376. Full of Questions
376. Full of Questions
***
Before I knew it, I was checking the message again.
Bloody Night.
[First of all, I'm sorry for contacting you so late. Plea, are you still awake by any chance? If you are, please reply. For some reason, I just can't fall asleep tonight...]
The contents of the message came through clearly even on a second read. I definitely wasn't seeing things or imagining it.
"Is... Yujeong in a similar situation to me?"
The moment I muttered that blankly, I felt goosebumps rise all over my body.
A chill seemed to wash over me, and my heart pounded violently.
After today's raid, she was going through something similar to what I was experiencing.
'Could there really be such a coincidence?'
The distance between us had shrunk considerably over the past few days, but Yujeong and I definitely hadn't been the kind of people who exchanged messages like this before.
Just as I was lying awake feeling deeply fatigued, Yujeong clearly hadn't been able to sleep either, even at this hour.
"..."
Biting my lip, I wondered what to reply. After a moment of hesitation, I quickly typed out a message.
Me.
[It's okay. I couldn't sleep either. Um... Yujeong. How are you feeling? You must be really tired]
Since I couldn't ask directly, I asked in a roundabout way.
BaTalk!
Bloody Night.
[That's a relief then. As for me... I'm okay, but should I say I'm not okay? That sounds a bit strange, but even though I'm tired, I just can't fall asleep once I lie down. I just... felt weird today, so I reached out. You must be tired too, Plea, so I'm sorry for messaging at this hour. I'm not disturbing your rest, am I?]
I couldn't say for certain, but as I read Yujeong's message, I felt a strange conviction.
Yujeong's condition was definitely similar to mine right now.
Me.
[Disturbing me? Not at all. Let's talk for a bit then]
Midway through sending the reply, I suddenly went blank as a thought struck me.
"Is it because of Another World?"
Yujeong and I were going through the exact same situation right now. And when I thought about the reason, the only thing that came to mind was today's raid.
The moment that thought crossed my mind, I wondered what I was even thinking.
'My body is like this because of a game?'
I immediately shook my head.
It felt like I was blowing things out of proportion on my own.
Should I say I've been overly sensitive lately, or that I've been overthinking... A small sigh escaped me.
"There's no way... that's it."
Another World was a game that had been out for nearly three years. In all those years, there had never been a single safety-related incident.
There were still various rumors circulating about the unverified stability of virtual reality, but there had been no actual accident cases yet.
The multiple layers of safety security were one of the most emphasized points on Another World's official homepage. That was why, even after all these years, it was safe to say that almost no one—aside from a small minority—doubted Another World's stability anymore.
Occasionally I saw words like side effects or aftereffects in the community, but they were mostly just things like "I'm tired" or "It's exhausting."
Right. So this wasn't so much a problem with Another World as...
"The raid was tough. I'm just mentally worn out."
The raid today had been high-difficulty. The mental fatigue had piled up accordingly—that was how I rationalized it to myself.
And if Another World really were a problematic game, it wouldn't make sense for me to be perfectly fine after playing it for tens of thousands of hours over the years.
BaTalk!
Bloody Night.
[Okay. Let's talk for a bit then. Honestly, I had so much I wanted to say about today's raid, but the session ended right away, so I was really disappointed. Oh, come to think of it, Rin looked especially tired. Plea, did you happen to contact Rin?]
Seeing her casually slip in a question about Serin, I thought once again that this person really was interested in her.
"...!"
My eyes suddenly flew wide open.
Come to think of it, Yujeong and I were experiencing these strange symptoms, but the person whose condition had actually been the worst during the raid was Serin.
Especially considering how tired she had looked, to the point that a forced logout message had even appeared... The worry I had barely managed to suppress began creeping back up again.
"Is Serin really okay...?"
I muttered blankly as worry welled up inside me.
If Yujeong and I were feeling this off, then what about Serin, whose condition had been even worse?
I suddenly checked the time. It was far too late—well past late.
It was approaching 3 a.m.
"..."
Recalling my call with Serin from earlier, I forced myself to calm down.
Her voice hadn't had much energy, but it wasn't at a level where I could say something was clearly wrong.
...
Clunk.
Back in my room, I turned on the PC and connected the device cable to Another World.
As I sat down in the chair and set down the drink I'd brought on the desk, I felt my mind settling a little.
I couldn't contact Serin at this hour, so I set aside my worry about her for now and decided to calm down first.
I wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep right now.
Sure, my condition was a bit strange, but it was just a matter of not being able to sleep.
'That's all it is.'
My body didn't hurt or feel off in any particular way.
There was also someone else—Yujeong—going through the same symptoms as me. It just seemed like my senses had become more sensitive due to fatigue.
BaTalk!
Bloody Night.
[You know that Devour thing Zervallua used? Since it was a pattern I saw for the first time today, I tried searching to see if there was any information on it. But there was absolutely nothing. The more I think about it, the more I wonder what it could be, and also—how did Rin know about it? It keeps nagging at me, you know?]
