Chapter 7

Player Perks

Now that I thought about it, an entire day had passed since I was transmigrated, yet I hadn’t eaten anything and still wasn’t hungry.

I had never even thought that I needed to eat, nor had I gone to the bathroom.

Taejeong-Taese’s expression, which had suddenly darkened when food was mentioned, also bothered me.

“Come to think of it, you were still here.”

Perhaps because my gaze had shifted toward Taejeong-Taese, the commander finally looked at him as though he had only just noticed another person was present.

The moment their eyes met, Taejeong-Taese dropped to his knees before him.

He was probably about to follow my advice and explain that he had merely been deceived.

“I-I truly didn’t know! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry…! I was just hungry… I’m a complete idiot! I’m the worst bastard alive!”

…Ah. This guy couldn’t speak English either.

“I’m truly sorry…!”

Taejeong-Taese’s apology had absolutely no context, but perhaps his sincerity came through, because the commander remained silent for a moment with a contemplative expression.

He was probably angry that Taejeong-Taese had arrived with someone impersonating his son, but at the same time, Taejeong-Taese had been deceived too. What could a child have done?

Furthermore, the one who had deceived him had died moments ago as though struck down by divine punishment.

It would be awkward to punish the remaining companion.

The commander would forgive him if I asked…

But if I “requested” that he forgive Taejeong-Taese and allow him to stay in the commander’s residence, it might consume one of my Three Rewards.

Fortunately, the commander probably didn’t want Taejeong-Taese leaving the residence either.

It would be troublesome if he went outside and carelessly spread rumors about the illegitimate son.

And it would be even more troublesome if people learned that the child who had accompanied him had met with an accident inside the commander’s residence.

I carefully opened my mouth.

“Um… if you only followed him because you were hungry, why don’t you eat here before you leave?”

Directly asking the commander might consume a reward, but phrasing it as an indirect suggestion probably wouldn’t.

In other words, it was a passive request for him to understand what I wanted and act accordingly.

The commander looked at me with mild surprise.

“Are you defending that child?”

“It’s cold outside, and people do get hungry…”

Perhaps my words struck a chord, since I had supposedly been a cold and starving orphan until recently.

The commander helped Taejeong-Taese to his feet and ordered him to join us for the meal.

“I have many questions about how you have lived until now and what happened to Lunamoon… but let us discuss the details after dinner. I must leave for a while. There are matters that must be handled first if you are to live here from now on.”

Now that I thought about it, even while playing the game, the commander had always been busy, so opportunities to speak with him privately had been rare.

If he planned to meet me again that evening, I needed to decide on my second reward before then.

“A servant will inform you when the meal is ready. Wait quietly until then… and if anyone disrespects or doubts you, you may deal with them however you wish.”

With those final words, the commander left the room again.

Taejeong-Taese let out a long sigh as the tension drained from his body.

“I should’ve studied English.”

“It’s more natural for a child not to speak fluently.”

Since many children had received no proper education after the apocalypse, people like Safe Zone 8 and me—who could form perfectly coherent sentences—were actually the unusual ones.

“By the way… do you also not feel hungry?”

Taejeong-Taese blinked at my question.

“Ah, so saying you were hungry was just an excuse. I thought perhaps you were the only one capable of feeling hunger.”

“When you say ‘only one,’ do you mean Safe Zone 8 couldn’t feel hunger either?”

“Yes. It seems players not only don’t feel hunger, but…”

Taejeong-Taese’s expression became solemn as he continued.

“…It seems you haven’t eaten anything in this world yet. You’ll understand once you try it.”

What was that supposed to mean?

Did the food taste absolutely terrible?

Well, this world did suffer from a severe food shortage…

Not long afterward, a servant arrived and guided us to the dining room.

Only Taejeong-Taese and I were seated at the table.

“His Excellency will return late this evening.”

After leaving those words, the servant disappeared from the room.

Taejeong-Taese stared at the food laid out on the table as though it were garbage.

‘Why is he reacting like that?’

Contrary to Taejeong-Taese’s contemptuous gaze, everything on the table looked perfectly normal.

Of course, since this was a post-apocalyptic world, it would be an exaggeration to call the meal plentiful.

And the fact that most of the meat came from alien creatures outside the zone might be somewhat unsettling.

The greatest problem in an apocalyptic world was food scarcity.

In the game, most safe zones survived by eating meat from monsters outside the zone or plants that grew from monsters. On rare occasions, vegetables and fruit that grew naturally outside the zones were gathered after extermination missions.

The reason corpses were thrown outside was also because monsters needed to grow to a certain size before they yielded enough meat.

Everyone knew that the monsters grew by consuming corpses, but there was no other choice.

If people wanted to survive, they had to eat.

Some NPCs occasionally expressed disgust toward the meat, but no resident found the simple act of eating monster flesh unusual.

Some other zones were capable of producing their own food internally, but that was impossible in the exceptionally cold Cola Zone.

There might be a small greenhouse in the commander’s residence, but that would be about it.

Within this zone, eating vegetables or fruit that weren’t monster by-products was a privilege reserved for high-ranking officers.

