LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 5
Where am I? Who am I?
It’s a bit cold since the sun isn’t out. The wind is blowing. My right ear is itchy.
What does cold mean? The wind? Where is the right?
“Ah… Hello?”
A girl shyly greets me.
She looks barely twenty, her pure, long hair fluttering in the wind.
Perhaps it’s the chilly weather; her cheeks are flushed red.
“You. You? You… Yes, who are you?”
“Ah…? Haha, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Seol-ah. As you can see, I’m a gamer just like you.”
“A gamer?”
“This is inside a game! In fact, I haven’t played much either, so I don’t really know… but I’ll help you! Want to follow me?”
The girl, who introduced herself as Seol-ah, grabbed my hand and led me to a spot filled with a red light.
She was quite the chatterbox.
“I’ll explain just once, so pay attention! I might forget, so feel free to ask again; I’ll explain kindly… um, but it’s better to memorize it all at once!”
“This is the Starting Village. If you check your pocket, you’ll find some money. If you give this money to the merchants here, they’ll give you items worth that price. Don’t worry about scams; it’s a game. What items should we buy? Hmm…”
“This is our team’s Fortress. You must protect it with all your might! How much should you put in? Hmmm… as much as our lives?”
She led me to a place where there were other people too.
“Before heading to the lane, stop by the forest to help the jungler. But you must never take out that monster yourself! They’ll get really mad!”
Leaving the friend I didn’t understand behind, we joined a battlefield bustling with chaos.
On the opposing side stood figures similar to us, taking down our soldiers one by one.
“Let’s do the same thing. You have that Fox Orb, right? Throw it as far as you can!”
“But don’t go too far ahead! Run away from the scary monsters!”
“Hehe. I got caught too. It’s okay, it’s okay. I just have to live next time. Let’s fight again!”
“This game… seems tough.”
At that time, I was foolishly passive.
Unless Seol-ah specifically told me to do something, I would not move.
I often got isolated and died before I could catch up with Seol-ah, who was busy darting around.
Every time that happened, Seol-ah would encourage me not to give up, but in contrast, her light didn’t seem very bright. The shadow of impatience loomed over her.
“Let’s… yes, let’s start again from the beginning. Who’s perfect from the start anyway?”
How many hours have passed since we started? After yet another accumulated defeat, we returned to the Waiting Room. Seol-ah stared blankly at the wretched streak of losses.
Red. Crimson. Bright red. Reddish.
“I lost ten in a row…”
“Are you struggling too? But at least it was fun today, right?”
“Let’s go home now. I’m sorry for making you suffer from day one.”
We had a home.
A plain, white, empty room.
Barely furnished with just a bed, a table and one chair each, plus a decent carpet.
“I guess I need to sell this carpet. I liked it, though.”
After fiddling with a few buttons, the carpet vanished without a trace.
She sat me down on the bed and showed me the screen she was manipulating.
Wiggly letters floated in the air.
I easily realized it was kanji.
But what is kanji?
“When you win a match in the game, you receive these titles. Then, you can resell them like this. See, click here… raise the title, set the price… um, I could sell this for a thousand won. Finally, click that button, and we’re done. Not hard, right? I’ll show you again, watch.”
“It’s hard, and you probably don’t even know why we’re doing this right now… but you have to do it after the game! Once everything is sold, we can go back to gaming!”
“Tired? Why don’t we sleep and see each other tomorrow? You have to promise to play games with me again tomorrow!”
Seol-ah was optimistic about everything, but she certainly had her competitive side.
When she missed a game she could have won, she cried uncontrollably. In 2v2 battles, she never let her guard down. Sometimes, she would even forget to breathe.
But whether I was gaming or sleeping, she was always gaming. It wasn’t until dawn when I caught a glimpse of her sleeping form, having briefly been stirred by my presence.
“Seol-ah.”
“Yeah?”
“How long will you keep playing?”
“Today feels like it’s going to be a good day! Just a little longer, won’t you play with me?”
“Alright.”
Today’s record had slightly improved from the first day: 2 wins and 19 losses.
But after losing 19 matches in a row and miraculously securing two wins, her excitement was at an all-time high.
“Let’s play until I lose just one more match.”
Today, she was more desperate than usual. But that didn’t mean her skills had changed significantly. The only difference was that after a week of intense training, I was beginning to understand the game.
I started to understand her commands and learned to perform tasks without being told.
For example, I grasped the mechanics of resource acquisition and the differences in risk exposure based on frontline positions, and I even figured out how to modify frontlines on my own.
I also realized that focusing on multiple fortresses rather than just one was more beneficial. Aside from that, small but crucial pieces of knowledge began to pile up in my mind.
In this game, these minor things became stepping stones to growth, and having grown well, we began stacking the foundational stones for victory one by one.
However, this game wasn’t a solo endeavor, and inevitably, our miraculous winning streak would come to an end.
We hadn’t lost out of sheer awful luck. We just happened to be weaker than the opponents, our composition wasn’t good, or we simply had bad luck, even in similar circumstances. I thought it was just a game we could lose. But perhaps it was different for Seol-ah.
“We lost…”
“Yeah.”
“Was it fun?”
Though drained, I couldn’t deny it was fun.
I gave a slight nod.
“I had fun too.
Being able to spend time with you… was great…
Sobs… I really think it was fun…
I’m sorry…”
“Why are you apologizing?”
“I don’t think we can play together anymore…”
She knelt down, weeping.
Seol-ah’s eyes met mine directly. I realized for the first time that she was quite tall.
“Now, I won’t wake you up. You need to get up on your own. You’re going to get up by 7 AM at the latest, right?”
