It's Been Ages
"It's been ages."
Kim Heeyeon greeted him with a smile, and Yujun smiled back.
She gazed at him for a long, quiet moment before speaking again.
"How have you been?"
"Me? Well. I went to Heaven and back. Stopped by the Sky Castle, too."
"Heaven was actually real?"
"You didn't know?"
"Most players know it exists. Hardly any of them ever get to go."
"...Figures."
"Still, it's nice, talking face to face like this."
"Yeah."
Paranet, who had been watching the two of them, leaned toward Manuela and spoke as if sharing a secret.
"Nothing ever passed between those two, so you may set your worries aside, my lady."
"Wh-who said I was worried?"
"No, no. My lady said not a word. I merely took it upon myself to meddle."
"..."
Paranet wore an elf's face and smiled with shameless ease. Unlike when he had been undead, the expression actually lived.
Manuela tried to pinch his side on the sly, but her hand cut through empty air. Where flesh ought to have been, there was only the gap between bones. She looked faintly embarrassed.
Yujun was still catching up with Kim Heeyeon when he turned to greet Caston, who was approaching.
"You came? I half thought you wouldn't."
"You told me to come."
"Thanks."
"..."
Caston was a Dragon-Fang he had met during the event and deliberately spared, on the chance the man might prove useful later.
"You've gotten a lot stronger."
Yujun took a brief measure of Caston's power and looked genuinely surprised.
"I haven't been sleeping. I've been obsessed with getting stronger."
"So that's why your eyes were so bloodshot."
"My eyes have always been red."
"...Have they?"
He'd never paid Caston much attention and had been talking offhand; no wonder he'd mixed it up.
"Good. Stronger's better."
"I thought I'd grown strong on my own... but it feels like an even greater wall has gone up between you and me."
"The ones who already have everything always gorge themselves on more. That's just how it works."
"The comparison is a little strange, but if that's the secret, I suppose there's nothing strange about it."
"Pretty much."
Friends from the alliance of other races came by to say hello as well. They hadn't been especially close, so no one ventured into anything weighty; they traded the usual we've-been-well and left it there.
Mei came too. She was the elf he had met not long after being summoned to the Tower of Infinity.
Because of the demons, the dark elves and the elves had gotten tangled together and fought. He had settled it easily enough with a World Tree Seed, but looking back, it had been a dangerously close thing. If even one strong Demon God Worshipper had been mixed in among them, the Yujun of those days would not have stood a chance.
Improvisation and clever tricks had their limits when you were weak. If the demons he had faced at the end had been even a little stronger, the odds were good he would have died.
Thinking about it, that same recklessness is what let me grow faster.
So long as he had the ability to overcome whatever crisis came, there was nothing to worry about. Yujun was confident he would survive the Great Cataclysm, no matter what unfolded in it.
He wasn't honestly close with Mei either, so they exchanged a few insincere pleasantries and that was that.
"Miss Yeji. What have you been up to?"
This time it was Hong Yeji.
"Me? Just... busy staying alive."
"Not so different from back then, then?"
"What? My level went up a ton..."
"By how much?"
"About thirty?"
"..."
"That really is a lot."
She was right. That was about the pace for players people called talented. Yujun had been the strange one.
"You think something's going to happen too, don't you, Mr. Yujun?"
"It's obvious things aren't normal."
"The ground's started shaking, and everyone's on edge. Didn't you know about this beforehand?"
"I only heard it from Mr. Ju Donghyeon."
"Oh—is he doing well?"
"Mm... well, you could say he is, depending how you look at it."
He had died and come back, after all. He had changed, puppet-like, but Asilien didn't seem like a bad person. She had said it was a side effect of the resurrection, so there was nothing to be done about it. Better than being dead, wasn't it? And Ju Donghyeon still seemed capable, in his own way, of judging things for himself.
"You're talking like Mr. Ju Donghyeon turned into an undead or something."
"Come on. No way."
"Good, if he didn't."
Hong Yeji was sharper than she let on, and it gave him a start.
Next was Jo Su-a.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
One look at her haggard face was enough to tell how hard the time between had been.
"You said you had something for me?"
"Yes. This. A Synchronization Marble."
"...Where did you get it?"
"Not long after we got separated."
"Thank you."
Yujun took the Synchronization Marble without refusing. He had been desperate for one anyway. The moment he obtained another, it would be his turn to receive transferred items.
"You're giving it to me for nothing?"
"You got me out of that forest. And it's useless to me."
"Sounds like you've had a rough time."
"Yes... it's been one fight after another."
"Not a metaphor. Actual fighting?"
"Yes."
"I thought something about you had changed."
"For the better?"
"Right?"
Jo Su-a had grown strikingly stronger—so much so that he could say with confidence her rate of growth outpaced anyone else who had come here.
Not as fast as me... but how did she raise her level that quickly?
Her estimated level was around 720. When he had first met her, she must have been in the low 600s.
Even thinking about it now, Jo Su-a's combat sense and instincts were innate.
On talent alone, he wasn't sure he could compare. If luck and gear counted as talent, then perhaps—but looking only at pure fighting talent, Jo Su-a was an overwhelming genius. She had ridden that foundation without rest, and the speed of her growth seemed to be the result.
Neither of them was good with words, and silence settled quickly.
