A Passionate Encounter
A faint light tickled the corners of my eyes.
"Nngh...?"
Consciousness drifted toward the glow, and I opened my eyes.
"Where am I?"
A massive queen-size bed, a wardrobe, an antique wooden desk. A familiar scene — of course it was. This was...
"My Room?"
It was the My Room I'd decorated myself in Ero Ability Shooters.
"What the hell just happened?"
When the game had shattered apart with all that talk about Causality and I'd been sucked into the light, I'd actually thought something was going on. Turns out they'd just dumped me in My Room.
"Hrm..."
Something felt off, though. The tactile sensation running through my entire body. The faint, familiar scent of my own room. I clenched my fist, then opened it.
Yeah. Definitely off. This immersion rate was absurd. Virtual reality game or not, no commercially available capsule on the market could pull off this level of fidelity.
Knock, knock.
A rapping sounded against my door.
"Hm?"
What was that? My Room never had an event like this.
Knock, knock.
The sound came again.
"Did I miss a patch note this time around?"
I tilted my head and started toward the door — and that was when it flew open.
"Wh— huh?!"
Standing there was a girl with vivid red twin-tails swaying at her shoulders. A small face, slightly upturned eyes, the adorable look of a cat. She puffed her cheeks out in a little balloon of displeasure and snapped at me.
"Hey! What are you doing in there that you can't even answer?!"
"Uh... uhh..."
She was talking to me? How?
The girl speaking to me right now was Alice — one of the heroines I'd wanted more than anything, the childhood-friend type. She was the first one to get an H-scene in the game, and that opening sequence where she insisted they couldn't have sex and then went down on him anyway had driven the entire player base into a frenzy. I'd watched that footage myself and blown dozens of loads to it, back in the day...
I was still lost in the memory when Alice, apparently deciding I was ignoring her, snapped at me again, even sharper this time.
"Hey! Jojun!"
"Huh?!"
Now she was saying my name?
My name is Jeong Jojun. Ironically enough, I couldn't hit a damn thing with a gun to save my life.
"Hey!"
She barked at me again and strode right up. Yeah. I'd figured it out. This was a dream. That explained everything — the impossible immersion rate, Alice talking to me, all of it.
"Hey? Are you actually okay?"
She'd started off sharp, but when I still didn't answer, her voice turned worried. Ahh... now that was a real childhood friend. That sweet-and-sour mix of bite and genuine concern.
She closed the last of the distance, and her sweet scent brushed the tip of my nose. Right. This was a dream.
"Alice."
I looked at her with a gentle smile.
"Uh... huh?!"
I cupped her small chin with my fingers, careful and slow — and kissed her.
Her lips were moist and yielding. I pressed down on them thoroughly, drinking in the sweet scent of her skin through my nose. When I finally pulled back, Alice's face had gone scarlet.
"You... you... you?!"
She was trembling, her face so red it looked ready to burst, jabbing a finger at me. I spoke.
"Alice."
One line, from a man laying his heart on the table.
"Let's have sex."
"...?!"
She froze, buffering like a crashed program. Then her brain rebooted, and she screamed at me.
"Hey!! What the hell do you think you're doing!!!"
"I love you, Alice. Let's have sex."
Was there any sentence that laid my feelings out more honestly than that? Alice, I love you, and I want to have sex with you. I'd watched you thousands of times playing this game. I'd yearned for you. But thanks to this goddamn interaction system, I'd never gotten to exchange a single word with you...
It was a dream, but... even if it was a dream... I was grateful for a moment where I could actually talk to you, and I delivered the words I'd repeated to myself a thousand times.
"Love and sex. Alice, I love you. Let's have sex."
"You... you... you lunatic!!!!"
Alice bolted through the open door like a squirrel, footsteps hammering away down the hall.
Ahh... so this was as far as it went. Would've been nice if we'd made it to the sex, but still. A pretty satisfying dream. Alice's lips had been far too sweet for something that wasn't real.