“Yeah…”
“Now you’ll play the game without me. You have to make sure to play at least 20 matches a day, okay?”
“Yeah…”
“Just because you think the game is fun, doesn’t mean you should stay up late. You’ll oversleep the next day. Got it? You promise?”
“Can’t we… play together?”
At my question, Seol-ah kept silent for a while.
“Yeah… I didn’t like the game. I hate it, I hate it, I’m sick of it.”
“Why?”
“Because… it’s obvious that a game made for enjoyment becomes pointless if you can’t enjoy it, right?
If I can’t earn money through the game every day, my fate is to die trapped in the capsule.
I was scared.
Wondering if I would lose again.
Counting how many matches I needed to win just to survive another day was exhausting.
When the game dragged on and wouldn’t end, I felt like I could suffocate.”
Seol-ah was silent for a long time.
Before long, enemies had breached our Fortress and launched a final assault.
Perhaps due to the sunset, her cheeks were flushed bright red. Maybe it was the chill; something like dew was gathering around her eyes.
“I want to call your name one last time.”
“I don’t know my name.”
“It’s okay. I’ll give you one.”
Slowly, she began to speak.
Her eyes directed towards the top of my head.
“Na-me.”
“Na-me?”
“Yeah. See?”
She pointed at something above my head.
[NoName]
“I don’t speak English well, but… I can read.”
Seol-ah hugged me tightly.
“Your name isn’t just nothing. It’s a beautiful name called Na-me.”
“Na-me… I see.”
“Our Na-me has to survive. Be tenacious and live on, even for your mom’s sake. One day, if you wait and wait… there will be someone to rescue you from here.
To be honest, I was going to keep pretending to be your sister…
But… I can’t…
Sniff… Hiccup… I can’t…
You’re my daughter.
I’m scared of dying,
But forgetting is scarier.
Please remember, there’s only one mom named No Seol-ah.
My proud daughter, Na-me.”
*
I still haven’t grown.
My mind is maturing, yet this tiny body remains the same.
I know the reason.
The age supported by the Virtual Reality Capsule is from seven years old. If you get trapped in the capsule from birth and access the virtual reality through illegal means, naturally, you’ll take on the standard body shape of someone aged seven.
When I was an infant, having a body expected seven years later—I wonder if I’ve grown to be just like this? I don’t really know. The cost of checking would be too great.
Seol-ah, in the end, quietly closed her eyes without explaining why we were trapped in the capsule.
Maybe she hoped I wouldn’t get involved in something bad. I don’t know the details. I don’t really want to know.
But there are times when it’s good not to grow.
When lying here with just my mom, it feels like time has stopped.
Neither my mother nor I have managed to escape from six years ago.
It seems Seol-ah initially considered suicide.
Because the name of the capsule we were trapped in, ‘MEIMEI-2X’, another term for it is ‘coffin.’
A so-called ‘coffin.’
A counterfeit made to compete against USA’s Mana-Tech. It received a lot of attention for its reasonable performance despite being a low-cost model initially.
Moreover, it featured complete soundproofing, full odor blocking, and total nullification of mana interference. But soon enough, a certain incident occurred that would explain why this product was still being referred to derisively as a coffin.
When a client error occurred in the ‘MEIMEI-2X’, there was a considerable chance that the capsule’s entrance wouldn’t open.
It had become so performance-centric that it developed flaws in its mechanical parts. Particularly the hinge mechanism was a mana-blocking product, so there was no means to open it remotely from the network.
Unless firefighters forced the entrance open, you’d be trapped inside.
Of course, the product was recalled entirely, but… companies looking to minimize deficits naturally resorted to tricks.
They still had methods to sell it off cheaply to individuals in the shadows.
But there’s always someone looking to exploit such situations, regardless of the company’s intent.
Someone came up with the idea of trapping people inside capsules, taking advantage of the fact that it was a complete mana-blocking product.
In today’s world, everyone has a biometric chip, leaving no ways to hide anywhere on Earth. Damage was something that must never happen.
But what if they were tossed into a capsule that didn’t get detected by mana?
They might eventually get caught, but in the meantime, the person would be unable to send a rescue signal or even register as deceased in the database.
After hard work, all that remains is a cold body and the criminals who disappeared without a trace.
If only they could sabotage the language processor module and protocols,
There would be no chance for survival.
But it seems Seol-ah realized I was trapped with her and thought of ways to survive. So, through tricks upon tricks, she came up with this silly title farming.
Initially, she might have been collecting money desperately while gaming alone for survival, but handling two people’s worth became a limitation.
Eventually, she gambled on teaching me how to play, and as someone who remembers a past life to some extent, I could only follow her instructions with an intelligence less than two years old.
Yeah, that was dumb luck.
But I thought such dumb luck wouldn’t happen twice.
At least not until the prince and princess appeared before me today.
Well, instead of a prince and princess, it was a Spiky Turtle and an Ice Hawk.
As I spent time in a lovey-dovey fashion with Liri, the game was approaching its end.
The ancient tower crumbled, and flames engulfed the fortress.
Our allies lost all fighting spirit and retreated.
Three enemies focused solely on destroying the remaining fortress.
But what about you?
Why did you leave the fortress and come to the Starting Village?
“■■■■■■■■: ■ ■ ■ ■ ■■■ ■■■■? ■■ ■ ■ ■■■■■ ■■ ■■■ ■■■?”
Oh, those signals I’ve been sending?
Ah, I see.
Finally… you’ve come, Mom.
People may be foolish, but
When a million gather, maybe one or two aren’t foolish.
Though I didn’t laugh or cry, no, I couldn’t…
I was able to blink my eyes happily like never before.