Chapter 2 - I Want To Go Back Again

All physically and mentally healthy men in South Korea go to the military.

And most South Korean soldiers live pessimistically, unable to enjoy their youth and trapped within fences, but...

Today, I, Dokgo Young, am no longer like that.

"Sergeant Dokgo Young, aren't you going to eat?"

"Oh, yeah. You can eat the military food."

"You look particularly happy today. Why are you... ah."

Because...

"...Sergeant Dokgo Young, come to think of it, you're being discharged tomorrow, right?"

"Hehe, that's right. You keep working hard. I'm going home now. Ahahahaha—!"

It was because I was being discharged tomorrow.

Oh shit, I never knew the world could be so beautiful.

I just returned all my military gear to the sergeant major and completed all my discharge preparations.

All that was left for me now... was to wait until the sun rose tomorrow morning.

"Then you won't be doing today's work, right? There's still a lot of time left... what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to the computer room to play games."

"Ah, you mean that game you've been so into lately?"

"Yeah."

I spent my boring final days in the military playing games.

The name was “Catch the Outlaw”.

This game, abbreviated as “CO”, was an open-world adventure game set in the Wild West era.

A junior recommended it a month ago, and I tried it for the first time. It was so much fun.

Still unable to forget that taste, I planned to enjoy the game in the computer room today, the day before going home.

"I don't play CO so I don't know much, but I heard that Corporal Kim installed the CO DLC on computer number 4 in the computer room."

"CO has DLC? I didn't know... well, anyway, thanks."

CO DLC...

Just thinking about it made my heart swell, and I rushed to hurry to the computer room.

But then, my hoobae’s words stopped me.

"But Sergeant Dokgo. The sergeant major said you'd get penalty points if you're caught playing games in the computer room..."

"Let him give penalty points. What does it matter when I'm being discharged tomorrow?"

"Haha, but don't they say to be careful of even falling leaves in your final days?"

"Is the sergeant major a falling leaf? And with my experience, how could I possibly get caught? Don't worry unnecessarily and go do your work."

"...Yes, I understand."

Thinking back now, I couldn't remember that hoobae’s name or face.

"Then, Sergeant Dokgo, I wish you luck."

I should have found that strange at the time...

"Oh, yeah."

Like an idiot, I just rushed off to the computer room to play games.

***

"Wow, there really is a DLC!"

On computer number 4, as my hoobae had said, the CO DLC was indeed installed.

Upon discovering this, I hurriedly launched the game.

At first glance, the CO DLC didn't seem much different from the original game.

But...

"Ooh..."

As soon as I saw the screen that said “Character Creation”, I could sense an enormous change.

In the original game, one could only play with preset characters, changing only the gender between male and female...

But this time, one could customize and play with any character one wanted.

Moreover, the customization settings for traits and appearance were so detailed that I could create any character I could think of.

"I didn't know I could create my own character in CO."

Marveling at the new feature, I entered character creation.

First, gender.

After deliberating between male and female... I chose male.

This was because I had played a lot with female characters in the original game.

Then, traits.

In the original game, traits could only be obtained through achieving accomplishments, but in the DLC, players could set them from the beginning.

Having already decided to create my own character this time, I carefully selected only the most overpowered traits.

[Best Gunslinger in the West]

[Weapon Master]

[King of One-on-One Combat]

[Superhuman Senses]

[Irresistible Charm]

After filling it with traits that were hard to obtain in the original game, it became nothing short of a cheat character.

Especially the first trait [Best Gunslinger in the West].

With just this one, aiming correction was applied, making aiming almost as good as an aimbot. It was the perfect trait for a killing machine character.

After satisfactorily setting the traits, the next thing shown was the character's age.

"Wow... you can even set the character's age?"

The reason I favored female characters in the original Outlaw Catch was because their smaller build was useful for dodging bullets.

So then...

[Character Age: 6]

"Here comes the genius shota superhuman gunslinger~"

By making the age young too, the already overpowered character became even harder to hit with bullets due to the small build.

This much was an excellent self-created character.

Satisfied, I saw the last box of customization.

[Please name your character.]

Name.

Having gone to the trouble of creating the character by hand, I didn't want to give it a half-hearted name.

"Name, name... ah."

After pondering for quite a while, I finally thought of a good name.

[Billy the Kid]

Billy the Kid, the famous outlaw of the Wild West era.

This was a name that fit CO very well.

But...

"Ah... somehow this doesn't feel quite right..."

Copying the name of a straight-up real person didn't sit well with me.

So I thought hard about keywords related to outlaws and bounty hunters, and then...

"Outlaw... West... bounty hunter... bounty hunter?"

Recalling the name of a famous pirate bounty hunter I knew well, I combined it with Billy the Kid.

[Roronoa the Kid]

"This is a bit long."

Let’s shorten it a bit...

