By Zephyria 
=====
Identity
WELCOME TO LA VIDA 🙂
~Year 16, Day 39~
[Quest]
Main Quest
Tutorial (Completed)
CHAPTER 1 (Completed)
CHAPTER 2 (Completed)
CHAPTER 3
☞ The Rampaging Clown (Completed)
Love letter from an unknown sender √
A special delivery √
List of missing persons √
Save the miners √
Goryeo Library √
??? √
☞ God Save Us (Completed)
Dust-covered pad √
Unexpected encounter √
Please accept the newcomer, Sister √
Secret prayer √
☞ Stepping Stone for the Leap (Completed)
A new workplace √
Mission. Special Training. √
Whispering people √
There was one more √
Shining medal √
☞ Do You Believe in the Way? (Completed)
Suspicious approach √
Cast the bait! √
300,000 deal in the name of Jin Mu-hae √
How to distinguish a spy √
The first person, the second person, the third person, and Seo Ju-gyeong? √
Vrrr-!
Progress for [CHAPTER 3] is 100% complete.
Entry reward for [CHAPTER 4] is…
[Quest]
Main Quest
Tutorial (Completed)
CHAPTER 1 (Completed)
CHAPTER 2 (Completed)
CHAPTER 3 (Completed)
CHAPTER 4 (Loading…)
☞ ……⧖
Entry reward for [CHAPTER 4] is delayed.
Ding.
Would you like to record your journal?
> Yes
* * *
[Day 5,879]
Year 16, Day 39. Weather: Clear and windy.
I feel like I used to write my journal like this a very long time ago.
Writing the date, recording the weather. But I don’t remember the contents very well.
I am still lying in bed, stretching my arms and legs upward and looking around. Human hands and feet are small, soft, and look perfect for touching Jin Mu-hae.
That’s why I like them. I love that I can record my journal whenever I want like this.
Huum… mmm-hmm…
Jin Mu-hae’s embrace is warm. When Jin Mu-hae hugs me tight, a fluffy, ticklish feeling swells and pushes against my chest, making me sigh repeatedly.
Suddenly becoming human made my head feel a bit foggy, but smelling Jin Mu-hae’s scent continuously calmed my wavering mind.
Jin Mu-hae… came looking for me. He seemed scared of my monster form, but I guess it’s okay now.
Thinking about that makes my eyes feel very hot. I hated Jin Mu-hae a little when I was a monster, but I immediately liked him again.
However, it was a bit unexpected that he used the hidden item there. It was my first time learning that it could be used in such a way.
Item name: ‘Red Orb’. This bead, given upon perfectly clearing Olga’s Quest, is an object used to see additional options in certain stories.
Since it activates randomly, the probability isn’t high, but it’s worth trying once with a prayer meta in quests where a debuff occurs regardless of which direction you choose.
For example, in a situation where all the options are actions that drastically increase exposure level or dialogue that leads to severe injury, it would trigger an additional, safe, and meaningless option like ‘First, go home and check the situation.’
Even if you choose that to pass through the crisis, the route toward a specific ending doesn’t change anyway.
Still, since the Jin Mu-hae who became reality would bleed and be in pain if he got hurt, I really wanted to hand it over to him.
Hmm… I like Jin Mu-hae.
Did you just touch my head with your foot?
At that time, the thing rolling on the floor was definitely the Red Orb, shattered into two pieces.
When Jin Mu-hae hugged me tight and wrapped my body in a soft blanket. Even though the sun had set long ago, my vision was clear and unobstructed, so I could tell just by glancing at it a few times.
I already know all the quests where the Red Orb is used by random chance. The final story of CHAPTER 3 wasn’t among them.
Was it thanks to the hidden item that the ‘More Form’ mode, which suddenly stopped listening, began to function?
Or did I just change this time, just as I did when I first became human, and there’s another reason why the bead shattered?
I was confident that I knew everything about 「La Vida Blue」, so it’s just surprising that there are still things I don’t know.
Anyway, Jin Mu-hae gave food to me even when I was a monster. That’s enough. As long as he doesn’t hate or dislike me.
Ah. And CHAPTER 3 is finally over. The final quest, which had remained for so long no matter how much time passed, was suddenly completed at dawn along with music.
I’m not sure why it was cleared only now, or what conditions were satisfied.
Since the broken quest at the end flowed quite differently from the original story, I can only ponder the differences between yesterday and today.
Hmm… eating meat every evening and wearing Jin Mu-hae’s clothes were the same.
If I had to find a difference, it’s that I only got the photo I took with Jin Mu-hae yesterday. Jin Mu-hae’s face in the frame is handsome, but for some reason, he looks nervous, so I keep laughing every time I see it.
I didn’t laugh out loud. Because then Jin Mu-hae would frown and tell me to give it back.
CHAPTER 4 (Loading…)
☞ ……⧖
That’s not the only strange thing. Even though CHAPTER 3 has concluded, the next quest doesn’t appear.
