The Girl Who Hated Herself
At the question of why he was the one delivering the message, Woojin answered in a tone that made it sound like it was no big deal at all, laying out the whole story in a straightforward manner.
There had been an event at the Mad Gryphon office where they invited regular people in for a tour of the building and gave them real coaching feedback in the practice room. That was when they had exchanged contact info. There hadn't been any particular interaction since then, but a sudden message had arrived just a little while ago.
When the streamer asked if he was in touch with me, Woojin figured it was obvious I'd done something stupid again, so he said yes. Then she asked him to tell me to accept her friend request. Since it was clear I'd messed up somehow, he'd immediately sent me a text.
That son of a bitch. He never backs down from a single word.
In the end, if I explained the whole situation, it was obvious I'd end up getting a lecture full of pitying nags from this rude bastard. Before he could start, I told him I'd log in and that he should get lost and go do his job, then quickly closed the messenger app. The moment I tapped the familiar Arcadia Online icon, a formal warning message appeared in my vision.
It was the usual stuff—temporarily converting bodily electrical signals into virtual ones, inducing a state similar to sleep. Recommended to only run it in places with no safety concerns, and so on.
“Back in the day, people used to shout ‘Link Start!’ or something.”
I had no idea what principle made either the old models or the current ones work, but what did it matter? I lightly tapped the confirm button, and a strange floating sensation immediately enveloped my body.
The darkening vision felt strangely peaceful, as if the anxiety I'd felt just moments ago had been nothing at all.
The moment my vision suddenly shot upward, the previously dark field of view began to brighten. The focus that had been slightly off gradually sharpened, and the surrounding scenery instantly shifted from the still-unfamiliar new house to a plain, unremarkable grassland. In the distance, the silhouette of a medieval-style city and the shadows of strange birds flying across the sky created a surreal landscape, while the faint scent of grass tickled my nose.
When I looked down, my eyes met a solid, well-defined dark-brown chest covered in powerful muscles. I lightly clenched and unclenched my fist as if adjusting to the drastically changed world, and the lingering dizziness slowly faded away.
“…Haa.”
A delicate sigh that didn't match the rugged, muscular body slipped out. Before I could forget, I called up the system menu, turned the voice changer on, and the thought What the hell is this situation? flashed through my mind.
A failure who had slammed their head against the wall of reality, bleeding while desperately crawling upward, only to collapse in despair. With no other hobbies, I'd lived as a trainee, barely scraping by on the money I'd saved to rent a tiny one-room apartment, surviving on part-time jobs. A loser who, while staring at the shining stars, had felt so jealous and petty that I'd only interfered and caused trouble.
Was I satisfied with that life? Of course not. But did that mean I'd wanted this kind of dramatic change?
“What the fuck is this bullshit?”
I couldn't even remember what I'd been hoping for during that year. Honestly, I didn't know anymore. The reason I'd stepped back into this place wasn't some grand purpose—it was just that I'd needed something to relieve stress and escape reality for a while. I hadn't expected something that would pile on even more stress in the process, though…
“Do I really need to hide it?”
The thought suddenly occurred to me. Was my past even something worth denying or protecting as if it were honorable? A past where nothing had gone right, where I'd wallowed in self-pitying misery porn about why does only my life have to be like this that no one even cared about. A stupid past where it had taken me a whole year to realize that even the game I'd thought I had talent for was only at a mediocre level…
“Fuck.”
Ever since I'd turned into a woman's body, it felt like my emotions were especially hard to control. I'd never exactly been a positive person to begin with, but it hadn't been this bad. I shook off the useless thoughts and moved my fingers to open my friend list. A notification that I had 719 pending friend requests sat in one corner.
I'd built up quite a few bad relationships as “Park Woojin’s 13th Shadow.” Fans of the players I'd sniped, the players themselves who'd been sniped—there were so many people sending friend requests for all sorts of trivial reasons that I usually didn't pay any attention to the list. But this time I could rummage through it.
I inwardly cursed my past self, who'd eventually gotten too lazy to press the reject button one by one and had just left them all sitting there, and finally managed to find Yorumi's friend request marked “4 months ago.”
“…Not like I'm in any position to gain anything from this.”
Four months ago would have been right after I'd changed my nickname to Park Woojin’s 13th Shadow and started causing trouble in earnest. After that, I'd gone after her whenever I felt like it. At some point I'd been moved by how hard she worked and started giving her special attention—beating her up more thoroughly than others while mixing in feedback—but from her perspective, what difference did that make?
I was sure she didn't have particularly good feelings toward me. On one hand I wondered if I was just stirring up unnecessary trouble, but on the other I couldn't help thinking, Then why now? She was someone who'd shown enough interest to give me advice. And the spilled milk had already spread so far that there was no need to dig through the community any further.
“It's not like things can get any worse.”
Suddenly, I laughed at myself for looking for reasons to accept this friend request. I'd logged into the game to avoid Woojin's nagging—at the very least, I needed to show that I was in-game on the messenger app. But that didn't mean I absolutely had to accept a friend request from someone who probably held a grudge against me.
“Goddamn it.”
My hovering finger finally poked the “Accept” button as if it were nothing. Even without this, I had a mountain of things to worry about—like living expenses. Since things couldn't get any worse anyway, at the very least something like this was reason enough to just do it because I felt like it.
⊳ Yorumi has been added to your friend list
This person really didn't have much difference between her streaming tension and her normal tension. Just looking at the messages pouring in made me feel drained already. I left a reply saying “I'll head over there for now” and closed the message window.
I'd vaguely assumed that her high tension during streams was at least partly exaggerated for the camera, but it seemed like Yorumi was simply an extroverted person by nature.
“…I'm already feeling tired.”
I opened my inventory from the system menu and took out a return scroll. My body moved on pure gamer instinct, grabbing the worn-out scroll faster than my brain could process.
The Trading City of Saint-Pierre, the place with the most users coming and going thanks to its convenient location. The destination was the center of the crossroads that cut through the city in a cross shape—the spot players commonly called the Plaza of Meeting, even though the system didn't give it any special designation.
The familiar floating sensation. The moment I tore the scroll, the swirling light around me vanished and my feet, which had been hovering slightly, touched the ground. The scenery had changed once again—this time into a medieval city street. The center of the crossroads. Stone-paved paths stretching densely between old-fashioned stone buildings. Even the soft afternoon sunlight sparkling from the corner of a stopped carriage.
Maybe because it was an awkward time of day, there weren't many “people” visible. The thought crossed my mind that the reason this place was called the Plaza of Meeting had less to do with it being the city center and more to do with it being the designated spawn point when entering the city via return scroll.
A reply came back immediately to the message I'd sent. When I reflexively turned around, I saw a familiar assassin.
“You really came!”
The first thing that caught my eye was the intense red light that seemed to cast a sunset only around her. Between her neatly trimmed red hair that fell around her shoulders, peridot-like yellowish-green eyes sparkled fiercely.