By Zephyria Squeeze. Joo-oh glanced at Teacher Jung’s chart and leaned back against the head of the bed. The first time he met Jin Mu-hae and stayed here overnight, Teacher Jung had said something to him and he had answered.
Of course, he was more out of it then than he was now, and he was so excited to have finally entered the game story that he thinks he just spouted out whatever he was told to say.
Still, he understood Joo-oh’s story in a strangely thorough way. He learned his name, age, and even the sensations and reactions in every part of his body.
As he was groping through the hazy memories of that day, Teacher Jung gestured to Joo-oh’s shoes.
“Why don’t you ask Mu-hae to make you a set of clothes?”
“My clothes are fine. But my shoes are worn out.”
“I guess you used up all the leather we got together on the jacket.”
“Yeah. But it’s okay. Jin Mu-hae needed it, not me.”
Finishing his sentence, he took out one of the jellies he had taken out of his Inventory and put in his pocket in advance and popped it into his mouth.
As the sweet, chewy taste spread to the root of his tongue, Joo-oh smiled so brightly that his eyes closed.
“What if you need something?”
“Then I’ll tell Jin Mu-hae.”
“I wonder if he can get it all for you.”
“I would only say what Jin Mu-hae can do.”
Teacher Jung, hearing his answer, stared intently into Joo-oh’s eyes once more.
But soon, he took out a twisted puzzle from his pocket, handed it to him, and turned his gaze away, walking out past the curtains.
“From what I’ve skimmed over, there’s nothing wrong, and I can’t do a more thorough examination in a place like this.”
“Then that’s good enough. I was just wondering if there was something different about him, since he’s been talking so well lately.”
“Hmm. Maybe it’s psychological. But that’s not my field.”
The quiet conversation was clearly audible to Joo-oh. Joo-oh took in every word about him and began to shake the puzzle.
Unfortunately, he seems to have already solved this puzzle in the game. But there may be other solutions that he hasn’t noticed.
“I’ve got some material that might explain what you were talking about. Take a look at it and contact me separately if you think anything’s missing.”
“Thank you. Ah. And the part I heard last time, no matter how I think about it, it doesn’t seem very efficient.”
“In any group, if a small number of people have a vested interest, it flows that way. You have to consider efficiency theoretically…”
Joo-oh has no memory of before his game possession. Other than his name and age, he couldn’t remember where he lived, what he did, what he learned, or what kind of mindset he had.
But he also had ‘common sense’. For example, things fall from top to bottom, and hard things break soft things.
People need to wash to get clean, and if they get hurt, they see a doctor at the hospital. Young children spent their days at school, and adults spent their days at work.
The human city did not exist inside a Dome. The sky was blue and the earth was black. Director Gil’s slightly different accent was a trace of a dialect that had been diluted and almost died out as humans began to live together in Comfort zone.
1 plus 1 is 2, 8 divided by 2 is 4, 3198 multiplied by 1189 is 3802422.
Nevertheless, he did not properly understand the knowledge that Teacher Jung was explaining to Mu-hae.
He had never experienced people’s interests, political situations, physical laws, or economic theories, whether he could understand them or not.
Joo-oh absorbed their conversation like a sponge and slowly turned his head.
Fifteen years after being possessed, he was finally beginning to retrace the past with human thought.
Twenty-two years old… an adult age not much different from Jin Mu-hae’s.
He couldn’t say he was young, but if he asked himself if he had lived enough, that was another matter.
How many years of this short life did the Joo-oh of the past spend on that shitty «La Vida Blue»?
Why is it that all that’s been given to this head of mine is a made-up identity?
Was there information in his life outside the game that he shouldn’t remember?
It was certainly terrible to wait endlessly in the body of an Aberrant for the main story to begin, which he didn’t know when it would begin. So much so that he spent most of that time out of his mind.
But the early morning awakening is not explained by that alone. Recently, Joo-oh had also been having ‘dreams’.
Even though he couldn’t remember the content at all, he vaguely felt that it was a moment from the past that was not left in his head.
After all, it felt more empty than wandering the strange world as an Aberrant.
The sensation of falling forever into a shudderingly deep hole…
The strange feeling, which was hard to express even with his current vocabulary, which was already lacking in accuracy, defined his dreams, which didn’t even leave a fragment, as memories from before «La Vida Blue».
