Chapter 169

Chapter 169

Born in 1998, no mom or dad.
If he was famous in Polaris’ local community, he was famous. His nickname made him an easy target for aggro. He was often the prey of the flame wars that followed every major update.
Well, obviously, I had a lot of padlips…….
Title: (Verified) PervertProfessor123 Room Exposure Review
While the floating eyepieces got away with it, there were a few guys who crossed the line with static nicks, and every personal attack they made was documented.
It didn’t even have to go to actual court.
Subject: We apologize for the inconvenience.
If the vibe was cheap, most of them would turn tail. It’s the life of an asshole in the community, so it’s understandable that a little threat would turn them into docile sheep.
Regardless of the issue, “Born in 1998” was a deceased user. He was the type of player who enjoyed the game deeply without hesitating to pay for it even if he had a job. He often commented on newbies’ posts even though he didn’t use strategies.
Yoo Dahui, alias “female professor traveler pretender,” was another user who benefited from his help.
Subject: Military Veteran Female Student Jiang Question 5!
How do you catch a (bad word*^^*) Camelia?
└ Dispel Character Equipment + Art Compute
└ Neither of these are present;;
└ Gemwraith Reincarnation without Ast
I’ve gotten advice on how to get around stuck stages,
Subject: Military Veteran Female Student Jiang Q21?
Got 5 draws, and this popped up ++ Is this good, or what??
└ Concept disgusting, there’s no sane person in polchan?
└ (Asta scorned cone)
Sometimes I’ve been called names.
He wasn’t that strange, really. Just an ordinary gamer with a sincere side to him. At least, that’s how Yudahi perceived him.
“Do you happen to know Polchan?”
“I’ve seen it. You.”
“What? Oh, a little bit of me too.”
I didn’t feel comfortable revealing my community nickname, so I fumbled around. ‘Born in 1998’ didn’t match the man in front of me. In the first place, Yoo’s reputation in the community was not good.
At first, I was a newbie conceptualizing, but as I got into a rush, I ran into problems.
**Title: Nothing to do, Trash Game –?**
Title: Why choose a male professor in a weeb game, are you gay??
Subject: Sigh -_-;; If you can’t do it, at least try harder. Are you lazy?
Title: Isn’t it true that newbies these days are less intelligent? -__-?
…… and so on.
I was once sniped at for not remembering my newbie days. By someone who was born in ’98. I remember getting red-faced and deleting my old posts.
Those were the good old days.
“Enough with the nonsense.”
The tension rose again in his low voice.
“How long have you been down here?”
“I don’t know exactly when that was, but it was, like, four months ago.”
“How did you get to Kilikia?”
“I just woke up and it was around here….”
Just as Kim explored Yoo Dahui, Yoo Dahui explored Kim.
“It wasn’t you?”
He seemed to be struggling with the name, but it didn’t matter. Kim’s concern was how much information should be open. Even if it didn’t seem dangerous, there was no reason to explain it right away.
“Conversely, there’s no real need to hide it.
In the end, it was all about the line.
“I’m a couple years old, and the next thing I know, I’m in a Cadillac.”
“Really? What’s the difference?”
“I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to figure that out.”
I calmly listened to Yoo’s story.
“I said it casually, but it was actually pretty close, because I woke up and I was in some kind of construction site, like abandoned and stopped, and I realized later that this was Polaris.”
“How did you get to the city?”
“It was a stupid thing to do, ……in retrospect, I just went into a random building and hid the whole time. Why, in a movie or something, the castaway wanders around uselessly and endangers the rescuer.”
Normally, it would be dead.
You get the picture. Only when hunger and thirst strike do you realize that there’s no one to help you. You scramble to get to safety, but you’re already exhausted.
Outside the city, dangers abound. You could end up as a monster’s dinner or run into a tramp. Which is worse will vary from person to person.
But Yoo Dahui is here, alive and well.
“All of a sudden, people were coming toward where I was.”
“Not a bum?”
