Chapter 146
<World of Arseria Gallery>
<Featured Post>
[This is Jang Seongmun, a reporter for QBS Game Magazine.][43]
Hello, World of Arseria players.
This is Jang Seongmun, a reporter for QBS Game Magazine.
Last weekend, it became known that NPC Adela had been linked to VR SPACE, and she has become hugely popular.
If anyone has photos or videos taken with her, please contact 010-XXXX-XXXX or [email protected].
Additionally, if anyone knows streamer NoName personally, I would appreciate any information.
[Comments]
-What brings such a distinguished person to this humble place...?
└ ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└ (Author): I was working late, so I couldn't watch the stream thenㅠㅠㅠㅠ
└ ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ She's so damn likableㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└ This reporter is working as a reporter just to satisfy personal desiresㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Where's Adela right now?
└ No idea. Looks like she went into a private room, judging by how the search party disappeared.
-Waresoft's stock hit the daily double upper limit in the middle of all this—is this for real? It's so damn annoying.
└ What's the stock price now?
└ It recovered to around $150. Sweetㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-They said an employee was arrested, so why is the stock going up? What were they arrested for?
└ They already quit, so it didn't affect anything~
└ Probably because they put ASI into a model for children under seven. That's illegal in most states in the US.
└ They got hit with the tax-evasion combo tooㅋㅋㅋㅋ
<Live Best>
[(Long post, lots of data) Rambling about moments with Adela today][927]
(Group photo at the amusement park entrance.jpg)
(Adela riding a roller coaster.mp4)
(Adela strolling through the haunted house.mp4)
...
(Adela experiencing culture shock at an otaku nightclub.mp4)
The Singularity has already arrived!
I've been a VR SPACE user for years, and Adela didn't seem out of place as a human at all.
So I guess the people who hung out with her also had fun, thinking she was a foreigner trying virtual reality for the first time.
+) Adela is seriously so cute, and her personality seems freaking greatㅋㅋㅋ A few people crossed the line now and then, but she forgave them generously.
[Comments]
-Whoa... whoa... Is this the future?
-This is artificial intelligence and an NPC?
-Isn't that a person in cosplay?
-Why is a Vocaloid song playing at the nightclubㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└ This whole culture is seriously such a mess;;
-Why are you guys the only ones having fun!!!!!!!!
└ The party caps at ten people...
└ ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ I want to see Adela too
-Is Adela still wandering around?
└ Nope, looks like she went to a private room after having fun.
-You call getting hit with a Halkas shock-image raid merely crossing the line a little? Is the OP seriously a crazy bastard?
└ They probably got desensitized after having to delete it constantly because the post that made it to Live Best was posted by a moderator.
└ Be grateful Adela didn't go all SkyNet and turn evil, seriously.
└ So she was a Terminatorㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
<Streamer Gallery>
[If this girl is Twishy's owner, upvoteㅋㅋ][59]
(NoName's main avatar, front view.jpg)
[Comments]
-So you're saying it isn't that she's been an adult for five years, but that she still has five years until she's an adult?
└ Thinking of it that way, she's fucking youngㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-She played LoL for seven years, so that pins her age down too: fourteen to fifteen.
-She was using an avatar that would make pedos go crazy, but the person inside was messed up tooㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Big Name
-The future of Twishy is bright.
-Newbie monster streamer (a literal monster)
-If we're only talking magic ability, she could breeze right into Korea University.
└ Korea University? She should be going to MIT or Stanford.
└ This makes me feel so damn inadequate. What were we doing at that age?
-Unlock video sharing already!!! How long do we have to wait for V-Tube? Or at least upload the full stream!
* * *
I turned on the hologram transmitter and set it down in the middle of the room.
Click-
The electronic device's upper and lower shells split in half, and it scanned the entire room with a soft blue glow.
[Scan complete.]
[The hologram will be projected according to the coordinates. Please do not move the device.]
And at last, a cat-eared girl appeared in a wavering mass of light.
She blinked a couple of times, then spotted me and waved happily.
“No waaay! This is what you really look like, sis? Kihahaha, you're so cute! Can I hug you?”
“You look exactly like your main avatar, so why are you making such a fuss? And we're holograms, so we can't touch each other anyway.”
“What a bummerrific shame.”
“What is that way of talking...?”
“This? My friends taught it to me last time!”
Without even being asked, Adela launched into a long account of everything she'd done while playing around in the VR world.
Especially when she passed through the amusement park, she apparently had no idea how many hundreds of times she'd shaken hands.
“Ugh... I almost went blind, though...”
“Went blind? Did someone shine a light into your eyes?”
“No, it's still too soon for you to know, sis... But it was mostly fun!”
The urban legend that an NPC in VR SPACE would play together with users had already become famous enough to make it onto several news broadcasts.
Of course, they didn't cover it as their main topic, instead reporting with a bias toward praising Waresoft's technological prowess.
The company still hadn't said anything in particular about me bringing Adela over.
