Chapter 2
[IlllIllIl: Anyway, the broadcast is today. It was a matter a majority voted for in the first place, so no matter what our clan does, don't give me any grief, okay?]
[plzplzlqzlq: How is that a majority? Only you and Sia voted in favor out of four people. If our clan goes under, you'd better watch yourself. Seriously.]
[When Hyeji, Night Falls: Minjun oppa sacrificed himself by showing his face, so isn't it fine? If the clan falls apart, we can just make another one.]
[IlllIllIl: NoName's doing a mute gimmick, so counting him toward the majority is a bit much, lol.]
[When Hyeji, Night Falls: Even Mir oppa was surprised when he heard the appearance fee.]
[When Hyeji, Night Falls: They said they'd deposit it as soon as the broadcast ends.]
[plzplzlqzlq: What about NoName? Are you really planning not to split the money with him?]
[IlllIllIl: Have I already stolen it or something?]
[IlllIllIl: He won't even give me his account number. What do you want me to do?]
[IlllIllIl: I told him he could whisper it to me if he wants to keep up the mute gimmick, but he won't say a word no matter what.]
[plzplzlqzlq: Anyway, Minjun, you're responsible for making sure he gets his share.]
“This guy only gets snippy with me!”
As soon as Imir, the clan leader of ‘Please, Please,’ left the clan home, Minjun angrily slammed his fist into the blameless floor. The middle finger was just a bonus.
He opened his friends list, found the culprit in question, and scrolled all the way down.
[NoName – In Game 13:47:08]
“Doesn't he ever get bored...”
By 8 p.m., when everyone else had gotten off work, eaten dinner, and begun enjoying their leisure time, NoName had already been logged into Legacy of Legends for fourteen hours.
Legacy of Legends, released in 2009, became a worldwide sensation, and no computer game capable of stopping its momentum ever appeared afterward.
But as capsules became popular in the late 2030s, virtual reality games began appearing like mushrooms after rain.
Riot Games rode the trend and released a capsule sequel called ‘Legacy of Legends.’ Despite being a latecomer, it rose straight to the top spot in market share.
Recently, it had been somewhat eclipsed by ‘Resonance’ and ‘World of Arseria,’ but its player base was still enormous.
Pyo Minjun himself had been playing three thousand matches of this damn game every season because he couldn't find a suitable substitute.
Yet compared to the man who had played 8,150 matches in the previous year alone and more than 50,000 over the past six years, Minjun looked utterly insignificant.
Even someone with no talent at all could have succeeded at something if they had spent that time doing anything else.
But NoName seemed determined to disprove that claim, as the difference in tier between him and Minjun made clear.
“Bronze 3... Yeah, isn't this guy the one who's truly succeeded in life? He really knows how to enjoy a game as a game! He doesn't shorten his lifespan by raging every match for no reason like I do.”
In contrast to that was Minjun's GrandMaster emblem, but he himself didn't look particularly pleased.
On one side was a friend list that gave no response no matter how much he called, and on the other, the famous streamer Delete's ‘Docu 4 Days’ was in the middle of airing.
It was a program that had recently become a huge hit on Twishy and VTube.
It covered the lives of professional gamers, streamers, and other internet celebrities.
There was still quite a while to go before the episode featuring his own clan came on.
“Is this really that entertaining?”
Honestly, Minjun had been happy to appear because they were paying him, but he couldn't understand why this program had become so popular.
* * *
[NoName – Searching for Game 14:39:40]
[NoName – Waiting Room 14:39:43]
[NoName – Entering Clan 14:39:48]
When I opened my eyes, I had already been summoned to the clan lobby. The person I was looking for happened to be nearby.
Five hundred thousand won per person. That was money one could barely earn by working eighteen hours a day for an entire week.
In my world, where financial bankruptcy meant saying goodbye to this life, Minjun's suggestion that I appear on a documentary hosted by a streamer had been tempting.
Mir had initially opposed the idea.
But Minjun and Sia, who were desperate for money, voted in favor, and we decided to appear on Delete's ‘Docu 4 Days.’
Although I had a body in virtual reality, my avatar had plainly been filmed like a backdrop while the clan waiting room was being recorded, so I naturally deserved a share too.
I approached Minjun and stood absently in front of him.
“What do you want me to do if you just stand there staring, kid?”
Minjun snapped at me venomously.
Why is he so angry again?
Yeah, what should I do?
I needed to try speaking to him, but I couldn't.
Nor did I have a bank account in my own name.
The fact that there wasn't just one or two problems to solve was already giving me a headache.
Whether it was a problem with the Chinese-made capsule or the work of the criminal group that had kidnapped me, the language processor module wasn't connected to the server, so I was currently unable to communicate either inside or outside the game.
Oddly enough, I could understand what was said within the clan, and for that much I was grateful.
Then why not use sign language? It wasn't as though I hadn't tried.
Since virtual reality was still a space equivalent to reality, it had a system that made interaction impossible in order to prevent stalking and sexual harassment under laws against obscene acts using communications media.
In other words, whenever someone tried to converse or express themselves, their brainwaves were blocked to suppress the act itself. Every account without registered identification was subject to this restriction.
The only thing I could do was blink.
Blink.
Blink blink.
“Ah, this is seriously frustrating!”
While Minjun continued to fume, I came up with a way to solve the account problem.
There was a temporary account used to receive cash when trading titles on a Chinese website. Its validity lasted a little over a week, so I figured I could ask him to send the money there.
452-5213-8019-108903
I entered a match-history and statistics search site, took four screenshots, and floated them in the air one after another.
