By Zephyria The dawn is a strange time. It’s just as terribly dark, but the moment midnight passes, a late day becomes an early start.
A silent time that is neither night nor day. During his Aberrant days, Joo-oh often regained consciousness.
Each time, he blankly stared at the sky and wrote in his journal, so it was safe to say that most of the recorded content was a product of dawn.
It’s the same now. Joo-oh woke up quite often at dawn, and while listening to the breathing of the one who yearned for him, he organized the story he faced.
After that, he habitually thought of the past. Memories that didn’t even exist in his head until recently swirled around, touching his heart that had only become half-human.
…An almost fraudulent mod pack was installed, but Joo-oh didn’t always use that function to play the game before he was in this world.
As the number of replays increased, the restrictions he placed on himself also increased. He wasn’t satisfied with ordinary play.
Sometimes he postponed quests and monitored the every move of any extra NPC. When he realized that some of them had sub-stories that were dispensable, Joo-oh seemed to have called this terrible game a masterpiece for four days.
While doing all sorts of arrogant things, there was only one thing he extremely refrained from. It was an act that directly violated the laws of the game.
Except for a few attempts at glitches, Joo-oh didn’t try to find systemic loopholes.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested. He was just scared. He didn’t know why, but after having a few dreams, he knew now.
If the game broke, he would really be left alone in that silent underground.
Physically, he had been alone for a long time, but he would never be able to see even Jin Mu-hae again.
“Hmm.”
So this is the first time he’s experienced this phenomenon. Red eyes rolled in the darkness.
He was a little startled when the last quest came up as ‘???’, but he didn’t expect an error beyond that to occur.
Joo-oh had never seen a mission merge like this.
[Quest]
Main Quest
Tutorial (Completed)
Chapter 1 (Completed)
Chapter 2 (Completed)
Chapter 3
☞ The Rampaging Clown (Completed)
Letter from an Unknown Sender √
Special Delivery √
Missing Persons List √
Save the Miners √
Goryeo Library √
??? √
☞ May the Holy Mother Protect You (Completed)
Dust-Covered Pad √
Unexpected Encounter √
Can We Take a Newbie, Sister? √
Secret Prayer √
☞ Stepping Stone (Completed)
New Job √
Mission. Special Training. √
Whispering People √
There Was One More √
Shining Medal √
☞ Do You Believe in the Dao? (In Progress)
Suspicious Approach √
Throw 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 Joo-kyung?
Originally, the next step would be to gradually dig into the past related to Seo Joo-kyung based on Gu-reum’s information.
The quest name changed depending on the route, but it was just a difference in the people you met or the means you used.
Jin Mu-hae follows the past of one of the three, comparing it to the present, and finds a link to West Wind.
Then the quest ‘Seo Joo-kyung’ begins. He grabs a decisive clue, and Chapter 3 comes to an end.
[The First Person The Second Person The Third Person And Seo Joo-kyung?]
The information Gu-reum gave about the three people. He decided to focus on the first, second, and third person among them.
If he investigates them, will he be able to find out the identity of West Wind?
But now, the quest that appeared before his eyes had everything mixed up, ignoring order and rules. Sigh. Joo-oh couldn’t help but sigh.
What is he supposed to do with all three people written down? Is he supposed to split his one and only precious Jin Mu-hae into Jin, Mu, and Hae and move them separately?
‘…No.’
Even if he doesn’t dwell on such an unlucky assumption, there will definitely be a way. When he caught the 〈Grade 1〉 Stonemason, Joo-oh took charge of resolving the error, or rather, the error caused by the system.
So this time too, the intervenor who has already experienced all the routes had to step in. Joo-oh knew. There are places where the movements of the three overlap in the middle of the story.
Annoying. Joo-oh tossed and turned, curling up. A pleasant scent tickled his nose, calming his troubled mind a little.
After rubbing his cheek against the warm body a few times, he wasn’t hungry anymore, and his head worked a little better.
The Vegan Society believes that Blue Energy is a relief supply for the chosen humanity, and they fear the inevitably born Aberrants like others, but they do not deny them.
So they lure Aberrants and conduct unknown research, and no matter which route you take, all three people related to West Wind appear at the final site.
Jin Mu-hae follows the given person and finally reaches the Paerangsan Road, 150 kilometers away from Goryeo City.
There, he eavesdrops on the exchanges and conversations of the three Vegan Society members, identifies the location of the data they have hidden, and waits for the sun to set.
As time passes and everyone disperses, the goal is to fight the enemy that matches the route and then steal the data related to West Wind.
The cutscene that follows…
―Chzzzz- Chik- Did you find anything?
―Damn it. It doesn’t look easy.
The data is so dangerous that he can’t bring it back to Goryeo City, so Jin Mu-hae connects to the Link Watch on the spot and reads it.
A recorded phone call that sounds like a conversation between Vegan Society members is played, and at that moment, heavy rain pours from the sky.
Jin Mu-hae stares blankly at the sky. Having tasted a part of the hidden truth, he glares sharply in one direction.
It’s the direction where Goryeo City is. The heart-stirring insert song gradually gets louder, and the screen fades to black.
