Chapter 2

Enlist

“…So, you also chose cola at that convenience store?”

The blond, red-eyed boy quickly nodded at my question.

Unlike me, with my typical East Asian character customization of black hair and black eyes, this guy had a Western-looking character model. And surprisingly, he was someone I knew.

“Your nickname is… RoomCornerWife? That foul-mouthed guy?”

“Did you really have to add ‘foul-mouthed’? Who doesn’t curse that much on an internet community?”

People like you, who curse at anyone and everyone, are called socially maladjusted…

No. Forget it.

Me and RoomCornerWife.

After putting our heads together and trying to understand the situation, we concluded that this place was definitely Apocalypse: Safe Zone.

The two of us had opened our eyes in the Cola safe zone.

Two people being possessed into a game at the same time…

‘Does that even make sense?’

But everything was too vivid to deny reality.

“By the way, why is your nickname RoomCornerWife? Did you make a typo while trying to write RoomCornerLu Bu?”

“It’s a witty twist on RoomCornerLu Bu. You don’t even get that?”

I really had no idea what part of that was witty.

“What about you? What’s your nickname?”

“Me?”

For a moment, I almost said “Dopamine Addict,” but then I changed my mind and gave someone else’s nickname instead.

“…T-Bastard.”

T-Bastard was a player who regularly left questions on my guide posts.

The reason I did not give my real nickname was because I had blocked RoomCornerWife right before I got possessed here.

It was unavoidable if I wanted to avoid an awkward situation.

Since I had been possessed together with this guy, I would have to cooperate with him whether I liked it or not. There was no need to make an enemy of him already…

“T-Bastard? I feel like I’ve seen that name on the community. Then did you also get the convenience store address from HomeProtector?”

Did I get the convenience store address from HomeProtector?

I had been wondering how RoomCornerWife knew about that convenience store and got possessed here.

So HomeProtector had gone around spreading the address I gave him?!

This guy must have come to the convenience store after seeing that address and then gotten possessed.

…Wait.

‘Then does that mean there might be other players possessed into this game besides us?’

Could the T-Bastard I was impersonating also be here?

…No, the player called T-Bastard normally hated socializing in the community, so there was no way he would have received an address DM from HomeProtector.

Even if he had received the address, he was not enthusiastic enough about this game to go all the way to the convenience store.

But HomeProtector, the one who had spread the address around, was a different story.

“HomeProtector might be somewhere here too.”

As though he had the exact same thought as me, I heard RoomCornerWife mutter quietly.

“Should we try looking for HomeProtector too?”

But I did not think HomeProtector would be in the same zone as us.

After all…

“HomeProtector’s a heavy smoker, so he probably chose Cigarette.”

“That makes sense.”

RoomCornerWife nodded as though he understood, then let out a small sigh as if he had remembered something.

“That bastard is here too…”

“That bastard?”

“Dopamine Addict. That attention-seeking bastard.”

When my expression stiffened, RoomCornerWife seemed to interpret my stiff face as disgust toward “Dopamine Addict,” and he excitedly continued talking.

“That bastard was the first one to post the convenience store address, wasn’t he? Then wouldn’t he have been possessed too?”

“…Probably.”

“Where was that bastard’s main base again? Unicorn? Serves him right if he got dropped into the highest-difficulty zone and is regretting it right now.”

“……”

It seemed I had made the right choice not introducing myself as Dopamine Addict.

No, but I did not think I had ever had any direct trouble with this guy…

RoomCornerWife smirked for a moment, then soon asked me with a grave expression.

“But… what do we do now? If we really got possessed into the game, do we have to clear it or something?”

It seemed he had finally realized, a little late, that although this was a slightly lower-difficulty zone, he had also been possessed into the game.

“It’s better to prepare for the apocalypse than do nothing. Anyway, if this really is the world of that apocalypse game, this world will be destroyed soon.”

“Why did this have to happen to me… If I ever meet that bastard HomeProtector, he’s dead.”

How many people had HomeProtector spread the address to?

How many people were possessed here?

For some reason, RoomCornerWife and I had the same starting location… but there could be other players who had fallen into Cola as well.

Well… once the Second Apocalypse started, we would naturally meet the other players too.

‘…But from that point on, isn’t it survival between zones?’

The thought that we might have to fight other possessed people to the death did cross my mind.

But that was still far in the future.

And this was no longer a “game” but “reality,” so maybe we did not have to engage in a kill-or-be-killed survival battle between players.

