By Zephyria 
=====
Guide
[Quest]
Main Quest
Tutorial (Completed)
CHAPTER 1 (Completed)
CHAPTER 2 (Completed)
CHAPTER 3 (Completed)
CHAPTER 4 (Loading…)
☞ ……⧖
CHAPTER 4 (Loading…)
☞ ……⧖
Ding!
CHAPTER 4
☞ The Long Way Around (In Progress)
Repayment
[Repayment]
A demand letter has arrived for the debt of 80,000 Deals traded in exchange for a -System Error-.
What conditions will Sakdal’s administrator set?
Ding!
CHAPTER 4
☞ The Long Way Around (In Progress)
Repayment √
Olga Met Again
[Olga Met Again]
Olga Belova, who requested the recovery of the belongings of her departed lover.
Unexpectedly, she holds information regarding the unknown target, T-47.
Ding!
CHAPTER 4
☞ The Long Way Around (In Progress)
Repayment √
Olga Met Again √
The Handkerchief of -1 and -4
[-1 and -4’s Handkerchief]
A secret is hidden within the clue received from Olga.
At dawn, a familiar notification sound grated on the nerves of the soundly sleeping person.
Since he had been resting in the most satisfying position within the embrace of the one he loved dearly, the face that slowly lifted its eyelids froze coldly.
A blue quest window floated in the center of the dark study.
Joo-oh, shifting only his eyes to silently check the contents, let out a heavy breath that sounded like a low growl.
The scent of Jin Mu-hae. The body scent, etched into his brain and unforgettable, managed to soothe his frustration.
‘As I thought. He doesn’t know any of it.’
If the game had been a physical object, he would have played it until it was worn down to rags.
Yet, the story appearing before him now was content he had never encountered once.
The quests for CHAPTER 4 had completely changed!
Lending a hand during every trial and blocking minor obstacles in advance. The effects of his subtle interference were finally paying off.
However, for some reason, the direction felt the same as before. In a situation where he couldn’t make a definitive judgment, a feeling as thick as his competitive spirit washed over him.
As expected, the quest update had stopped because of Jin Mu-hae. Seeing as the next chapter was generated in a hurry as soon as he decided to go to the Jaegang District.
Why did Jin Mu-hae deviate from the guidance of the story while things were going well? A quest entirely different from what he knew. Should Jin Mu-hae follow this?
After pondering, Joo-oh eventually buried his face deep, rubbing the tip of his nose against the warm chest.
He didn’t know. Now that the quest had appeared, his world would revolve according to the system’s guidance.
And Joo-oh, too, had no choice but to rely on the quest window—the sole guide—if he wanted to see the ending of his life story.
When he was first stranded in “La Vida Blue,” it felt like his only goal was to escape this situation and survive…
At some point, Jin Mu-hae’s journey had become everything to the Aberrant, who knew nothing but the game.
Jin Mu-hae’s wishes were his wishes, and Jin Mu-hae’s success was his success.
However, Jin Mu-hae’s survival or future was not his own future. Though it was a bit regrettable, the Aberrant, who had barely reclaimed a human heart, understood that fact very well.
‘Not knowing is a good thing.’
Because for fifteen years—no, for even longer than that—there had been nothing.
And in the story Joo-oh knew, there was no ending where he could be peaceful while wishing for Jin Mu-hae’s success.
For now, he decided to be happy rather than worried.
‘Hng.’
Just then, Joo-oh noticed that Jin Mu-hae had vaguely woken up, sensing only a tiny change in his breathing and heartbeat.
He further quieted his already still breathing to pretend to be asleep, and Mu-hae gently tightened his arms, entwining him so he couldn’t slip away.
All the thoughts swirling in his head vanished, and he simply became happy. Joo-oh curled the corners of his lips slightly and fully enjoyed the warmth touching him.
* * *
The interior of a Comfort zone does not change easily. This applies not only to policies or ideologies but also to geographical forms and appearances.
Since the limited space must be utilized to the maximum, expansions or reconstructions of buildings occur frequently, but they generally remain within harmonious designs similar to the previous ones.
Perhaps that was why. Even though a few changes had occurred along the path, they weren’t particularly noticeable.
It felt as if nothing had changed during the period he was away. Even if only a few months had passed…
“Oh. There are a lot.”
“Stop playing with the dust.”
The third floor of the commercial building, which he visited after a long time, was as expected: quietly and calmly filthy.
A thin layer of dust had settled on every piece of furniture. Whenever Joo-oh fluttered his clothes, dust puffed through the dim room.
Jin Mu-hae opened a small window on one wall with a sliding sound. Although there was an air circulation device, for some reason, he didn’t want to stay stagnant in this space.
