There’s no computer.
Without a computer, I can’t play games.
If I can’t play games, I can’t rice-farm.
If I can’t rice-farm, I can’t get revenge.
“Ugh…”
This was a serious problem.
For someone like me, who had no immediate way to make a living, not being able to rice-farm basically meant I should just starve to death.
In my twenty-two years of life, all I’d ever done was eat, shit, and play Ias. The idea of doing anything else was unthinkable.
“Ah, should I just become a female streamer or something?”
The mirror, which had previously reflected the face of a barely evolved ape, now reflected the face of a woman so pretty it made you turn your head on instinct.
If that hadn’t been me, I could’ve at least enjoyed the eye candy in peace. The problem was that it was me, so the reality check hit me like crazy.
“I think I could totally compete.”
I still haven’t forgotten.
Back when I was rice-farming by running raids on six characters, including my main, I saw female streamers rake in dozens of times what I earned just by dancing a few times.
If the ape-era me had danced, I would’ve gotten cursed out, but the current me seemed to have more than enough odds of winning.
If I think of it as spending all my savings and even my military savings account to be reborn as a pretty woman, maybe the vanished money wasn’t that bad after all?
[Hey, Minuk, I’m bored. Dance for us.]
[Yes, sir! I’ll tear it up right away!]
[Pfft, wow, this crazy bastard’s really insane.]
Most importantly, I was a dancer who had mastered every idol dance there was while in the army.
When my senior made me do a terminal dance, I seriously considered filing a complaint, but who knew it would end up helping me like this?
If I’d known things would turn out this way, I would’ve taken my combat boots off before kicking him at his discharge beating. Thanks to that, the culture of discharge beatings disappeared after him, though.
In any case, now that I had a way to make money, there was nothing else to hesitate over.
You could stream from a phone too, so it didn’t matter if I didn’t have a computer.
However, if there was one problem…
[Hey, Minuk, isn’t this girl freaking amazing?]
[Who’s this now?]
[She’s a female streamer who just debuted. Ah, fuck, I can’t take it. I’m going to the bathroom for a sec.]
[Here’s the tissue, sir.]
Female streamers were always consumed as objects of sticky desire.
As someone who had been a man, I knew very well what purpose they watched female streamers for.
“Urgh… No way, no way.”
No matter how strong my stomach was, becoming the power source for their anti-aircraft cannon firing shows was a little disgusting.
‘…Should I just go to a PC café?’
In the end, after going round and round, I decided to rice-farm after all.
ㅡㅡㅡㅡ
In RPGs, rice-farmers are an inevitable existence.
Some people want to buy in-game currency at a cheaper price, and some people want to sell that currency for cash.
And those two kinds of people never disappear until the day the game shuts down.
First, I sell rice to cover my rent.
After that, I keep selling rice and tank the value of the currency.
That’s how I’ll get revenge on the game company that stabbed me in the back.
It was a truly perfect plan, but before carrying it out, I needed a few stages of preparation.
“Not like anything’s changed, right?”
I may have been a top-ranking player in my own way, but that was all two years ago.
Right now, I was no different from a newbie starting the game for the first time. To overcome that, I needed a more thorough preliminary investigation.
[Ias Gallery]
[Title: Returning newbie here. What should I do first?]
[Blocked IP. Reason: Piss off, you rice-farming bitch. Ban duration: 30 days]
“Deh—”
Right. I got permanently banned from the Ias Gallery.
All I did was write a few spam posts in a fit of anger because they kept calling me a rice-farmer, but a permanent ban?
What a bunch of petty small-minded losers.
Fine. As if that was the only place I could look.
[Ias Apocalypse Gallery]
[Gallery Introduction: A community for recruiting parties and sharing information about Ias Apocalypse content]
Unlike the Ias Gallery, which was full of people who hated me, the Apocalypse Gallery was where people similar to me gathered.
Since Apocalypse content itself was minor, there weren’t many regulars, and it had naturally taken on the atmosphere of a close-knit gallery.
To me, it was practically home.
