77. My Buff is a Drug
77. My Buff is a Drug
"Is she dead?"
"It certainly looks that way, doesn't it?"
Na-rin asked cautiously, a little spooked after examining the female student's corpse.
"I-It's not really dead, right?"
"No. It's like that dream-world thing you were caught in before, senior. Once everything's resolved, she'll wake up alive."
Geum Na-rin let out a sigh of relief.
"Thank goodness. Seriously. I thought I'd become a murderer."
Hye-yong examined the female student's corpse again, her neck snapped.
[ 1st Year ]
[ Kwon Jin-ah ]
'So your name's Kwon Jin-ah.'
He didn't have any particular feelings toward this female student herself, but memorizing her name seemed like a good idea.
"Huff, huff. What happened?"
"Are you okay? Your body?"
Hee-yeon and Lanfang had finally pulled themselves together and walked over.
"Wow......."
He wondered what Geum Na-rin was admiring so much, but then he saw she was staring at Na Hee-yeon's chest.
Even in uniform, the volume was ridiculous, but in just her underwear, it was definitely the kind of thing that would draw anyone's eye.
"It's been resolved."
"Thank goodness......."
"Really took ten years off my life."
Then he pointed at Geum Na-rin and gave a brief introduction.
"This is Geum Na-rin, a second-year senior from the middle division. She helped us out with the extermination."
"Uh...... hello."
"Thank you, senior."
"Thank you......."
The three of them exchanged incredibly awkward greetings.
'Did these kids get help from Choi Hye-yong too?'
'Was this person saved by Hye-yong too......?'
Meanwhile, Geum Na-rin and Na Hee-yeon were thinking similar thoughts.
'But we executed the Murder Virus properly, so why isn't this ending?'
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The moment Hye-yong thought that, he heard footsteps approaching.
The heavy tread was oddly familiar.
He turned his head toward the sound and saw that man walking over.
"......Admirable. You have succeeded in executing the wretch. You can now be called a proper Executioner."
[ You have changed class from 「Apprentice Executioner」 to 「Executioner」! ]
A class change that seemed totally useless for the moment.
Still, it felt good to have class-changed.
Whissssssh.......
The man's form scattered as he finished speaking, vanishing without a trace.
[ Your temporary class, 「Executioner」, has been removed. ]
'Why give me a class change if it's just gonna disappear right away?'
It was a little baffling, but he was glad things seemed to have worked out.
One thing resolved! ......That's what you could call it.
"Uunnn...... where am I."
Kwon Jin-ah, who had been completely dead, came to, perfectly fine.
Most likely, the strangled students and the ones who had been executed had all returned to normal.
Hye-yong asked the now-conscious Kwon Jin-ah playfully.
"Do you remember what you did?"
Kwon Jin-ah stared blankly at Hye-yong's face, then fished for memories.
'I.......'
— Gk, kghak, kk, kr, hak. Kgahh.......
— Thud!
Her hazy consciousness jolted awake.
The uncontrollable urge to kill.
The vivid memory of the murder she had ultimately failed to resist, and committed.
She couldn't recall who the victim was or what they looked like, but the fact that she herself had killed them was certain.
She couldn't remember what had happened after that.
Maybe, she had killed even more people.......
Kwon Jin-ah shook her head violently.
"I, I didn't do it!! I, I didn't do anything!! I don't remember anything!!"
Watching Kwon Jin-ah's over-the-top reaction, Hye-yong picked up on something.
'The Murder Virus must have left her body, but she's acting like she really did commit murder.......'
He remembered what Mina had said.
— The moment this character was killed seems to have been the starting point of the inner world's manifestation.
'Maybe this.......'
He decided to gloss over it for now.
"Who said you did anything? I just asked because you were lying here unconscious."
When Hye-yong said that and looked around, everyone nodded.
Hee-yeon soothed the startled-looking Jin-ah with a gentle voice.
"Why were you collapsed here? Nothing happened, right?"
Kwon Jin-ah wore a relieved expression, but she still stammered.
"I, I, can't, remember. My head's dizzy......."
"You should rest. Can you get back on your own?"
"Y, yeah! I can go back, alone!"
For the time being, he sent her off and decided to look around and see if the situation had properly settled.
"We'll head over to the high-division dormitory side. Senior, would you check out the dorms on your side?"
