Chapter 31

Two Dopamine Addicts

[TotallyPossible: So there are two Dopamine Addicts, then?]

Two Dopamine Addicts?

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

When I checked the other chat windows, I found that HomeProtector and T-Bastard had also sent me messages in addition to the public chat.

I checked only the most recent message in each conversation.

[HomeProtector: What are you even doing that you’re not checking the chat?] (+6)
[T-Bastard: What are you?] (+3)

Even T-Bastard had messaged me first?

What happened while I wasn’t looking at the chat?

I figured I would need to read the public chat first to understand the context behind their messages, so I left their private messages alone and opened the public channel.

“Meursault, I’m taking a short break.”

“Pardon? No, you’ve only told me that the key to the operation is efficiency. What do you mean, you’re taking a bre—”

Leaving Meursault behind as he enthusiastically told me to enjoy my break, I headed toward my room while scrolling upward through the chat history.

It seemed the conversation in question had begun yesterday evening.

Once I reached my room, I lay down on the bed and slowly began reading from the messages sent the previous evening.

The first message had come from Junkie, the player from the Cocaine Zone.

[Junkie: Um, I received a strange message…]
[God: A strange message?]
[God: What kind of strange message?]
[Junkie: It was suspicious no matter how you looked at it… Did no one else receive one?]
[God: We get all kinds of suspicious messages~ Does anyone know what he’s talking about~?]
[Junkie: If no one else received it, I’ll just deal with it myself…]
[Dentist: Could that strange message perhaps be…]

Oh, the newbie was still alive.

[Dentist: Are you referring to the message from someone calling himself “Dopamine Addict”?]
[Junkie: Yes!!]

Someone calling himself Dopamine Addict?

SafeZone8 had already tried impersonating me once.

Had someone else appeared and started pretending to be me besides him?

I continued reading.

[Dentist: I saw it as well and was wondering how I should interpret it.]
[God: Hmm, to tell the truth, I received that message too.]

God, who had been pretending ignorance until moments earlier, changed his tune and admitted that he had received it. At that, the other silent players began appearing in the chat one after another.

[TotallyPossible: Huh, so I wasn’t the only one who got it?]
[HomeProtector: I got one too.]
[Junkie: Then did everyone else receive it as well?]
[IWon’tBiteThat’sCardio: Huh? What message are you talking about? I didn’t see anything.]
[HomeProtector: But I assumed it was an impersonator, so I didn’t even open it.]
[HomeProtector: What did it say?]
[IWon’tBiteThat’sCardio: Am I the only one who didn’t receive it?]
[God: I was going to ignore it because it looked so suspicious, but if everyone got one, I’m curious who sent it~]
[IWon’tBiteThat’sCardio: I said I didn’t get one!]
[God: This is what mine said.]
[God: Interaction with zones other than Unicorn is possible.]
[God: But the sender’s ID was “Dopamine Addict.”]
[Junkie: Mine said exactly the same thing! Not a single word was different!!]
[TotallyPossible: But was that message really sent by Dopamine Addict?]
[HomeProtector: I’m telling you, it wasn’t him. It’s definitely an impersonator.]
[TotallyPossible: How can you be so sure?]
[HomeProtector: Because Dopamine Addict accepted my friend request.]

He seemed strangely proud of that.

[HomeProtector: If that ID really belonged to Dopamine Addict, I should be able to send him a private message, but it’s blocked.]
[Dentist: He accepted your friend request? He ignored mine.]
[God: He ignored mine too~ T_T]
[HomeProtector: Then shouldn’t the fact that you received a private message have made you suspicious from the start? You can’t send private messages unless both sides are friends.]

Oh.

As expected of someone with experience, his reasoning was remarkably sound.

[Junkie: That’s why I said it was suspicious!]
[TotallyPossible: Why is everyone assuming it’s an impersonator? It could really be Dopamine Addict.]
[Junkie: How could he send me a private message when we aren’t friends?]
[TotallyPossible: If it wasn’t Dopamine Addict, do you have any other friends who could send you a message like that?]
[Junkie: …]

Come to think of it, neither Junkie nor TotallyPossible had sent me friend requests.

Had Junkie not added anyone at all?

[TotallyPossible: Listen. He’s different from us. Maybe a full-zone clear player has a privilege that allows him to send private messages without becoming friends first.]
[God: But why hasn’t Dopamine Addict said anything~? Is he not looking at the chat~?]
[Dentist: He ignores everyone’s friend requests. I doubt he checks the chat diligently.]

That sounded oddly sarcastic.

[HomeProtector: Exactly. Why would a rude bastard who won’t even accept your friend requests bother sending all of you a message like that?]

That wasn’t sarcasm.

He was openly insulting me.

[IWon’tBiteThat’sCardio: But if it wasn’t Dopamine Addict, then who sent that message, and for what purpose? Why would they impersonate Dopamine Addict to do it?]
[God: Right~ Weren’t we originally unable to contact other zones until the Second Apocalypse~?]
[HomeProtector: Well, in the game, there was a blue barrier that prevented us from crossing over…]
[TotallyPossible: Now that I think about it, this is reality now, isn’t it? Maybe there aren’t any barriers between the zones.]
[Junkie: Ah! Then did Dopamine Addict discover that and tell us?]
[HomeProtector: I said it wasn’t Dopamine Addict.]
[TotallyPossible: Even if Dopamine Addict didn’t send it, couldn’t we verify whether movement between zones is possible simply by checking if the blue barrier is still there?]