In the game, people from other zones were all enemies, but the situation was different if we were talking about possessed players.

Surely Koreans would not try to kill each other…

…I don’t know. I’ll think about this problem later.

RoomCornerWife also seemed to think about something for a moment before asking me,

“But if this is game possession, can we use the game system too?”

RoomCornerWife immediately started shouting keywords like “status window” and “inventory” into the air.

But nothing happened.

“Ha, fuck… They possess us into this world without permission, and there aren’t even any perks?”

“Come to think of it, did you see that?”

“That?”

“The thing that appears when you start. The revelation.”

“Ah… That wasn’t there either.”

The “revelation” was a single sentence.

Originally, as soon as the player opened their eyes in the starting zone, they should have seen the following sentence.

[The world will soon end. Prepare for the apocalypse.]

But when I opened my eyes in this game world, I did not see that sentence.

Judging by RoomCornerWife’s reaction, he had not seen it either.

“So we really have to clear this with nothing? And while we’re children? Does that even make sense? I’m sure I lived a good life…”

When I stared at him silently, RoomCornerWife flinched and avoided my gaze.

“Ha, fuck. I should’ve cursed less…”

The fact that even that mutter started with a curse meant there was no hope for him.

“What are you going to do from now on? T-Bastard, have you played the Cola zone? Up to which zone have you cleared?”

“Me… up to Unicorn.”

In reality, I had cleared all the way to Knife, but the only one who had cleared the hidden zone was “Dopamine Addict.”

I thought I had lowered the level reasonably, but RoomCornerWife still looked at me with eyes full of distrust.

“Stop lying. The only people who cleared up to Unicorn are Dopamine Addict and a few lunatics who worship that bastard’s guides. What are you even… Ah… I get it. You just read Dopamine Addict’s guides and you’re trying to act like you know everything, right?”

…Strange.

For someone who hated me, this guy seemed to know too much about me.

He knew not only my guides, but even the progress of my followers.

Come to think of it, when I uploaded my final guide, this guy had appeared and left a comment right after HomeProtector.

Could it be that this guy did not actually hate me…

I decided to probe him a little and threw out a line.

“You’re right. I’m a Dopamine Addict follower. I just didn’t participate in the community, but I memorized all of Dopamine Addict’s guides.”

“Y-you memorized all of them?”

Of course I did.

I wrote them.

RoomCornerWife’s lips twitched as though he had something he wanted to say, and then he asked in a small voice,

“Then… did you memorize that bastard’s Knife guide too?”

“Of course I did.”

“…Really? That’s a relief.”

A relief?

“Didn’t you read that guide too? I think you left a comment on it.”

Maybe those words pressed a button, because RoomCornerWife immediately flared up, his face turning red and blue in an instant.

“That guide… I was reading it when that bastard blocked me, fuck…! I’d been commenting on every single guide and even pressing recommend every time, that son of a bitch…!!”

Ah…

So he did not hate me.

In other words, he had been building up one-sided familiarity with me, then got sulky after I blocked him.

He even diligently pressed recommend on my guides?

Maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy after all.

“Damn it. It’s good that you memorized all the guides, but why did I have to get possessed together with a Dopamine Addict follower…”

“Do your own clear separately if you’re unhappy. More importantly, you asked me what I was going to do earlier, right?”

I lightly ignored RoomCornerWife’s words and continued.

“From now on, I’m going to become a ‘bastard child.’”

The “bastard child” strategy.

It was one of the Safe Zone Cola strategies that I had already uploaded to the community.

In this safe zone, “Cola,” there was a warlord who served as the ruler and guardian of the place.

The “bastard child” strategy meant becoming the “illegitimate child” and “heir” of that warlord’s commander, Hayden Goodman.

To put it simply, Hayden Goodman was like the Grand Duke of the North here.

Safe Zone Cola was also located in a snowy region on the edge of the continent, so it wasn’t even that wrong of a comparison.

As soon as I brought up the bastard child strategy, RoomCornerWife clicked his tongue briefly.

“Yep, you definitely read Dopamine Addict’s guide. That’s that bastard’s ‘bastard child’ strategy. Hey, don’t do it. Games and reality are different. Dopamine Addict’s guides aren’t something a sane person would actually do.”

I knew that my strategies, which always pursued only high stimulation, were off-meta.

Safe Zone Cola was a low-difficulty area, so even without going as far as becoming a “bastard child,” it was entirely possible to survive until the apocalypse.

