The Korean Trip
As I stepped off the bus that had stopped at Dong Seoul Terminal and checked my status window, I saw that my Willpower had risen by 4 and my Focus by 1. Whether it was because my stats had increased or simply because I’d slept, the shock of having committed murder had faded considerably.
That’s right. The guy had been holding a gun. I had no choice if I wanted to survive. I kept repeating to myself that I couldn’t have done anything differently as I walked around the terminal area in search of a motel.
There were plenty of motels near the terminal, but then I heard a woman’s sharp scream coming from an alley. What the hell? I cautiously peeked inside and saw two men threatening a woman with a knife. In the Seoul of this world, such scenes weren’t all that rare. Should I just walk on by…?
“!”
I was about to keep walking when the angle shifted and I caught a clear look at the woman’s face. It was Han Yugyeong, the female protagonist of MegaCorp’s Youngest Son.
What are you doing here? You should still be at the starting point in Incheon…? I had no idea what had brought her all the way to Seoul, but as a veteran of this game, I couldn’t just let her get hurt like this. I slowly approached and struck one of the thugs in the back of the neck with the edge of my hand. In movies and anime, that usually knocks people out.
Unfortunately, because I’d held back so I wouldn’t kill him, the thug spun around cursing. “The fuck? Who the hell are you?”
“Plenty of idiots pretending to be heroes have ended up dead.”
“You think just because you’re built that a knife won’t go in?”
The two thugs brandished knives about a handspan long and threatened me. In situations like this, the first strike wins! Surprisingly, the thugs seemed to share the same thought and charged at me simultaneously. I deflected the blade aimed at my vital point, then grabbed the attacker’s wrist and twisted. It wasn’t some refined martial arts technique that made him drop the knife. I simply used overwhelming physical strength to wrench his wrist itself. The thug screamed, clutching his now limp hand.
“Aaaargh!”
The other one swung his knife. I deliberately let it graze me. Blood sprayed, and Han Yugyeong let out a small shriek. The moment the thug raised his arm to slash again, I ducked and pivoted, slamming my fist into his side. A sickening crunch echoed as I felt his ribs shatter. I spun the other way and struck the opposite side!
“Guhk!”
“Do this repeatedly and it becomes a Dempsey Roll.”
The thug with the broken wrist abandoned his groaning companion and fled. No loyalty at all. I approached the trembling Han Yugyeong, extending my hand.
“Are you alright?”
Han Yugyeong took my hand and stood up. Instead of looking relieved, her expression was one of worry for me as she spoke.
“Ah… yes. But aren’t you the one who’s more seriously hurt?”
I glanced at my arm. The white shirt I’d taken from the security guard was soaked red where my left arm had been slashed.
“This is nothing.”
“Nothing? How can you call that nothing when you’re bleeding like this!”
In truth, the bleeding had only happened at the moment of the cut; the wound had already healed thanks to my regeneration. But from the outside, the blood-soaked shirt made it look like a serious injury. Without the damage reduction from Yeouiju and the regeneration effect, it really could have been dangerous. Still, I had trusted both abilities and deliberately let myself get cut.
“I’ll go buy some medicine from the convenience store! Just wait here a moment.”
In reality, I had intentionally taken the slash to make the protagonist of this world owe me a debt. There was also the fact that I felt a little sorry for Han Yugyeong.
MegaCorp’s Youngest Son had been a massive global hit. It was the sequel to the previous game, The Mega Corporation (commonly called TMC), and depicted the era just before the full arrival of cyberpunk—right when MegaCorp was beginning to rise. The player took on the role of the youngest child of the Shinkang Group, one of Korea’s top ten conglomerates. The goal was to raise the company’s value through various achievements while solidifying their own position until they became chairman.
Despite the title, players could choose the protagonist’s gender. However, veteran gamers all agreed that starting as a woman was the beginning of Nightmare Mode.
The founder of the Shinkang Group, Han Mungang, had an outdated mindset that didn’t fit the current era. He viewed the family’s daughters as nothing more than tools for political marriages. Because of that, raising Han Mungang’s favorability—the most important stat—was incredibly difficult when playing as a woman. The support the family provided in the early game was also pitifully small.
On top of that, female characters had lower physical stats than males, making even beginner monsters a struggle. And if you got caught by thugs like this, you’d receive the Trauma status effect along with a sharp drop in Han Mungang’s favorability.
Finally, even when completing the same quests, the rewards were noticeably worse than for male characters. Clearing an extremely difficult quest would only give rewards equivalent to a mid-tier quest for male characters. That was why players unanimously called the “Female” button the “Nightmare Difficulty” button during character creation.
