Chapter 48
Metcha-Paint
Hiding in all kinds of different maps.
It was a game with simple rules: paint your body without being spotted by the seeker, use the paint as camouflage, and survive.
Thanks to its ridiculous graphics, surprisingly tense gameplay, and various advantages that made it well-suited for multiplayer, it was currently hugely popular among streamers.
Anyway, it was nice that we got to play a game like that, but….
“Hmm.”
-??
-Why?
-Is there a problem?
“No, I’m terrible at drawing….”
Drawing really wasn't my thing at all.
How bad was I? I couldn't even distinguish between shades of tint properly.
Weren't they all just shades of pink anyway?
So while I knew nothing about clothes, I always needed help when buying cosmetics.
-No worries
-Nobody can draw anywayㅋㅋㅋ
-You can win with hiding skill, not drawing skill
“Really?”
Still, it wasn't as if I'd never played games of this sort.
It was a little different, but wasn't there a game where you transformed into objects and hid back in the day?
I'd played that one quite a lot too, so I roughly knew the tricks.
That was why I started the game with a fair amount of confidence, but.
“All right, Wayo is the first seeker, huh? Let's use this round as a practice run.”
Of all things, I was chosen as the seeker right off the bat.
Tsk, I wanted to watch how people hid first.
-Oh
-Should we shoot them all??
Still, one fortunate thing was that the weapon was a gun.
If this had been the sort of game where the seeker held a melee weapon and got toyed with, I might not have been able to stand it.
“Let's go, let's go~”
Anyway, since I was the seeker.
I waited while everyone hid, then was spawned into the map.
“Oh….”
-The map is prettyㅋㅋㅋ
-Is this an art museum??
The first map's theme was an art museum.
I stood in an exhibition hall filled with various works of art and looked around.
In other words, there were four people hiding sneakily around here.
Click.
I loaded the gun and walked through the map.
As befitted the art museum concept, all sorts of famous works were displayed.
Standing alone in a place like this was somehow creepy, too.
“Where is everyone?”
I walked down the empty corridor, repeatedly scanning my surroundings.
One slightly strange thing about this game was its scoring system.
Simply hiding wasn't enough; your score increased if the seeker saw you and walked past without finding you.
That was why the key was to hide creatively in a place where you could be seen.
[Whoosh!]
And there was one more thing: periodic sounds played around the hidden players so the seeker could find them.
“Here?”
Following the sound of the whistle, I arrived at an exhibition hall displaying modern paintings.
But….
“Hmm.”
-??
-?
-Didn't see it?
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
I had definitely heard a whistle, so why couldn't I see anything?
People usually found them pretty quickly.
No matter how hard I looked, I couldn't figure out where anyone was around here.
-Are this guy's eyes broken??
-Wow
-How can he not find them??
“What am I supposed to do if I can't see them… Oh, is this The Isle of the Dead?”
As I was looking around.
I discovered a familiar painting.
Oh, they have this painting too?
-?
-??
-No, more importantly, can't you see that??
Arnold Böcklin's The Isle of the Dead.
It was a painting Teacher Hanseonghwa liked.
“Do you know this? It's a famous Symbolist masterpiece.”
-???
-Do you know a thing or two about art??
“This is basic cultural knowledge.”
Teacher Hanseonghwa was a yellow mutt with eclectic tastes who loved both Eastern and Western culture.
‘Wouldn't it be great if a model had some plausible cultural knowledge?’
If she liked Eastern literature.
She loved Western art.
In that sense, when Teacher Hanseonghwa was my manager, we used to visit art museums together quite often.
Seeing a painting I'd once seen at an art museum as a student now that I was grown made me really happy.
-I seriously don't know
-Isn't it just a gloomy painting??
Of course, it wasn't exactly a painting our viewers, who were far from cultured, would know.
“Tsk… Then surely you know this painting?”
So I pointed at another painting nearby.
You know this one.
-Kyaaㅋㅋㅋ
-I know that oneㅋㅋ
Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night.
It was an extremely popular painting that commonly appeared in textbooks.
The more I looked at it, the more there was to chew on in this masterpiece.
“Did you know Van Gogh squeezed paint straight from the tube and ate it?”
Van Gogh was also famous for suffering from mental illness and poverty during his lifetime.
One of his most famous eccentricities was said to be eating paint.
-Seriously??
-Why did he eat it?
-Was he broke?
“I don't know that. Maybe he was hungry for color.”
-Kyaaㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Are you a poet??
-That's insane
“Ah, this time….”
So, while I was taking the opportunity to admire the paintings in the art museum.
“Um... Wayo?”
“Yes?”
“When are you going to find us?”
“Oh.”
The team leader, who had been hiding, cautiously spoke up.
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Yeah, you bastardㅋㅋ
-The Wayo Emperor showing off his knowledgeㅋㅋ
-Seriously, when is he going to find us??
Right, we were playing hide-and-seek.
I came to my senses and looked around again.
Everywhere I looked, there were only paintings, paintings, and more paintings.
Where were the people supposed to be?
“I really don't know….”
-Agh, fuck
-He can't see thatㅋㅋㅋ
Whoosh!
Even then, an annoyingly blatant whistle sounded.
“Hmm.”
Should I go somewhere else?
-No
-Wow
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
“Everyone calm down, this is my first time playing.”
Anyone could be bad at something.
What could I do if I couldn't see them?
Still, since it was only a practice round, I leisurely walked around and looked at my surroundings.
Before long, I spotted a tiny person crouched on the floor.
“Is that what hiding looks like?”
I mean, even if I was bad at this.
Bang!!
“Aah!”
I shot immediately, and our team leader screamed.
