2. Still, We Live On - (2)
2. Still, We Live On - (2)
***
Bubble, bubble.
When I heard the water boiling, I snapped the ramen noodles in half and dropped them into the pot.
"..."
I'd gotten hungry while looking around the house, and when I searched the shelves and kitchen, there was actually quite a lot of food.
I wondered if the original "me" had known how to cook.
But the only thing the current me actually knew how to make was ramen, so I was boiling ramen.
—Han Serin.
And as time went on, a fear about myself began to rise.
Had I entered the body of a woman who'd been living well on her own? Or had I simply returned and this was now me?
There was no way to know any of it.
—You can go back now.
—You've been through a lot. You won't have to suffer anymore.
A god.
A transcendent being.
Or perhaps something equivalent.
Those words, heard through a hazy consciousness, came back with strange clarity. But I couldn't even confirm what the being that sent me back was, or even its face.
When it sent me into the game world on a whim, and even when it sent me back... it really did whatever it pleased.
And although I'd returned, it wasn't even my original body, and even the space around me was unfamiliar.
As I looked around this inexplicable house, I had no choice but to notice the differences one by one.
This world, which clearly appeared to be the modern era, was subtly different in various ways.
The more I looked through information on the computer, the more confused I became.
From the current president, to the level of technology, to famous celebrities, to past history—everything was different from what I knew.
Some brands and items from my memories still existed, but...
I picked up the sleek silver smartphone sitting on the dining table right beside me.
Click.
—July 13, 2031.
"Hoo..."
A sigh escaped me as I checked the date.
Considering the year before I entered the game world had clearly been 2021, it was too strange.
Questions like whether the time I'd spent in the game world had actually been ten years came to mind, along with all sorts of other thoughts.
But soon I wiped those thoughts from my head.
It was a question I couldn't answer no matter how much I thought about it.
I checked the various apps installed on the smartphone.
Among the apps, there were an oddly large number of game-related ones.
The number of game apps gave me a strange sense that the original Han Serin had been a lot like me, and I pressed the phone icon.
Even looking through recent call logs, it was full of meaningless numbers.
Strangely enough, none of those numbers were properly saved with names.
If there was anything that stood out among them.
—Lawyer Park.
—Han Seoyun.
Those two were the only ones.
Everything else was recorded as numbers, to the point where it felt like those two were the only people I'd ever spoken with.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
Then, suddenly struck by a thought, I entered a phone number.
—$%#@$.
The number I'd pressed on the off chance connected, and an unfamiliar ringtone sounded.
"..."
My heart pounded like crazy for a moment.
The number I'd just dialed was my old phone number.
What if...
What if I came face to face with myself?
What would I do then?
Click.
The ringing stopped and the call connected.
I carefully spoke.
"...Hello?"
"Yes. This is Choi Sihyun."
A man's voice and name, utterly unfamiliar.
At that, I was momentarily speechless.
"Hello? Who is this?"
When I stayed silent, the person on the other end spoke with confusion, but my hand kept trembling.
"Oh. I think I dialed the wrong number. I'm sorry."
I hurriedly said just that and hung up in a rush.
The hand holding the smartphone kept shaking.
The unfamiliar voice I'd just heard, and even the name—that was definitely not me.
Right, it was definitely not me.
That much I could be certain of.
The “me” I remembered didn't exist in this world.
If it really were me, I wouldn't have been thinking about changing my number at all.
No, from the moment this world differed from the original world I knew—in history, people, goods, brands, even the flow of time—
I had already realized this world was a "different world."
Maybe I'd called just now because I wanted to deny that fact.
'But... what if I had answered?'
Even at the thought that flashed through my mind, I unconsciously clutched my chest.
I felt such deep relief that the person on the other end wasn't me.
If that person had been me...
How would I have accepted it?
Hiss!
Clatter!
The pot was rattling slightly.
I turned off the heat, wrapped my hand in a wet cloth, and picked up the pot.
Sitting down at the table like that, I ate the ramen in a daze, and a dry cough burst out before I knew it.
"Cough!"
I realized as I coughed.