[Noah the Kid]

"Good."

From now on, this character's name would be [Noah the Kid].

And so I finished creating the character.

This 6-year-old gunslinger with overpowered traits was named “Noah the Kid”.

All that was left was to start the game.

"Let's go, to burn up my last days in the military..."

Having prepared to spend my remaining military service splendidly, I pressed start game.

And then...

Whoosh—

"...Huh?"

Suddenly, with light pouring out from the monitor...

Dizzy.

"W-what the... shi—"

I lost consciousness right there.

At that time, I didn't know.

That my military service, which had only one day left...

Had just been extended by over 6,205 days at that moment.

***

"Aaaaargh—!! Huaaaargh—!! Don't press start game—!! D-don't press it—!!! Aaaaargh—!!"

"Goodness—! Kid—! What's wrong!"

"Kid—! Kid—!!!"

Slap.

"Huff... huff..."

"Are you coming to your senses?"

"Here, drink some water!"

Waking up with a stinging sensation on my cheek... I saw the faces of Deaf Bob and his wife Mary in front of me.

Damn it.

I was still in this cursed Western game world.

To think I'd transmigrate just for playing a game the day before discharge...

I entered as a 6-year-old body at first, but now I was a 23 years old.

17 years.

I had lived in this cursed Western game world for 17 years.

I should have adapted by now, but curses never left my mouth. 

Shit.

"Kid—! I asked if you've come to your senses!!"

"I'm conscious so shut the fuck up for a bit… My head hurts like hell from the hangover."

"Seeing how foul-mouthed you are, I guess you've come to your senses... But why are you sweating so much? Did you have a nightmare?"

"..."

...Nightmare?

The dream I just had wasn't a nightmare.

For me, this barbaric world disguised as a man’s romance was the real nightmare.

I will escape from here and return home no matter what. Definitely.

If there was one fortunate thing, it was that there was a way to return to the original world.

The method was simple.

Since this is a game world...

All I need to do is log out.

I just needed to log out and leave.

The only problem was...

[Unable to log out]

[Remaining amount until logout: $894,556 / $1,000,000]

"Oh fucking hell. This shitty world."

"Oh my... you startled me."

"This awful capitalism. We should have had a successful proletarian revolution to build a utopia where money has no value, darn it."

"As expected of the rascal, cursing at the air..."

"You think I wanted to become a rascal?"

"At least he knows he's a rascal."

The reason my language had gotten worse and my personality had become like this was all because of this cursed game world.

I had been trapped in this barbaric world for 17 years, falling in on the day before my military discharge. How could my personality be good?

The worst part was that there was a way to log out, as if to give false hope.

One million dollars.

If I had that amount, worth about 36 billion in current value, I could get out of here.

To fill this amount, I had been doing all sorts of work since I first transmigrated into this 6-year-old body, until settling here in Justice Town at 23 years old.

I had scraped together quite a bit of money in 17 years of hard work, but there was still a lot left to go.

"Oh really... Please just let me go home..."

"Mary, what's this guy saying now?"

Instead of Bob, who was hard of hearing, his wife relayed what I had muttered.

"Kid says he wants to go home."

"Home? Go home! Who's keeping you here? The sun's been up for a while! Go home quickly so we can clean the store!" Bob said this while pushing me with the mop he was using to clean the floor.

"Take those corpses with you when you go!"

"...Corpses? Ah... yesterday's work."

Looking where Bob pointed, there were neatly arranged corpses of outlaws.

Their corpses were worth quite a sum, about 1200 dollars in total.

This was the reason I settled in Justice Town.

This Justice Town was a respawn point for outlaws in the game.

After a certain time, outlaws would come on their own, so it was very suitable for bounty hunting work.

"...Still, lately I've only been catching small fry, but these guys have quite substantial bounties."

"Never mind substantial, just clear away those corpses quickly! It's hot and they'll start smelling soon!"

"Damn... I spend so much money at this bar and this is how you treat a regular customer. Fine, I'm going."

At Bob's nagging, I had no choice but to get up.

Then I grabbed a corpse in each hand and threw them outside the store.

"Ah, that's right Bob. I'll be coming back to drink after I get money from the sheriff, so don't close the store."

"My goodness, doing whatever he wants. This is why he's called a rascal... Tsk, alright!"

So I left the store, listening to Bob's grumbling.

What greeted me was the hot sun already high in the sky and 4 corpses whose eyes hadn't even closed yet.

"But how am I supposed to move these by myself."

It was quite a distance from here at the Deaf Man's Bar to my house.

As I was at a loss for how to move these corpses, I suddenly remembered something from the past.

"Come to think of it, darn. At first, I would cry and make a fuss just seeing a corpse, but now it doesn't bother me at all."

17 years since transmigration.

Before I knew it, I had become completely accustomed to this cursed Wild West era.