Chapter 117
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Non-Player Ⅳ
Shin No-a
7
Let's talk about something else for a moment.
I expressed the phenomenon of humans being tainted by the existence of aberrations as "having faith," but in fact, there's a far better term.
Being bewitched.
Being charmed. Being captivated.
Looking at the Chinese character 魅, one can see that within it resides 鬼. Ghostly energy. An attraction difficult to resist. An impulse. From this, the ancients sensed ghosts. In other words, aberrations.
Furthermore, they warned countless times.
Aberrations vary wildly from one to another. Naturally, the terms referring to an aberration's allure must also be numerous.
All these characters mean enchantment.
The reason the ancients did not remain fixed on a single word but called 魅 by various roundabout names was because aberrations dwell even within characters, and characters inhabited by aberrations immediately become curses.
It is exactly the same as when I constantly use "aliases" to refer to any aberration.
If an aberration completely occupies a single character, a single name, it is no different from building a "home" for that aberration. Therefore, the act of calling an aberration's name.
-Child. Ghost. Aberration.
-This is your home. Come here.
Is inviting them in.
To emphasize once more, an aberration's name must not be fixed as one. If you must call it unavoidably, it is correct to use a different name each time, and if you lack the knowledge and experience to do so, it is better not to call it at all from the beginning.
As the founder of the "Library Society," I deliberately created multiple methods for calling aberrations.
Take the Ten Clans, for instance.
'Crawling Spawn Cthulhu' 'Shadow Monarch' 'Thorn Hell' 'Lurker'
They were called by various aliases like these. Of course, considering that the Ten Clans were not psychic-type aberrations but merely ones that exerted physical force, I had prepared countermeasures that were perhaps excessive.
How much more so for the Alienated God, Mugin?
'Cheon-Yo-Hwa' 'School Ghost Story' 'Night Parade of a Hundred Demons' 'Hundred Tales' 'Four-Character Taboo' 'Hundred Flowers' 'White Transformation', and going further, although not frequently mentioned in the stories, 'Heraclitus's Crown of Fire' 'The Backrooms', and so on…….
I had prepared an overflowing abundance of naming options for humans.
Only this way would the aberration finally be unable to build its nest and instead be pushed around by the tumult of characters, wandering the nine heavens.
Today's episode is the same.
When beginning the story, I named the aberration "Online Game." But by now, you must also guess that there is a more suitable name than that.
'Logout Game'.
The ending given to those who become bewitched by this aberration was departure from reality.
-Anonymous: Shit game, no content lol
-Anonymous: For real, I don't even log in much these days. Doing daily quests is a pain…….
-Anonymous: When's this game getting an ending?
-Anonymous: Lvl 40 party recruiting!! No NPC portersㅠㅠ
-Anonymous: All the game addicts died so there's barely anyone left here lol
-Anonymous: Wow, why is this shit game's board still alive?
The period of players logging out grew longer and longer, and the number of people connecting to SG Net decreased more and more.
A community gradually becoming desolate.
There was one named member who consistently posted trivial posts from beginning to end.
-Goryeo-jang: Today the Guild Master NPC made me a cafe mocha.png
└Anonymous: You still haven't quit? What level?
└Goryeo-jang: This bro hit max level ages ago so now I don't run dungeons, just decorating the guild house
└Anonymous: Max level damn
└Anonymous: But how does an NPC fulfill the guild master role? Is it a bug?
└Goryeo-jang: Looking at how the game company isn't patching it, doesn't seem like a bug?
Shim A-ryeon.
While others quit the "game" one by one, Shim A-ryeon continued.
However, once she logged into the game, her actions were nothing special.
"Ah. This shit game……. It's been two years without an update so users keep quitting, tsk tsk……."
Complaining about it being a shit game.
"Guild Master! Look at this! [Coffee Beans]! Hehe. If the Guild Master receives this item, the affinity goes up, right? Hehe. It's a drop item with a really low probability from Necromancer Lich, I gathered them all and brought them! Come on, come on. Go up! Affinity, hurry up and go up……!"
Obsessing over an affinity system I couldn't understand, launching consecutive gift offensives.
