Perfect Placements and the Black Magic Truth

The click of a mouse brought me to the Lobby.

Seeing them react so entertainingly and take such interest somehow brought back old memories. At the same time, however, it dragged up the failures from that era I had long buried in a corner of my heart. In the end, I could only keep asking myself whether it was truly right for me to walk this path again. The situation still left me unable to feel certain about anything.

“Ha… Let’s just play a few more games for now.”

To organize my suddenly messy feelings and thoughts about the game, I decided to finish the placement matches.

A quick search on the newly received tier showed the ranking order was identical to Master of League: Unranked, Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Emerald, Diamond, Master, Grandmaster, Challenger. The system where a lower number after the tier meant a higher rank within that tier was exactly the same as well. The only real difference was that real-time rankings appeared from the top 100 players onward. Emerald 4 could be considered solidly mid-to-upper tier.

“Still, going no-death perfect games gave me a pretty generous placement.”

Considering normal users usually started in Bronze at the low end or Gold at the high end, beginning at Emerald 4 was an excellent merit. Rumors that Platinum 4 was the highest tier possible from placements told me my rank had shot up so fast that other users would probably file complaints.

“…Wait, what time is it?”

Thinking about the time attack made a bad feeling creep over me that the hours spent in the VR device had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠far exceeded my expectations. The digital clock showed 1:00 a.m. I had started playing and browsing the internet around 4 or 5 p.m., yet it had continued without any sense of discomfort until 1 a.m. A slight disappointment in myself for already living the shut-in gamer life so soon after returning to this modern world washed over me, and I immediately removed the device.

After stepping out, I lightly stretched my somewhat stiff body and returned to the real world. Oh Seeun watched me with a small smile, her expression a mixture of various emotions.

“Mm… I’m glad you enjoyed it, but I didn’t expect you to stay glued to the device for eight hours and thirty-four minutes on the very first day.”

“…I have nothing to say for myself.”

I hadn’t realized I would lose my mind to that extent either, so I awkwardly avoided Oh Seeun’s gaze. Then a question suddenly occurred to me.

“But it’s been eight hours. Why am I not hungry at all, and why haven’t any bodily functions appeared?”

Oh ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Seeun, who had been smiling leisurely, clicked her tongue with an expression that said she had been caught off guard.

“Tsk… You noticed.”

“This is… It might be easier to just think of it as a convenience patch. You don’t need to eat anything, you’re half-immortal, and you don’t even need to sleep, right?”

She seemed to have something to feel guilty about and was trying to dodge the subject as much as possible. But my expression and atmosphere had grown even colder than before, so she immediately lowered her tail.

“Sigh… Fine. I’ll tell you.”

She let out a long breath as if ready to confess the truth and continued.

“You remember when I said I had turned your body and memories back to their past state, right? As you probably guessed, that was a work created with black magic and illusion arts rather than holy magic, and side effects ended up occurring in the process.”

When killing intent began to frost over my gaze at that point, Oh Seeun hurriedly kept speaking.

“…To summarize only the key parts, things like contracting with a demon or a half-insane mental state were originally specialties of holy magic. Black magic and illusion arts inevitably had limits.”

“So the current you lacks some physiological desires and activities and possesses a somewhat unstable mental state… but the latter can be fixed while you live, so you don’t need to worry too much.”

The words Oh Seeun brought out were not without their surprising elements. Starting with the fact that touching black magic had caused her to lose the ability to use holy magic entirely, and culminating in a contract with a demon. The things she had done within the erased gap of my memories were on a level that could hardly be called the actions of a saintess.

She had probably been like this for a long time already, so she spoke without any hesitation or sense of discomfort. For me now, however, it was a part that let me truly feel how much pain and corruption the future version of myself must have endured over a long period.

“…I understand. That part can’t be helped, I suppose.”

In the end, I took her current appearance of staring at the floor like a dog that had caused trouble, along with the tragedies and inevitabilities she must have experienced in the past, into consideration and responded moderately.

“You’re really understanding…?”

“This easily…?”

She made an oddly moved expression, then suddenly pulled me, who had been standing there with an expressionless face, into a tight hug.

“…What exactly are you doing?”

“We’re legally sisters, aren’t we? I think this much is fine.”

“…Yes. Do as you please.”

I truly could not follow her way of thinking at all. Did hugging someone who looked exactly like herself feel good? No, from the start I had an aversion to the act of hugging anyone, so I couldn’t understand why an existence that was practically my clone would do such a thing.

“Pfft… How cute. Isn’t your reaction a bit too entertaining?”

“You really are vicious…”

As if she hadn’t been serious after all, she soon released me with a playful laugh. It seemed she had done it both to lighten the mood and to enjoy my reactions.

“That’s right. It’s been a while since you returned to this modern world. Even if you’re not hungry, shouldn’t you try eating a meal at least once?”

“I’ll order everything, so pick any menu items you want.”

She opened the delivery app on her phone and told me to choose whatever I wanted to eat. I had secretly missed modern foods like chicken, hamburgers, and sushi, so I picked a few that looked good and went up to the first floor with Oh Seeun.

“Shall we eat, then?”

…Already? The delivery was completed far faster than in the first world. According to Oh Seeun, since she was at the highest VIP level among VIPs, she could even call in a professional chef if she wanted.

“That feels a bit burdensome.”

“Since I don’t need to eat anyway, I’ll be satisfied with this much.”

“Then instead of calling someone, how about we visit the restaurant together later while sightseeing?”

“There are fancy foreign cars now too. Shouldn’t you test drive one at least once?”

“That sounds pretty good. Let’s go together later.”

“Excellent decision. It’s good to enjoy everything that can be enjoyed.”

Unlike the fantasy world, eating delicious food against the backdrop of the beautiful modern city’s brightly lit buildings at night felt better than I had expected. After chatting moderately with Oh Seeun and roughly organizing the restaurants and schedule for later, I started wanting to try other things as well.

“It looks like we’ve eaten most of it, so let’s head back and rest.”

“The cleaning service will take care of the leftover food and plastic containers.”

Oh Seeun, who had quickly noticed, said I could enjoy the private room on the second floor, the study, or the various convenient facilities in the basement, then stood up. But too many choices fiercely competed for priority inside my head. In the end, I simply returned to the room where I had first woken up and decided to fiddle with my phone to readjust to new technology.

“Let’s see… There really are a lot of articles about new technology.”

The world I checked while casually browsing the internet was fiercely competing and continuously developing with new technologies such as virtual reality and AI. And Virtual Arena, at the center of it all, was wrapped in far greater presence and interest than I had thought.

“VA Gallery? Is this the main base?”

The Virtual Arena Gallery, abbreviated as VA Gallery, was a Virtual Arena-only community filled with various news, bait posts, and aggro threads. Since I currently had no particular interests outside of Virtual Arena, I naturally began exploring the VA Gallery.

“Huh?”

While scrolling through the posts, I discovered something surprising. Among the threads placed fairly high up in the VA Gallery, there were mentions of a user who seemed to be me.