Chapter 13

Self-Introduction

The ego dwelling inside this ring definitely knew both Lunamoon and Hayden.

Otherwise, there was no way the title “Lunamoon’s Friend” would have worked on it, nor would it have reacted to Commander Hayden.

But my deductions reached a dead end there.

Among all the NPCs who knew Lunamoon and Hayden, I couldn’t think of anyone who might have been sealed inside a ring like this.

Moreover, an NPC who was Lunamoon’s friend and was happy to see Hayden...?

‘There was no NPC like that in the Safe Zone. At least, not in the game I played.’

This “world” clearly had elements that differed from the game.

It wasn’t completely identical to the Safe Zone.

I needed to keep that in mind from now on.

Arrogantly assuming I knew everything could end up ruining everything.

For now, I decided to think about the ring more carefully over time.

When I first discovered it, it had emitted light and floated into the air. Aside from growing warm whenever I met Hayden, however, it was an otherwise unremarkable ring.

I wasn’t even sure it had any ability besides warming up, so it didn’t seem likely to harm me.

Putting the matter of the ring aside, I lay down on the bed and reviewed the system one more time. That was when I realized I had forgotten something.

‘I’ve been ignoring Home Protector’s friend request all day.’

Whoever had transported us into a game where people died as if it were nothing had still created a system with such a soft and friendly term as “friend request.”

They had to be seriously twisted.

When I opened the public chat room, it looked like the other players hadn’t spoken since that morning.

‘No... didn’t it say mutual friends could have private conversations?’

Since Home Protector had sent me a friend request, the others might also have added one another and started talking privately.

“Hm?”

I opened the pending requests list to accept Home Protector’s request, only to discover that several other players had sent me requests as well.

[You have received a friend request from Home Protector. Would you like to accept?]

[You have received a friend request from God. Would you like to accept?]

[You have received a friend request from IWon’tCryThatCountsAsCardio. Would you like to accept?]

[You have received a friend request from Dentist. Would you like to accept?]

Dentist had seemed extremely cautious, so I hadn’t expected them to send a request first.

‘Ssap-Possible and Drug Addict didn’t send one.’

Either they didn’t see the need for private conversations, or they were wary of me.

After accepting only Home Protector’s request, I thought for a moment and tried sending one to T-Bastard.

[T-Bastard has declined your friend request.]

What?

An instant rejection?

‘That bastard really was watching everything while pretending not to.’

I clicked my tongue, and a private message arrived from Home Protector.

[Home Protector: What took you so long to accept?]

[Dopamine Addict: I was busy clearing a route.]

[Home Protector: If you’re in the Cola Zone, are you working on the Illegitimate Child route?]

He had been one of my subscribers, so he probably knew exactly which route I would choose.

Of course, I also knew exactly which route Home Protector would attempt in the Cigarette Zone.

[Dopamine Addict: You doing the Disciple route?]

[Home Protector: Yeah. Even while doing it, I was scared I might be in the same zone as you lol]

[Home Protector: So your possessed identity is Hayden Goodman?]

[Dopamine Addict: Yeah. What name did you pick?]

[Home Protector: Sherlock Holmes lol]

That unemployed bastard had no shame.

[Dopamine Addict: By the way, why were you spreading the convenience store’s address everywhere?]

[Home Protector: Because it was interesting! How was I supposed to know that sharing a convenience store address would get us all transported here?]

Fair enough.

It wasn’t exactly something anyone could have predicted.

[Dopamine Addict: The other players think I was the one who spread it.]

[Home Protector: That’s a misunderstanding. You’re famous, so your username was the only one that stuck in their heads.]

Right...

Now that I thought about it, there was no way Home Protector could have known what would happen.

I had been the first one to bring attention to the convenience store, after all.

Most of the players in the public chat didn’t seem to harbor any serious malice toward me, either.

At least, not openly.

The only real problem was T-Bastard, who had landed in a zone that practically guaranteed he would resent me.

‘Come to think of it, God is in the Love Zone, but he doesn’t seem dissatisfied at all.’

