Green Dungeon (4)
Lee Se-jin had long, straight hair and stood at 170 cm tall. On days she wore heels, she looked even taller, almost like a model. She always bragged about how many phone numbers she collected whenever she dolled herself up and hit Gangnam, and everyone agreed she had the kind of looks that could pass for a celebrity. Back then, I was simply overjoyed that such a beautiful woman was my girlfriend.
We met through a blind date arranged by a university friend. She had seen on Facebook that I was a pro gamer and begged for the introduction. On our first meeting, her understanding of games and the pro-gaming scene made me fall for her quickly. We started dating just three days after that blind date. We were happy together for over five months.
But after I slipped in the LDK semifinals and hit a slump, she moved on to another pro gamer. Rumors later painted her as a pro-gamer killer who hopped from one guy to the next. In certain circles, she had become a notorious name.
“What? Something on my face? Why are you staring like that?”
Her habit of checking her reflection on her phone whenever someone said there was something on her face was undeniably cute and endearing. Knowing tomorrow was my birthday, she had hinted at a gift from the start of our relationship. Through glances and careful conversations, we had booked a hotel. Looking back, that might have been the happiest time of my life. Being an appearance-obsessed man full of desire, that day was probably the peak for me as well.
The illusion magic seemed designed to trap me in my happiest memories and kill me there. Truthfully, part of me wanted to stay with this version of Se-jin forever. I had regretted not marrying her despite the odds for over a year. If this had been real instead of fantasy-world illusion magic, I might have accepted it and drowned in the spell. But the sudden shift in surroundings felt too alien. More importantly, I already knew this beautiful Lee Se-jin was not a good person. I had no desire to lose myself in the illusion.
Instead, the third-floor monster casting this spell felt pathetic. What stood out as most out of place in this modern setting? Mana and magic, obviously.
“What’s wrong?” Se-jin asked with a pretty smile. I stirred my mana and released a burst of wind. The gale scattered people and café furniture in every direction. When flames followed, the illusion burned away and faded.
Just like that, I parted with Lee Se-jin again. The Molotov cocktail was back in my hand.
“Thanks for letting me reminisce about the old days, you bastard.”
Using the unpleasant feeling as fuel, I hurled the bottle with all my strength and whipped up more wind to fan the flames higher. The passageways on each floor acted like wind tunnels, and even as thick black smoke billowed, oxygen kept feeding the fire, letting it spread.
When I returned to the pond, the others were still trapped in their illusions. They were probably drowning in their own happiest memories. It would have been best if they broke free on their own, but I worried whether they were mentally strong enough.
“I… I want tuna kimbap! Tuna kimbap!”
Meni, who had been staring blankly, woke up shouting for tuna kimbap.
“I like tuna kimbap. Give me tuna kimbap! None left? Huh? I was definitely at home just now… and now I’m back here.”
“You wanted tuna kimbap, Meni?”
“Yeah. Until just now I was at my hometown house. They said there was no kimbap there, so I came out. I want to eat something delicious. Nobody at home knew what kimbap was.”
Meni explained that her family only ever served tasteless food, so the memory of eating delicious kimbap had created a temporal inconsistency that shattered the illusion. Living in a happy past moment while suddenly recalling later memories made her realize it wasn’t real.
“Perfect!”
I figured the memory of trying new foods after meeting me could help the others break free too. I pulled out a table and burner, dipped bread in egg wash, and started frying. Then I minced sundae, mixed it with flour batter, and fried that as well. The savory aroma of French toast and the fried patties drifted to Yanne and Sezanne. Before long, both of them woke up as well. Unlike Meni, the two were crying.
“Ah… it was an illusion. It was so hard. Seeing my family at home made me so happy. Without this savory smell, I might have stayed there forever.”
Sezanne’s eyes were still hazy from the aftereffects of the illusion magic.
“I was glad to see Mom too. I want to see her again. But the savory, sweet taste of French toast is nice as well. Hehehe.”
Having cried so much, the three devoured the patties and toast on the table as if they had never seen food before.
“By the way, Pyurie has never tried food like this before.”
“That’s why I’m using this.”
It was the aluminum foil we had used when eating kimbap. Though several days old, I had crumpled it and stored it in my inventory, so time hadn’t affected it. It looked exactly like leftover foil from a recent kimbap meal. When I held it to Pyurie’s nose, she sniffed a few times and opened her eyes.
As expected, the multisensory experience of tasting new food—sight, smell, and taste together—left a strong impression that lingered in memory. Even the happiest moments couldn’t compete with the vivid sensory memory of delicious food.
“Oh… it really was an illusion.”
Pyurie seemed to have revisited memories from before she was captured by slave traders. Come to think of it, everyone else’s happiest memories involved family. I was the only trash whose best memory was with a lover. Haha.