“Yeah, luckily I was a regular citizen, I heard it was one of the city’s periodic cleanups, and I grabbed it by the crotch and managed to get out.”
He concludes by saying that he was very lucky.
Unless he was lying, he had nothing to do with the episode. We should contact Kabek to verify the facts. Even if it turned out to be true, it wouldn’t guarantee that it was Yudahee’s “starting point.
“We cleared quarantine quickly, no symptoms, low levels of measured contamination… At first you’re like, ‘Oh my God, I’m alive,’ and then you’re like, ‘Oh my God, I’m not alive,’ and then you’re like, ‘Oh my God, I’m not alive,’ and then you’re like, ‘Oh my God, I’m not alive.
“So?”
“It’s just the same.”
Phew, she sighed.
“I don’t know why that shitty Kilikia is still alive and well in the game, and the prices are going crazy, but I can’t help it. I don’t have a week’s worth of food right now, and I can’t go anywhere.”
This was another thing that would come up. Where she worked and how much she was paid. Everything, including her access to restaurants and lodging.
Kilikia is such a city, and Kim has the power to find out about others.
“This gritting of teeth… and rumors.”
Yoo Dahui blatantly glared.
“I saw a company called Dustborne, and I thought, ‘That’s weird, maybe there’s someone in the same situation as me, or maybe there’s actually someone from the Polaris developer.
“What does it look like in person?”
“……I honestly don’t know.”
He hesitates for a moment, then opens his mouth.
“You’re so different from me. You don’t have a life, you don’t have a vibe.”
“How’s my mood.”
“Excuse me, but I don’t think it would be offensive to say that. I don’t think I’d be offended if you were originally from here.”
The answer sent ripples through Kim’s emotions.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t a negative feeling. Rather, it was a dilution of the unpleasantness I felt from the moment I heard the word “Polaris.
“Stir, I’ve said my piece.”
A shambling face stumbled into the snow. It was a grim smile. But there was a desperation and gloom in his eyes that he couldn’t hide.
“Hmm.”
I figured it would be okay to tell them. It was more of a give and take than sympathy. So far, Kim had gotten quite a bit out of the conversation.
We started explaining.
I didn’t go into too much detail. Instead, he focused on the differences from the game that Yoo had questioned. Why Kilikia didn’t collapse, and why the time zones were twisted in so many ways.
How Yi Hyun Kim came to nest in Kilikia. It was told in brief. As the story progressed, Yoo’s jaw dropped lower and lower.
“You’re lying, aren’t you?”
“What you believe is up to you.”
Yudahi couldn’t understand it. Even though she knew the future through her knowledge of the game, was it really possible for a mere mortal who played the game?
“Did you used to be in the Special Forces, or something like that…?”
“I was just a caterer.”
“No, then how in this shitty game.”
It’s a harsh choice of words, but one that Kim agrees with. It’s not about the game, it’s about the shitty worldview. Even if you think about it, you don’t know how you’ve survived this long.
“I got lucky along the way.
It’s not just luck, he says, but a complex set of reasons why he’s survived, why he’s been able to do the episodes so far.
“I’ve seen a lot of ugly, I’ve sacrificed a lot.”
Yoo couldn’t relate, but it didn’t matter. It was nothing new. The secrets she couldn’t tell Leila or Asterike were already tattooed on her body.
I don’t feel regret in hindsight.
I’m just scared, I’m just worried, and I’m just like, “This is what I have to do.
“Uh, huh? What is this, why….”
He drew a pistol from his waistband and held it to his forehead.
“Like I said, I’ve sacrificed so much, so much, to get here. It’s hard enough as it is, and I don’t want to deal with any more variables.”
Yudahee’s breathing was ragged as her eyes sunk.
“Don’t tell me what I do. I can’t do anything, I told you, I live in a cockroach infested place, I can’t even buy coffee because I don’t have any money.”
“Then you shouldn’t have approached them in the first place.”
“…… Anything! I thought maybe it would make a difference, but if it doesn’t, I’m not greedy, okay? I’ll just keep quiet and live like I’ve always lived, like I’m not there.”
