Chapter 8
“Writing numbers is so hard... Name, help me!”
Arin enters the room looking like she’s about to cry.
Without even changing her clothes, she immediately pulls out her textbook.
“I was supposed to turn this in as homework today, but I forgot yesterday! The teacher told me to turn it in by today, so I have to go back to school later.”
Name takes the math workbooks she hands over and opens them.
Name couldn’t quite understand why she had come all this way—a one-hour round trip—just to ask for help with her homework. Why not ask one of her classmates instead?
“I have to count to thirty, but how do you write the numbers after seventeen?”
This world’s curriculum moved incredibly fast.
In Name’s previous life, runes were an exclusive subject that only true nobles could learn.
But here, even a first grader was expected to know them.
Numbers, Hangul, and runes. For children who had to write all three scripts side by side, it was probably nothing more than a headache.
“Wow... Name, you’re really smart.”
Whether she knew it or not, Name’s graceful hands quickly filled in the blanks, and Arin looked at her with nothing short of admiration.
Even the smartest child in Arin’s class had never written that quickly. Was Name even smarter than them?
For the past month, Name had been an excellent private tutor for Arin.
Although it was unfortunate that Name couldn’t attend school for some reason, the nun had said she could start attending in the second semester. Even that alone gave Arin strength.
Arin was simply happy that Name didn’t discriminate against her like the other children did.
At school, people avoided speaking to her because she was from an orphanage where all the bad kids were gathered, and at the orphanage, it wasn’t easy for her to fit in either.
Especially since Boyoung’s bullying had gotten worse over the past few months, Arin thought it was a tremendous relief that she had been able to get away from her at just the right time.
“Name, did you hear? Minwoo got adopted by a rich family last week. The rich man came by and gave us capsules as presents. Two of them!”
Name had thought the children were unusually noisy today.
Normally, plenty of them wouldn’t have come back at this hour, let alone made it by the return time set by the nun. It seemed they had run all the way from school so they could be the first to use the two capsules.
“Minwoo’s so lucky. Rich people can live in virtual reality every day without working. They can play in virtual reality all day and sleep there too... It must be so wonderful.”
“Not really.”
“Do you hate being adopted? Or do you hate games?”
"Both.”
Name was perfectly satisfied with life at the orphanage.
The orphanage’s sole internet-connected PC was monopolized by the middle and high school students, so Name couldn’t enjoy a proper civilized life, but the books Arin borrowed from the library were enough.
It was a little absurd when Arin brought back an entire encyclopedia after being asked to borrow the most difficult, advanced-looking book she could find, though.
‘The encyclopedia isn’t so bad.’
At the very least, it was a good opportunity to learn the meanings of words Name hadn’t understood when they were used online.
The reason to memorize words?
There was no such reason.
Name was tired of living a life that charged toward one thing alone, only to burn out spectacularly.
Name did it simply because Name wanted to.
That was Name’s way of thinking.
In this life, and the life before that, and the one before that...
“Thanks, Name! Let’s try them sometime later when the capsules are free! I’m off!”
And, for some reason, Name didn’t mind playing with such a cute, innocent child.
Had Seol-ah felt this way when she played games with me? It wasn’t easy to say.
‘Ah... I should’ve asked Arin to open it while she was here.’
Name continued glaring at the mana potion that was still difficult to open alone. Without it, food wouldn’t go down properly. Even when Name tried to force it down, all that came out was vomit.
In the end, Name decided to skip lunch and went out to the central living room, where the children were huddled together.
These children weren’t thinking about lunch at all. They were excited solely at the prospect of using the capsules.
The high school students had to put their disappointment aside and leave for school again because of their studies, but the middle schoolers were different.
They weren’t as rich as the high schoolers, so they could hardly afford to go to a PC bang. In their situation, these capsules were like rain in a drought.
“Isn’t this the newest capsule released this year?”
“The specs are so good that even when you play Resonance on max settings, your ping is guaranteed to stay in the single digits.”
“That’s fucking insane.”
In the end, the two capsules went to a first-year high school student who had decided to ditch school entirely and the largest-looking of the middle schoolers.
As though they were used to using capsules, they logged in and entered the game right away.
“Jae-hwan, get on LoL right now and let’s duo.”
“Huh? Yongjun, you’re not playing Resonance?”
“I don’t know how to play it. It’s too hard. You know how to play LoL too, right?”
Under Yongjun’s unspoken threat, Jae-hwan reluctantly logged in to LoL. Only then did he remember that Yongjun was a LoL addict.
Jae-hwan looked through the list of champions he currently owned. Even after a massive update two years ago had deleted half the champions, seeing the roughly 150 that remained made him dizzy.
“Want me to show you my rank? I’m Cha Yongjun, the third-ranked Warwick master, descended upon you.”
