Episode 20
[General] Honey Bread : Is he the same as me and Retake?
[General] Don’tSmokeOnTheStreet : lolololol okay that’s true
[General] Socks Are Socks : ㅠ Then you’re turning down the stream...?
[General] Socks Are Socks : I really wanted to see you and Retake talkingㅠㅠ
Socks, who had been quietly waiting, asked me. They seemed pretty desperate, but there was nothing I could do.
[General] Honey Bread : I think killing is enough conversation hehe
[General] Honey Bread : Please tell him I’m sorry, I get shy around strangers and it feels too overwhelming
[General] Socks Are Socks : ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠOki... That’s too badㅠㅠㅠ
[General] Don’tSmokeOnTheStreet : Naturally
[General] Don’tSmokeOnTheStreet : Meeting an employee from a business partner and meeting someone on a blind date are different things, after all
I fired off a few skills with an effect that sent sword energy flying toward Gildam, who was babbling nonsense, and Gildam’s character slipped and dodged between the sword waves like this was a shooting game.
― “……Ah……. They turned it down?”
A voice tinged with disappointment came through my headset.
― “If they’re shy around strangers, then it can’t be helped. It’s unexpected, though…….”
Gildam said it too, and now Retake was saying it—just what kind of person did they think I was, for them to find it unexpected that I was shy around strangers? Just because I was good at killing users didn’t mean I wasn’t shy.
― “Then we can’t drag this out forever, so for the sake of progressing the story, this is where we part ways with Honey Bread.”
Retake stuck close beside my character and hopped up and down. Both his jumping and his voice were brimming with the nuance that he was reluctant to leave.
Then, all of a sudden, Retake stopped jumping, moved a little ways away from me, and used an emote. Retake’s character made a stretching gesture and slowly spread his wings. Perhaps because the surroundings were dark, his wings seemed to shine especially vividly and brilliantly.
― “Ah! Right.”
Because of the stream delay, Retake’s voice reached me belatedly. When I looked at the monitor, the stream was only then showing him spreading his wings.
I had no idea why he had suddenly spread his wings, so I used the same emote for now. Though the stretching motion itself was different, I likewise spread my wings with great vigor and faced Retake.
― “There was a viewer before who said it looked like Honey Bread’s and my wings were glowing when we fought, right?”
I felt like I remembered seeing something similar somewhere. It probably wasn’t on Retake’s stream, but on the free board.
― “Couldn’t this be something like proof that we’re connected to the hidden story? If you look now, because I’m standing close to Honey Bread, the color is clearer than usual, and if you look carefully, it’s faint, but an effect is flowing out like holographic film, you see? If I move a little farther away from here, then…….”
Maybe because he moved after explaining for a while, this time Retake folded his wings and began putting distance between us at almost the same timing as his voice reached me. Then the light emanating from my wings gradually darkened back to its original color. I hadn’t noticed it before, but after hearing Retake’s explanation, it did look quite different.
Retake used the emote again to explain it to the viewers. Since he was apart from me, the hologram-like aura had almost vanished, and the saturation had dropped a level too. This had been there since before?
― “……Like this, it returns to my usual wings. So it really was true that the closer a pair is, the more their wings shine. Wow, the first time someone said it looked like our wings were glowing was when I had seriously finished strengthening my gear and was trying to get Commander-in-Chief, right? That was almost…… six months? Around then, right? Then Honey Bread and I had already been set as a pair since then.”
At least six months ago, before it became famous that Retake and I fought, we were already a pair? Sure, this game scattered Easter eggs everywhere and was dead serious about attaching meaning to everything to create some grand design, but even setting that aside, how could Retake and I have ended up as a pair? Fascinating. Honestly, I’d thought Zero Soft had faked it to try some noise marketing.
― “……A match made in heaven? Rather than something that cliché, wouldn’t it be something more fated and profound? I don’t think there’s any other way to explain Honey Bread and me.”
He said it playfully and laughed. They were extremely abstract words, but maybe because Retake said them, they sounded fairly plausible.
― “It’s a shame that I can’t have a conversation with Honey Bread, when we’re connected like that……. Still, since we ended up doing the hidden story together as a pair, won’t we meet again while pushing through the story?”
Retake walked back toward my character. I looked down, wondering what else he was trying to do, but his character did nothing and simply stared quietly at me.
After I waited a little, Retake’s voice came through.
― “Ah. Because our races are different, the hugging emote doesn’t work…….”
It seemed he’d come over to use the hugging emote. Even though hugging wasn’t an interactive emote that required the other party’s approval like some emotes did, the fact that it couldn’t be used could only be explained by the developers having thoroughly blocked it. Since we were a pair anyway, users would have liked it if they’d made the emotes usable too…….
