The Ice Empress Awakens
The Ice Empress.
That title had long marked her in the Hero game as the cold, unflinching swordsman everyone feared.
“Why did I forget?”
Memories buried deep in my brain surfaced slowly.
Her real name was Kim Eunhye.
A girl in my same class.
Our homeroom teacher was different.
She belonged to the same kind as me.
She had burns on her face and body.
Because of that, even if no one beat her like I had been, some students still hurled insults at her from the front.
“Dirty skin…”
“Disgusting…”
“Man… there were so many cruel kids back then.”
Looking at her now, who could possibly call her a pure and kind middle-schooler?
For someone, middle school had been nothing but a brutal jungle.
**
I returned home and turned on the Hero game.
“Fifty Copper Coins to buy the discount, huh?”
I had to clean the house three more times out of boredom.
Knock. Knock.
“Oppa. The ramyeon is ready.”
Hyemi placed the bowl on the table and left the room.
…
I had almost changed, but I ended up doing the same old thing.
Back in my third year of middle school, puberty had been hitting and school violence had left me mentally drained, but now it was different.
Still, I did the same thing.
I picked up the ramyeon and ate it with Hyemi at the table.
“I’ll do the dishes.”
“Yeah, oppa.”
Such a good sister.
Even as a middle-schooler, Hyemi should have been going through puberty, yet there was no trace of it.
Not back then, and not now.
After finishing the dishes, I went back to the room and kept at the quest.
After nearly five hours of grinding, I finally held fifty Copper Coins in my hands.
“Aaaah… this is boring…”
What kind of game is this?
No matter how many times the virtual-reality game I knew from the future succeeded…
even the current Hero game felt incredibly dull.
I bought the discount with the fifty Copper Coins I had gathered over the past eight hours and shut the game down.
“Hunting tomorrow… What about the Ice Empress?”
She was the strongest swordsman among players in the future.
A level that high carried enormous power.
Not just in the game—also in real life.
Because the Hero game had already changed reality so deeply.
I wanted to befriend her.
More than wanting a friend, I wanted to receive help from her in the game.
“How should I talk to her…?”
I had thirty-five years of memories, but as a complete beginner with a woman, it felt impossible.
“What kind of life have I actually lived…?”
**
I kept climbing to the rooftop every break time.
I was waiting for Kim Eunhye to appear.
“Sigh… she isn’t coming.”
I checked the time and headed down the stairs.
The exact spot where the stairs from the rooftop met the corridor.
There I ran into Kim Juho.
Thud.
What a piece of work.
The moment Kim Juho saw me, he swung his fist without the slightest hesitation and slammed it into the back of my head.
“Where are you going every break?”
“Why are you hitting me?”
“What?! Haa… xx. Did you eat lunch wrong?”
Because I spoke back, Kim Juho took a fighting stance and said,
“If you hit me, I’ll record it and report you to the police.”
“Wh-what? You little shit.”
The word “police” made Kim Juho hesitate.
Normally he would have swung his fist anyway, but the mention of police seemed to stop him cold.
“I’m going to report you to the police.”
I didn’t call the teacher.
Just like before, they would have dragged us both in for a fake reconciliation.
“Evil…”
“What kind of evil are you talking about?”
“Evil? Haa… you really are something, you bastard!”
He raised his hand again, but didn’t swing it.
After saying one last thing, he left.
“I’ll let you off today. Don’t get on my nerves from now on.”
I already had enough proof to destroy Kim Juho, so I didn’t need to take any more hits.
That’s why I walked away with my head held high.
Of course, it wasn’t empty talk.
I really was going to report him to the police.
Even if the police didn’t come and fix it, the record of school violence would become a powerful weapon later.
Until classes ended, Kim Juho never came near me again.
For the first time in a long while, I had peaceful school life.
No friends, no one tormenting me, just peace…
Ding. Ding.
After the final bell, I sprinted straight to the school gate.
I hadn’t met Kim Eunhye on the rooftop today.
So I stood there waiting.
If she came to school, she would have passed this way.
“Hey. Isn’t that Lee Doun?”
“Yeah, it’s him. Why is that guy standing there? Juho, did you call him?”
“No.”
“Do you want to blow off some steam?”
“Let’s just go.”
“Go? Fine.”
Kim Juho and his group walked past, completely ignoring me.
They knew exactly who I was talking about, yet they turned away.
I would hit them or report them and that would be the end.
If the police didn’t help…
I would go to a congressman or the Human Rights Commission and use whatever means necessary.
I wanted to defeat violence with violence, like the movie protagonist, but I couldn’t.
I had the mind of a thirty-five-year-old, but I had no chance against the gym team.
And if real fighting broke out, his gang would jump in too…
The crowd that had filled the school gate gradually thinned until the gate stood empty.
“Already left?”
Everyone had already gone home; no more students spilled from the building.
I turned to leave when a masked female student came out of the school.
She saw me at the gate, flinched, and turned to walk away.
“Wait…”
“Me…?”
“Uh… that… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to look…”
“It’s fine… Do you want to be friends?”
I knew it sounded ridiculous, yet I said it anyway.
In thirty-five years, I had spoken properly to no woman except my mother and younger sister.
That was probably why my heart pounded so hard in front of Kim Eunhye that I could hear it in my ears.
“Friends? Are you making fun of me?”
Kim Eunhye pushed the mask up to her eyes.
Because her face was small, most of it remained hidden behind the mask.
“No. I really want to be friends.”
“Sorry… I’ll go.”
Kim Eunhye hurriedly fled.
