Living Inside a Game (2)
Living Inside a Game (2)
This world was based on the 'cyberpunk game' I had played.
But whether that meant this world was a 'game' itself—I felt the story was a little different.
For example, just looking at a simple street vendor stall made it clear.
In a game, a street vendor was just a mundane object to fill up a boring street.
They never bought or sold any goods or food.
They were simply a showcase for a graphic designer's exceptional modeling skills—a display case for food you could never eat.
But when a game becomes reality?
Like I said, it's a different story.
Of course, you could buy and eat street food of unknown origin.
And something you'd never see in the game: a kind of 'story' or 'setting' emerged.
One street stall owner living in Neon City felt his shop was too ordinary.
He realized he needed a unique selling point to stand out from the competition.
The owner's deliberation was brief, and he acted swiftly.
Thus was born an enthusiastic owner who laced his food with a 'mood-enhancing drug.'
Who would have guessed that the friendly ajusshi running the stall was actually a member of a drug cartel.
Of course, I hadn't known it back then either.
One day, I caught on while watching a news program on NCB24, Neon City's sole broadcasting station (it had won the corporate war).
For reference, that news segment was about five seconds long, making it a very trivial incident by Neon City standards.
After all, drugs weren't even illegal in this world.
They called them ordinary 'mental care drugs.'
The stall owner only made the news because he used mental care drugs without paying the city's taxes.
Anyway, seeing that ajusshi's completely unexpected mugshot on a news program I just happened to watch...
It was fascinating, and it also sent a chill down my spine.
Because I'd almost bought and eaten there myself a few times.
It was a damn good thing I'd never eaten it because the cyberpunk street food looked sketchy.
Considering that one of my many negative traits was 'Weakness to Drugs,'
it could have been truly dangerous.
Nobody would want to become a druggie against their will.
But a druggie Mage?
One who's even talented?
...That really could've been a fucking disaster.
Anyway, the conclusion was this:
This world was very similar to the game, but it wasn't a game.
Of course, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
There were good points too.
What I was doing right now with my 'old-fashioned mechanical monitor' could be seen as one of those good points.
[ Tokkigyeongdyu-nim(Archer) : My spot. ]
[ I am a real mage(Warrior): ? ]
"What kind of lunatic is this?"
I was hunting there first.
What the hell was he on about?
Was he showing off?
That's right.
Even though I'd fallen into this 'crazy cyberpunk world' for the insane reason that 'I played a game,'
I still hadn't been able to quit.
The game.
1. Living Inside a Game (2)
The world I originally came from...
I mean, it's true there were plenty of fun games in my past life too, but.
They fell a bit short compared to a 'cyberpunk game' built on mass media dripping with capitalism and sexuality.
In a way, it was obvious.
It came down to the inherent difference between games you enjoy with a monitor and keyboard, and those you experience through virtual or augmented reality.
In the latter case, you could enjoy them far more easily, comfortably, and simply using a 'neural computer chip'—something even the back-alley homeless guys all had at least one of.
So the outcome was even more clear-cut.
On top of that, there was no malicious institution like the 'Game Rating Board' in this world.
Which meant no censorship of suggestiveness or violence based on age restrictions.
It really was a crazy world.
Of course, worrying about age in Neon City was utterly laughable.
Mr. Bill, my next-door neighbor in the same building, proved that.
For reference, Mr. Bill was a 95-year-old elder who had replaced most of his body with bioware implants, transforming his appearance to look about 10 years old.
He should at least dress in a way that shows it.
The memory of dropping honorifics on our first meeting and getting chewed out was still vivid.
Until he showed me his corporate ID (issued by a major corporation, harder to forge than a city ID), I didn't believe him either.
After checking it, I got chewed out twice as hard.
Scary. Cyberpunk....
To be honest, even now, this person was a bit much.
Anyway, for an intellectual living in a world with an extremely advanced game industry, taking up gaming as a hobby was perfectly natural.
Fittingly, most of the games I played were virtual reality games.