Then again, the Adela here wasn't the ASI core itself, but an entity derived from it, so there was no worry about technology leaking. If anything, as long as they could enjoy the promotional effect for their game, they had nothing to lose.
They did email me belatedly to ask that I keep our stories straight, saying they planned to make an announcement themselves later, but that was something to wait and see about for now.
I heard the stock had almost fully recovered too, so all I could do was hope the higher-ups decided we should simply pretend not to know each other.
“But I did notice one inconvenient thing about this world, too.”
She said this while looking around my room.
“What is it?”
“You don't get drunk at all even if you drink here, did you know? Well, not having to go to the bathroom is convenient and all, but it's still lonely without alcohol.”
Adela, lying on the bed in my private room, shared her grievance with a slightly pouty expression.
Would it comfort her if I told her I wouldn't be able to drink until eleven years from now?
It probably wouldn't, so I left Adela thrashing around on the bed and opened the closet.
“Are we going out together today? Where are we going?”
“To meet Professor Cheon's guest.”
“Professor Cheon is the person who lives in the same house as you, sis?”
“He's my adoptive father.”
“Whoa, were you an orphan like me too?”
“That wording is a little...?”
I didn't want to feel a sense of kinship over something like that.
It was mid-April, but the weather was sweltering, like summer.
Still, wearing just a T-shirt and shorts felt somehow awkward. It was still chilly in the mornings and at night.
In the end, compromising on a yellow T-shirt and denim overalls, I quickly changed and packed my things into a bag one by one.
“Pfft! Dressed like that, you kind of look like a chick, sis!”
“...I'm not taking you with me.”
“Aaaaaah, I'm sorry-sorry-sorry-sorry! I take it back! Please forgive me!”
Adela seemed to be getting too immersed in the VR world, so I advised her to study a little, in case she ever had to live in the real world someday.
VR SPACE was, after all, an extension of a game, not a world where one actually lived, so it would be difficult for Adela to learn ordinary human culture there.
As it happened, she had been pestering me to show her the outside world, and today the opportunity arose.
If she brought the hologram lens, she would be able to move freely within a one-meter radius and gain a 360-degree field of vision.
Of course, I had also remembered to activate invisibility mode so she wouldn't inconvenience anyone.
From her perspective, the private room probably looked as though its scenery were changing from moment to moment.
“Shall we go?”
“Yeah!”
April 2051.
Clear skies, 25 degrees Celsius.
Hugging the transmitter, now transformed into a blue regular octahedron, in both hands, I walked through the bustling streets of Gangnam District.
“Woooow... There are so many people...”
There were crowds all over the streets, far more numerous than anything in the VR world.
But naturally, there were even more cars than people.
Adela couldn't take her eyes off the spectacle of cars zipping rapidly along the main road.
“Where could all these people be going?”
“At this time of day, they're probably heading out for lunch after work.”
“Work? You work too, sis?”
“I'm still a kid. How could I work?”
“You can't work if you're young? Why?”
Adela, whose values were still a mix of the WoA worldview and reality, tilted her head.
I explained that Korea strictly enforced its labor laws, so children didn't work and went to school instead.
“Then why aren't you going? It's a weekday.”
“I filed an absence form.”
Since I was going to Korea University anyway, labeling it an off-campus career-experience field trip was perfect.
I had planned to take a taxi when going alone, but since I was with Adela today, I deliberately took a bus and settled into the very back seat.
The scenery rushed by, and the crowds hurried about their business as they got on and off the bus.
And as the proportion of university students on the bus gradually increased, I felt we were drawing closer to our destination.
Ding-a-ling-
My phone rang suddenly, and I answered it. It was Professor Cheon.
“Hello?”
[Ah, Name. Have you arrived already?]
“Almost. I'm at the main gate now.”
[I'm sorry, but could you come to the Advanced Materials and Flexible Engineering Research Institute instead of Engineering Building 3? I'm sorry for the sudden change of location.]
“Oh, yes, yes. Got it.”
[It's Building 131-1, so you'll find it easily if you get off before the bus starts up the hill. Don't mistake it for the building next door.]
<This stop is Advanced Materials. Advanced Materials Joint Research Institute.>
This is already my second visit to Korea University.
The place where I got off the bus was unexpectedly deserted and quiet. Maybe because it was a corner of campus.
I breathed in the refreshing air given off by the dense forest as I searched for the building Professor Cheon had mentioned.
“Adela, I'll turn the hologram back on later. It probably won't work inside the building.”
“Oh, really? Okay, then I'll wait! See you later!”
I made sure to turn off the transmitter and shoved it roughly into my bag. Since it was a fairly heavy device, my shoulder grew even heavier.
Come to think of it, I couldn't get into the building without a key.
Unlike the other buildings open to undergraduates, its doors wouldn't open.
Just as I was about to contact Professor Cheon again, someone tapped me on the shoulder from behind, and I turned around without thinking.
The woman in a blue lab coat suddenly opened her eyes wide and asked,
“Are you... No... NoName?”