Episode 16
[- Abrea: “Hey, have you ever learned the Jeop-a language?”]
As if. In the story, it had only ever been mentioned that linguists were studying the Jeop-a language because not only its pronunciation and vocabulary, but even its sentence structure was entirely different from the Via language. My character only shook his head. At that moment, I saw Adam’s eyes briefly turn toward me before going back to Abrea.
[- Abrea: “Think about how I can tell this bastard that I got my hands on this mineral first, so he should give up.”]
You could do it too if you used special characters. Wouldn’t ‘|_ |-| 7 -| 0 |=’ work?
Of course, it was only a voice in my heart that could never be conveyed. My character didn’t know that, so he merely shrugged as if at a loss.
[- Abrea: “I felt something from that mineral. That could be an important clue, and if we let those Jeop-a bastards take it, then we’re basically losing in terms of information.”]
▷ But this is neutral territory. If one wrong move is made, we may be driven out before we can continue our investigation.
▷ This person is dangerous. If one wrong move is made, every living thing here, including our investigation team, could be put in danger.
▷ Then swipe it first.
Choices appeared. There was even a time limit of a whopping 15 seconds.
If the time limit ran out, a choice would be selected at random and the story would proceed without any major issue, but since it was more fun to choose the line I wanted and see what reaction came out, I hurriedly looked over the options. Up to the second one, they were normal, stale lines, but the third was so fundamentally absurd that I liked it.
[- Then swipe it first.]
When he said that, Helkina sharply raised her eyes and glared at my character. When Kkulppang tilted his head with an air of “what’s wrong with that?” she pressed her fingers to her brow with an utterly fed-up expression.
Perhaps thinking my words weren’t half bad, Abrea blinked, then placed her hand on the ore displayed on the stall at the speed of light. But Adam was no pushover. Without so much as blinking, he grabbed Abrea’s hand at a speed faster than light and slammed it down with a bang right beside the ore. Around them, voices of admiration—or perhaps shock—escaped like sighs.
The force must have been strong, because Abrea frowned and looked down at the hand Adam was holding. Even then, Adam did not take his eyes off Abrea. If anything, he stared even more piercingly, as if asking what kind of cheap trick she was trying to pull.
Watching him from a third-person perspective as he stared fixedly at Abrea without the slightest movement, I was reminded of the calm, persistent psychopath-type killers that often appear in thriller movies about murder.
[- Abrea: “……What should I do? This is Howa’s mission, so if I fail, Howa will have to take responsibility…….”]
Her fierce gaze toward Adam remained the same, but her voice had lost a bit more spirit than before.
Abrea, losing heart. It made me uneasy, like a piece of meat stuck between my molars. Abrea was always grumbling, suspicious, and full of complaints, but she was also brimming with the belief that she was never wrong and would never lose. I had never seen an Abrea so dispirited before.
If I had my way, neutral territory or not, I would have turned the whole place upside down and twisted that bastard Adam’s wrist once, but as a mere player, I had no choice but to stand still—or sit still?—and watch the predetermined story cutscene.
That was when it happened. Suddenly, small letters appeared above the script box.
[The other party is selecting a line. Time remaining: 15 seconds.]
……The other party is selecting a line? What does that mean?
What’s more, the number marked as time remaining was actually decreasing with real time, from 14 seconds to 13 seconds. As if the story cutscene were being shared with someone.
After that message appeared, no matter what key I pressed, it would not move on to the next script, and the progression froze. I was flustered because this had never happened before, but then the message that had thrown me into confusion vanished, the screen shifted, and the next script appeared.
[? - itivn, uizii kovnivmwaut. ziikiicki kivoovm xiioqior vnautki bilkiutvnwiycii.]
What the hell is this gibberish, I thought.
The screen moved along with my character’s gaze, and the protagonist who had spouted that alien language walked calmly out from among the NPCs. My eyes, which had been watching closely, flew wide open, and an unrefined gasp escaped my mouth.