It’s a story that can be completed without injury if cleared properly, but Joo-oh somehow felt an ominous sensation gripping his neck.
“Jin Mu-hae.”
He inadvertently called out to the sleeping person. Whew, judging by the sigh that followed, Jin Mu-hae seemed to have woken up slightly.
A heavy arm wrapped around his back. Immediately, his body warmed up and his heart pounded.
Suddenly, he felt like he was going to groan. Words he couldn’t suppress bubbled up and escaped his mouth on their own.
“I like Jin Mu-hae.”
…That’s right. His head is a little complicated, but that means he can work harder with more energy.
Didn’t Jin Mu-hae say he would take a picture together when this Chapter is completed?
The one and only protagonist of 「La Vida Blue」. The center of the world he had longed for so much. Being recorded with him was a privilege that Joo-oh couldn’t even imagine.
It felt like he was staking his claim on Jin Mu-hae, so Joo-oh’s heart was shaking and swelling tightly.
“Heu.”
So he put his hands together and held them to his heart, taking a few deep breaths.
If this goes well. Then he will put the picture he took with him in the image frame item he salvaged from the Jaegang District garbage.
He has to tell Jin Mu-hae to smile. Smiling Jin Mu-hae is a rare sight. Then he will look at the picture at night and during the day, wrap it in Jin Mu-hae’s clothes, and hug it to sleep.
As he had happy thoughts, the tips of his fingers, which had been stiff with embarrassment, softened gently. Joo-oh buried his head further and closed his eyes.
Poof. The quest window floating in the air disappeared, reading his will. The movements of the one who had been twitching a few times gradually subsided.
“Did you find anything?”
Joo-oh, who had finished breakfast in a flash and was lazing around, asked in a dazed voice.
Jin Mu-hae glanced at him with a serious face while looking through the data.
His hair was messed up from tossing and turning so much last night. Even though he barely has any fat, his cheeks look soft and squishy, as if they would sink in if you poked them.
It was a sight that made Jin Mu-hae involuntarily imagine how warm that damn guy would be if he touched him, so he suppressed the urge to jump up from his seat and opened his mouth.
“Roughly.”
“Is he really related to West Wind?”
“I don’t know yet, that.”
The file Gu-reum sent was closer to the past than the current information of the key figures in the Vegan Society.
What they used to do, what process they went through to get to their current position.
The fact that they were all wealthy and even had Councilors positions was a bit bleak. They are opponents that are too big to hit head-on. He felt that quietly digging into their background was the first thing to do.
But, which of these three should he start with? He couldn’t feel anything from any of them, so he had been worrying since early in the morning.
Wouldn’t he just attract unnecessary suspicion if he wandered around here and there for no reason?
“Were they all Vegan Society members from the old days?”
“The name Vegan Society didn’t exist back then, but probably. There are some overlapping sections in their careers.”
“Then would West Wind have overlapped there too?”
“…I don’t know.”
No matter how it ended in betrayal, West Wind was a member of the Return flight. There’s no way he would have moved with the Vegan Society.
Besides, they are all old men who are more than ten years older than his father. He is somewhat distant from West Wind, who is presumed to be of that age.
But what if those things were involved in the environment that ‘Seo Joo-kyung’ belonged to? The reason why Gu-reum delivered this data also falls within the explainable range.
“Jin Mu-hae also went around eating with me here and there for a while.”Strictly speaking, he didn’t go to eat, but attended to make an impression at the invited place.”
Suddenly, it felt like a light was turned on in his dark vision. Jin Mu-hae selected the points of contact between the data and arranged them side by side on the Hologram Window.
‘The start of social life is… Company. One was affiliated with the Company, another was the child of a cooperative CEO. The remaining one seems to be a family member of a Councilor related to that side.’
To be precise, it was more like a friendship or meeting derived from such contacts than the Company itself.
Whoever was a believer in Crystal Blue, spreading that theory would have been outside the company.
Considering that West Wind was involved, not everyone in that meeting would have been a Vegan Society member. It is natural to assume that a regular event that promising families would attend together was mixed with something unpleasant.
‘Company… Company, huh.’
Coincidentally, the fields they overlapped in were Blue Mining and energy processing. Mu-hae silently picked up the pad and scanned the emails that had been sent to him.
[Sender: Cheonggang Mining & Energy]
Immediately after receiving the medal, Mu-hae received a different email from the Company than the list of requests.
The guys who used to treat mercenaries like disposable parts sent a congratulatory letter out of the blue and even added that they would contact him separately if they needed to coordinate work.
Mu-hae felt in his body that the opportunity he had seized was more significant than he thought, even more than the articles and broadcasts that had been talking about the same thing every day.
“You. You can be home alone, right.”
“No.”
He needlessly said something that was obvious. Joo-oh, who had been lying still, jumped up and was coming towards him.
“I’m going to the Company.”
“Canned goods?”
“No. In a completely different direction from there.”
The employees there are all rude, so he doesn’t want to have a long conversation, but maybe this time it will be a little different.
Mu-hae pushed away the guy who was dangling on his back and pressed the reply button that he had been ignoring all along.