“Happy Raid Party, what a naming sense. Hahaha! Anyway, World of Warsunder was the only raid game with such high quality at that time! I started this game as an old man selling memories, but I can’t do as well as when I was young. Just sightseeing in-game, watching dungeons, and dabbling in crafting. It’s perfect as a pastime.”
“Haha…. I’ve heard of that game too.”
Cherni was going along with the customer’s reminiscing while following Rain and Chris.
Glance.
Rain’s eyes, slightly hidden by her white hair, turned towards Cherni.
Cherni flinched in surprise and avoided Rain’s gaze. He felt a chill as if Rain’s deep obsidian-like eyes could see through his thoughts.
“Haah.”
Cherni sighed deeply, feeling like he was sitting on pins and needles.
“Heh.”
Rain was checking the gold she had received with a cute smile on her lips. Cherni, who had been watching her from a distance, soon found himself face to face with Chris, who had approached his side.
Chris grinned and poked Cherni’s side with her elbow.
“What’s wrong with you today? I brought you instead of Bae Merong, but you’re hardly talking, and you’re lowering your voice as if you don’t want someone to hear. Did you do something wrong?”
“Well, that’s…. Ah! What should I do in this situation!”
“What…? Did you fall for our Rain? Jaewook, you’re really going to die?”
Receiving Chris’s venomous glare, Cherni vigorously waved his hands in denial.
“What are you saying! I’m into unnie’s type! I even got rejected when I hit on senior Chris at the freshman orientation, remember?”
“Kekek, to the extent of bringing up your own dark history, you must really want to deny it. Then why are you acting like this?”
“Senior Chris, have you ever heard of people with leg or arm disabilities playing virtual reality games?”
“Hmm…? It’s not unheard of. However, the synchronization rate would be very low. There’s bound to be a sense of disconnection from the body in reality. Still, by moving parts of the body that don’t move in reality through virtual reality, does provide some psychological therapy. Very rarely, in cases of acquired disabilities, the virtual reality synchronization rate can appear quite high.”
“When they can’t accept their body’s condition as reality, was it? I heard it in a lecture too. The virtual reality synchronization rate is more affected by psychological factors than the current body condition.”
“Well, even so, it’s within the range of system control variation. But why suddenly ask about that?”
“About Rain, she must have a high synchronization rate, too, right?”
“You can tell just by looking, right? It’s like she’s using a super-fast connection while others are using slow lines. Her synchronization rate must be close to the system limit.”
Chris seemed to have sensed something unusual too. Her eyes became profound as the topic of conversation reached Rain.
Rain was still smiling brightly while counting the gold she earned today.
Seeing her raising and lowering her hand with the interface open, it looked like she was considering what items to buy on the auction house.
Chris, who had been smiling for a moment watching that adorable sight, pressed Cherni again.
“So, is there some problem with Rain?”
“Before that. If you were to meet Rain in reality, what would you do?”
Chris’s eyes widened. Then her gaze became dreamy, and she started to stammer.
“Ra-Rain? In, in reality? Ah…! What should I do? What should I do? I’m so happy just being close to her in the virtual reality game, but… If I could actually touch her, it would be no joke, right? Ho-holding hands… Ma-maybe it would be okay to ask her to live together? If Rain’s parents allow it, I want to take her home and raise her!”
Cherni shook his head.
“Haah, this won’t do after all. Please forget the conversation just now.”
“What, Jaewook! After making me imagine all that! What is it! What is it!”
Thwack, thwack!
* * *
“Wh-whoa! Rain! U-unnie really hates high places!”
“I’ll hold your hand from above.”
“Hehe?! O-okay! Unnie will try her best!”
The rocky mountain area where the Demon King’s Army Outpost is located. Following the path between the rocky mountain peaks leads to the next area.
The next stage of adventure, situated between Rozelia Plains and the rocky mountain area, is ‘Silva Plains.’ I think it had a different name when I was active.
But my goal today isn’t Silva Plains. I was climbing the rugged rocky mountain with Chris.
I sighed deeply while holding Chris’s hand and pulling her up.
“You said you wanted to come along…?”
“O-of course! Anywhere is fine as long as I’m with Rain!”
Chris’s state, with her face turned pale as she looked down the cliff, didn’t seem okay at all, but she insisted on following me.
“If you fall from here, you’ll die for sure… I wonder where you’d respawn? It would take a while to come back.”
I muttered something while giggling, firmly holding Chris’s hand as she shook her head vigorously.
Indeed, Chris is a funny unnie. While usually looking gallant and confident, she sometimes showed unexpected sides.
Users called adventurers from the stars.
Astria Online, which demands growth without a set main quest guide.
A game that could be seen as having high freedom but truly lacking in user-friendliness.
Even within that, there were story maniacs who explored the worldview. They would do trivial sub-quests with meager rewards and record every bit of information on info sites.
For me, it was enough to feel the familiar scenery and sense of reality here and savor the thrill of adventure.
I put forth the pretext of doing it for money. After all, I didn’t want to leave my impoverished life and broken body as they were.
Now that I had some leeway in my life, I felt the need to explore this world that I had been turning my eyes away from.