The NPCs in the Love Zone were all a little... insane.

Their madness was different from the NPCs in the Knife Zone.

But what had he meant when he said the other players had decided to worship him?

There was a Cult Leader route among the Love Zone strategies I knew, but that should only have worked on NPCs.

[Home Protector: Anyway, what are you going to do?]

[Dopamine Addict: About what?]

[Home Protector: The Unicorn Zone.]

The Unicorn Zone.

My original home territory.

Only eight players had unlocked the system so far: Candy, Cola, Cigarette, Beer, Chicken, Cocaine, Love, and Knife.

It was possible that the player in the Unicorn Zone simply hadn’t managed to unlock the system yet.

But judging from the circumstances, it was more likely that the zone had no owner.

It was unfortunate that there wouldn’t be a player working hard in my place to develop the area, but its geographical advantages remained unchanged.

After all, the only threats in the Unicorn Zone were flying monsters.

That made it valuable as a secondary base.

Home Protector was probably asking because he had reached the same conclusion.

Still, I deliberately pretended not to understand.

[Dopamine Addict: Why are you asking me what to do with the Unicorn Zone?]

[Home Protector: Don’t play dumb. You’re planning to swallow the whole place once the Second Apocalypse starts, aren’t you?]

Why ask when you already knew?

[Home Protector: Come on. Take me with you when you go to the Unicorn Zone.]

‘Hmm.’

As I had mentioned before, zones with low difficulty were difficult to convert into shelters.

Home Protector knew the Cigarette Zone wasn’t suitable for becoming a shelter, so he probably thought it would be better to attach himself to me.

However...

[Dopamine Addict: Is there any particular reason I should take care of you?]

[Home Protector: Wow, you’re seriously cold. No wonder people in the community call you a sociopath;]

[Dopamine Addict: No.]

[Home Protector: You’ll need someone to manage the zone anyway. My username literally means home security guard. I’m also a veteran of the Safe Zone.]

[Dopamine Addict: If you’re a veteran too, why not try taking it from me yourself instead of freeloading? You’re welcome to try.]

[Home Protector: No. Rather than making an enemy of you, I’d rather work under you and enjoy an easy life. I’m being serious.]

I was slightly disappointed by Home Protector’s answer.

‘Fighting him to the death over the Unicorn Zone would have been pretty stimulating...’

Disappointment aside, it was true that I needed someone to manage the territory.

I had planned to give that role to my honorary father, Commander Hayden Goodman.

‘Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have some insurance.’

Besides, having him pretend to serve under me only to betray me later sounded fairly stimulating in its own way.

[Home Protector: Just so you know in advance, I seriously have no intention of betraying you or anything. If I had ambitions that grand, I wouldn’t have lived as an unemployed bum.]

[Dopamine Addict: Disappointing...]

[Home Protector: You crazy bastard.]

[Home Protector: Still, this older brother of yours will tell you something useful.]

[Dopamine Addict: Something useful?]

I asked, but instead of an answer, a system message appeared.

[Home Protector has requested an item trade.]

[Trade item: Cigarettes ×12]

[Would you like to accept?]

‘An item-trading window!’

I immediately pressed accept.

It wasn’t as though I smoked, but I wanted to confirm as quickly as possible whether I could trade with Home Protector even though he was in another zone.

The moment I accepted, a cigarette icon appeared in my inventory with the number 12 displayed above it.

‘So we can exchange items even across different zones.’

At first glance, it seemed like a feature designed to encourage players to help one another survive.

But the main thing players would trade was food, and the difference in resources between low-level and high-level zones was enormous.

In other words, even if trading was possible, players in lower-level zones would inevitably end up giving things to players in higher-level zones without receiving much in return.

What kind of player would help someone else without asking for anything?

Even Home Protector was only handing over items from his zone because he wanted something from me.

[Home Protector: I found this out while chatting privately with the other players while you were ignoring my friend request.]

[Home Protector: Be grateful.]

[Dopamine Addict: Thank you, big brother.]