Pale yellow sclera and pure white pupils, snow-white hair, a military medical officer’s uniform exclusive to the Jeop-a commander-in-chief, smartly adorned with gold ornaments and shoulder cords, and even the Academic Tome of the Radiant Dawn, the final weapon a Jeop-a user could currently obtain. It was an all-too-familiar character.
The one who walked out while spewing incomprehensible nonsense was none other than Jaesugang.
Title: LOLLLLL Jaesugang and Kkulppang, these two
Author: [Via] Progress Scammers Get Lost
Guess they’re fated to spend their whole lives bickering together... LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
So this is what a match made in heaven looks like
(78 comments)
- 【Best Comment】 Since people suddenly started cursing in the free board asking why everyone’s shipping real people, I’ll climb up as the explanation bot. There’s a hidden story in this main quest > Jaesugang and Kkulppang triggered the hidden story > But that hidden story was actually a pair story > Jaesugang showed the hidden story on stream, and Kkulppang appeared as his pair > This is why the free-boarders are writing romance right now. But is this the first or second time Kkulppang and Jaesugang have been linked? Shouldn’t you be used to it by now? Just accept it.
- 【Best Comment】 It’s surprising that the hidden story pairs you with another race, but less surprising than these two being the pair.
- 【Best Comment】 Let’s understand even if they start dating.
└ I’m confident I wouldn’t be surprised even if Jaesugang said on stream, “Um... actually, I started dating Kkulppang.”
└ Isn’t Kkulppang a guy? Ugh, gross.
└ Their gender’s never been revealed, though.
└ So what if he’s a guy? At this point, they’re basically a bond ordained by heaven.
└ Agreed.
└ Are you serious?
- These two are really something else; LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
- It’d be freaking hilarious if Kkulppang participated in the demo too and Jaesugang could go as well.
└ Zelsoft (*Zero Soft) has to make money too, so if they invited Jaesugang, of course they must’ve called Kkulppang too lolololol. I’m definitely going to this offline event.
- Can’t Kkulppang turn on a stream too? I’m so damn curious about their reaction lol
└ lolololol I seriously hope they do
… (View more comments) …
* * *
TIP - Although the Jeop-a and Via races are in an adversarial relationship, they needed to communicate to some degree, so renowned linguists from each race gathered and began studying the languages. However, strangely enough, they could not decipher each other’s languages, and they also failed to create a common tongue.
* * *
To call him an NPC, he looked far too much like Jaesugang’s character. No, he simply was Jaesugang.
After trying on the commander-in-chief uniform for the first time, Jaesugang had once said that the clothes and the character felt mismatched, bought an appearance change ticket, and redid his customization. I still vividly remembered how much he had bragged on stream about how pretty he had made it. That was why every little detail of Jaesugang’s character remained as if engraved in my mind: what shape the pupils were, how the eyes curved, what color the hair was, and what style it was in.
Most decisively, his weapon was the “Academic Tome of the Radiant Dawn,” which only users equipped and carried around, and even that was emitting the effects of a +12 enhancement. Even if, by some chance, an NPC had been wearing a Radiant Dawn weapon, it wouldn’t have been enhanced, so it was definitely him.
My head grew complicated. I more or less understood that the hidden quest was a story where you encountered a user of the opposing race like this, but that user was Jaesugang? Jaesugang and I met through the main quest? Did Zero Soft rig this to try some noise marketing?
The story cutscene, which had no way of knowing my confused state of mind, continued immediately without even giving me time to collect myself.
The screen, which had been showing Jaesugang in close-up, returned to Adam. Adam glanced at Jaesugang, then sighed and shrugged. Then, as if he had no choice, he let go of Abrea’s wrist.
[- Helkina: “Officer Abrea! I knew you were an impulsive person to begin with, but this time you’ve gone far, far too far! What would you have done if that man had released a plague because of you?”]
Once the situation seemed to have settled, Helkina raised her voice and approached Abrea. Even so, she kept checking Adam’s expression, but he did not seem to care much whether Helkina came this way or not.
With an aggrieved expression, Abrea handed the mineral to Helkina.