Hmm.

I had not yet traveled all the way to the edge of the zone, so I had never checked.

I would have to go to the boundary during this subjugation campaign.

However, the real problem was not whether the contents of that message were true.

Scrolling farther down, I saw that another player had also noticed the true issue.

[God: The way I see it~ this is a problem even if the sender isn’t Dopamine Addict~]
[IWon’tBiteThat’sCardio: What’s the problem?]
[God: You remember that only players who have unlocked the system can use this chat room, right?]
[HomeProtector: Ah.]
[HomeProtector: If it wasn’t Dopamine Addict…]
[HomeProtector: Then another player unlocked the system?]
[God: And considering only one person from each zone has entered this chat room~]
[Dentist: The player from the Unicorn Zone.]
[God: You’re quick for a newbie. That’s right. The only one left is the Unicorn Zone player. Besides, the message itself already contains a clue.]
[TotallyPossible: Interaction is possible with every zone except Unicorn…]
[HomeProtector: Then what? The Unicorn player deliberately impersonated Dopamine Addict and sent us that message?]
[TotallyPossible: But was it even possible to impersonate someone’s ID? Aren’t IDs unchangeable?]

I also believed there was a high chance the sender was the player from the Unicorn Zone.

I had no idea how they had avoided entering the public chat or how they had changed their ID to Dopamine Addict.

However, unless the fundamental rule—that only the first player to touch the meteorite item in each zone could unlock the system—had somehow been broken, the only unconfirmed person remaining was the Unicorn Zone player.

Even so, no matter how much I thought about it, I could not understand why that player would bother impersonating me to send such a message.

There was also the phrase excluding the Unicorn Zone.

If communication between zones was possible here, unlike in the game, there was no reason for Unicorn to be excluded.

No zone possessed technology advanced enough to fly all the way to the floating island, but the Unicorn Zone did not float particularly high above the ground.

Flying monsters did not exist yet either. The Cocaine Zone lay directly beneath Unicorn, so they could probably interact simply by building a tall staircase.

Which meant the message almost sounded like…

A warning not to approach the Unicorn Zone yet.

But why hadn’t they sent me a separate message?

Come to think of it, hadn’t Cardio-whatever from the Chicken Zone said he had not received one either?

Why were the two of us the only ones excluded?

I had questions, but they immediately became unimportant when I saw the next message Junkie had sent.

[Junkie: But… I just noticed something strange.]
[God: Something strange?]
[IWon’tBiteThat’sCardio: There’s something even stranger…?]
[Junkie: I noticed it before but didn’t think much of it. Look at the public chat member list.]

The following messages had been sent after a brief pause.

[HomeProtector: What… is this?]
[IWon’tBiteThat’sCardio: No way…]
[Dentist: This isn’t just a simple error, is it?]

The member list?

I opened it as well and checked the IDs currently inside the public chat.

[Dopamine Addict

T-Bastard

God

Dentist

TotallyPossible

IWon’tBiteThat’sCardio

Junkie

HomeProtector]

Eight people in total, displayed in the order they had entered the public chat.

Nothing looks strange…

I only realized what was wrong after reading the next message.

[IWon’tBiteThat’sCardio: So… it wasn’t eight people including me, but eight people excluding me…?]

Eight people… excluding him?

[God: This is a little chilling.]
[Junkie: I’d seen it before, but I thought the first person who created the chat room simply had their name listed twice.]

My name was listed twice?

Did that mean everyone else saw my ID twice on their lists?

There were eight people excluding me, and everyone else could see my ID twice…

Does the list not display your own ID?

I calmly clicked the Dopamine Addict ID shown at the very top of the member list.

If it belonged to me rather than another person, my own profile should have opened.

Instead—

[Would you like to send Dopamine Addict a friend request?]

What the fuck is this?

The ID displayed at the top of the member list was not mine.

This was clearly another player who was not me.

[HomeProtector: This is seriously making my head spin.]
[HomeProtector: So there were nine people in this room from the very beginning?]
[TotallyPossible: Then are there two Dopamine Addicts?]

That was where the chat ended.

As though they had all become sick of the situation at once, everyone stopped sending messages to the public channel.

I also left the public chat and checked the private messages the other players had sent me.

First was HomeProtector’s private chat.

[HomeProtector: Lmaooo]
[HomeProtector: Did you ignore everyone else’s friend requests except mine? lol]
[HomeProtector: Check the chat room. It’s going crazy right now.]
[HomeProtector: That isn’t you, right?]
[HomeProtector: Hey.]
[HomeProtector: Fucking check the chat already.]
[HomeProtector: What are you even doing that you’re not checking the chat?]

After thinking about what to send, I decided to keep my reply brief.

[Dopamine Addict: That isn’t me.]

A tremendous flood of new messages seemed to arrive from HomeProtector afterward, but I opened T-Bastard’s chat first.

After quickly reading through his messages, I was glad I had checked them before the others.

Because—

[T-Bastard: Dopamine Addict, are you certain that bastard isn’t you?]
[T-Bastard: It knows everything we discussed in our private conversations, so I find it difficult to believe it’s merely impersonating you.]
[T-Bastard: We were already friends, so I assumed that bastard was you and even had a conversation with it.]
[T-Bastard: What are you?]