That was both natural and very satisfying, but.
Just like you can't always eat only delicious food.
Just like there are times when you're eating a top-quality steak and suddenly crave instant noodles.
As you go through life, you're bound to get the urge to fill that missing 2%.
Yeah.
Just like how, very occasionally, you get the urge to eat mint chocolate or pineapple pizza.
Why do people hate mint chocolate or pineapple pizza?
Apparently, some cities in this world have even banned them by law.
Thankfully, Neon City hadn't yet enforced such malicious laws.
You could say the game I was playing right now gave a similar feeling.
Very occasionally,
a wave of nostalgia for Korea would surface.
I wanted to enjoy a normal MMORPG where I could just mindlessly grind, like Land of Wind or Orange Mushroom Story.
In Korea, they were a dime a dozen, littering every street, but in the cyberpunk world, they were truly hard-to-find genres.
Hard to find in a bad way, not a good one.
Everyone was playing virtual reality games.
Who would want to play with a monitor and keyboard?
And the monitors and keyboards themselves were even harder to find, having to be tracked down in antique shops.
But the world was wide, and tastes were diverse.
Just as there were people who liked being stripped bare, there were people in this world who liked trash games.
And so, after a long struggle, I finally found a game in the form I wanted.
By now, it had become an indispensable part of my hobby life, alongside my other virtual reality games.
But,
what the hell was this bastard doing disturbing my happiness.
What could he possibly want that he was interfering with me?
[ I am a real mage(Warrior): no bs, i was hunting here first. ]
I carefully continued the conversation, as if negotiating with a terrorist.
As a civilized person, I tried to calmly resolve things through dialogue.
But despite my futile efforts,
that guy casually attacked and stole the monster I was hitting, again.
Tokkigyeongdyu(-nim).
What's more, he was an archer, so his targeting speed was fast.
As a Jeonbungi, it was a matchup I absolutely couldn't win.
[ Tokkigyeongdyu-nim(Archer) : My spot. ]
[ I am a real mage(Warrior): (Inappropriate language used) ]
Seeing profanity censorship for the first time in this world, I almost felt nostalgic for my homeland again.
But given that the censorship was applied to my chat, and that the other guy kept stealing the monsters I was hunting,
screw nostalgia, I just got pissed off.
Ahh, that cool, heavy sensation.
It was time to return to being a 'keyboard warrior.'
[ I am a real mage(Warrior): (Inappropriate language used) ]
[ I am a real mage(Warrior): (Inappropriate language used) ]
Argh.
So much goddamn censorship.
But even censorship couldn't break my will.
[ I am a real mage(Warrior): Fu.ck y.ou. ]
[ Tokkigyeongdyu-nim(Archer) : ? ]
Finally, my one line that broke through the censorship reached the opponent.
This would be the first step in a noble struggle.
The guy who had only ever said 'My spot' seemed to finally recognize me.
I tried to calmly continue chatting.
That is, until that bastard suddenly attacked my character.
"No way."
My fingers frantically hammered the keyboard.
The distance was too great.
Maybe if I'd closed the gap and attacked first instead of typing in chat, things might have turned out differently.
But the distance between my character and Tokkigyeongdyu was considerable.
A fight between an archer and a warrior with that gap was as predictable as it gets.
I hurriedly used a defensive skill.
I had to at least run.
No, wait.
Why was the damage so high?
No matter how I looked at it, this bastard didn't seem to be at the right level to hunt here.
I tried desperately to survive, but it was hopeless.
In the end, it didn't take long for my character's HP gauge to completely disappear.
[You have died.]
[Respawn wait time. 1 hour 0 minutes 0 seconds]
"Fuck."
All I could do was watch Tokkigyeongdyu (that bastard) disappear beyond the gray monitor.
I should've just not typed in chat and gotten close to land the first hit....
No matter how much I regretted it, my character's corpse wasn't getting up.
I'd simply become a loser who had to wait an hour, no different from immobile trash.
...I was so dumbfounded I couldn't even get angrier.