"Okay, got it."
Geum Na-rin originally lived in a house on the street, but she had moved into the dormitory a little while ago, thinking that if she set her movement routes mostly around the facility, she might run into Hye-yong and be able to talk to him naturally.
Of course, Hye-yong didn't know that.
'I was really able to help......!'
The thought that she had been able to help exterminate an aberration made Na-rin grin from ear to ear for the first time in a while.
At first, just the thought of charging at an aberration had filled her with terror, but after gritting her teeth and actually throwing a punch, it turned out to be nothing much.
'You were cool today too.......'
When Hye-yong, who had seized the upper hand thanks to her help, executed the aberration, she'd been so happy that a thrilling shiver ran through her.
'Hee hee. Choi Hye-yong must have seen me in a new light.'
Na-rin thought moving into the dormitory was a hundred times the right choice as she moved her feet.
"Shall we get going then?"
"W, wait. I need to put some clothes on!"
-
The first-year high-division girls' dormitory.
He had expected at least a little chaos, but everyone was laughing and coming and going from the nearby convenience store as if nothing had happened.
Since Awakened could snack and sleep without really gaining weight, plenty of people snacked freely at night.
'There's a reason regular people are goddamn jealous as hell online.'
You could stuff yourself with sweet and salty things, collapse into bed, and still maintain a nice body with just a little exercise. No matter how you thought about it, their very existence was a cheat.
So that's why everyone wanted to become an Awakened, setting out bowls of water and praying every day.
"Yaaawn."
He also spotted Chae Hwa-ra walking the night path, mouth stretched wide in a yawn.
When Hee-yeon saw Chae Hwa-ra alive and perfectly fine, she was so overjoyed that she grabbed both her hands and exclaimed with delight.
"Hwa-ra! You're safe!"
"Hm? Well, of course I'm safe. This body is always under the protection of 'That Person'......."
BZZZT!
"Ugyagyagak!!"
"Hyiyaaahht!!"
Na Hee-yeon and Chae Hwa-ra, holding hands, got electrocuted together by the current Chae Ha-ri had planted in her sister.
"Pfft!"
"Snrk!"
Hye-yong and Lanfang both burst out laughing at the same time.
If you could see that right in front of you and hold in your laughter, you'd probably have to be emotionally dead.
-
[ Choi Hye-yong : Ah-young, did you get back okay? ]
[ Choi Ah-young : Yeah. Why? Something happen? ]
[ Choi Hye-yong : No. Just. Kinda worried for some reason. ]
[ Choi Ah-young : Heh, what? Okay. ]
'Choi Ah-young is safe too. And it looks like she doesn't even remember the fact that she was killed.'
It had definitely been total chaos, yet things had returned to peaceful days as if nothing had ever happened.
The shell casings Baek Yun-seo had dropped were gone. The student who had been dead in the study room was gone.
It was truly as if it had all happened in a dream.
The only people who remembered that such an event had occurred were probably the ones who were there when the virus was executed.
[ Mina : Amazing, Creator! You've wiped them out again this time!! I believed in you to the very eeeend!! ]
[ Choi Hye-yong : Ah, right. This was no big deal. ]
[ Mina : Creator is the best! ]
He'd heard Mina's praise so many times his ears were calloused, and it didn't even feel like praise anymore, but he was in a good mood now, so he decided to listen happily.
No matter how he thought about it, he had been lucky.
'It's almost like the stage was set up just for me.......'
In this world, no one but Hye-yong could have resolved this matter.
If he hadn't been able to create those kinds of buffs with Buff Custom, how could he have resisted the Executioner, gained information, and executed the murderer?
'Even with just a little thinking, the solution was visible, so it felt manageable.'
It wasn't that Hye-yong was smart.
He resolved it because it was manageable.
Even Hye-yong, who didn't consider himself to be an above-average intellect, felt this way. If someone with better brains had come here, they'd undoubtedly be resolving things far more easily.
Creator.
The co-creator of this world.
Just as Mina had said, Hye-yong's very existence was the key card that played a decisive role in eliminating the virus.
Being in such a critical, critical position was burdensome, but at the same time, his self-esteem swelled.
The feeling that he was such a precious person.
He felt like he needed to try harder.