Before entering the gallery, I slowly checked the recommended posts first.
I was worried that perhaps the atmosphere of the gallery had changed while I was gone, but—
[Title: Ohtani with a bat VS barehanded Ngannou, who wins??]
[Title: You guys should never catch a mole with your bare hands]
[Title: Who’s more famous, Beyoncé or Ronaldo]
[Title: Live update, Apoc-bro is screwed]
Mm.
Nothing had changed at all.
After enlisting, even hearing news about Ias made me think of my mythic weapon that had become worthless, so I hadn’t even lurked.
But seeing everyone still the same like this made me feel good.
Good. Then shall I announce my return after a year and a half?
[Ias Apocalypse Gallery]
[Title: Explaining why Apocalypse is shit content in one line]
[Author: SeongnyeoNice]
I have returned.
Bring me the newbie settlement funds and returnee tips at once.
Otherwise, I will cripple this gallery within one minute.
After writing a post containing my return greeting, I hit refresh and waited for the comments.
Whether they’d taken the bait from the clickbait title or not, I could clearly see the view count slowly rising, and I kept pressing refresh while waiting for the comments that would follow.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
“What the?”
But no matter how much time passed, there was no sign of any comments.
“How unfortunate.”
If they had simply listened, this bloodshed wouldn’t have occurred.
Just as I was preparing disgusting images to blow up the gallery as promised…
ㄴ(Baengnyonggak) What are you, weren’t you quit?
A single comment brought peace to the gallery.
ㄴㄴ(Author) Hey. I’m back.
ㄴㄴ(Baengnyonggak) Oh
ㄴㄴ(Author) I got discharged and came back
ㄴㄴ(Grape-Flavored Candy) What, it’s been so long, Seongna-chan
ㄴㄴ(Baengnyonggak) That way of talking, fuck
ㄴ(Ungna) Oh, Seongna-chan is back
ㄴ(100:270 Selling Gold) Have you returned, hyungnim?
ㄴㄴ(Author) Who are you?
Starting with Yonggak, the registered users slowly began to appear in the comment section.
Apparently, they still hadn’t managed to quit this game.
ㄴ(Author) So when are you giving me settlement funds and tips? I’m really about to launch the tactical nuke.
ㄴㄴ(Baengnyonggak) Fuck, you crazy bastard
ㄴㄴ(Grape-Flavored Candy) Please launch it after I leave the gallery
ㄴㄴ(100:270 Selling Gold) Hyungnim, since you’ve returned, would you like to buy gold?
There still wasn’t a single normal person here.
I’d given them several chances to live, and yet they let them slip by.
Just as I tearfully prepared the nuclear launch button again…
ㄴ(Baengnyonggak) Here http://ssalmonkieistrash.com
ㄴㄴ(Baengnyonggak) It’s a video Eder-hyung uploaded. Watching this one is enough.
Perhaps sensing the crisis, Baengnyonggak instantly brought over a guide video link.
ㄴ(SeongnyeoNice) Oh
ㄴㄴ(Grape-Flavored Candy) That’s been super famous lately
ㄴㄴ(Cheongnyonggak) Eder-hyung blew up on stream because of that, so now he doesn’t play with us anymore
I wondered whose video it was, but to think it would be Eder-hyung’s.
Eder-hyung was one of the famous Ias Apocalypse demons, a registered user who practically lived in the Apocalypse Gallery.
To think someone like that had actually gone mainstream.
ㄴ(Author) Okay, okay. Thanks.
I didn’t receive any settlement funds, but since I’d learned of a good guide video, I had no further business here.
[Post submitted]
Still… I had to do what had to be done.
[Title: Kyaaaaaaaagh]
[Title: Seongna, you fucking bitch]
[Title: You said you’d spare us, you said you’d spare us, you said you’d spare us]
[Title: Don’t click the post below, fuck]
[Title: Traits of people who play Ias Apocalypse.txt (repost)]
[Blocked IP. Reason: Seongna, you son of a bitch. Duration: 7 days]
It was a splendid return announcement.