I threw my whole body onto the massive queen-size bed.
"Ohh~ so soft~"
The plush feel of the blanket was hitting just right. If I just lay here, I'd wake up soon enough. That was the plan, anyway.
"Uh...? Why am I not waking up?"
A fair amount of time passed, and nothing happened. I even tried the classic pinch-your-cheek method. Pain arrived on schedule. Reality did not change.
"Player!"
With a sudden pop, a tiny blonde angel appeared right in front of my face.
"The hell?"
"Oh, come on~ You don't recognize me, Player?"
The angel was practically panting with excitement, face flushed like this was the best day of her life.
"Recognize you as what?"
"Heheh~ This kind of setup is super common, you know?"
"Yeah, so? Common how?"
"Oh, come on~"
What was this kid even talking about? I flicked out a hand and snatched her out of the air.
"Oof—?!"
Oh, she was catchable. Nice.
"I— I get it! Player! I surrender! I surrender!"
I didn't have a hobby of bullying tiny children, so I let her go without a fuss.
"You really don't get it?"
"Get what?"
"You know — that tired old cliché that's all over Player's world these days?"
I made a motion like I was about to swat her again, and she squeaked and spat it out in a rush.
"Okay! Okay! You've been pulled into the world inside the game, Player!"
"Huh?"
What was this angel on about? That was ridiculous. Completely—
The impossible immersion rate. Alice speaking to me. Those soft, sweet lips. Hang on. Those were all things that shouldn't have been possible, weren't they?
"To gather Causality, you have to run around on your own two feet and clear this game yourself, Player! That's how our company patches in the Swordsman class for you!"
She flapped her wings and cheered, "You got this!"
Wait. Hang on. For real? This was actually real?
"This wasn't a dream?"
The angel heard me mutter and burst into a peal of giggles.
"A dream? Player, what kind of dream is this vivid?"
Wait. Hold on. For real?
Then that meant... that meant...
"I think I'm fucked."
"Pardon? What does that mean?"
"Hey! You little shit! Why didn't you show up sooner, you little shit!"
I snatched the angel out of the air and whirled her around over my head.
"Kyaaaaah!! Player! Save me!!"
"You son of a bitch!!! I'm so fucked!!!"
The tiny angel spun through the air, and with her spun the horrible truth she'd just delivered. This wasn't a dream. This was reality. Getting pulled into the game was fine. All of that was fine. The problem was—
Love and sex. Let's have love-sex.
I'd said that unhinged shit to the real Alice, hadn't I?
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!"
"KYAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"
Our screams filled the room in a duet.
Once enough time had passed for me to calm down, and once I'd walked her through the whole story, the angel dipped her head in a deep, apologetic bow.
"I'm so sorry, Summoner... crossing dimensions to follow you wasn't exactly easy for me either..."
"Hah... yeah, well, what am I gonna do about it. It's already done..."
A magnanimous man like me had to forgive her. No other choice. Sigh.
"Still, Player, even so — just blurting out 'let's have sex' out of nowhere is a little..."
She caught sight of my hand already lifting, and her expression flipped into a bright little smile.
"A manly and perfectly executed confession, actually? Hohohoho!"
"Haaah... so if they sent you, that means you're here to explain things to me, right? Spit it out."
"That's our Player! I just knew someone from your country — Korea — would adapt to a situation like this in no time! Now then~"
The angel held up three tiny fingers.
"You've gotta say the three-syllable word, right?"
"That's..."
No — I already knew it. Those three magical syllables.
"Status Window."
A crisp chime rang out, and a blue interface window bloomed in midair.
"Khhh~!!! That's our Player! I knew you'd know!"
Skills: ??????
Potential: ?????
Title: ?????
"What is this?"
Strength at 0, Agility at 0, everything at 0. No basic skills either — just a wall of question marks.
"Ku-fufu... Player, our game never had a Swordsman class to begin with, right? So. That's. Why!"