But the phrase high risk, high return existed for a reason.

For all we knew, we might only have one chance to clear this.

During this period, we had to obtain everything we possibly could.

And for that, the position of Commander Goodman’s heir was absolutely necessary.

“If you’re scared, clear it separately.”

“Wh-who said I was scared? I’m asking whether it’s actually feasible.”

Feasibility, huh…

“If it’s the bastard child strategy, you have to deceive the commander. If you get caught lying, your head could really fly off.”

“So, in other words, you’re scared.”

“No… Fine, honestly, I’m scared. This isn’t a game anymore. We could actually die.”

It wasn’t as if I couldn’t understand RoomCornerWife’s fear.

We had suddenly been possessed into a game.

And not just any game, but an apocalypse world where it wouldn’t be strange for people to start dying at any moment, all while we were turned into ten-year-old children.

It was only natural to be afraid.

But strangely…

I was not afraid.

I didn’t know whether it was because I had the confidence of having cleared even the hidden zone, or because it still did not feel real that I had been possessed into a game.

Rather, ever since I had entered this game world, I had felt a strange thrill.

‘I thought there was no more dopamine I could get from this game.’

Maybe this was why RoomCornerWife hated someone like me so much.

Anyway.

“The one who has to deceive the commander is me, and… well, I don’t care even if I die doing it.”

“What?”

“Who knows? Maybe if we die, we’ll return to reality.”

I said that, but the chances were probably low.

Unlike me, for whom a life-or-death situation acted more like a buff, RoomCornerWife was anxious, so I was only saying it to calm him down.

This kind of anxiety could not be left alone.

It would be troublesome if RoomCornerWife, one of the chess pieces in my plan, made some sudden move.

At the suggestion that he might return to reality if he died, RoomCornerWife’s expression looked tempted for a moment.

Judging by his face, he seemed to be thinking something like, “Should I try dying once?”

Fortunately, there was no need to stop him.

He apparently did not have the courage to put it into action, and quickly deflated.

“What if I don’t return and really die…”

“It’s the same whether we die because we fail the clear or because we get caught lying. Anyway, I’m going to start clearing it now. Follow me or don’t.”

“……Hey!”

RoomCornerWife called out to stop me as I was about to leave without hesitation. After hesitating for a moment, he asked quietly,

“Between you and me, who’s going to be the bastard child?”

“I told you. From now on, ‘I’m’ going to become the bastard child.”

“Why do you get to do the good part?!”

Hadn’t he just said we might die if we got caught lying?

Well, the reason I was insisting on becoming the bastard child myself was partly because I had doubts about whether this guy was intelligent enough to play the role properly.

But there was another decisive reason.

Commander Hayden had black hair and black eyes, and was East Asian.

RoomCornerWife had a blond-haired, red-eyed Western character model.

I had black hair and black eyes.

“Yeah, I’m sure they’ll totally believe you if you say you’re the commander’s bastard child.”

Only then did RoomCornerWife seem to check the state of his own character model. He flinched in surprise and muttered a small curse.

“Damn it. Why did I get possessed in this character model…”

“You bastard, why does your character model look like that when you’re Korean? You damn face-lover.”

“My original starting zone was Love, you asshole!”

So this bastard had not been starting in his main zone either.

The Love zone was originally a place where lookism was rampant, so it made sense for him to have a pretty-boy character model like that.

“Anyway, I’ll play the role of the bastard child.”

“Then what am I supposed to do? The bastard child strategy doesn’t really need help from anyone else.”

Aha.

So that was why he was not happy with the bastard child strategy.

The bastard child strategy was a strategy that could be done entirely solo.

Some other strategies required inducing help from NPCs, and RoomCornerWife probably wanted to take the place of an NPC and do co-op play.

But I was more comfortable soloing.

At least right now, I had no intention of joining forces with this guy.

However, since this was a world where the apocalypse had been foretold, I did need him.

The people of this zone had to believe that the apocalypse would come ten years later in order to prepare for it.

Later, this guy would have to help me persuade the people of this zone.

‘For that…’

He would need to gain the trust of the people here too.

I asked RoomCornerWife,

“By any chance, have you served in the military?”

“What? No? I only just turned twenty.”

He had only just turned twenty?

No wonder he seemed like a brat.

“So you haven’t served yet. Perfect.”

“What’s perfect?”

I smiled brightly at RoomCornerWife, who still had no idea what was going on, and said,

“You, go join the army.”