ㅡㅡㅡㅡ
Maybe because the world had changed into a parallel universe where I was born as a woman, the closet was neatly packed with women’s underwear.
Though aside from the underwear, it was all just short-sleeved T-shirts and shorts that I’d enjoyed wearing even back when I was a man.
I didn’t remember buying clothes back when I was a man, and it seemed things weren’t much different now that I was a woman.
—Ring!
I roughly threw on a short-sleeved T-shirt and shorts, pulled a black cap low over my head, and headed straight out of the house.
[Now then, to all the users starting fresh this summer break…]
On the way, I made sure to save time by watching Eder-hyung’s guide video through my earphones whenever I could.
I occasionally lost focus because I felt people’s gazes on me, but it wasn’t to the point of being that annoying.
To begin with, even before becoming a woman, I was used to receiving stares on the street.
The only difference was whether it was “Hey, your boyfriend is walking by over there” or “Hey, did you see that girl who just passed by?”
[Now then, I’ll end this video here while hoping that all of you settle into Ias smoothly.]
The moment the video ended, I arrived at the PC café with perfect timing.
[Insert cash or select a payment method.]
[Would you like to charge time?]
I inserted my card into the kiosk and charged ten thousand won without hesitation.
After that, I took the most secluded seat, logged in, and clicked Ias right away.
[I D : ]
[PW : ]
I’d been worried that my account might have disappeared too after I became a woman.
[SeongnyeoNice]
Apparently, that wasn’t the case.
Well, considering the registered users in the Apocalypse Gallery remembered me, there was a high chance the “SeongnyeoNice” account was still intact.
When I launched the game, the familiar server selection screen appeared.
I immediately clicked the server where my main character was, selected my character, and logged into the game.
[SeongnyeoNice]
A character that was practically my alter ego, raised with affection over quite a long period of time.
While looking around here and there to see if anything had changed, I opened my inventory.
“Wow, fuck.”
The moment I saw the trash in my inventory—the mythic weapon—I immediately shoved it into storage and got it out of my sight.
Even now, just looking at it made my blood feel like it was flowing backward.
My mood was ruined in an instant.
…I should just rice-farm.
RPG games like Ias hold settlement events for newbies during peak seasons like summer and winter break.
And right now was summer break season. It was the perfect time to return anew.
[WithIas2025]
After entering the coupon code in the coupon window, I received new equipment and items, then equipped them right away.
[Combat Power +1050]
My combat power rose in an instant. The feeling I got the moment I saw it was a terrible sense of emptiness.
To think that the mythic weapon I’d poured a year and a half’s worth of living expenses into, and the items I’d diligently raised for years, were pushed aside by newbie equipment handed out with a single click.
Considering the nature of RPGs, inflation was unavoidable, but to think its value would drop this much in just two years.
It truly was an incredible game.
That was enough sentimentality. I already knew it was a garbage game when I started, and what mattered right now wasn’t whether Ias was a trash game or not.
First, I had to run raids, earn gold, rice-farm, and cover my rent.
I immediately opened the raid window and looked through parties recruiting publicly.
[Vermouth 1–2 Homework Party]
There happened to be a homework party where only experienced players gathered, so I applied right away.
By the way, Vermouth was a raid released before I quit, and to think he was still current content.
Did these guys even have any intention of releasing raid content?
[Your party application has been rejected.]
“Deh.”
Rejected? And a support, at that?
In Ias, supports were precious talents you couldn’t get even if you paid for them.
There was a reason raid recruitment windows were always left with only “Last supp” sitting there all alone.
For them to reject me, that party probably already had a support who had promised to come.
[Vermouth 1–2 Experienced, last supp 7/8]
[Your party application has been rejected.]
“No, why?!”
I got rejected. Twice, at that.
My setup, my enhancement level—there was nothing wrong with any of it, so why were they rejecting me?
I really couldn’t understand the reason.
[SeongnyeoNice]
[Class: Saintess]
[Equipped Weapon: One-Handed Sword of Hellfire (+9)]