Chapter 79
Divorce (5)
Shin, the player of the Love Zone.
Shin Eun-jo’s grandmother had been a famous mansin in Korea—a highly revered shaman.
Powerful politicians with immense influence and world-famous celebrities alike behaved politely even toward her granddaughter whenever they came seeking her grandmother’s help.
Shin Eun-jo didn’t dislike the way people bowed their heads before her.
At the age of ten, she began wasting away from an illness of unknown cause.
Shin Eun-jo had no doubt that she would become the next mansin.
And she wanted it to happen.
However, on the day before she was supposed to undergo the initiation ritual—
It wasn’t spirit sickness…
Her illness vanished as though it had never existed, even though she had yet to receive the spirit.
Her grandmother had already summoned all her spirit daughters for Shin Eun-jo’s initiation, so she expected to be severely scolded.
But her grandmother did not rebuke her.
—So this is how it has turned out in the end.
Her words sounded as though she had already known Shin Eun-jo’s illness wasn’t spirit sickness.
But Shin Eun-jo felt too guilty toward her grandmother to ask what she had meant.
The illness had tormented her for a full year, only to disappear overnight.
Yet something even stranger happened afterward.
From that very day, her grandmother began teaching Shin Eun-jo everything she would need to know to live as a shaman.
Shin Eun-jo didn’t understand why.
Nevertheless, she respected her grandmother, so she did her best to learn.
Her grandmother taught her many things and passed down much of what she possessed.
That knowledge later became a tremendous help when Shin Eun-jo pretended to be a shaman.
By the time she turned twenty, after living an ordinary school life, she no longer possessed any faith in shamanism.
She concluded that her so-called spirit sickness had simply been some unidentified rare childhood disease.
Her grandmother must have known that too, and spirit initiation was nothing more than an elaborate fraud.
Then Grandmother, who was revered as a mansin, must simply have been an exceptionally perceptive person.
It was easier to think that way.
While Shin Eun-jo was attending school in Seoul, the mansin was killed by a stranger who claimed not to believe in “superstition.”
If she were a real mansin, there’s no way she wouldn’t have known she was going to die.
Even if she had known and her death had been unavoidable—
She should have left at least a few words for me.
—So this is how it has turned out in the end.
Whenever Shin Eun-jo suddenly remembered what her grandmother had said when her illness disappeared, the pain became unbearable.
It felt as though her grandmother must have accepted even her own final moment in the same way.
After agonizing for days, Shin Eun-jo eventually made a decision.
Her grandmother had left more words behind for helping strangers than she ever had for her own granddaughter.
She had merely been an ordinary woman who happened to be good at giving advice.
And Shin Eun-jo would never forgive the bastard who had murdered her.
By then, however, the man had already been imprisoned.
His sentence was not light, so even if he was released early for good behavior, there was no telling when that would happen.
That was why Shin Eun-jo began using what she had inherited from her grandmother to pretend to be a shaman.
If she couldn’t harm him with her own hands, she would use other people, authority, and connections to ensure that bastard suffered for the rest of his life.
That was what I decided, but…
Even imitating a shaman was not easy.
Everything had looked effortless when her grandmother did it, but when Shin Eun-jo tried, nothing went according to plan.
Thanks to her grandmother’s teachings, she was extremely knowledgeable about physiognomy, feng shui, and similar fields.
But seeing through another person was extraordinarily difficult.
So difficult that she began to wonder whether a spirit really had possessed her grandmother.
“I wish I could have received a spirit back then.”
Sitting in the empty shrine with no customers, Shin Eun-jo murmured bitterly.
If that illness had truly been spirit sickness, perhaps she might have foreseen her grandmother’s death.
She had impulsively opened the shrine.
Her revenge had not even begun.
And she despaired at the thought that she would never come close to reaching even the tips of her grandmother’s toes.
As a tear unknowingly rolled from one eye, that man appeared.
His hair was black.
Pitch-black.
Even for a Korean, his hair was so exceptionally dark that she found herself staring at it absentmindedly.
The man parted his well-shaped lips.
“Why are you crying?”
The instant he asked, Shin Eun-jo found herself telling him everything.
Her plan for revenge.
Her grandmother’s death.
Her past desire to become a shaman.
And the fact that she had failed to receive a spirit.
The man listened to her entire story with an expression that revealed nothing of what he was thinking.
But she clearly remembered that he had not looked bored for even a moment.
After confessing everything, Shin Eun-jo wiped her tear-stained face.
“I-I don’t have any spirit serving me. You should just leave too, sir. I’m sorry I tried to deceive you.”
“You needn’t worry about that. The reason you were not permitted to receive another god is because of my father.”
“What…?”
When Shin Eun-jo looked puzzled by the sudden mention of his father, the man gave her a magnificent smile.
“My father is quite fond of you. One day, you too will receive the call of my father in heaven.”
“Oh… that kind of Father…”
Is it really all right for a Christian to come for a shamanic reading…?
He was a strange man, but his words comforted her.
“More importantly, I came because I wanted to ask you something.”
“You want to ask me, even though I’m a f-fraud?”
“Regrettably, there is no one else from whom I can seek an opinion.”
With that, the man rummaged through his briefcase and pulled something out.
“A game cartridge…?”
“I created a game according to my father’s will. I was curious whether it would appeal to young people.”
“Ah…”
Perhaps he had developed some kind of Christian game.
Thinking that, Shin Eun-jo accepted the cartridge and absentmindedly read the title printed on it.
