.
When I thought about it, I had been saving every second of every day to play the game. Taking one day off like this felt right.
Bang!
“Oppa! Wake up! It’s already nine o’clock!”
“Huh… the appointment’s at noon.”
“Oppa, if you’re leaving like that you’ll have to go to the hair salon first!”
“Ugh… just a little longer.”
Hyemi yanked the blanket away.
“Oppa! Wake up! You won’t have time if you go to the salon and then to the appointment place!!”
“Ah… I got it….”
Hyemi led me to the hair salon. The stylist neatly trimmed my overgrown hair, then used styling products to make it look much neater and better styled.
“Oppa, you look like a whole new person now.”
“What did you say?”
“No! I mean, you look more sociable.”
“Really?”
The phrase “you don’t look sociable” was something I heard all the time back then. I genuinely avoided meeting people. I had no good memories of people. The bullying in middle school must have been the starting point. The distorted social skills from adolescence never recovered.
I lived my life earnestly on my own. I graduated from a prestigious university and landed a job at a large corporation. Even so, interacting with people was hard. Later, when I exposed the school violence and my identity was revealed by the Netizen Detective Corps, my life fell further.
Naturally, my social skills were terrible…
“Haa…”
“Oppa, why are you sighing? I just praised you after a long time!”
“It’s nothing. Did I really look that unsociable?”
“Yeah! Isn’t it obvious?”
I thought my social skills had improved after returning to the past, but apparently not.
“Hyemi, if you meet your friends later, is there anything you want to eat?”
“Yeah! Fried tteokbokki set!!”
From Hyemi’s mouth came the name of a food she usually liked.
“No, let’s go somewhere else. I know a good place.”
“Huh? Oppa knows a restaurant?”
I didn’t know the best restaurants by heart. But I did know a few large chain stores.
“Hyemi!”
“Wow~~ You guys have been waiting, right? This is our Oppa.”
“Ah… nice to meet you?”
I greeted Hyemi’s friends awkwardly.
“Ne?”
“Nice to meet you?”
“Hee hee.”
Perhaps the formal speech was awkward. Just my greeting and they were already laughing at how funny it was.
“Today our Oppa is treating us to lunch. Eat well.”
“Got it. Hyemi~”
“What should we eat?”
The topic of conversation among the middle-school girls instantly shifted to food.
“Oppa will get it for us.”
“O~~~”
“I want fried tteokbokki.”
Hyemi and her friends all seemed to love tteokbokki. In any case, the place I was going had it. I was heading to a buffet.
Hyemi’s friends and I arrived at the large chain store.
“Wow~ The interior is pretty.”
“Whoa!!! Look at the price.”
“What? It’s more than twenty thousand won per person?”
“Amazing!!!”
The way they looked at me changed. From awkward older brother to the generous Oppa who buys lunch.
“Wow~ Thank you, we’ll eat well.”
I grabbed a table while the kids rushed to get food.
And me.
I headed to the buffet line.
“Hyemi, it’s way more impressive than what you said about your brother.”
“Totally. Totally.”
“Can I ask for your number later?”
“Hey! Don’t ask our Oppa’s number. Got it!? You don’t know our inner circles? You’re trying to leech off free lunch?”
“Hee hee hee.”
“Caught you. Hehe.”
When I returned with food, the kids who had been chatting happily grew quieter for a moment.
But that was only for a little while. At some point, even though the conversation had nothing special, everyone was laughing happily.
I just ate my food. It was awkward to join their conversation, and I didn’t have the skill to keep up.
“By the way, Oppa is going to high school, right?”
“Yeah.”
After we entered the buffet, Hyemi’s sister friends started speaking to me casually.
That was why I used informal speech.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to Forest Self-Study High School.”
“Oppa got in?!”
Hyemi, listening, said in surprise.
She probably hadn’t expected me to pass the self-study high school exam.
Maybe she hadn’t even hoped for it.
“Wow. Oppa studies well, right?”
“Of course I do. It’s a self-study high school, after all!”
“Amazing! The question was totally different from what Oppa said~!”
It sounded like it was directed at me, but another student answered.
Their conversation flowed too quickly for me to join.
“But Oppa, Hyemi said you can’t study. That’s a lie, right?”