The meal before us consisted of cornbread, potatoes, meat tied with string and boiled, and a salad made from at least two kinds of vegetables.

By this world’s standards, it was an excellent meal.

Yet Taejeong-Taese still looked miserable.

‘Is he bothered by the fact that the monsters grew by eating corpses?’

That couldn’t be it.

Taejeong-Taese didn’t even touch the vegetables. Instead, he immediately moved the meat onto his own plate.

Maybe it really was a matter of taste…

Thinking that, I placed some salad into my mouth first.

“…?”

The “meal” in this world surpassed anything I had expected.

***

After we finished eating—

Though I wasn’t even sure whether it could be called “eating.”

In any case, Taejeong-Taese and I were led to a room with soft sofas and served refreshments.

Neither of us touched them.

With a grave expression, I said,

“This isn’t a matter of whether it tastes good or bad. Rather than ‘eating,’ it would be more accurate to call it ‘absorbing.’”

The reason I said that was simple.

The moment I brought the food to my lips, it dissolved into a warm energy and was absorbed into my body.

It was the same whether I consumed water or meat.

It was exactly like eating food in the game, where it didn’t truly enter the character’s mouth but instead turned into blue particles and vanished.

“Did the same thing happen to you and Safe Zone 8?”

“Yes. We ate dinner with the commander last night. Both of us were startled, so we watched how the other NPCs ate, but they consumed the food normally. Brother—no, Safe Zone 8—told me not to panic and to pretend to chew naturally, so no one noticed anything strange.”

“No way…”

‘Did they really need to recreate something like this exactly as it worked in the game?’

There were too many strange things.

Our bodies did not feel hunger.

I had forcibly “absorbed” several kinds of food, but I didn’t feel full afterward either.

‘Then perhaps it isn’t that we can’t feel hunger. Maybe our bodies simply don’t need food in the first place.’

Even stranger, although I didn’t feel full after eating, another abnormal phenomenon had occurred.

“The small wounds on my fingers are gone.”

My fingertips had become raw after digging through Lunamoon’s grave with my bare hands the previous night.

But once the “meal” ended, they had—

The wounds had healed without leaving even the slightest trace.

Taejeong-Taese’s eyes widened, as though this was something he had never noticed before.

“What? Really?”

“Didn’t this happen to either of you?”

“Hmm…”

Taejeong-Taese thought for a moment, then shook his head.

“I’m not really sure. Neither of us was injured to begin with…”

“Then testing it will be faster.”

“What?”

I picked up a fork from the tea table and drove it hard into the back of my hand.

“Are you insane?!”

Taejeong-Taese cried out in horror beside me, but I ignored him and tossed one of the snacks from the table into my mouth.

The moment it touched my lips, it vanished, and I felt warm energy seep into my body.

“…Oh.”

After waiting a moment, I saw the wound begin to close.

The healing was somewhat slow, but I had confirmed that consuming food restored injuries.

“Now you stab yourself too.”

“What?!”

“We need to find out whether this ability belongs only to me or whether every player has it.”

“N-No, but with a fork…?”

Taejeong-Taese hesitated for a very long time, but eventually managed to stab the back of his hand deeply enough to draw blood.

Whining dramatically, he placed a snack into his mouth.

The wound on his hand also began to heal slowly.

“So this is a universal player perk.”

“A perk?”

“Not needing to eat in an apocalypse is an enormous privilege. Once the Second Apocalypse begins, ordinary food like this will become difficult to obtain. Hunting monsters for food won’t be easy either. But unless we need to heal an injury, we don’t have to eat at all.”

I looked down at my restored hand.

“And even if we are injured, all we have to do is eat food—no, simply bring it to our mouths—to recover. Though I don’t know how severe an injury can be healed or how much food each wound requires.”

Restoring your body by eating food.

It had been perfectly normal in the game.

But I never expected that mechanic to carry over directly into reality.

I had thought we had been transmigrated into the game world without receiving any particular advantages.

But all players had possessed a privilege from the very beginning.

‘No… maybe it isn’t an absolute privilege.’

Taste was a fairly important part of living.

Yet every player had been given a body incapable of experiencing it.

We were beings who consumed food solely for the purpose of repairing ourselves.

Wasn’t that closer to a “tool” than a “living creature”?

‘I already suspected that there had to be a reason we were transmigrated.’

A status window that opened only after approaching the “secret of the apocalypse.”

A unique perk granted only to me, the player who had cleared every zone.

And now, the ability to restore our bodies through food.

Taking all of this into account, there was only one possible conclusion.

There was definitely some purpose behind our transmigration.

‘Who did this… and for what reason? Why choose shut-in losers like us?’

Whether it was the secret of the apocalypse or the true reason we had been brought here, I would eventually learn the answer as I continued clearing the game.

For now, I had successfully completed the illegitimate-son strategy and discovered that my body was remarkably cost-effective.

That was enough.

Or so I thought.

Late that night, the commander came to see me.

After examining the tips of my fingers, he spoke in a trembling voice.

“This healing ability… As I thought, you truly are Lunamoon’s child.”