"Hehehe, hehi. Hehihihi……."
Catching slimes from the Han River and beating them in every possible way.
If I watched quietly, it was such a monotonous play pattern that even I would inadvertently think, 'Doesn't she get tired of that?'
Perhaps Shim A-ryeon herself got tired of it too; she used to log in every day during her peak, but as time passed, her login cycle grew longer—1 day, 3 days, 7 days.
Even that was a steady login rate compared to other players, though.
Actually, not just players but NPCs were now few in number as well.
At best, Noh Do-ha and the Saintess?
If I looked, Goyori was probably still there too, but there was no reason to deliberately court danger.
Eventually, the three of us—me, Noh Do-ha, and the Saintess, members of the Regression Alliance—decided to gather and live together by the Han River.
There was no longer any meaning in maintaining the National Road Management Headquarters, and we couldn't continue survival staying only at the aquarium mansion in Yongsan.
Above all, in this world, the warmth of life had become excessively faint. The last NPCs, no, survivors banding together was inevitable.
"Hmm. It's quiet……."
Noh Do-ha breathed out a sigh while drinking coffee.
"The aberrations aren't particularly causing trouble either, just holed up in their dungeons. The Awakened are all motionless as if they've turned into waiting stones. This is something else. When I heard that an Undertaker Awakened had gone through countless cycles, I wondered what it would feel like to intuit the end of the world……. So this was the scenery……."
"This quiet is rare."
We watched the river drinking in the sunlight for a while.
"I'll conduct an experiment."
The Saintess said.
"Excuse me?"
"Where the people who logged out disappeared to. Whether they've truly fallen into a state like death, or as the Undertaker predicted, were dragged into the Alienated God's 'Divine Sanctuary.' I'll log into the game and find out."
"…It will be dangerous. Other Awakened simply had the sensation of returning to reality, so there was no particular effect. But if you dive in while consciously aware it's an Alienated God, what kind of reaction might emerge from the other side is unknown."
"But, we need information. The Undertaker is thinking about the next cycle anyway. Then it's right to take on some risk to gain even a bit more information."
"……."
"As you pointed out, rashly throwing oneself into an Alienated God's sanctuary isn't wise. The Undertaker's ability might be exposed. So, I'll take on the reconnaissance."
That wasn't an incorrect argument.
Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have expended the Saintess card just to carry out a mere scout's mission.
On the chessboard, the Saintess's role was King. An agent who must absolutely neither fall to the enemy nor be exposed.
But there were no longer any Awakened for the Saintess to monitor, and no need to act as Constellation Seats either.
We threw a gamble.
The guild's basement. The Saintess murmured softly.
"Status window."
"……."
"……."
Noh Do-ha and I looked at the Saintess.
"How is it?"
"…I can see my ability. Level too. But the terms referring to awakening abilities are quite different."
The Saintess wasn't looking at us but at the empty air before her, as if characters were written there.
"Can you see a logout button?"
"Logout button……. Ah, yes, here. When I open the menu, it says logout at the very bottom."
"Mm."
"Now, I'll press it."
That moment.
The Saintess stopped. Literally, her movements stiffened. The heartbeat that had been pulsing in her chest until moments ago, the gaze of her sky-blue eyes, the pale hair fluttering in the river breeze.
All of it. Everything came to a halt.
"……."
"Hmm."
Noh Do-ha reached out her hand. However, Noh Do-ha's hand simply stirred the empty air.
"I've experienced this several times now but it's an unpleasant experience. Hmm. Visible but untouchable—no different from a mirage, an illusion……."
"……."
"You decided to call it the Logout Game, correct? This aberration. It seems to quite want to render our world as fiction……."
I turned the timer.
10 seconds.
That was the time promised with the Saintess. The first logout state would be maintained for exactly 10 seconds, then escape immediately.
10 seconds passed.
The Saintess did not move.
"……."
"……."
Having anticipated such a situation might occur, the second timing was promised at 3 minutes.
2 minutes 50 seconds passed.
The Saintess still did not move.
We had also anticipated in advance that such a situation might occur, so the third timing was――.
"Undertaker Awakened."