[I inquire whether your character has died.]
"Yeah. Dead."
[Do you now have the leisure to check the current time and date?]
"Time and date?"
Why was she suddenly asking that.
I scratched my head at the AI's question.
In the corner of my vision, numerical text displaying the current date and time appeared.
The neural computer chip was convenient that way.
Scary but magnificent. Cyberpunk.
So the current date was.......
Hmm.
Indeed.
"A whole week has already passed."
[I affirm.]
I didn't know why time spent only playing games was so happy and flew by so fast.
It didn't feel like a few days had passed.
A whole week had gone by already?
It was simply astonishing.
"Was I hacked without knowing it?"
[I denounce that there is no way that could happen.]
"Obviously it was a joke."
I stretched my arms out wide.
Maybe because I'd slept whenever I was sleepy and played games whenever I woke up, day or night,
I'd lost all sense of time's flow.
Well, I did have an excuse.
Things like 'Feebleness,' 'Frailty,' and 'Fatigue' were attached as my character traits.
Since I was full of negative traits affecting my stamina, my physical condition had become nearly that of a walking corpse.
In short, I slept often and for long periods.
No wonder I lost track of the date.
The heavy dark circles under my eyes were also because of that.
I was barely managing to function as a human being thanks to frequent exercise (which I'd started last year, then stopped) and the bare minimum of implant surgeries.
Well, that aside.
Thinking about it, ending things like this felt a bit unsatisfying.
"Feels like my stress isn't fully relieved yet. Should I squeeze in one more round?"
[I deny.]
I shook my head.
"But Eve."
[What is it.]
"The doctor told me to just do whatever I want. Did you pass the NCMLE (Neon City Medical Licensing Exam)? For reference, I only trust what licensed professionals say."
[Oh, for goodness' sake.]
"?"
[I advise you to turn on message notifications and check your message history.]
It seemed like a brief AI rebellion had occurred, but since Eve had gone so far as to say this,
I figured I should check anyway.
There wouldn't really be anyone sending messages for important business.
My personal network wasn't that wide.
"Quite a lot has come in."
I turned on message notifications and checked the unread messages from a week ago in order.
Strangely, there wasn't a single spam advertisement.
Had Eve cleaned them up on her own?
First, I deleted all the messages that seemed to have little nutritional value—requests, invitations, whatever.
I ignored them all.
They were things I could safely disregard.
After skipping past all the unnecessary messages,
the ones I actually needed to care about became visible.
It was a message from an old friend of about 10 years.
Sender: 'Neon City's Top Freelancer'
- Hey. You saying you're just gaming for a whole week?
- Cut the bullshit and come out to the pub so I can at least see your face, if you can make it.
- And send a reply if you've read this.
This was from exactly a week ago.
- At least read it.
- Reply, please.
This was from 6 days ago.
- Did you get shot and hauled off somewhere? If that's really what happened, I'll apologize. I won't say much.
- Pick up the phone at least.
And this was from 5 days ago.
- Oh, fuck this.
- I checked. You really are just lazing around playing games. Are you insane? And you're ignoring my messages?
- Check your messages before I come find you myself.
"Whoa. He sent a whole lot."
[I think that is because you went off the grid for a week.]
I let Eve's pointless remark go in one ear and out the other.
From 4 days ago onward, more than three messages had been arriving like clockwork every single day.
This was starting to get a bit scary.
But that didn't mean I could do anything about messages I had already ignored.
I decided to take it easy.
I mean..., it's not like I'd done anything particularly wrong, right?
Desperately trying to rationalize to myself, I roughly skimmed past the messages that had piled up to spam levels, and moved on.
In no time, I reached the last message.
I checked the date—today.
- It's the one-week mark you mentioned.
- Today, 19:00.
- Location is the pub, 'No Answer'.
- If you're late, I'm putting in a request for your home address and coming to get you.
And the current time was.
"......Eve."
[I answer.]
"I need to get ready to go out."
......It was about time I went out anyway.