[ Choi Hye-yong : But Mina. ]
[ Mina : Yes? ]
[ Choi Hye-yong : In this case, what's the criteria for losing your memory when you get swallowed up by the virus? ]
Most of the people who had been afflicted by the virus had no idea anything had even happened.
But Geum Na-rin, Na Hee-yeon, and Lanfang, who had fought alongside him, and Kwon Jin-ah, who had been the infected party herself, seemed to have retained their memories.
If the criteria were people who had a history of contact with the virus, then Geum Na-rin, Na Hee-yeon, and Kwon Jin-ah, who had been directly infected, would fit the bill.
But what about Lanfang?
Why did she remember?
[ Mina : The first factor is being an infected person. If you have a history of being infected by a virus, you don't lose your memory even after the chaos caused by the virus is swept away. ]
[ Mina : The second is probably your relationship with the Creator — that is, the size of the Seed and its degree of activation. That would be the criteria. ]
[ Mina : That character, Rian Pang, who we saw back then, is almost completely subordinated to you, Creator. So that's likely why. ]
So apart from a history of virus infection, the size of the Seed had an influence too......?
This time, he had really, truly been helped by his comrades.
If it hadn't been for Na Hee-yeon, he wouldn't have even had a chance to get close to the bastard, and if Lanfang hadn't stalled for time, he wouldn't have even thought of capturing him.
And Geum Na-rin's assist in particular was absolutely incredible.
All the more so because he truly never imagined she would pop out and help.
What if he hadn't saved Geum Na-rin before?
Thinking that the steps he had taken in the past had become the foundation for catching this virus gave him chills even as he thought it himself.
'There will definitely be things I can't resolve alone. Even if I'm the key card, comrades are clearly a huge help.'
[ Choi Hye-yong : Up until now, I went into the inner worlds alone so I didn't know, but seeing it like this, comrades seem to be more helpful than I thought. Is there any kind of restriction? ]
[ Mina : In cases where a virus encroaches on reality like this, there aren't really any restrictions on comrades. It's more a question of how much that character can help you, Creator. ]
[ Choi Hye-yong : So the more, the better? ]
[ Mina : That's right! Since the people who get directly infected by a virus are limited, it's important to cultivate many Seeds of Recognition, and make them grow large! ]
Making comrades you could trust and entrust your back to!
A new goal had emerged.
Of course, it wasn't that different from his original goal of planting Seeds of Recognition.
'Kwon Jin-ah.......'
The image of her trembling with anxious eyes, as if she had been named a murder suspect, surfaced again.
Hye-yong's guess was that she likely only retained the memories up to the point of killing Choi Ah-young.
After that, it was clear that the personality of the Murder Virus that had come into contact with her had devoured her, and her inner world had spread out, swallowing up reality.
'It would be easier on my conscience to treat them well and slowly build relationships.......'
— If only you could make them fall for you with kindness and love, the result wouldn't be different, but that takes far too much effort and a very long time.
— But shaving down their spirit, collapsing everything around them until they've lost it all, and then making them dependent — that's comparatively easy.
Mina's words kept nagging at him.
If he had been nothing but thoroughly kind and loving to Lanfang, would she have come to depend on him so easily?
No.
What Hye-yong had done to Lanfang was deception.
Using threats and verbal abuse to make her lose her sense of reality and proper judgment, making her doubt herself.
Continuously hammering into her head the fact that she was a loner, the helplessness of being unable to do anything by herself, laying waste to her psyche, and then exercising control through sweet lies.
If you give up being human and become my pet dog, I can give you love without cost.
If you just wag your tail and act cute for your master, you won't need to worry about the future.
Lanfang, having definitively felt the gap between the helplessness of being alone and being treated like a pet, accepted it, and consequently came to depend on Hye-yong.
Even if he had just unilaterally been good to her, she would have eventually come to depend on him anyway, given the circumstances.
But even if he had done that, could he have gained the same solid dependence and loyalty he had now?
It would also have clearly taken many times longer.
'If I have something to threaten them with...... it really is better to do it, huh.'
This wasn't a game.
Inside an inner world it might be different, but if someone killed him in the real world, Hye-yong would die too.
'Later, when I meet Kwon Jin-ah, I'll poke around a little.'
Rationalizing that this was for his own survival, Hye-yong thought about how he might threaten Kwon Jin-ah.