Even until I got back to my room, Yujeong kept voicing various questions about today's raid.
Considering that we normally only exchanged brief, to-the-point messages, this attitude from Yujeong was a bit unfamiliar, but I could relate to the content to some extent.
I had thought I was fully prepared since I had experience clearing the Zervallua Raid before. But I hadn't been prepared at all for that bizarre pattern called Devour.
The experience of being hit by Devour...
"...I don't want to think about it."
Even now, the moment I was swallowed by Devour was horrifying.
When I thrust my rapier hard into the wavering energy, the blood-red aura instead seized control of the space as if wrapping around me.
'Did they really need to implement what it feels like to be chewed up and eaten to this degree?'
It was so unpleasant that even such thoughts crossed my mind.
The instant I felt something touch my entire body over and over with a patter, my vision simply went dark.
In terms of time, it was an extremely brief moment—barely a second. But it was so vivid that I could still recall it clearly, and it was an experience I didn't want to remember.
I found the raid file saved in Another World and transferred it to my PC. Checking the notification saying it would take about two minutes, I began typing a reply.
Me.
[Honestly, today was full of things that make no sense. Serin's performance was abnormally high in a lot of ways too... But what can we do. I think we'll just have to wait until we can ask her directly tomorrow]
As I sent it, I was certain the answer lay with Serin.
The questions that had appeared in today's raid were all hard to understand, but every single one of them was connected to Serin.
"Yeah. It's definitely related to Serin."
From Phase 3 to Phase 4, and all the way to the final Phase 5, Serin had felt like the center of everything, so I couldn't deny it.
Even as I mulled over those questions, the only thing that came to mind was hidden.
There had been something special among the quests Serin had undertaken. Especially since the beings called stars in Phase 5 had given her such special treatment.
It was reasonable to assume Serin had cleared some special quest that hadn't been revealed yet.
"Then what kind of special quest did she do?"
Even after thinking for a moment, not many guesses came to mind. Honestly, what would you have to do to form that kind of relationship with stars that were evaluated as comparable to a Great Hero?
The more I thought about it, the more it felt like wandering through a maze with no exit.
'I really... knew nothing about Serin.'
We had never really opened up to each other about Another World. Maybe this was only natural, but it still surprised me.
Even though we met often in real life, we didn't mainly talk about Another World. We only mentioned it when something special happened.
Most of my memories were of ordinary conversations, as if we were focused on reality.
I remembered progressing through a few quests that could be called hidden while playing Another World, but I hadn't told Serin about all of them.
Knowing her personality, she wasn't the type to bring up those quests on her own when I hadn't even asked.
Ding!
When the file transfer finished, a total of five videos appeared on the desktop.
I set aside the videos up to Phase 4 for now and immediately clicked on the last video, which had recorded Phase 5.
For now, I intended to go through Phase 5 piece by piece and review it.
Just then, as the screen showed my own figure before entering Phase 5, I suddenly glanced at my smartphone and tilted my head.
"Why did Yujeong suddenly stop replying?"
She had been replying readily until now, so it seemed strange that she suddenly went quiet. Skipping the beginning of the video, I jumped straight to the later part of the timeline.
Click. Click.
The sound of mouse clicks continued, but as I stared at the screen, I was momentarily at a loss for words.
Every part of the footage I was seeing was too strange.
"......."
With my lips unable to part, I could only keep watching.
The footage I stared at was utterly bizarre.
Throughout the video, there were frequent blurry distortions, as if huge gaps had formed in the middle, and the properly rendered footage didn't even make up half of the total video length.
For a moment I wondered if some kind of error had occurred, but some parts were displaying normally, so I couldn't figure out what this was.
'If there were a problem, shouldn't the entire video be messed up?'
Some parts played in clear quality, while only certain sections were obscured by strange distortions.
Could this be considered a device defect?
Click. Click.
As I kept checking the footage, I soon noticed one peculiarity.
It was mostly Serin's figure that was often blurry and out of focus, and at some point, Yujeong's figure also began appearing blurry.
The situation where only my own figure appeared clearly in the footage. And the fact that these strange phenomena mainly occurred right after I was seized by Devour. Unable to string words together as I kept watching, I finally let go of the mouse.
"......I don't know."
My mind felt like it had gone completely blank. I couldn't even think of what to do.
How am I supposed to hand this over to the editor? Am I supposed to upload the final video as the Five Million Project?
Today's viewers had been full of anticipation, expecting the finale.
'Upload footage like this?'
Just thinking about it made me feel completely drained, and I had no idea how to handle the aftermath.
Then, at that moment.
Clap!
Without thinking, I clapped my hands together.
"Right! Serin. Serin would have been recording too!"
For a moment, I felt truly relieved and let out a deep breath.
I was glad Serin was a streamer—surely the footage she recorded would be fine.
I had never felt so grateful that Serin had asked me to check with her before sending anything to the editor.
...
Just as Sua felt that relief.
BaTalk!
The smartphone that had gone quiet vibrated again.