Swoosh—.
Sssss— clatter, thud!
The faint sounds from outside made his uneasy mood feel much better.
“Did you find something?”
“Yeah. Here.”
“You said it was in the basement.”
“I thought so, but it was here.”
Though the location was quite different, it seemed it wasn’t a lie that he had left the tetelong behind; a small toy was held in Joo-oh’s hand.
The character, smiling brightly with one hand raised, looked truly thoughtlessly cheerful.
For some reason, it was irritating, but his mood didn’t completely sour. Despite being set as a fairy and looking entirely different from a human, the strangely furry face reminded him of someone who often grinned foolishly.
Moreover, looking at it brought back the words of the black-headed freak obsessed with collecting.
Had he said that Jin Mu-hae had confidence in himself, so he didn’t need things like tinkle friends?
Thinking about it again, it was such an overconfident statement that a hollow laugh escaped him.
“Jin Mu-hae’s socks were here too!”
Still, the reason his mood didn’t improve was ultimately because he had stepped foot into the Jaegang District. It was truly coincidental.
Even if he hadn’t made it obvious, he had subtly avoided everything related to the Return flight. He never dreamed that the end of the search for the missing person would circle back and connect to the Return flight.
As if there were a fixed direction no matter where he went, his path pointed to only one place. Ever since the day he caught the Thorn wolf, all the jobs flooding into his daily life had given him this feeling.
When his thoughts reached that point, he decided that obsessing over things he couldn’t avoid was a waste of energy.
Hadn’t life on Starlight Road, and the harsh and grueling jobs, always approached his life in the same way?
Mu-hae had pushed through them without much thought and made it to this position. In short, he was used to it.
Furthermore, since he held the Return flight alone, the final choice ultimately depended on his own hands rather than others.
Only after realizing this did Mu-hae decide to move for now.
“Give it. Don’t put it in your bag.”
“I found it, though?”
“If I find your jellies, are they mine then?”
“…….”
It wasn’t long ago that he had wanted to sink into the ground in front of Director Gil and Teacher Jung, yet this damn brat hadn’t learned a single shred of a lesson and was stealing other people’s clothes again.
Could there be another person in the world this thoughtless? Mu-hae let out a deep sigh and walked toward a corner of the room.
With the faint sound of a mechanical device moving, a brightly lit staircase appeared before his eyes.
“Follow me and don’t do anything else.”
“Tch.”
It might have been nothing to the core members of the Return flight in their youth, but for the current Director Gil, it was a narrow and long passage he would grumble and moan about every time he went up and down.
It was good that they made it so that no path to the basement could be found on any floor close to the ground, but no matter how he thought about it, the third floor felt tedious.
[Search term: West Wind]
Search results: 0
[Search term: Seo Ju-gyeong]
Search results: 0
As expected, neither “West Wind” nor her alias remained in the basement database.
The same went for keywords like ‘handkerchief’ or ‘west,’ which he searched knowing it wouldn’t work.
He scoured everything he could, even though he didn’t perfectly know how to utilize it yet, but there wasn’t a shred of luck in finding something like a contact network.
He simply re-read records he had read before several times. Hoping that some information he hadn’t realized before might still be there.
“They should have just erased it properly and run away, it’s really annoying.”
He spouted nonsense and blamed the past Return flight for no reason. Noticing his irritability immediately, Joo-oh, who had been angling to take a photo, slowly lowered his wrist.
“Next time we go to the electronic store, haa. Never mind.”
“Director Gil?”
“I said never mind.”
The explanation—which sounded like a lie—that he had stolen Mu-hae’s clothes on his own and had taken that terrible lubricant to play with after finding it while tracing the Return flight’s tracks.
He didn’t think Director Gil’s misunderstanding would be cleared just by hearing that from Joo-oh’s mouth. If it weren’t for the photos, it would have looked like a crazy person’s individual deviation, but unfortunately, the frame was in a position that drew too much attention.
Lately, Mu-hae would wake up with his toes twitching if that thought occurred to him even in his sleep. If he kicked the blanket in anger, the guy sleeping next to him would wake up groggily and ask what was wrong, so he couldn’t actually have a fit, but he struggled to erase the memory that kept popping up as if he had suffered a deep mental wound.
The face that didn’t know what to say. The somehow devastated gaze. The silence that felt like an eternity despite being a mere instant.
“Fuck.”
“Why?”
See. It just popped up again out of nowhere and is tormenting him. Mu-hae suppressed the urge to hit his own head hard and took a handkerchief out of his pocket.
200 – Became an Anomaly in a Dead Game