“Are you interested in Astria Online’s worldview too, unnie?”
“Unnie just likes running dungeons and raids?”
As the path improved, Chris’s face color almost returned to normal, and she seemed more comfortable. Yet she was still holding my hand tightly without letting go.
“Ah, sorry. Was I holding too tightly? Hehe, unnie has a bit of acrophobia.”
Noticing my gaze looking down at her hand, Chris startled and let go of my hand.
Leaving Chris behind, who was somehow smacking her lips regretfully, I started climbing the rugged rocky mountain path again.
“There should be a temple once we go around this peak. Probably.”
“Wow, how does Rain know such things? Co-could it be, a hidden quest with massive rewards…!?”
“I don’t think it’s anything like that…? I’ll know when we get there too.”
The headquarters of the main deity religion.
In the past, the place that Rain, the hero of the Astria continent, visited to meet Saintess Elena.
That temple, said to be built in the place closest to the gods, was on top of a high and rugged rocky mountain.
If my memory is correct when we go around this rocky mountain peak.
“Ah.”
It’s there.
The temple is there.
However, it was very different from my memory.
The stone pillars in the front were broken here and there, swept by the ravages of time.
Looking at the entrance of the temple filled with vines growing everywhere, it seemed like at least hundreds of years had passed without human touch.
How many years have passed? How many generations have even the longevous races, said to live over 200 years, gone through?
This Astria continent, where the only traces of nations continuing after the lost records are the two empires established after humanity pushed back the Demon King’s Army’s main force.
A very long time had passed since hero Rain defeated the Demon King.
“Hidden quest reward! Legendary item!”
“Unnie….”
Chris’s eyes sparkled as she looked around the ancient temple. Did I bring her for nothing?
As the world view maniacs’ information said, the records of the Astria continent, the setting of Astria Online game, had been properly continued for hundreds of years.
However, there were no records before that.
Even in the Alpharion and Betarion Empires, which had firmly continued history for a long time, records before a certain era could not be found.
I surely spent a year after returning to the modern world. Why has so much time passed in the Astria continent?
There were no gods to answer.
Too obviously, this world was just a game.
It was just set in an era almost a thousand years after the continent I knew.
“Oh, Rain! Look at this! Is this ancient language?”
Chris, who had been looking around here and there, seems to have found characters engraved on the wall. I approached where she was.
“…”
Unlike the in-game books properly written in Korean, the temple walls were inscribed with sacred characters used a thousand years ago.
[…We felt that the gods had disappeared.]
[The lineage of saints was cut off. All priests lost their holy power.]
[How does the history of a world flow when the thread of gods is cut off.]
[If an unprecedented threat comes to the world again, who will be there to save this world.]
“A game without healers.”
If there are no gods, of course, there are no priests.
A game without healers seemed fresh for a fantasy setting, but it turned out to be historical accuracy.
Why did this world lose its gods? Surely, they were speaking properly to me until they sent me back.
Why did this world reveal itself to me in the form of a game?
I grumbled lightly.
“My head hurts.”
“Haah, there was no hidden quest after all.”
“I told you there wouldn’t be.”
I snapped at Chris, feeling inexplicably petulant.
Chris’s eyes became teary. Feeling a bit sorry, I held her hand.
“Ah!”
Chris’s face was colored with happiness again.
Really, such an easy-to-understand unnie.
Still, I had to achieve my purpose of coming here, so I walked towards the cliff side behind the temple covered in vines.
“I don’t know what you’re expecting from me, who has lost everything, but there is one thing I’m grateful for.”
“Huh?”
Chris became dazed, perhaps feeling confused by my incomprehensible muttering.
“Look here. I came to see this.”
“Oh.”
The view of Silva Plains, seen from the top of the cliff was truly spectacular.
It felt like standing at the end of the world.
The grassland stretched endlessly, and the sea of green touching the blue sky was beautiful, like a painting.
A strong wind blew, gently swaying my hair that covered one eye.
“Actually, this is all I need.”
The view seen from the cliff top of the mountain I climbed with my own feet.
The feeling of the wind hitting my body there. The grass scent it carried.
The beautiful Astria continent I loved.
Even if it’s set many years later, with only slight changes, they were still here before me.
Chris’s expression was still strange.
It doesn’t seem like she’s thinking about the meaning of my casually spoken words. Why is she gaping at me with her mouth open?
“Unnie, your expression is really funny right now.”
I smiled a little.
Swish.
Suddenly, Chris’s fingers brushed my bangs.
I flinched slightly.
Soon realizing she was trying to tidy my hair blown by the wind, I quietly let my head submit to her touch.
“There are many places with good scenery in reality too. Someday I’d like to go sightseeing such places with Rain. …Ah, forget what I just said! Unnie is happy just being together with Rain here!”
“…”
Somehow, I feel like I show myself too profoundly in front of Chris.
Although I’ve become unable to make friends at some point, her interest in me didn’t feel that bad.
But she still doesn’t know anything about me. I can’t reveal my outside-world self either.
My outside world is just a drab single room of a few square meters.
This is reality for me.
Chris and I looked down at the scenery below the cliff together for a while.