Therefore, when playing as the female protagonist, the usual route wasn’t to raise the grandfather’s favorability for internal promotions. Instead, players focused on building external forces to devour the company. Of course, the latter route was twice as difficult in terms of overall challenge.
I had been lost in thought about the game for a few minutes when Han Yugyeong returned carrying a plastic bag full of supplies. Probably medicine and bandages.
“Here, I bought bandages and medicine.”
“Thank you.”
“Why are you thanking me? You got hurt trying to save me…”
I couldn’t wrap bandages in the middle of the street. Besides, I’d have to take my shirt off, which made it even more impossible.
“It’s not what you’re thinking…”
Han Yugyeong’s ears turned bright red as she stared at the ground.
“Pardon?”
“Since you need to wrap the bandages… would you come with me over there?”
The place she pointed to with her flushed face was a motel. The neon sign reading “Motel Rose” was clearly visible. Her embarrassment was so adorable that I couldn’t help but chuckle softly before nodding.
“One night, please.”
Since I needed a place to stay anyway, I asked for a room for the night, paid, and we stepped into the elevator.
“Um… you’re staying the night?”
“Ah, I’m here in Seoul as a tourist. It’s already late, so I figured I’d just stay here since I came all this way.”
“Ah…”
An awkward silence filled the elevator.
With a ding, the elevator stopped and the doors opened. Han Yugyeong and I walked down the hallway, keeping a careful distance, and entered the room.
“First, please take off your shirt.”
At her words, I removed my shirt. When I glanced at my arm, I saw that because my regeneration level was still low, it hadn’t fully healed. A thin, faint scar remained.
Han Yugyeong brought a motel towel, dampened it with water, and gently wiped my arm. Her eyes widened slightly in surprise at how small the wound actually was.
“The wound isn’t that big?”
“I told you it was fine.”
Another awkward silence followed, but Han Yugyeong seemed determined to break it and spoke up.
“Now that I think about it, I haven’t properly introduced myself. My name is Han Yugyeong. Thank you for saving me.”
“I’m Jin Yongtae. Well… just a passing tourist.”
At my answer, Han Yugyeong gave me a look that clearly asked why a Korean person would come to Seoul as a tourist.
“If you’re a tourist…?”
“Ah, I’m a Korean-Japanese. I’m scheduled to join a company in a couple of weeks, so I decided to take a trip to Korea before starting work.”
I smiled and showed her my employee ID. Han Yugyeong looked at it, and her expression grew strange. It was clearly a look of suspicion.
“It says Jin Yongtae, but the name listed is Taira Ryuta. Did the Taira family send you to find me?”
Her tone was slightly accusatory. I put on a troubled expression and answered.
“Ah… I’m… an illegitimate child. I grew up as Jin Yongtae without even knowing who my father was. It was only recently that the family acknowledged me, so I’ll be joining the company under that name.”
“Ah! I’m so sorry.”
In the early parts of the story, the protagonist and her parents hadn’t been acknowledged by the family either, so when Han Yugyeong heard I was an illegitimate child, she was visibly startled. She must have felt a sense of kinship from our similar circumstances.
“It’s fine. It’s not like I suffered anything because of it. I only found out a little while ago that I even had a father whose face I’d never seen.”
“Still, I shouldn’t have suspected you like that…”
“Would it be alright if I asked why you suspected me?”
This time it was Han Yugyeong’s turn to look uncomfortable. I was only pretending to be troubled, but she seemed reluctant to reveal that she was from the Shinkang Group.
“I’m in a similar situation. I’m not an illegitimate child, but I’m also a child from a family that was cast out by a corporation.”
“Ah… so you thought I might have approached you on purpose.”
It was true that I had approached after seeing her by chance, but it hadn’t been a calculated plan.
“No matter how powerful the Taira Group is, there’s no way they could have known you would be attacked by thugs today.”
“Yes… that’s true. I guess I was overthinking things. And what use would I even be to them anyway?”
Her shoulders suddenly slumped. I reached out and gently patted them. If we were a little closer, I would have hugged her.
“Yugyeong, don’t you need to go home? Do you live nearby?”
It was 12:40 a.m. on a Saturday. The last subway trains would have already stopped running.
“Ah!”
Han Yugyeong looked at the time and gasped. Since she didn’t have much money in the early game, she probably couldn’t afford a taxi all the way back to Incheon.
“Um… I’m sorry to ask, but… could I stay here tonight?”
For me, that was excellent news.