Game Friend
A secluded spot a little ways from the city center.
Beside a deserted one-lane road, a solitary three-story building stood by itself.
The first floor was the landlord’s home. The second and third floors were studio apartments. This was the building I currently lived in.
“Huh?”
A woman sat on the wooden platform in the yard, drinking soju. She spotted me.
“Why’d you get out of school so early?”
Cha Seolyu. The building owner and my landlord. As usual, she was dressed in a suit.
“Was there no regular class on the first day? It’s been so long I can’t remember.”
“There wasn’t.”
“Really? But you didn’t do any after-party stuff? You know, drinking with your classmates or whatever.”
I shook my head while avoiding her eyes.
There had been invitations. I’d just ignored every single one without answering. Drinking with women? My body definitely wouldn’t have held up.
“Well, knowing your personality, no way you’d join something like that.”
If she already knew, why ask? It just felt like she was trying to make conversation somehow. A little burdensome, sure, but not unpleasant. She seemed to think of me like a younger brother—trying to look after a hopeless kid brother. At least she didn’t appear to see me as a romantic prospect.
“Then want to drink with me?”
Cha Seolyu grinned as she asked. It was clearly a light joke. Normally I would have shaken my head firmly and gone straight inside. Today was different.
I stood there for a moment, thinking it over.
I can’t practice Angelization today anyway. Maybe I should try practicing looking Cha Seolyu in the eye and talking to her.
It was time to start pushing myself. I couldn’t keep putting it off forever. I needed to overcome the trauma as soon as possible so I could actually enjoy academy life.
I’m not ready, and I’m scared… but if it’s Cha Seolyu…
I mustered my courage and glanced at her.
“Why are you just standing there staring? Don’t tell me you actually want to drink with me?”
The moment our eyes met, I whipped my gaze away. Still too much.
Tomorrow. I’ll try tomorrow…
I was a hopeless coward.
“No.”
“What? You’re no fun.”
“I’m heading in.”
“Yeah, go get some rest. First day surrounded by girls must’ve worn you out.”
I gave a quick bow and was about to step into the building when—“Ah.” Something I’d forgotten came back to me. I stopped, rummaged through my bag, and pulled out an item. Nothing special—just some dried squid jerky and a bag of snacks I’d picked up at a convenience store on the way home. For Cha Seolyu.
She always settles for ramen or kimchi as drinking snacks.
A small thank-you for letting me put off the rent.
I walked over to the platform. When I held out the snacks, Cha Seolyu set down her glass and tilted her head.
“Huh? What’s this for?”
“For snacks.”
“…You bought these thinking of me?”
“Yes.”
Cha Seolyu accepted them with a bewildered look. Then, staring down at the snacks in her hands, she made an oddly complicated expression.
“…Thanks. I’ll enjoy them.”
I nodded without a word and stepped into the building.
In front of the dirt-cheap used computer I’d bought secondhand. Three minutes after pressing the power button.
Boot times keep getting slower.
It was frustrating. I desperately wanted a high-spec machine. But I couldn’t. My wallet wasn’t flush enough to build a new PC. For now I had to be content just having a computer at all.
I’ll buy one later when I make serious money.
After waiting another minute or so, the computer finally came to life. I grabbed the mouse and double-clicked the icon sitting in the center of the desktop. The online game I logged into every day. Genre: MMORPG. It had started as a hobby, but now it was no longer a hobby—it was work. I farmed currency here, cashed it out, and used it for living expenses. Living expenses, and tuition… no, the admission fee too—all paid for with money from the game.
I really need to quit this soon.
The existential dread hit hard. Still, I couldn’t stop yet. I was only a freshman at the academy. I wasn’t in a position to enter dungeons and earn real money. Of course, if I passed the academy exam I could go into actual dungeons and make cash. The problem was that the exam was six months away.
Until then I have no choice but to keep earning through the game. And I should get a part-time job too.
I needed to get a part-time job soon—to build social skills and overcome the trauma. There was another reason as well. Game income alone was starting to look insufficient for living costs. With so many evil game pests like me—ssalmeoks—running around, the price of in-game currency had been tanking hard.
In my past life I hated ssalmeoks so much… never thought I’d become one myself…
Back then I’d earned money in a factory. Hardly any women there, and the few who were were all middle-aged. In this world, though, even factories were overflowing with beautiful girls. So I never found the courage and ended up locked in my room as a ssalmeok bug.
When I get rich as a Hunter… I should invest heavily in this game company. As an apology.
While I was thinking that, the game finished loading. In front of a sparkling wallpaper background, characters in various poses appeared—all of them wearing animal avatars. From among the many characters I selected my main:
【NerdAngel】
The character wearing a pig-cat avatar. I logged in.
First I should run the remaining buses.
I opened the account friends window and checked my short friends list to see if any of the people I bused with were online. Right then—
A whisper arrived from a game acquaintance. It was an alt of the person I’d been looking for. They’d probably seen the login notification and messaged right away.
Nickname: Shuboma. Owned characters numbered from 001 all the way to 155—a total of 155 characters. A complete gaming maniac. And a super ssalmeok. When I’d started the game three months ago, this person had helped me out a lot with various things.
Of course, since a similar game had existed in my previous world, I’d adapted quickly on my own. Still, there had been difficulties. Adapting was one thing; without spending real money it was hard to settle in properly. Shuboma had given me a lot of financial support for that. It wasn’t free—more like a loan. Shuboma said they liked my game skill. So they’d cover the gear-up costs if we ran buses together, and I could pay the money back slowly. After that I raised my specs in a month and recently paid back every last bit of what I’d borrowed.
Looking back now, I have no idea what they saw in me to lend that money.
From three months of playing together, Shuboma didn’t seem like the type to trust people easily.
Definitely wasn’t just blown away by my skill and deciding to sponsor me… I’ll have to ask sometime later.
For the record, as game friends we knew absolutely nothing personal about each other—age, gender, job, none of it. That stuff didn’t matter to us. Learning someone’s real-world occupation instead of their in-game class was useless. It was the unspoken rule—or unwritten law—of the guild we belonged to. Game friends stayed game friends. Nobody got overly friendly and formed real-life connections. The guild was full of people who hated that kind of thing.
Had there been a whisper this morning? I’d been in such a rush I must have missed it.
Just like always, we started playing together. Even though the game had become work, the fun hadn’t changed.
After we finished the buses, while we were chatting about nothing—
Suddenly one question occurred to me.
What was Shuboma’s gender? If they were a woman, there was one favor I wanted to ask. I broke the unwritten rule and asked Shuboma the question.
Right. In this world there were no women obsessed with men—only men obsessed with women, overflowing. Of course the male-to-female ratio among gamers was about half and half.
I mustered my courage and typed it. Let’s do voice chat. The reason for the suggestion was simple: to practice talking with a woman. That was all. I couldn’t ask Cha Seolyu. Actually facing someone and talking was still too much. Phone calls were just as hard, but relatively lower difficulty.
Right now the correct move is getting used to talking with a woman over a call first. There’s an order to these things.
Asking someone I actually knew, like Seo I-eung, felt a little off too. A real-life acquaintance whose face I knew versus a game friend whose face I didn’t—talking with the latter would be less of a burden. Calling a real-life acquaintance was a higher level than that.
Anyway, if Shuboma turns out to be a woman… I’ll ask them to be my conversation practice partner from now on.
While I was thinking that, a whisper arrived from Shuboma.
Thankfully, a woman. I should go in and ask her to be my conversation practice partner.
Not long after that whisper arrived—
Shuboma sent the voice channel link.