Escape
The gate emitted a strange, echoing sound as it began to glow with an eerie light.
**[PVP ZONE RANDOM TELEPORT COMPLETE. DEATH HERE MEANS LOSS OF ALL LOOT!]** I had entered the PVP zone just after two hours into the game.
I had taken such a huge risk for this, but the item drop rates and experience in the PVP zone far exceeded those of normal hunting grounds. It was high risk, high reward.
After quickly scanning my surroundings, I began hunting the roaming field monsters.
The class I had chosen was **Thief**. There were plenty of movement skills and high attack power, but it was physically demanding, with high resource consumption like mana. Additionally, because the bottom stat was low and the top stat was high in this game, if proper control wasn’t supported, it would turn into a paper-thin weakling with nothing but mana left.
Yet I had chosen this class without hesitation because I had absolute confidence in myself.
I had hunted three monsters in the PVP zone. I had taken quite a few hits, but with just three of them, I had fully learned their patterns.
**Skreeeeech!**
Afterward, with my honed finesse, I dodged a single hit and drove both daggers straight into the back of the giant Wanderer Knight’s spine.
The Wanderer Knight writhed in agony and collapsed without even letting out a scream, body going limp as it hit the grass.
**[This guy was taken down without a single hit.]** **[Watching him get sniped by flat-attack stealth—go me. ]** **[Thieves actually do it like this.]** **[The reason we underestimated him was just that the user’s hands suck.]** **[It’s different when you do it.]**
“**Kkrr-…**”
The Wanderer Knight was still barely alive. A faint pulse showed in his rising and falling chest, and a pool of blood was steadily spreading beneath him.
I decided to end it quickly. I pressed the dagger blade to his neck just as
**Kiiiggg-**
A tense stretching sound rang out.
I quickly used a movement skill and dropped beside the fallen Wanderer Knight.
**Pishhh-**
A sharp arrow sliced through the air and pierced the Wanderer Knight’s body.
The Wanderer Knight’s body vanished.
Naturally, no experience points came in.
He had been stolen by another player.
…What the hell.
I scanned the surroundings with my eyes. Even though the area was open field, I couldn’t see the shooter.
**[?] [Whoa, insane.] [Lmao.] [This is what I signed up for.] [What the hell is this?] [It’s a backshot, obviously.] [Oh no, it’s a female streamer backshot—message blinded]** **[Hahaha, DarkWarrior, you saw that coming, right?]** **[Payback for all those snipes you did while I was gone, lol.]** **[The preview team was already waiting lol.]** **[Hahahahahaha, post-battle payback clear.]** **[The snipers already found the random teleport spot lol lol.]**
…I had expected something like this to a certain degree.
But…
I hadn’t expected so many of them.
The arrow that had just arrived must have been the signal to start. Before I could even think, I was already dashing across the ground while arrows and casting magic flew at me endlessly.
*
Before turning off the broadcast, I saw a viewer’s chat message that said
**[There’s a suspicious post in the inquiry board.]**
I entered the board to take a quick look.
I clicked the top post, the one with the most recommendations.
**[Inquiry Board: Suspicion that user vvDarkWarriorvv is using hacked programs.]**
**[Content: User group of 30 people… all attacks avoided… fleeing…]**
I didn’t even need to read the content. I scrolled past it without a second glance.
**[Can’t be serious, Operator. Please review this.]**
As expected, similar posts received similar comments. Everyone was passionately writing things like “Hacker!” and “Fake!”
It had been a post that had been up for a while, so I hadn’t paid it much mind. But there was one slight change… at least a little public opinion had formed to support me among the comments.
I left it alone and turned off the computer.
“……Uhng…”
I stretched my sore body, letting out a sigh. My muscles still ached, but I felt my body gradually relaxing.
**Ding-**
While staring blankly at the monitor, an alarm sounded from my phone.
**[Recommended Video: DarkWarrior V-Route 1vs30+ Full Escape Version]**
…Already uploaded?
I clicked the video. The screen showed me running like I was toying with the attackers, dodging their strikes with perfect skill distribution and positioning.
I checked the time. I had only turned off the broadcast the moment I safely returned to the safe zone after completely avoiding the preview team’s ambush.
It had only been 15 minutes since then.
“……Ah.”
While checking the time on my phone, I noticed a text message had arrived.
**[You worked hard, Seora.]** It was from Seolgam.
I quickly replied.
**[Ah, thank you so much, unnie. Today was really great.]**
**[Hahaha you think so?]**
…I had been genuinely grateful to Seol Eun.
**[If you ever need money, let me know. In a way, it was all thanks to unnie.]**
**[Hahaha no need. You earned it. Unnie has plenty of money, right?]**
[..I understand.]