Loading. That mark was the standby text attached to each mode when I first fell into 「La Vida Blue」.
It’s a sign that the function exists even if it can’t be used yet. Seeing as a few changed to an active state every time I regained consciousness, it probably won’t stay stopped like that forever.
Since it took 15 years for the final mode to activate, there’s no guarantee it will be resolved quickly.
The next quest begins with a message from Jin Mu-hae to Gu-reum.
After returning to the house on Starlight Road or in the Jaegang District and touching the Link Watch menu, a recorded message in Jin Mu-hae’s voice plays, saying, ‘I have learned about the West Wind. I wish to contact them.’
But no matter how I look at it, Jin Mu-hae doesn’t seem to have any intention of contacting anyone today. From the morning, all he did was clean the house, prepare meals, and spend time exercising in the living room.
Just in case, I dropped a hint about the West Wind, but he just turned on the TV as if he hadn’t heard. Unfortunately, an episode of ‘Go! Round and Pointy Family’ that I had never seen was airing, so I couldn’t ask further and watched it intently.
It was a very cowardly move. He even lied, saying he ate all the candies I hadn’t even taken out of the Inventory.
Lately, Jin Mu-hae has become a bit of a villain.
Don’t even raise your hand. Don’t touch my head.
Jin Mu-hae pets me.
You said you wanted that. And is petting the same as poking and pressing the top of my head with your hands and feet?
Tch.
Just get off the sofa instead of sitting on it.
Still, Jin Mu-hae hugging me like this is the absolute best. Originally, he used to push me away with his feet, telling me not to cling to him.
Since returning, he doesn’t scold me even if I sit on his lap. Even if I hug him tight, he doesn’t wave his hand telling me to get lost, and he doesn’t get annoyed even if I sniff him.
I love it. I love you so much, Jin Mu-hae. When I stuck my tongue out a bit to lick his lips, his eyebrows moved slightly.
Since he doesn’t seem angry, I can keep sniffing and licking. Since Jin Mu-hae didn’t turn into meat and disappear, the story will proceed someday in some other way.
I just have to observe diligently in what form it comes. Even if something black pops out again, Jin Mu-hae won’t be scared of me and run far away anymore.
Suddenly, my vision wavers, and I feel as if I’m curled up behind a safe rock. I want to bury my head deep into Jin Mu-hae’s body… mmm, I can’t write the journal anymore.
I’m glad I’m back.
* * *
Journal saved.
* * *
Frizzy black hair tangles between his fingers.
Suppressing a strange surge of violence that made him want to grab and pull the hair tight, Jin Mu-hae carefully wrapped his arms around the body nestled in his chest.
Round ears. Why did the outer rim of the ear, slightly flushed pink as if something was so pleasing, look so squishy?
He almost pressed it with his front teeth. Suppressing the instinct to nip like a dog, he just fiddled with the soft earlobe.
“Heung.”
The creature leaning its forehead against his chest laughs happily. If he were to look up, its eyes would probably be half-closed, grinning foolishly.
It was a sensation of stability so profound that it was hard to believe he had been alone in this house until just a few days ago.
Mu-hae rubbed his lips again, which he had irritably wiped away, and took a deep breath of the scent emanating from the embrace.
Somehow, it felt like he could just live like a loafer. Since half of the 204,000 deal still remained, he felt like reporting to the defense force and spending the rest of the year resting comfortably.
It was a quite unfamiliar and unexpected emotion. Jin Mu-hae had never avoided necessary work until now.
Whether he liked or disliked something held no value in terms of survival. Because if one silently endured any boredom or hardship, it would eventually return as money or achievement.
But… this time, he didn’t want to step forward. The body that had moved frantically when searching for Joo-oh felt like it was spreading out languidly.
He knew better than anyone that this wasn’t a simple matter of energy. Even when he wandered outside the city with his side torn open, he wasn’t lacking in stamina or exhausted.
‘Even if the goals are the same, the ideologies or beliefs cannot be the same.’
‘Sometimes there are things that cannot be shared, even for the sake of a greater cause.’
Mu-hae simply wanted to put things on hold for a while. The unexpected secret surrounding his birth. The identity of the West Wind, who would be at a height far more distant than he had guessed.
And how the goal of the Return flight he was tasked with would affect his own life, moving away from the grandiose group known as humanity.
Had the facts he had ignored using his busy daily life as an excuse now approached so closely that they were no longer easy to evade?
His father’s records, which had stretched out like a tree and emitted a faint light, lingered in his mind.
[…Those who dreamed of a new world existed in abundance even before the Great Cataclysm. This time, it just happened to be a Return flight, and such desires are actually likely to appear anywhere, not just here in Goryeo City. …At this moment, the goal of these impure elements is to create a ‘Reset’ button.]
“Hee-ung, mmm… Lala.”
Unaware of the complexity in his mind, the Aberrant held in his arms hummed a tune.
189 – Became a Monster in a Ruined Game