She walked away quickly, and soon she was out of earshot.
“Tsk tsk. Too late for you at your age.”
As Kim Eunhye disappeared from sight, I muttered in my late-thirties tone.
The moment I had tensed like a middle-schooler facing her, I had already forgotten…
…waiting for Hyemi to finish her homework, I bought the chocolate she liked and headed home.
But—
“Oh? Does Kim Eunhye live in the rental apartment complex too?”
The same building.
I saw her entering the same block.
“Wow… I had no idea.”
I felt odd for a second, then understood.
Because our schedules had never overlapped.
She went to school early and came home late to avoid people, while I left right at the start of school and finished the moment it ended.
And…
Once I got home, I never left the room.
Probably Kim Eunhye did the same.
Because of the burns, she hardly ever went out.
While I was thinking about her, I reached the apartment door.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
I entered the password and walked inside.
“Oppa!”
Someone greeted me every time I came home.
It was extremely happy.
Especially for someone like me who had built walls around myself for years.
“Hyemi. Eat this.”
“Wow! Chocolate!!”
Hyemi took the chocolate with a big smile and dashed toward the TV.
Just seeing her so happy made me smile too.
I wanted my sister to laugh more.
This life would be spent repaying my family.
To do that, I had to grind the Hero game diligently.
I went to the room and turned the game on.
It wasn’t about fun anymore.
I had to treat it like a job.
Because this game was the future’s food.
Name: Cain Level: 1 Class: None DNA: Gambler Strength 10 Agility 10 Stamina 10 Intelligence 10
“Sigh… I didn’t level at all.”
Even the tutorial alone required level 10, and that was a game where you just picked stats.
Especially now that mobile games had become mainstream, fast leveling and fast growth had become the norm.
But this kind of growth was pathetic.
“Seriously. If it weren’t for this Hero game, I’d be stressed out of my mind.”
I approached the old man who gave quests.
“A wanderer. Are you looking for work?”
1. Gather animal hides. 2. Clean the house.
I chose option 1.
[Quest] Bring five rabbit hides from the north side of the farm.
“North…”
I checked the minimap and moved.
The minimap was completely black.
Only the areas I had actually walked showed terrain.
I had just received the quest and was heading toward the path leading north of the farm.
Countless NPCs were living their daily lives on the streets.
Some were shopping, some carrying goods, some chatting with neighbors.
That was the ultra-realism of the Hero game.
Because of that, there were so many NPCs that they felt real, even though their AI was still below future standards.
Here on the small farm’s streets, nearly thirty NPCs walked around.
While I walked, admiring the NPCs, I reached the farm entrance.
I passed through the gate and picked up a weapon.
I didn’t go far.
If I died by mistake, I would have to do eight hours of house-cleaning grinding again.
Even if I saw them, I didn’t hunt the distant rabbits.
I only hunted the rabbits near the farm.
Unlike the game’s name, this wasn’t a hero’s playground.
Unlike ordinary games that became easy at low levels, this one was difficult.
Being low-level meant the character was weak, and weak characters died easily.
I hunted rabbits near the farm and steadily collected five hides.
It took an hour…
“I shouldn’t have been this careful…”
Five rabbits in one hour.
I felt a headache.
What a pathetic game.
If it had been another game, five rabbits would have been a one-minute clear!
I muttered into the mic while my mouse kept moving.
Toward the old man who gave quests.
…
Until midnight.
I only hunted rabbits.
And on the third day of the game…
I finally received my first level-up.
Name: Cain Level: 2 Class: None DNA: Gambler Strength 11 Agility 12 Stamina 10 Intelligence 12
I opened the status window to add the points.
But what was this?
The points were already allocated.
I had wanted to put them into Strength and Stamina for more survivability…
“Wait.”
Strength +1 Agility +2 Intelligence +2.
When you leveled up in the Hero game, you received three bonus stat points.
I had received five.
Even if they were random…
“What the…? Bug? Or…”
If there was a reason, it had to be the DNA: Gambler trait.
The bonus points were random, and level-ups were random too.
It could be good or bad.
If this continued, my total stats would surpass the average.
But…
The stats I needed most were probably lower.
“Still, there’s nothing I can do.”
The game’s DNA… I couldn’t change it.
Even if I answered the survey at character creation in the opposite way, I would still end up with Gambler DNA.
That was already the conclusion many people had drawn in the future.
One in the morning.
Today I shut the game down early.
I had school in the morning tomorrow.
Kim Eunhye…
I was going to meet her.
**
5:30
I took out side dishes from the fridge and ate a quick breakfast.
I greeted my still-sleeping mother before leaving for school.
“You’re going to school so early?”
“Yeah.”
“Is something wrong?”
“That… I’m meeting a friend.”
“A friend? Okay. Go quickly. Want me to give you allowance when you meet your friend?”
“It’s fine…”
When I was in elementary school, I sometimes talked about friends.
But since middle school, I hadn’t mentioned friends at all.
Of course not.
Because I had no friends.
No, I had the opposite.
In middle school there were too many enemies.
First, Kim Juho who bullied me.
Then his gang that followed him.
Then the classmates in my class who laughed at me.
At first I had thought they were just watching because they were scared of Kim Juho.
But now I didn’t think that anymore.
School violence was wrong, but if they had watched because of Kim Juho’s fear, when I posted his bullying online, they would have testified.
“Haa…”
Thinking about the useless past made me feel bad.
I put the 30,000 Won my mother had given me in my pocket and waited at the apartment entrance.
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