Of course, it wasn’t a tier ranking, but a simple ranking by games played among players above a certain tier. Still, no one objected.
“When did you play 700 games? Did you skip school every day or something?”
Besides, simply being Diamond 1 would make him an object of envy to ordinary people.
While everyone was making a great commotion, Name’s gaze, which had only been peeking out from the very back, shifted to the lower-right corner of the screen.
[Hall of Fame]
[Ladder Rank 1 – Anaconda (1394 points)]
...
[Games Played Rank 1 – NoName (4032 games)]
Name let out a hollow laugh.
Had I really played that many games?
That number probably wouldn’t increase for the time being. Maybe someone else would finally claim the undisputed number-one spot this year. Go ahead. Take it.
Unless I went insane, I probably wouldn’t play this game again.
* * *
[NoName <- Did this bastard get permabanned?]
He hasn’t been mentioned at all lately.
-He got put on blast on a stream, so if he didn’t get permabanned, what kind of game is this? ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
[NoName Officially Dead.rip]
2043. 03. 05. ~ 2050. 06. 11.
Rest in Piece
-It’s peace, you dumbass
ㄴYou don’t even know the joke, you prudeㅋㅋ
ㄴNoName’s been torn into piecesㅋㅋ
-The fact that he puts periods after every date, even here, means he served in the military.
ㄴIf public service duty counts as having served, I’d really appreciate it?
ㄴGet lost
[Wasn’t NoName dead?]
Then what the hell is this guy? ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Is he a ghost?
(Screenshot)
-Season 1’s first goddamn resurrection
-What? How did he beat the permaban!
-What the hell is 21/0/2ㅋㅋ Even if it’s a normal game,
ㄴOur Yasuo goes 2/10/2 every game, though, dammitㅋㅋ
...
It doesn’t feel real.
I came back after all.
To my homeland.
The whole thing started because of Arin’s stubbornness.
“I heard it was a school trip.”
“I just decided not to go.”
It was early morning. Even though the bus wasn’t leaving until ten, Arin had finished getting ready for school as usual.
In early July, starting with elementary school, the elementary, middle, and high schools all went on school trips, with a day between each one.
The destinations changed every year, but it was four nights and five days for elementary school, three nights and four days for middle school, and two nights and three days for high school—something like that.
Arabyeol Elementary, Middle, and High Schools were all run by the same foundation, as their names suggested.
They were private schools, so one would expect the school-trip fees to be fairly expensive, but surprisingly, those of us in lower income brackets could apparently participate almost for free.
Arin had been looking forward to this event, chattering about it to me constantly for nearly a month.
When I asked why she wasn’t going, she dodged the question, saying she simply didn’t feel like going anymore.
“So, could you play a game with me tomorrow? It’s the day all the older kids will be gone. Please?”
“I’m not really into capsules...”
“Tch... Name, you suck.”
What could I do just because she was sulking? She scampered over to the bottom bunk and buried her face in her pillow. The way she kept peeking at me was pretty cute, too.
“Um... why does Name hate games?”
“Because I’m sick of them.”
“Did you play them a lot in the past?”
“Yeah.”
“How much?”
“All day.”
“How much is ‘all day’?”
At some point during her endless barrage of questions, I stopped answering.
Instead, I pinched her baby-soft cheek and stretched it out.
“Eeeeeeeek.”
“I’ll play exactly one game.”
“Really? Reallyreallyreally?”
Arin’s eyes suddenly went wide. Was she really that happy? It was only one game. It would be over in less than an hour, after all.
Unfortunately, all she cared about was LoL.
She seemed like she might be interested in Fall Guys or Block Craft, but perhaps the children at the orphanage had influenced her, since they were all obsessed with LoL.
“But I’ve never played LoL even once. What do I do?”
“It’s fine.”
“I really don’t know anything?”
“I’ll win for you.”
“Whoa, Name, you were so cool just now!”
She leaped at me and hugged me.
I lost my balance and fell flat on my face.
By thinking of Arin as a little baby, I had kept overlooking one thing: I was actually smaller than she was. I hoped they would develop a mana potion that accelerated growth as soon as possible.
I stopped her from rubbing her cheeks against mine and helped her to her feet.
“I’m going to sleep now. You should go to school, too.”
“You just woke up, and you’re going back to sleep? They say you won’t grow tall if you sleep that much!”
“Then I guess I’ll stay small.”
I couldn’t give up my precious sleep, after all.
Arin, still full of youthful energy, wouldn’t understand.
“Even if I go to school, I’ll be all alone... I’m a little scared of getting scolded by the PE teacher, though...”
“Arin, do you hate school?”
“I like playing with Name more.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Arin bit her lip. Had she understood what I meant? I wasn’t sure, but that wouldn’t change the situation she was in, either.
I just hoped Arin wouldn’t grow accustomed to loneliness.