***
“Thank goodness all three are safe. Should we splash them with water?”
Pyurie scooped pond water and drenched the three men. They jolted awake as if cold water had hit them while sleeping.
“Ugh… why does my body hurt so much?”
“I have no strength.”
“Why are there holes in my clothes? And what are these wounds?”
The trees on the third floor had all burned, which seemed to have broken the charm. None of the three remembered what they had done. When Pyurie explained that they had nearly been drained of bodily fluids by the trees and that I had saved them with potions, they all thanked me.
“Let’s rest until the fire dies down.”
***
“Hyaa!”
The female warrior’s sword cleaved through a goblin’s shoulder. A spinning follow-up strike sent its head flying.
“What the hell is going on? You said there weren’t this many goblins here!”
“I don’t know either. A month ago, the goblins here were too busy fighting kobolds to increase their numbers.”
“But now the kobolds and goblins are moving together! Hyah!”
The warrior kept talking while stabbing at the approaching goblins.
“Maybe a higher-ranked monster appeared that’s strong enough to crush the territorial disputes between goblins and kobolds.”
“Then you’re saying there are orcs, trolls, or ogres!”
“Could be. If a higher monster like that showed up, we should retreat!”
The six-member mercenary party pushed back the goblins and tried to fall back, but the sound of approaching footsteps from behind made them freeze.
“D-damn it. O… orcs.”
The ones approaching from the rear, as if to surround the party, were unfortunately orcs. Not ordinary orcs either—fully armored warrior orcs, with wolves lined up on both sides. That meant orc riders were waiting as well.
“This is the worst. How did we not notice until we were surrounded? At this rate—ack!”
Before the party leader could finish, the orcs charged.
“Everyone run! Make it back to the guild alive—! Khak…!”
The leader, who had raised his shield to block, was sent flying along with it. His arm snapped along with the crumpled shield. Goblins swarmed over him and tore him into pieces in seconds.
Without a proper shield warrior to protect them, the party was captured by the orcs without putting up any real resistance.
“Lord Orchan. Our tribe is short on females. Warriors are important, but if we lack females, bigger problems will arise.”
“Yeah. I know that well. No need to emphasize it.”
Even as he answered, Orchan shook his head. When he first logged into Cliché World as an orc, he had planned to play for the glory of the Horde from the old famous game WOW. He began uniting the orc tribes and managed to gather more than half the orcs in the Akran Mountains. He also subjugated the kobolds and goblins on the Horde side.
But that was where things started going wrong. The orcs he had imagined—brave, devoted, embodiments of fighting spirit from WOW—were nothing like that. The orcs he thought were honorable warriors were actually incarnations of lust and reproduction. When they weren’t fighting, they ate. Once full, they obsessed over sex for breeding. They were simple creatures.
Orcs also had high male mortality rates, so their birth ratio was 7:3 or 8:2 in favor of males. Now that small tribal conflicts had ended, the excess males had become a serious problem. To reduce their numbers, they had to keep fighting.
‘Maybe this is why orcs always fought outsiders—to maintain their population.’
“Lord! We’ve captured human mercenaries! Three females among them.”
“Krrrk. Krheheh.”
“Krheht, Lord. Give me a female.”
The warriors were snorting like they were in heat at the sight of the captured females. In the early days of uniting the tribes, Orchan had stopped this kind of behavior. Now he had no choice but to allow it.
“Huu… Give one woman to the warrior captain. The other two go in order. As for the male prisoners… use them as food.”
“Krahahaht!”
“Kill them!”
“Kyaaaaak!”
“Please save me!”
Watching the screams, cheers, and splattering blood, Orchan frowned.
‘Warriors! Take up arms for the Horde. Follow me!’ Fighting and enjoying battle had been fun for a day or two. But after every victory came slaughter and rape as daily routine. Orchan was starting to grow tired of playing as an orc.
His contact, who received his play reports, told him to enjoy the game and find the fun of being an orc warrior. But there was no fun to be found.
“The game isn’t fun? That’s not something you usually say. But since you brought it up, how about changing your playstyle a bit?”
The contact spoke as if sharing a secret.
“In the game, you can do anything without consequences. So doing the kind of things that happen to female knights or priestesses when orcs or goblins capture them is fine.”
“I know that, but still…”
“Heh heh. If you want to grow attached to the game, you should try that too. Now that you’re the Orc Lord, give that kind of play a shot. Listen to the wild voice hidden inside you.”
The contact’s words, tempting him to open his eyes to something new and find pleasure, echoed in his ears. When he heard a woman’s scream begging to be saved, Orchan stood up from his seat.
‘Yeah. It’s just a game. Let’s play like a madman for once. I’ll pioneer medieval GTA!’