She pointed a finger straight at me.
"We decided to build the Swordsman class using Jeong Jojun — the man who stood at the pinnacle of the blade — as our foundation! And so~!"
Another chime. New text filled in on the status window.
Skills: ??????
Potential: ?????
Title: ?????
"However you choose to spend those starting points will lock in the baseline stats for the Warrior class inside the game!"
"Hold on, this is more points than usual, isn't it?"
As far as I remembered, whether you were an Ability User or a Shooter, the opening stat total never broke 20.
"Of course it is. This is a game built around guns and abilities — using a sword is a penalty all by itself, so we had to throw you a bone somehow. Besides, a Player who beat the whole thing with a sword on a Shooter class is already a walking glitch, you know? We've got to look out for the regular users too, you monster!"
"Damn, so your company actually has a conscience."
"Don't you think the one without a conscience is the guy who refused to beat a game the way it was designed, cleared it with a sword instead, and then whined for a patch?"
Hnh... okay, she had a point.
"Alright, in that case..."
Thinking about early-game balance, I wouldn't need Mana. So then...
"Agility 20, Strength 10."
"Yes sir!"
Another crisp chime, and the status window updated.
"Oh, right. And for the regular users, just set it to Vitality 10, Agility 10, Strength 10."
The angel, who'd been scribbling in a notebook, jerked her head up with a little "Hah!"
"I didn't put anything in Vitality because I'm not planning on getting hit in the first place."
"...Yeah, fair enough."
She accepted that immediately and went back to scribbling.
"Anyway — what's with all the question marks plastered over Skills and Potential down there?"
"Ah, those? Those get built out as you play, Jojun."
"Oh! For real? How?"
"You'll figure it out naturally as you go, so don't worry about it~"
"Ah, wait, and also..."
I'd forgotten to ask the important one.
"If I die in this game, do I actually die for real?"
"Ah, that? You don't die!"
Thank god. Then I could just play it casual and—
"You'll just end up a vegetable, though."
Yeah. Changed my mind instantly. Time to try hard.
"And how do class changes work?"
Shooters and Ability Users each had about three jobs, as I recalled. A Swordsman ought to get at least three too, right?
"That? Heheheh... don't you worry. In a world like this, there's always a special privilege, right? And you, Player, get a very. Special. One!"
She paused, milking the moment, then dropped it.
"A Triple Class!"
"Triple Class?"
"Yes! Since you're the pilot case, you get to build three jobs at the same time, and you'll have triple the skill points to go with them~!"
Holy shit. That was actually broken as hell. Wasn't this just free real estate?
"Ke-ke-ke-ke-ke!! So don't you worry about a thing, Player — just go raise as much hell as you want. I'll be recording everything and assigning you the jobs myself."
Ahh. I was genuinely moved. Unlike the me who'd swung a piece-of-shit sword around with no class at all, putting on a one-man circus... the me of this world had just been handed a broken-as-hell class that would make both Shooters and Ability Users look like trash.
"Angel... you..."
I looked at her, a lump in my throat. Without a word, she stuck out her hand.
A sharp clap rang through the air — a soul high-five, mid-flight, between me and a tiny angel.
"Ahh... Angel. You really are an angel."
"It's nothing... all of this only happened because of your obsession, Player."
Ahh, dear developers, dear operators — I was a fool. To have trash-talked a god-tier game this incredible... I was a complete idiot. I love you! Ero Ability Shooters!
"So what am I supposed to do now?"
"What do you think? You already know, Player."
"Hm?"
The angel pointed at my clothes. I looked down. Staring back at me was the uniform of the Great Demon Subjugation Academy — the one I'd seen to death inside the game.
"You've got school, right? This is Chapter 1: the Entrance Ceremony."
"Yeah? Wait, but..."
I checked the clock hanging on the wall. 9:50.
"I think I'm late."
"Hmm... not my problem."
"Fuck."
Time to drop out of one god-tier game and into another.