‘This is really weird.’
He really doesn’t know why he suddenly started having dreams. Maybe something else changed when he completed the first Chapter.
Fortunately, Joo-oh wasn’t uncomfortable, sudden, or scared by this change.
To be honest, he was a little pleased. He had been in the same situation for a very long time. This was ten, a hundred, a thousand times better than an endless stalemate.
Think about it. The system’s list changed and a mode popped up, and as the mode’s activation status changed, the Aberrant became human again.
The stagnant flow of time changed and Jin Mu-hae appeared! He met him, touched him, lived with him, and Joo-oh sought to survive.
The next change would come to Joo-oh’s future, which was destined to disappear. So Joo-oh was okay.
He liked that he had dreams that made his body shake when he woke up, but he couldn’t even remember them.
That trembling soon subsided when he clung to Jin Mu-hae. He’s not afraid.
“…I have to memorize this again. Awesome.”
“Right.”
“No. Actually, I’m going crazy.”
Clatter. While thinking about other things, he solved the puzzle in the original way.
Joo-oh put the separated wires down next to the bed and strode over to the two of them.
“I want to be here too.”
Mu-hae’s eyes looked at Teacher Jung and then back at Joo-oh. It was a look that asked if it was okay to leave this nuisance here.
“Do your best. You’ve never been to school, but you’ve learned everything.”
Teacher Jung glanced at Joo-oh as well, but then turned his attention back to Mu-hae. It meant he didn’t care. Joo-oh sat down next to him, his face brightening.
Looking at it this way, Jin Mu-hae was callous, unkind, but still reasonably kind.
He always got angry at Joo-oh, but he mostly accepted his stubbornness to follow him everywhere.
[Quest]
Main Quest
Tutorial (Completed)
Chapter 1 (Completed)
Chapter 2
☞ The person in charge of the bygone reform (In progress)
Scheduled Work
[Scheduled Work]
Four days of undercover work is not a difficult task.
But it seems that what Gu-reum wants is not just surveillance.
Everything is going smoothly. If there’s anything to be desired, it’s that Jin Mu-hae kicks Joo-oh off the bed every morning.
His kicks don’t hurt, so it doesn’t matter if he kicks him or beats him with a stick. But Joo-oh wanted to feel Jin Mu-hae’s body temperature a little more. He wanted to smell him and rub his head against him.
‘I like being touched.’
Is Jin Mu-hae not feeling well? If so, he’s sorry, but he still wants to keep his face against his skin.
He wanted to bury his nose in him, rub his lips against him, and cling to him completely to hear his heart beating.
Contact with him was happier and sweeter than any reward or food. In particular, having his head and cheeks touched was something that anyone familiar and friendly in «La Vida Blue» could do, but it was a little more satisfying with Jin Mu-hae.
When he was catching the stonemason and it almost popped out, he was glad that Jin Mu-hae touched him a lot, but it was a shame. At that time, Jin Mu-hae was so colorful that he forgot what he usually endured and even tasted it.
Of course, he didn’t taste him as ‘meat’. It was just that he felt a completely different taste in a more wobbly and sparkling way.
Jin Mu-hae definitely smelled good too. But the fact that he’s angry means that he’s definitely got a worse personality in reality than he does in the game.
‘This is a big deal.’
Originally, Jin Mu-hae is taciturn but not obnoxious, and as cold as he is, he is also level-headed.
That’s why he scratches the necessary people in the story appropriately, bakes them just right, and moves on to the next stage with a smile.
At this rate, he doesn’t know when and where he’ll get into unnecessary fights. Thinking about it, Joo-oh became a little serious.
‘I’m going to have to meet that person soon.’
Sakdal, the neighborhood that Jin Mu-hae has suddenly started to avoid mentioning.
Perhaps there will be an unexpected problem in the story that leads to that place.
Fortunately, as Joo-oh, who has tried everything in every map of this world, he was confident that he could somehow lead him, no matter what happened.
‘Well. I’ll have to put in some more effort.’
No problem. Just as Jin Mu-hae has developed behavioral patterns that didn’t exist in the game, Joo-oh also has free choices in reality.
“Is that really okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Even though he’s staring into space and grinning like that?”
“Then save up about 4,000 Deal and take him to a real hospital. You’re starting to annoy me, Mu-hae.”