“Middle-Aged Handsome Man Dating Simula…tion…?”
“What do you think? Is the title itself alluring?”
Maybe he isn’t Christian. Maybe he belongs to a cult.
The title Middle-Aged Handsome Man Dating Simulation was certainly strange.
However, Shin Eun-jo had already received considerable comfort from him, so she promised to play it herself and tell him what she thought.
“I may not be a real shaman… but I am young. If I play it, I think I can tell you whether it would appeal to young people.”
“I would be grateful. In return, I shall grant one of your wishes.”
“My wish…?”
Is he saying that because he thinks I’ll ask him to pay for the consultation…?
Shin Eun-jo had never intended to charge him anyway, so she nodded.
“Then my wish is…”
“You need not say it.”
“What?”
“It has already been granted.”
He really must be worried that I’ll ask him to pay.
If he was desperate enough to visit a fraudulent shaman and ask whether the game he had made was enjoyable, his financial situation probably wasn’t very good.
“You don’t have to pay me… for the consultation.”
At her words, the man chuckled softly.
“You do not believe me. But you will soon come to believe.”
He added in a gentle voice,
“In a miracle of God.”
A cultist…
With those words, the man left the shrine.
Shin Eun-jo spent the entire night playing Middle-Aged Handsome Man Dating Simulation.
After barely managing to reach one ending, she wrote down her impressions and sent them to the email address on the man’s business card.
[To: Nyarlathotep@cthulucames.com
Hello, sir. I’m the owner of the shrine you visited today for a shamanic reading…
…
In my opinion, even for a game about pursuing attractive middle-aged men, Hayden seems far too old. It is also a little disappointing that the player can only begin the game as a soldier. By the way, was the Commander’s face modeled after you? You are handsome, but I think players of this game might find it a little uncomfortable… Also…]
She wrote the email with complete honesty.
No reply ever came.
She waited all day, but the message wasn’t even marked as read.
She began to wonder whether the email address on the business card contained a typo, or whether the man had simply said random things after becoming flustered upon learning she was a fake shaman.
Then, the next day—
The detective in charge of the case informed her that the man who had murdered her grandmother had been found brutally killed inside prison.
“The guard said it looked as if an animal had bitten him to death. An animal with countless teeth.”
She didn’t know why the man’s voice came to mind at that moment.
You will soon come to believe in a miracle of God.
Shin Eun-jo was seized by an inexplicable terror.
By the time she came to her senses, she had erased every trace of having played the game, along with the email containing her impressions.
The object presumed to be the game cartridge the man had given her had been burned inside the sink until nothing but ashes remained.
And from that day onward—
She began to see other people’s thoughts as clearly as if they were laid bare before her.
Shin Eun-jo decided that this must have been the “granted wish” the man had mentioned.
The business card had disappeared somewhere, and no matter how hard she tried, she could no longer remember the email address.
For a while, she lived having forgotten about the man.
Until she learned of the existence of Apocalypse: Safe Zone, a game that paid homage to Middle-Aged Handsome Man Dating Simulation.
“Huh? This…”
In this game, Hayden appeared as a younger man of around thirty.
A female NPC named Daphne had also been added, alongside Lunamoon, who was presumably the player character from the original dating simulation.
Hayden’s face still resembled that man, however.
“…So he did read my email.”
Since Middle-Aged Handsome Man Dating Simulation had never been released afterward, she had completely forgotten about it.
Yet an unexpected game had now proven that her encounter with the man had not been a dream or hallucination.
The realization frightened her.
At the same time, it made her want to see the game through to its end.
And so Shin Eun-jo began playing Safe Zone.
That was how she learned about Dopamine Addict.
At first, she thought Dopamine Addict was that man.
The atmosphere surrounding his customized character in the Cola Zone somehow resembled him.
He probably just customized himself to resemble Commander Hayden. He is the founder of the illegitimate-child route, after all.
Then something strange happened again.
The veteran players who went to the convenience store at the address shared by Dopamine Addict began disappearing.
Shin Eun-jo had already experienced an inexplicable incident long ago—the sudden death of the target of her revenge.
Because of that, she instinctively knew that this was no ordinary disappearance.
I have to go too.
Ever since her revenge had ended so abruptly, she had lived without any goal or purpose.
That was why the rumors of people disappearing frightened her less than they stirred her desire to see the truth with her own eyes.
She had no idea what awaited her in that convenience store.
Even so, Shin Eun-jo decided to go.
During her first visit, she left without selecting anything.
The objects there were unmistakably symbols representing the nine Safe Zones.
Perhaps this was an opportunity.
Her final chance to escape the false life in which she would forever remain a fraudulent shaman.
Shin Eun-jo immediately gathered the other players and made them choose the symbol of the same zone as her.
That was how they were transported into the game.
And now—
She stood here, staring at the unbelievable sight Dopamine Addict had created.
“This is impossible…”
The dark clouds swirled and vanished according to the movements of Dopamine Addict’s hand.
It was a bizarre spectacle far beyond the limits of ordinary human perception.
Merely watching it felt as though it drained away her sanity.
The fear was so overwhelming that her tongue seemed to stick to the inside of her mouth.
What frightened her even more was the person wielding that power.
He did not seem to understand just how absurd his ability truly was.
No—
He didn’t even appear particularly interested in finding out.
Dopamine Addict—
Or rather, the boy who looked like chaos itself—
spoke to her in a gentle voice.
“A miracle of God. Do you believe me now?”
Just like that man had on that day.