Players

Chapter 10

—–CROW—– 

“Blood. The three of us were in the same blood oath in the game,” Kim Kang-san said, speaking for the other two.  It seemed the three of them were close, like brothers.

Blood.

Korea’s second oldest MMORPG.

Twenty years had passed since its release, yet it still held a spot in the MMORPG rankings, a long-lived veteran.

It was a game that had given rise to the darker aspects of online gaming—pay-to-win, botting, and excessive gambling—but it was also a pioneer of the first generation of Korean online games, expanding the base of online gaming itself.

Literally light and darkness.

For better or worse, it was a symbolic presence in Korean online gaming.

In any case, Blood.

‘So, Blood-geese after all.’

‘Blood-geese’ was a term used to refer to older players of Blood.

Blood had a long history, and the influence of so-called “cashing” was strong. Perhaps due to its simple gameplay, there were a considerable number of players in their 40s and 50s, a demographic rarely seen in other games.

Perhaps because I was thinking of them as older, Kim Kang-san’s face suddenly seemed more mature.

When I first saw him, he seemed to be in his late 20s, but now he looked to be in his mid to late 30s.  His actual age might be even higher.

When the three men finished their story, the attention naturally shifted to Park Han-young.  Their eyes darted around before answering, “PekoPeko Online.”

Kim Kang-san, as well as myself and Sung Yoo-jin, blinked.

PekoPeko Online?

I had never heard of such a game. Park Han-young shrunk back even further.

“I-It’s a Japanese game.  Not PC…but…c-console.  It’s a fairly well-known series among fans, but…”

PekoPeko Online.

I couldn’t even begin to guess what kind of game it was, but it made some sense.  Considering cultural differences, it would be difficult for a game with such a strong ninja concept to come out of Korea.

With Park Han-young’s explanation, the introductions of their respective games were over.

Six players.

Each from a different game.  Four games in total.

Ahn Jae-min shook his head as if dizzy. “I can’t believe we’re from different games…”

It was unimaginable.  In typical manga or novels, everyone who experienced something like this would be from the same game.

Of course, the very premise of being transported to another world with game abilities was absurd to begin with.

Kim Kang-san asked me again, “You said Fighter Online, right?”

“Yes, a fighting game.”

Contrary to his appearance, Kim Kang-san was quite sociable. At my casual reply, Ahn Jae-min muttered, “Wow…so that’s why you’re so fast.”

The power of a trained human was truly remarkable.

It was a concept difficult to grasp for ordinary people who rarely saw, let alone experienced, real fights, but even in reality, there was a significant difference in speed between a martial arts expert and someone unfamiliar with combat.

Of course, whether it was Fighter Online or Blood, the characters in those games were all superhuman, so comparing a trained human to a layman wasn’t entirely accurate.

But there was a difference in genre.

There was a huge difference in speed between a fighting game, where players fought in real-time, and a classic RPG, where clicking the mouse was the primary form of control.

Moreover, Fighter Online was a game that emphasized speed even among fighting games, and my character, Dark Destiny Lord, was a speed-type character who emphasized speed even further.

Ahn Jae-min had clearly witnessed me taking down the Knolls, but that was all.  He hadn’t been able to grasp how I had defeated them, or what attacks I had used.  In the blink of an eye, five Knolls were on the ground.

“Truly amazing,” Ahn Jae-min said with almost naive admiration. Kim Kang-san nodded in agreement.  Then, Kim Nam-young, who had been quiet until now, suddenly interjected, “You said you came from the 10th floor?  Then do you know what floor this is?”

It wasn’t overtly aggressive, but there was an accusatory tone to Kim Nam-young’s question.

My eyebrows furrowed slightly, and Sung Yoo-jin, ever perceptive, quickly stepped in.  She tugged on my hand and answered Kim Nam-young, “It’s the 6th basement floor.  The place we were in was the lowest level.”

Strictly speaking, Labyrinth was an eleven-floor dungeon, but she judged there was no need to mention the last floor.

Instead of responding to Sung Yoo-jin, Kim Nam-young looked at our joined hands.

Kim Kang-san stroked his chin.  “We came up from the floor directly below. It seems there’s more than one staircase connecting the floors.”

The Labyrinth dungeon was vast. Part of the reason I suspected an ecosystem existed within the dungeon was its sheer size.

Players starting on different floors.  Perhaps there were even more players within Labyrinth.

I turned my gaze elsewhere.  “What about you, Han-young?”

Park Han-young, who had been hesitating, unable to find a moment to interject, quickly replied, “I-I started here. On the 6th floor.”