The fact that the original me could barely eat spicy food.
And that this woman's body was the same.
***
Time passed faster than I expected.
I opened my eyes and it was the next day,
and while looking into this and that, it had somehow become the day after that.
The me who had wandered the world every day, or killed monsters and reveled in slaughter, feeling pleasure—it was as if all of that had been a dream.
I was melting into this world faster than I'd thought.
Holed up in this luxuriously furnished house, I would get up in a daze, boot up the PC, and spend my time learning about the world.
As for the main information I'd discovered so far.
There was information about me.
Han Serin. 25 years old. Unemployed.
From what I found, the original Han Serin had apparently been working until recently. But after some kind of accident, she'd quit and was taking time off—that was the current “me.”
The “accident” turned out to be that she had recently lost her parents—parents who weren't in my current memories—in a car crash.
Several months had passed since the funeral.
Perhaps shocked by it, the original Han Serin seemed to have quit her job and become a recluse who rarely went outside.
I could tell she rarely went outside from the entry logs in one of the apps on the smartphone.
An app called the Integrated Control System, which doubled as a security system.
As for other information I'd discovered, there was a younger sister attending university far away.
I could tell the younger sister's name was "Han Seoyun" from the records on "BaTalk," this world's most famous SNS app.
[Seoyun: I want to see your face, sis. Things have been hard for me lately.]
[Seoyun: Seriously, why are you so slow to reply?]
[Seoyun: You're really okay, right...? I'm a little scared.]
Even now, days later, I was still agonizing over how to respond to those message notifications that went off several times a day.
Even if she was my younger sister, she didn't feel like one, so she was practically no different from a stranger.
She contacted me affectionately and sent messages as if worried about me.
For now, I was looking through the previous conversation history and sending appropriate replies, but it felt strange.
"At least... I should be grateful there's no need to worry about money."
When I checked the accounts I had, I was surprised in spite of myself at the amount I saw.
—Shingi Primary Preferred Account (Savings Deposit)
2,734,322,045 won
At first, I wondered if it was the death benefit from my parents who'd passed away a few months ago. But when I checked the other accounts, the death benefit had clearly been deposited into a different account.
Then what on earth was this money, reaching 2.7 billion won?
As I thought it over, it occurred to me that those numbers felt vaguely familiar.
And then I hit on a thought.
The money I'd accumulated in the game world.
—2.73 billion silver coins.
That was exactly the amount of silver coins I'd glimpsed in passing after organizing the byproducts piled up in my inventory when I'd killed about four thousand desert drakes.
I'd clearly felt that everything I'd achieved had been taken from me when I was sent to this world.
I supposed it had at least enough of a conscience to leave me that money, but the whole thing was still absurd.
If it was going to do that, it could've at least left me my equipment too.
'...Well, what meaning would any of that have in this world anyway.'
Feeling another sigh coming on, I moved my body.
As I browsed various websites on the PC, my gaze suddenly fell on a spherical object in one corner of the room.
The inside was hollow, with enough space for one person to fit, and even at a glance the interior looked quite sleek.
Future technology.
An electronic device built with technology I had never experienced before.
A device that enabled virtual reality.
Simply put, it was like a kind of "game console."
Its official name was "Another World."
"A game, huh..."
I had definitely liked games. But after falling into this world, I'd felt almost no desire to play games.
The old me had certainly gone through periods when I practically lived for games, but...
The experiences I'd had after falling into the game world were too vivid.
The satisfaction of moving my own body, training, learning techniques one by one, and growing not a game character but the real "me."
The feel of cutting through monsters.
The resistance I felt the moment the Crescent-Moon Weight pierced through a monster's hide.
The distinctive red aura that bloomed around my body and the Crescent-Moon Weight.
Now, when I still remembered all of it so vividly,
games played by tapping a mouse and keyboard didn't even register.
However, I did become interested in that virtual reality game console called "Another World" that existed in this era.
Now, several days after falling into this world,
I'd regained enough composure to collect myself a little and face reality.
Interest eventually led to action.
—Hummm.
Soon after, the sound of the massive black sphere-shaped game console powering on echoed out.