“Ah… I couldn’t until the first semester of third year. I studied hard in the second semester.”
“Really? What rank did you get in the second semester?”
“Me? First place.”
“Ooooo~~”
“Wow!”
“Wow! First place in the class?”
“No, first place in the entire school.”
I felt like I was doing something weird with kids in front of me, but I also secretly felt proud.
Hyemi’s friends also reacted exaggeratedly to my words.
“Wow~ Oppa. You’re totally different from Hyemi.”
“Different from Hyemi?”
“Yeah! Hyemi can’t study!”
“Hey! What are you doing? If you’re at a restaurant, eat your meal quietly!”
Hyemi pouted.
I had always known my sister couldn’t study well. Even though it was nothing new, Hyemi seemed embarrassed.
After eating dessert at the buffet, we stepped outside.
“Oppa. Where are we going now?”
“Huh? We ate lunch, so… we’re not leaving, right…?”
We had lunch plans, we ate lunch. I thought that was the end.
But the kids had different thoughts.
“Oppa, why are you trying to leave? It’s no fun?”
“No… it’s not that….”
Today’s conversation had been more enjoyable than I expected.
Maybe because I had seen sunlight for so long.
Maybe because I ate with so many people.
Maybe because Hyemi’s friends focused on me and reacted to everything I said.
In any case, it was enjoyable in many ways.
“Oppa. Then let’s go to a karaoke room!”
Hyemi’s friend grabbed my arm and pulled.
“Hey! What are you doing? Why are you grabbing Oppa’s arm?”
“Why~”
“Don’t let go!? Hurry up!”
Hyemi came over herself and pulled her friend away.
“Don’t fight. Let’s go to karaoke.”
“Yeah!”
“Waa~”
Song.
I loved singing.
Thinking back, I hadn’t sung since returning to the past. In the past I sang a lot, especially when I was in college.
Whenever I saw friends enjoying their university life, or whenever I saw couples on campus making beautiful love, I wanted to meet people too. But it was too difficult for me back then.
Meeting people. Every time I did that, I sang in the karaoke room in front of the school. The emptiness in my chest felt a little filled.
Singing comforted me. My singing skills weren’t bad either. Because I was often alone, I had plenty of time to listen to music. Listening and singing a lot, I couldn’t help but improve unless I was completely tone-deaf.
Inside the karaoke room.
The dim lights and the unique atmosphere calmed my mind. This was my safe place, my refuge. The space that comforted me.
“Oppa, sing for us.”
“I want to hear too.”
“Me too. Me too.”
Even this time, Hyemi who usually stopped us was clearly looking forward to it.
“Got it. I’ll find a song.”
“Yeah!!!”
“Waa~”
When I opened the songbook, old songs I remembered came into view. The latest hits section was also packed with classics.
By my standards.
And one song caught my eye.
The song I often sang when I was lonely.
The lyrics were filled with the deep loneliness and solitude of the protagonist. The melody was also sad.
For a moment I wondered if I should play this song in this atmosphere, but no other title came to mind. After so long, this song felt like reuniting with an old friend. The friend who comforted me.
It was like that for me.
I entered the number and pressed start.
From the beginning, a melancholic melody filled the room. This melody. The one that understood my sadness.
My heart tightened.
It was so refreshing, like receiving comfort for the first time in a long while.
I sang each and every word carefully. The gentle beginning gradually built to the climax in the middle.
The part where the singer’s loneliness, sorrow, and isolation exploded. The strength and sadness I had held inside me exploded together.
It felt good. Like releasing a long-buried weight.
After the climax, the last part was the singer’s self-deprecating monologue.
“Sob…”
“It’s so sad…”
“No… I worked so hard on my makeup…”
One friend cried hard.
Another tried to hold back her tears.
Hyemi gritted her teeth and cried.
“Cough. Who wants to sing next?”
To break the awkward atmosphere, I opened my mouth.
But the kids didn’t seem like they wanted to sing. They just cried. They were moved by my emotions. I poured out all thirty-five years of my life’s pain while singing that song.
That emotion must have been too much for the middle-school girls.
They all cried for a while.
The first to calm down was Hyemi, who then started singing a happy song. The atmosphere brightened from that moment on.