“Every breath you take is a burden to me.”
Chiric.
As the hammer came down, tears burst from Yudahi’s eyes.
“Man, I knew it, I knew this would happen someday.”
Yudahi dropped her head helplessly. Instead of the floor, chilled by the night air, she saw scenes from the past. It was the near-death experience she had only heard about.
Life is full of bullshit.
We’ve all had accidents in our lives.
Each time, they survived, but there was no guarantee that they would continue to do so. The “drifting” that had begun months earlier was more than the average person could handle.
Hindsight is 20/20.
Maybe subconsciously, I knew the end was coming sooner or later.
Maybe that’s why I’ve been trying to force myself to explore the dustbone.
“Ew, ugh. What a shitty life….”
She sat still, helplessly compliant to death. Not so when Kim stabbed her in the back, pretending to be a Legion soldier. She didn’t even try to resist.
‘After all, there is no way to physically resist.
As a sour odor hit his nostrils, Kim holstered his gun.
“You, what’s your last name?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Nope. No thanks.”
This is how we identified the character “Yoo Da Hee”.
“I see you can’t see the agent records.
Has a spell of some sort, but is not [specially equipped]. It appears in a location unrelated to the episode. The viewpoint is also out of sync with the tutorial.
Comparing herself to Yoo Dahui, she realized where she stood. If the professor was the first player, then Kim was the second player.
“Drifters would be a better word for them than me.
I think I got it.
The death of Markus Dresner is the decisive factor in Yudahee’s drift. It’s similar to how a cataclysmic event caused a rift in the world of Polaris to widen, resulting in the appearance of parasites.
“We’ve collaborated in games and pulled in other characters here and there.
A rift that connects to the Otherworld.
It couldn’t be more convenient to use in games. At the time, I thought the money-crazed developers were thinking big from the start, but now I see it differently.
‘…… It’s a game.’
Yoo Dahui’s appearance dismissed a theory.
The reasoning that there are many other Polaris worlds besides this one – and that Kim only fell into one of them. I thought it was pretty convincing, but this time it was completely negated.
“Is this really in a game?
A fundamental question about Polaris came to a head.
It was a world that existed somewhere between a game and reality.
But what if we exclude the information that ‘Kim Yi Hyun’ and ‘Yoo Da Hee’ have?
At the time, I wondered if Polaris could be described as a game.
‘Unless this is some kind of forebrain space….’
How much weight is sitting on my shoulders?
That didn’t last long.
“Al banga.
Kim shrugged it off. In the end, it was a matter of life or death, and if he could do it well, he could save his life and the lives of those around him. Nothing would change.
It’s always the same conclusion.
But today, I felt strangely good. I couldn’t wait to see Asterique, Chelsea, my other colleagues at Dustborne, and the guys at the Cellbrox Labs, and to make small talk with them.
He cut the ropes that bound him, and his whole body stiffened in anticipation of the blade stabbing him, but there was no bloodshed.
“I’m not going to pay you for scaring me, but I’m going to support you.”
“…….”
Even though she wanted to, she couldn’t say anything. She was ashamed of herself for urinating, and most of all, she was afraid of Kim Yi-hyun, who was pointing the gun at her in an unusual way.
I didn’t even look up, just listened.
“You’re welcome to come to us, I don’t have to tell you, but don’t talk nonsense. As long as you take care of the basics, we’ll make sure you have a good life.”
The words he spat out so casually reeked of blood. I understood Kim’s footsteps in a more realistic way than I ever had before.
“…… Can I ask you two questions?”
Yudahi said in a crawling voice.
“Do you want to go back?”
“No. Not at all.”
The answer came back without a second thought. She didn’t ask why. Even without knowing Kim’s past, Yoo knew that she would never be able to return to her old self.
I nodded, then asked another question.
“Did you ever think about killing me?”
Again, there were no blanks.
“Of course.”
The words I’d heard earlier echoed in my head.
What you believe is up to you.