[Home Protector: You little punk, lol. Anyway, I’ll assume you’re taking me in. I’m going to sleep now.]

[Dopamine Addict: You’re going to bed pretty early, big brother.]

[Home Protector: Rejuvenating into a ten-year-old cured my nicotine addiction, and now I’m a model child who falls asleep by ten. Later.]

After Home Protector went to sleep, I sent T-Bastard another friend request, but he rejected it instantly again.

‘Judging by how fast he rejected it, at least he’s still alive.’

Even Home Protector wanted to live comfortably under me, so why was T-Bastard refusing my help?

He needed to make it out alive for me to obtain that one-shot, one-kill item...

...Hm. Maybe he was rejecting me precisely because he suspected I had an ulterior motive like that.

***

The next day, I was busy from the moment I woke up.

The Commander intended to take me to the officers’ meeting and officially declare that I was his son. Since I was going to meet the other officers, the servants fussed over me so thoroughly that they even carefully tidied the cuticles around my fingernails.

It was a somewhat novel experience.

In the game, once you succeeded in the Illegitimate Child route, the system simply informed the NPCs that you were the Commander’s illegitimate son. You didn’t have to go through any bothersome introduction process like this.

“First, we will enter in the middle of the officers’ meeting.”

Meursault, who was clearly supposed to be the Commander’s aide but somehow seemed to have become my personal handler, briefed me on today’s operation.

“The officers currently know absolutely nothing about your existence. The key to this operation is to make them acknowledge you before they have time to finish thinking and formulating judgments about you. Therefore, you may act impulsively, just as you did when you first met me. However, if you draw too much attention, it may provoke excessive interest. So greet them politely, but...”

While I was being groomed, Meursault kept trying to drill model answers into me, as though he wanted to control not only my appearance but every wrinkle in my brain.

I ignored him.

Once Meursault realized I wasn’t going to listen to a single word, he soon gave up. He stared at me after the preparations were complete and murmured,

“With your hair swept back, you truly are the spitting image of His Excellency.”

Only Western-looking NPCs like you would think that.

For the record, the only thing I had in common with the Commander’s character customization was black hair and black eyes.

“It’s fortunate that you don’t resemble your mother’s side. No one will doubt your bloodline.”

He was glad I didn’t resemble my mother.

Yet the Commander had said I looked like Lunamoon the moment he saw me.

‘Come to think of it...’

The only image I had of Lunamoon was the skeleton inside that grave.

Since the Commander said I resembled her, had she also been Asian?

An Asian, rare in this world, with healing powers on top of that.

‘Could Lunamoon also have been like us...?’

No. The assumption that Lunamoon had been a player was difficult to support.

At least, all of us who had been transported through that convenience store had arrived at different times, but our starting point in this world had been the same.

If Lunamoon had been a player, then she must have arrived at least ten years before us.

That raised too many questions.

Why had she alone been transported ten years earlier?

And why had she appeared as an NPC in the game?

Still, Lunamoon was undoubtedly connected to whatever the “secret of the apocalypse” was supposed to be.

If I continued clearing the routes, I would eventually discover the truth.

Once the preparations were finished, we headed toward the officers’ meeting room on the top floor of the mansion.

On the way, Meursault warned me once more.

“You must be careful with your words and behavior during the officers’ meeting. Every last one of them is like a venomous snake. You must neither act too insolently nor allow them to look down on you.”

He had been talking nonstop even though I had ignored everything he said.

As though my thoughts had shown on my face, Meursault shot me a mild glare.

“You must also be careful not to reveal what you’re thinking through your expression. Do you understand?”

“Yes. But how am I supposed to avoid being too insolent while also not letting them look down on me?”

“Walk the line without crossing it, and do not hold back when something must be said.”

“I’m asking what that actually looks like.”

“You’re doing remarkably well right now. Just keep acting like this.”

This bastard was surprisingly good at getting under my skin.

Well, since even the aide had given me permission...

Shall we enjoy a pleasant round of self-introductions with the officers?