Hmm, the team leader was good at Rell, but bad at hiding.
-You passed by twice
-Wow, only nowㅋㅋ;;
“Let's see where the next one is.”
Having caught one person.
Just as I was about to look for another.
[Beep-be-beep!]
“Time's up!”
“Why didn't you find us?!”
The game ended because time had run out.
Ah~ so that's the kind of game this is.
I roughly get it now?
-What do you get, fuck
-We're screwed
-The subscription gifts are a lost cause;
For reference, we'd decided to make a bet to make the game more fun.
Something simple, like subscription gifts?
Still, since I'd just received a large prize, quite a lot was at stake.
Anyway….
“Shall we play the real game now?”
Now that I roughly understood it, we should move on to the real game.
**
Bang!!
“Wayo is out!”
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-This bastard is fucking terrible
“....”
I stared at the screen, which had turned gray because I was dead.
Tremble, tremble.
Why did I keep getting caught so easily?
No, I knew why.
-Why did you hide there?
-You shouldn't play hide-and-seekㅋㅋ
-Where did your camping skill go??
It was simply because I was fucking terrible at hiding….
“Why is this so hard?”
It wasn't as though I was both getting caught easily and finding people well.
When I was the seeker, I couldn't catch anyone, and when I hid, I got caught easily.
The score gap widened dramatically.
“Wayo's out! Heehee.”
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Heehee my ass
-What a fucking pestㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Is that person usually like this??
“You little…?”
Haebin in particular was infuriatingly good.
Maybe it was because she was a red-glasses female otaku, but she could draw one hell of a picture.
Even now, she was hiding right in front of the seeker.
Her camouflage was perfect; even I would have walked right past without seeing her.
-Why are you so bad?
-I'm going to Haega's stream to leech subscription gifts, laterㅅㄱ
-Fuck, at least get someone to carry you
“....”
How many rounds had it been already?
Even so, by this point I actually felt more at ease.
Even in Rell, I got stressed trying to win whenever the score was close.
But once the gap had widened to a full double score, my mind felt much more relaxed.
“All right, next game.”
Yeah, let's play without worrying so much.
Maybe I'd do better if I relaxed?
“Wayo's the seeker.”
“Can you find us this time?”
This time, too, I was chosen as the seeker.
Everyone brightened up at that and said,
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Score vending machine on
-The Wayo Emperor is so weak..
Yeah, yeah, go ahead and make fun of me all you want.
Was it because I was an emotionless psychopath?
Even that sort of provocation didn't bother me.
If anything, it made me laugh.
“Heh heh.”
-You're laughing at this score??
-This bastard's lost itㅋㅋㅋ
This map was a campsite.
There was a crackling campfire, tents and assorted junk scattered around, and so on.
There were plenty of places to hide.
[Whoosh!]
[Whoosh!]
When I was spawned into the map, whistles sounded all around me.
Everyone thought I was an easy mark and hid in obvious places.
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Seriously, this is a Wayo score-farming contest
-They really underestimated him??
If I let myself get distracted by provocations like that, I wouldn't be able to do what I could.
I calmly surveyed the map from side to side.
Even though I was fucking terrible at finding people and couldn't distinguish colors well.
With whistles going off in the open, did they really think I couldn't find people hiding so blatantly?
I calmed my mind and carefully searched for anything out of place, one thing at a time.
And then….
Bang!!
“Huh?!”
Before long, devils and demons began appearing one after another in the ordinary scenery.
Bang!! Bang!!
“What the!”
-How does this bastard know??
-Kyaaㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-He really thought you were a pushoverㅋㅋㅋㅋ
"You little shits!"
I caught three of them right away and was looking for the last person.
"Whoa, what the."
I was amazed when I saw the last person I found.
“Who is this? That's incredible.”
Even though they were blatantly sitting inside the campfire, they had drawn it so well that they looked like flames at a glance.
This looked incredibly difficult. How had they done it?
“Heehee, it's me.”
“Wow~ you're good.”
“R-Really?”
“Art score: 100 points.”
Hae-rpindor gets 100 art points.
It seemed a shame to kill them right away, so we held a little photo session first.
“Anyone who wants a screenshot, take one.”
-??
-?
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-What is this bastard doing??
“If you put in this much effort, you deserve a reward.”
“Agreed, so let me go just once….”
Bang!!
“Ah!”
Still, I couldn't exactly let them live.
So when I finally caught Haebin, the game announced that everyone had been eliminated.
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-You can't let her liveㅋㅋ
-Did he catch them all??
-Kyaa, ace
“I've got the hang of it now.”
-Only now??
-What a slow bastard..
-It's the last roundㅋㅋㅋ
-<<Last place confirmed
Tsk.
I'd finally gotten the hang of it, but the score gap was already huge.
Well, this round only went that way because everyone had underestimated me.
I still wasn't confident I'd be able to find them if they hid properly.
“This is the last round, right? Ms. Haebin's the seeker.”
Still, I wanted to survive at least once until the very end. Was there any way?
-Art museum onㅋㅋㅋ
-Should we just look at the paintings?
Of all things, the final map was an art museum again.
“Hmm….”
Just as I was wondering where to hide this time.
Click.
"Eat some fruit~"
The door opened behind me, and a plate of fruit was placed on my desk.
“Ah, thanks.”
Mom must have peeled it after saying earlier that she was going to buy fruit.
I looked at the neatly peeled fruit on the plate, then turned my eyes back to the screen.
Hmm… huh?
Right on time, someone perfect had arrived.
“…Mom.”
“Yes?”
“Would you like to try this?”
I was in last place anyway….
And I'd given Haebin points earlier, too, right?
So let's just cheese one game, just this once.