[If you’re that grateful, how about just one date with me today.]
······What?
An unexpected date request sparked an emotion I couldn’t quite name.
Was it good? No, not purely good.
Every time she took one more step toward me, I instinctively wanted to back away.
I checked the time. It was almost seven in the afternoon now.
[Isn’t it almost time for your broadcast?]
[I can just take a break. Everyone’s used to me acting sick during winter anyway.]
[Ah…]
My heart was racing.
But between the excitement that made it race, there was also a faint fear settling in.
This feeling of coolness seeping in proportion to the heat had never been something I could get used to.
Even when Seol Eun first came to our house, I hadn’t expected things to turn out like this.
I had thought I would send the hot moment off and fall into her arms, believing it was the end.
I would simply cherish it a little longer as a special memory, and… yeah, it would just end like that.
…It would just… end.
······That was why I was quite startled.
When she had given me the 3-million-won envelope and all the streaming equipment set up.
When I had realized that her voice, which had frozen me solid from the very beginning, was slowly turning warm.
When she had often appeared in my thoughts and lit a fire in my heart.
I had shaken far more than I had expected.
The afternoon of yesterday, the hot moment that had felt like the only three people left in the world kept resurfacing in my mind.
…Mio Myu hadn’t revealed her feelings yet, but…
The precedent of Seol Eun already allowed me to think logically, not just out of self-awareness, that ‘she probably likes me too.’
I had always liked them.
But it hadn’t been this kind of feeling.
It had been a one-sided kind I could end at any time if I didn’t like it… the kind of feeling one has for an idol.
It had been closer to mere interest than anything hot and dangerous.
Liking and hating them alone had been because the depth was missing, but it had still been the safest way for me to interact.
…If I went any deeper, unwanted parting would have come looking for me.
That was why I had only sniped virtual streamers.
I had thought that if I simply saw them as characters and not real people, I could let them go even more easily.
…But somehow, the ones behind the virtual world.
The ones I had thought farthest away had become closest to me in reality.
The connecting thread that should never have existed in reality, now right in front of me, on the verge of an irreversible depth.
…Because I had reached a depth I never thought I would return to, I had lost all sense of reality.
······.
I looked again at the phone screen shaking me.
Over countless ad chats, I saw Seol Eun’s message coming from the still-uncomfortable ‘Friends’ tab.
How should I reply?
[Are you going? We got two movie tickets thanks to the event—lucky.]
I read the message and thought for a moment. I still couldn’t read her heart.
Her warmth was beginning to reach me again.
Perhaps these very moments could be the first button of a painful goodbye.
I debated whether to reject it or not.
This strange feeling that came with every interaction with them.
It was an emotion as if two people lived inside my head—excitement and fear intertwined, knotting tightly in my chest.
I stared at her message for a long time without knowing how to answer.
[?? Seora?]
Along that path, I began to wrestle with the message she had sent.
…Should I go?
[Yes]
… I couldn’t send the message I typed and deleted it instead.
…No. I should reject it.
[I’m a bit tired from streaming today and my body hurts a little…]
…But I still couldn’t hit send.
…In the end I deleted it again.
“Haa…”
I had to give an answer somehow, but no good one came to mind.
Time kept passing while I waited.
Then.
[Seol Eun 010-xxxx-xxxx]
…Ah.
As if she had exceeded the time limit and it was game over, her call came through.
Hanging up was rejection—something beyond that. Unlike a message, there was no way to avoid it.
“……Unnie.”
“Uhng… Why aren’t you replying?”
“…….”
“Eh? Can’t you hear my voice?”
I couldn’t say a word.
At this moment, I didn’t know what choice to make.
“……Are you not wanting to go with me?”
She went straight for the throat.
I couldn’t say to her ‘I want to go, but I don’t want to go.’
The two voices inside me were too scared to say what they really felt.
She would empathize with my emotions and try to heal me. No, she would definitely do it. She liked me.
If I could find the counter-strategy, it would be over. Just like how I had eventually dismantled the Volcan Online counter-strategy.
Her discovering the counter-strategy to me would move my heart little by little, and if parting opened its mouth waiting at the end of that movement? That was why I finally understood why I got so tense whenever I stood in front of people.
It was because my heart might suddenly jump out of me without me realizing.
I decided to admit it. That my avoidance, which I had handled well for years, had finally failed.
Perhaps from the very first time I had met Seol Eun, it had already been too late.
Real-world avoidance wasn’t as easy as in the game.
I had been pushed to the very edge and already wanted to run without looking back. I had simply turned my eyes away.
“……Seora, are you crying?”
When I didn’t know what to do, the pathetic me who cried first hated myself.