Then I enlarged a single spot in front of Minjun and stared intently at it.
“So what? You want me to look at it?”
I displayed the window so blatantly that Minjun couldn't help looking.
“Is he a troll like you? He only dealt 452 damage by the end of the game.”
Good.
Just keep doing that.
“This is your match history, isn't it? Are you human? 5213 damage?”
I had dealt exactly 5213 damage in the previous game, which was why I remembered it and thought of this method.
Praising myself for being smarter than expected, I committed the other two numbers to memory.
“What are you trying to say?”
When Minjun continued to look puzzled, I finally realized my mistake.
What's the use of being smart when he's a complete idiot?
Besides, perhaps because it was a Chinese account, the number of digits differed from that of an ordinary Korean account, making it difficult to infer.
When he lost interest and tried to leave, I hurriedly blocked his way and blinked at him repeatedly.
How could I make him understand how desperate my situation was?
I turned my gaze toward the statue bearing our clan's name.
[Please, Please]
Please, I'm begging you.
If you don't give me this money, I'll die if the game ever goes into extended maintenance.
This is the life my mother protected even at the cost of giving up her own,
Do you know what it's like to despair over being trapped in a capsule you can't leave even after opening your eyes, only to log back into virtual reality?
I've gone this far. Please, just understand me.
“Oh, Namey's here too? Haven't seen you in a while! What are you two doing?”
“Sia? No, this kid's been trying to say something since earlier, but I can't understand a thing.”
“452, 5213, 8019, 108903? Is that some kind of code? I'm bad at this sort of thing.”
“How would I know?”
“Didn't you call Namey over? He wouldn't come here otherwise.”
“I told him to give me his account number if he wanted the money. If he doesn't, I'll keep it all.”
“...?”
“Huh?”
“Isn't this an account number?”
Minjun and Sia turned their heads at the same time.
As expected, two really were better than one.
Blink blink blink blink.
“You damn hardcore roleplayer...”
“Hey, no swearing in front of the kid!”
“You sure talk big when you don't even know whether there's a fifty-year-old man or a seventy-year-old granny in there.”
“Namey's a baby. We have to protect him.”
While Minjun and Sia fussed over me, I leisurely watched the ‘Docu 4 Days’ episode Minjun had left playing.
Tomorrow, 500,000 won would be deposited, so I figured I could afford this much leisure.
There were only four members in the clan, yet somehow it was incredibly popular.
After the segments covering the real lives of a professional gamer and full-time streamers ended, and two advertisements had played, the familiar front gate of our clan came into view.
Birds chirped in the background, and it seemed as though the episode would unfold peacefully, but reality always exceeded my expectations.
[What the hell is that Ignite Teleport Karmill?! When he sniped me last game, he had Cleanse and Ghost!]
Minjun's character displayed overwhelming prowess against a streamer in the final match of his promotion series, tearing across the battlefield and racking up a total of 25 kills.
The streamer's expression as his dream of reaching Master slipped farther away after a miserable W-W-L-L-L was even more pitiful.
[Three people are waiting here to look for a countergank opportunity? Wait, isn't this stream sniping?]
Another streamer was preparing a three-man dive, but Mir answered with a four-man countergank, and the game exploding into a stomp was a highlight in itself.
[It gives me money when I hit this. You should hit it too, oppa.]
Sia, the support who devoured every resource in sight, also stole the show. They had begun a duo stream thinking she was a female beginner playing her first game.
The streamer ultimately ended that match with the dishonorable record of 0/7/9, while Sia dominated the game with an 18/1/2 record despite being the support.
The true highlight came when their main-account usernames were revealed afterward. The comment section began surging in real time.
[IlllIllIl: GrandMaster / Ladder Rank 512 / Top 0.00669%]
[plzplzlqzlq: GrandMaster / Ladder Rank 780 / Top 0.01019%]
[When Hyeji, Night Falls Challenger / Ladder Rank 294 / Top 0.00384%]
People really do like numbers.
Just look at the comments. They had been cursing them a moment ago, so hadn't public opinion suddenly turned favorable?
Comments like [Oh wow] and [Amazing] came raining down from the sky.
Without giving the viewers a moment to breathe, an edited video of their highlight moments appeared next.
In a tier where monsters lurked, one that ordinary people rarely had the chance to encounter, Minjun, Mir, and Sia seemed to shine as though they had become the protagonists.
Delete, the show's head producer, also got more excited at the positive response and added various bits of commentary.
And only then did I realize why I hadn't appeared alongside them.
My gameplay scenes came next.
There, I stood still in the starting village for several minutes, ignored dying allies and walked past them, or sometimes took screenshots as if to mock the scene.
Naturally, public opinion was at its worst.
Once again, countless combinations of printed characters covered my vision.
Some of them contained words too vile to repeat, which had turned into ‘This comment has been deleted.’
But cruelly, I could still clearly remember what they had said before the censorship.
Perhaps their anger was justified.
If a troll like me joined a game someone had set aside one of their few free hours to play for relaxation, I could understand why it would ruin their mood.
Yet there was one comment that wasn't deleted and continued scrolling downward.
It came down.
And landed on the crown of my head.
[His own mom's probably going to die of cancer too, lololol]
In a reprise of the opening, the final part of the video showed a close-up of the courtyard of the ‘Please, Please’ clan.
Separated from the other three, I stood there expressionlessly.
The only thing I could do was blink at regular intervals and pray that even one person would recognize my distress signal through the video and rescue me.
Blink blink blink.
Bliiink Bliiink Bliiink.
Blink blink blink.
This is a world straight out of hell.