"Yes."
"She died. That person."
"……."
"Watching the appearance of a dead person for too long is not courtesy toward the deceased. Just in case she might return, I will watch over this place. So the Undertaker Awakened should go upstairs……."
I assented to Noh Do-ha's words.
By the riverside, light was flowing down.
Calming my mind, I made two cups of coffee and went down to the basement, where Noh Do-ha's body was stopped.
"……."
I took only one cup of coffee and went back up to the surface. And I never entered the basement again.
The next day, a message floated before my eyes.
[Emergency Patch Notice.]
[The 'Administrator of the Game of All Things' informs you. A serious bug was discovered in the game yesterday afternoon at 3 PM, and a patch has been applied.]
[We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to our users. Thank you.]
8
Sometimes as a regressor, I have this thought.
Perhaps others take life more lightly than I do, endlessly turning the wheel.
In my head, which remembers everything, the hundreds of endings the Saintess met and the hundreds of scenes of Noh Do-ha reaching death were stored intact.
My comrades sometimes overlooked how their deaths would be remembered by me.
'Not yet. I can't die yet.'
In the world left only to me, where everyone had fallen into virtual existence but only this space remained real to me alone, I waited.
For the moment the Alienated God would reveal itself.
'Now the world has almost completely fallen into your grasp. You must want to declare final victory badly. But in your void, there still exists a being that proves [this is not a game].'
It was me.
'I must be an eyesore. You aberration.'
An impurity that must be eliminated to complete its void.
If the Alienated God could no longer bear it and cast off the mask of the game to reveal its true form, if the [Administrator of the Game of All Things] showed its true colors, I intended to see that form and then die.
Before that, I absolutely couldn't die. Taking regressors lightly would be troublesome. Unlike that show-off Old Man Sho who always killed himself like a pufferfish, I had backbone.
"Guild Master, have you been well? Sigh. Real life has been so busy lately that it's getting harder and harder to log in……. But whenever I think of you, I'll definitely! Visit! Hehe."
Shim A-ryeon's login cycle increased rapidly.
Now it wouldn't be strange if she logged in once a year, once every three years.
Talking with her, Shim A-ryeon herself didn't seem aware that three years had passed. She seemed to think she'd come back after only about three weeks.
'The flow of time is different.'
Well, time becoming strange in a void was only natural. At Baekhwa Girls' High School too, Cheon-Yo-Hwa hadn't thought she'd spent four years herself.
I didn't just sit and let time pass.
I entered the dungeon known to have the highest value among Korean Peninsula users and hunted all the monsters.
If I waited a bit, the monsters would respawn, but I killed even those.
For 11 years.
The experience masses that should have originally fallen to the players' share were monopolized by me, merely an NPC.
[Emergency Patch Notice.]
[The 'Administrator of the Game of All Things' informs you. A serious bug has been discovered and an emergency patch has been applied.]
[We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to our users. Thank you.]
Then not long after, the dungeon disappeared.
"Ha."
Now it seemed there was no need to even pretend to maintain the game's structure.
I destroyed dungeons throughout the Korean Peninsula one by one. Each time, an 'emergency patch' was applied, and the 'game' that had once been elaborately constructed rapidly deteriorated.
The cities and towns where players originally interacted met the same fate. Beautiful natural scenery and streets, loathsome monsters, all objects were destroyed.
Only the waiting stones of players still logged out remained scattered here and there.
My destruction continued for 37 years.
[Emergency Patch Notice.]
[Emergency Patch Notice.]
[Emergency Patch Notice.]
From some point, the 'game' even stopped changing day and night.
It was proof that even the sun and Earth had already been 'bewitched' by an Alienated God-level aberration.
The Han River's current stopped. The cicada sounds of summer ceased. Monsters, even when respawning, only hovered in place.
A bizarre world.
A broken game.
A virtual El Dorado where nothing was born and nothing died.
However, my memory continuing eternally, my flesh that kept blood and aura circulating, still impressed upon me that I was alive.
Now the time of reality had become only the memory embedded in my brain, and the space of reality had become only my body's volume.
[Emergency Patch Notice.]
212 years passed.