“Is there any proof that you were on the 10th floor?” Kim Nam-young interrupted.

My eyes narrowed, and Sung Yoo-jin squeezed my hand, gauging the situation.  Ahn Jae-min looked nervously between Kim Nam-young and me.

As the atmosphere grew tense, Kim Kang-san was the first to react.  He reached out his large hand and pressed down on Kim Nam-young’s head, then bowed to me.  “I apologize on his behalf. He’s just agitated and confused…Please forgive him.”

He bowed his head again, his face full of apology.  Since Kim Kang-san, who looked at least ten years older than me, was bowing his head and being so humble, I couldn’t help but soften.

And honestly, it was natural to be confused.  We were stuck here, with no idea what was happening in the real world.

It wasn’t that I didn’t understand Kim Nam-young’s impatience.

Of course, understanding it didn’t mean I had to tolerate his rudeness.

“Now, you too,” Kim Kang-san urged. Kim Nam-young grimaced, but then bowed his head to me.  It was a reluctant apology, but I decided not to dwell on it.

Sung Yoo-jin seized the opportunity. “There is proof.  We were able to obtain information on the 10th floor.”

With a deliberately bright tone, Sung Yoo-jin looked at me, and I nodded.  I addressed Kim Kang-san.  “There were other bodies there.  We were able to get some information from them.”

“Other people? People who were playing games like us…Players?”

There were already six players here.  A couple more wouldn’t be surprising.

I shook my head. “I’m not sure about that. But if they *were* players, they definitely arrived here much earlier than us.”

The existence of the strategy journal.

Moreover, Leif Erikson had cleared the dungeon from the 1st to the 10th floor.

From the outside in.

I didn’t immediately reveal the journal. I glanced at Sung Yoo-jin’s hand, which I was still holding, and said to everyone, “Let’s move for now.  It would be best to discuss this further in a safe place…and figure out how to escape this dungeon together.”

We didn’t know when more Knolls might appear.  Counting the ones Sung Yoo-jin and I had defeated before meeting this group, there were close to ten, but we couldn’t be complacent.  There was no guarantee the Knolls always traveled in packs of ten.

Kim Kang-san understood immediately.  Without delay, he signaled to Ahn Jae-min and Kim Nam-young to move.

Sung Yoo-jin breathed a small sigh of relief.  She had been worried that the friction between me and Kim Nam-young might escalate into a fight, but it seemed to have been resolved peacefully.

‘They don’t seem like bad people.’

Ahn Jae-min seemed timid, but he seemed kind, and Kim Kang-san seemed quite reliable.

‘Thank goodness.’

Breathing another sigh of relief, Sung Yoo-jin fidgeted with her hand. She suddenly became aware that she was still holding my hand tightly.

She glanced at me, and perhaps because she had moved her fingers, I looked at her too.

Just as our eyes met,

“H-Hey!”

Park Han-young, who had been quiet, suddenly shouted.  But it was only for a moment.  As everyone’s gaze focused on her, she shrunk back and muttered in a small voice, “I…I have something important to say.”

She seemed naturally timid, even glancing around nervously.  But she had shouted to get everyone’s attention. I listened intently.

“I…I have a stealth skill…a-and…so I’ve explored most of the 6th floor.  I…I also f-found…the stairs to the 5th floor.”

Everyone’s eyes widened at the mention of the stairs.  Park Han-young flinched and cowered, even though no one had threatened her.  She stammered, “B-But…”

She trailed off again, gauging everyone’s reactions, before blurting out, “There’s only one staircase, and it’s blocked!”

“Blocked? You mean the stairs have collapsed?” Sung Yoo-jin asked quickly.  Park Han-young shook her head.

“N-No.  N-Not like that…It’s…”

She couldn’t find the right words, her eyes darting around.  She wanted to say something, but the words seemed to escape her.

I took a step forward.  The moment I heard the stairs were blocked, something came to mind.  “A floor boss?”

A boss that existed between floors.  A kind of gatekeeper.  A common trope in games where you had to clear facilities floor by floor, whether it was a dungeon or a tower.

Park Han-young clapped her hands.  “T-That’s right! A boss! A huge monster is guarding the stairs!”

She nodded repeatedly, as if relieved to have finally gotten the words out.  I couldn’t be sure since only her eyes were visible, but I imagined her smiling brightly beneath the cloth wrapped around her face.

But the rest of us weren’t smiling.

A floor boss.

A single staircase.

Sung Yoo-jin looked at me.  Her gaze held a clear question, and I nodded.

Leif Erikson’s strategy journal.

It contained no information about a floor boss on the 6th floor.

—–CROW—– 

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