Once he found he couldn’t hug me, Retake opened the social emote window and pondered which emote to use. I could see his determination to use an emote on me somehow, and, how should I put it? I felt proud of him. So I typed “/pet” in chat to try to pet Retake, but perhaps they’d blocked this like hugging too, because my character didn’t make any motion and simply stood there stiffly.
― “Wow……. Nothing works. Only things like sitting, lying down, kneeling, and playing dead work. I can understand them blocking the laughing emote because it could be used to taunt, but did they really have to block even things like this? They’re completely full of thoughts of making the races fight each other.”
After pressing every single emote, Retake finally grumbled and closed the social emote window. As if he still had lingering regrets, Retake circled around me and ran about, then sent a farewell through chat instead of an emote.
[General] Retake : | ( ; -;)/ ~ ...
[General] Retake : | ; -;)/ ...
[General] Retake : | )_ ...
[General] Retake : | -;) ...
[General] Retake : |)
……He must be insane.
To me, it was a lethal dose of cuteness. Thanks to that, I couldn’t return his farewell and had no choice but to pound my keyboard until he walked away with every step dripping disappointment.
[General] Honey Bread : asdfghjkla;sd3.745q,w;‘er,;’4052nm1042qwe‘mndaslkf,;lmqguidniqrlpneoru,nqr4102qr02qrh10
[General] Don’tSmokeOnTheStreet : ㄷㄷ
[General] Don’tSmokeOnTheStreet : Keyboard smash?
* * *
TIP - When the Sina race is rendered unable to fight, cracks appear in their vision. Though if they had normal eyes, there’s no way they would crack.
* * *
Title: (Fact) Honey Bread thinks Retake is c.u.t.e.
Author: [Bia] IfINeedToPoopIShitMyPants
(chat_screenshot.png)
Anyone can see he’s keyboard-smashing because Retake is cute
Right?
(11 comments)
- Agreed agreed Anyone can see he’s breaking his keyboard because it’s cute
- lololololol Honey Bread’s cute too, birds of a feather
- Ah fuck, have mercy with that nickname, that’s nasty as hell
└ [Author] fuck, your nickname is even nastier What the hell is IfYouTrollYouShitOutYourMouth
└ You’re both the same, stop splitting hairs, you dumbasses
… (See more comments) …
Title: Why did Honey Bread refuse Retake’s streamㅜㅠ
Author: [Jeoba] TankCanIPullFirstPlease
The meeting between the two I’d dreamed of has flown away
(49 comments)
- 【Best Comment】 Whether Honey Bread is actually shy or not, it’d be a lot of pressure from his perspective. Even on the board there are guys saying Retake is obsessed with Honey Bread, so of course he’d be self-conscious
└ 【Best Comment】 So that Honey Bread bastard does know how to read the room
└ [Author] Huh??
└ Newer users wouldn’t really know how no-brakes Honey Bread used to be...
└ It’s not like he’s that different now, really. It’s just that when Retake first appeared and was settling in, that temperament was maximized...
└ Agreed
└ It was brutal back then. Everyone who interfered with Retake’s stream got purged, Jeoba or Bia alike
└ [Author] What happened back then?
└ 【Best Comment】 Want me to tell you why Server 3’s waters are cleaner than the other servers?
└ [Author] Eek; no, I don’t think I need to hear it...8-8
- If it’s come to this, we aim for an IRL meetup
└ 22
└ 3333
… (See more comments) …
Title: The hidden story is less substantial than I thought...?
Author: [Jeoba] JoseonDynastyWiggleWiggle
I was watching Retake’s stream and looking forward to when he’d meet Honey Bread again,
but not even a single hair of him is showing...
Then why did they make pairs? Just to release that one story video?
(8 comments)
- For real, it was more underwhelming than I thought. After Retake finished investigating and arrived at the dungeon, while it was unlocking, it wasn’t particularly different from the existing story, and it’s not like he kept meeting Honey Bread either...
└ [Author] Agreed
- Once the dungeon opens next week and gets cleared, won’t something like a follow-up story open?
└ [Author] Oh... That makes sense. Dusk wouldn’t do something like this
- According to the prediction of King-God-General-Elite-Master’s-PhD story scholar Teacher Retake, I think it could be a little underwhelming
└ [Author] That the hidden story is foreshadowing for the next major update? Still, isn’t it too blandㅜ
└ It’s hard to put anything too major in a story that only some users can see, after all
└ [Author] That’s trueㅜ