That was when Dokgo Minsu, Kim Yohan, and Do Jiyun appeared all at once. They had been wandering the village looking a little lost, and the moment they saw the players gathered, they came at a run.
"Mr. Yujun!"
Kim Yohan waved as he approached, bright with recognition. Dokgo Minsu and Do Jiyun lifted their hands in a lighter wave behind him.
It hadn't been that long since they had parted, but these were the people he was fondest of. The bond went back to War of the Gods, and the memories they shared were vast enough that "a great many" was the only phrase that fit.
Dokgo Minsu smiled and offered his hand, and Yujun met it.
"Scarcely been long enough to be asking after your health."
"True."
"You haven't forgotten you promised to spar with me, I trust."
"I haven't. Have you been practicing?"
"I trained like a man possessed. I had no desire to see disappointment on your face."
"Oh, did you?"
When Yujun answered in kind, Kim Yohan cut in.
"Well, he is Joseon's Best Sword, you know. This old man's sword is honestly unbelievable. I'd say it's evolved again since the last time you saw it. You could tell at a glance, right, Mr. Yujun?"
Yujun smiled and nodded.
"Swordsmanship, though—you have to see it in person to really know."
"Would you spar with me before the Great Cataclysm begins?"
"I never said when."
"...So that's the man you are."
"I'm joking. I just don't think now is the time."
"I think the same."
The four of them were laughing and talking when a voice came from beside them.
"Joseon's... Best Sword?"
Jo Su-a, who had been listening quietly, went wide-eyed at Kim Yohan's words. The name was familiar.
Don't tell me that man is Joseon's Best Sword.
Dokgo Minsu was well known even on the Continent, so Jo Su-a knew of him. She simply hadn't been certain enough to approach him first. But it was still too early for her to be the one surprised.
"Honestly, if we hadn't played War of the Gods, we wouldn't be standing here laughing and talking like this, would we?"
Yujun answered Kim Yohan's light remark in earnest.
"About that."
"...?"
"Mm..."
He hesitated, unlike himself.
"What is it? Just say it."
"It's possible people were summoned because of me."
"Because of you?"
"I told you before that I received a good perk. You remember."
"I remember."
"I can't go into the details... but in the end, I think people were summoned to the Tower of Infinity because of what I spent."
"Because of what you spent?"
"Yes."
"That's... kind of a shock."
"Right?"
"The fallout from spending money on a game is this big? Does that even make sense?"
"Even if what you say is true, only the form of it would have changed. We would have been summoned to the Tower of Infinity one way or another."
"Why?"
"By your own account, a server for the Japanese exists as well, does it not?"
"Yes. Though I'm not certain. I was going off what a Japanese player told me. Oh, and... I did meet someone from the Polish server, too."
"Poland as well? Then it's all the more certain. In that case, we were saved thanks to you."
"Just like that?"
"If your spending is what summoned us here, to a place built on War of the Gods, then thanks to you we claimed the information first and received the perks besides. Had we been summoned some other way, or somewhere else entirely, we would have had no advantage at all. I recall the administrator announcing that a contest entry had been selected. And as it happens, that was not long after you spent an enormous sum."
"Ah, so it isn't Mr. Yujun's fault, then?"
At Dokgo Minsu's words, Kim Yohan turned to Yujun with a bright, unburdened smile.
"Thank you. Honestly, if I hadn't had the perk and hadn't known anything, I'd be dead. I'm braver than I look, and I wasn't particularly good at anything."
"You are good at something. Dressing well. Total Hongdae fashion type, aren't you?"
Yujun said it with a mischievous smile.
"What's the use of dressing well? Doesn't help one bit when you're killing monsters."
"True enough. Which is why you lose to me every time."
"...Here we go again."
"Anyway, all I wanted was to enjoy the game without spending a dime. If it helped, I'm glad."
At Yujun's words, everyone stared at him as if they couldn't quite believe what they were hearing.
Then Jo Su-a, who had been standing as still as a village totem, opened her mouth.
"Mr. Yujun. Are you No-Pay Casual Gamer?"
"...You know me?"
"I just heard."
Yujun had been the most famous player in War of the Gods. If Jo Su-a had played it, it stood to reason she would know the name.
"I'm OnlyIHaveNoCat. Do you remember?"
"...Seriously?"
"Yes."
Jo Su-a answered with an awkward smile.
"W-wait. You're OnlyIHaveNoCat?"
Yujun wasn't the only one thrown. Kim Yohan, Dokgo Minsu, and Do Jiyun—the three who had played War of the Gods alongside her—could not help but be shocked.
"You went so quiet we thought you were dead."
Do Jiyun took her to task.
"I'm sorry. I don't really like standing out..."
"I even founded the Shinjeon Guild to draw you in. Shinjeon is short for War of the Gods."
"...I didn't know."
"I thought it was an incredibly easy hint."
"I'm sorry."
"Nothing to be sorry for. I'm just glad to see you now."
"Whoa, so all five of us made it through alive and ended up in the same place?"
"That's right."
"To think a day like this would come... This is insane."
Kim Yohan fussed, then looked at Yujun.
"You two were especially close, weren't you? So? How's it feel?"
At his words, every eye turned to Yujun.
Things had been going fine. Why say something like that?
Yujun sighed inwardly.