Chapter 81

Divorce (7)

Shin Eun-jo had said that Meursault was not a romanceable character.

“Romanceable character” was not a term used in Safe Zone. After all, Safe Zone was a game about conquering different zones.

The fact that she had nevertheless used that term led to only one conclusion.

“Don’t tell me you’ve played that dating sim too?”

Shin Eun-jo gave me a straightforward answer.

“Middle-Aged Man Dating Simulator? Of course I have.”

That dating sim…

Was it secretly an incredibly famous game? Was I the only person who had never played it?

No, more importantly—

“Do shamans play dating sims too?”

“I played it because I’m a shaman.”

“Huh?”

I might not know much about dating sims, but even I could tell that the statement, “I played a dating sim because I’m a shaman,” was anything but ordinary.

“Why would being a shaman give you a reason to play a dating sim? Did you perform some kind of cyber exorcism for it?”

“I played it as part of managing a client.”

Did shamans nowadays have to play dating sims for customer relations?

“Are you some kind of Gen MZ shaman?”

“I don’t know what you’re imagining, but a client brought me a game he’d made and asked me to divine whether it would sell well. I merely played it.”

The fact that someone had gone to a shaman to ask whether his dating sim would sell was even more surprising.

…Wait.

“A game he made?”

“Yes.”

“He said he personally made that game? Are you certain?”

“I’m certain. All the changes I emailed him back then were reflected in Safe Zone too.”

He had incorporated her changes…?

“What do you mean by that?”

“I told you. That client brought me the game because he wanted to know whether it would be successful. But it wasn’t fun, so I asked him to change a few things.”

“What did you ask him to change?”

“Commander Hayden’s age and appearance, among other things. Older men aren’t my type.”

Ah.

No wonder Commander Hayden was so young despite the game being titled Middle-Aged Man Dating Simulator.

So this was the result of her requested revisions.

‘If everything Shin Eun-jo is saying is true, then before she was transported here, she met the creator of Middle-Aged Man Dating Simulator… the head of Cthulhu Games.’

In a way, that event might have been even more closely connected to our group transmigration than the fact that my mother was the head of the Salvation Project or that Stay-at-home Wifey’s older sister was one of its employees.

After all, the dating sim had been the beginning of the players’ transmigration.

‘I need to organize the timeline.’

Before doing that, however, there was something I needed to confirm with Shin Eun-jo first.

“The person you met was the head of Cthulhu Games, right? Not the head of some other game company.”

Shin Eun-jo’s eyes widened at my question.

“Yes! That’s right! Cthulhu Games! I definitely saw that written in the email address. Why couldn’t I remember such a simple name until now?”

“What about the company’s head? Was it a man or a woman?”

“A man. He resembled Commander Hayden.”

‘Then it was someone else.’

Truthfully, I had wondered whether the head of Cthulhu Games might also have been my mother.

But if the person Shin Eun-jo had met was a man, then my mother was not the one who had started all of this.

For some reason, I felt relieved.

‘First, let’s consider the order in which the games we were transported into were developed…’

[Cthulhu Games’ dating sim
→ The Salvation Project’s first Safe Zone series
→ Square Soft’s online apocalypse game, Safe Zone]

Luna Moon and Daphne had been transported here through the dating sim, while we had undergone a group transmigration through the online version of Safe Zone only ten years after Luna Moon’s death.

Based on all the information I had gathered so far, the estimated timeline was as follows.

[Dating sim developed
→ Shin Eun-jo meets the head of Cthulhu Games
→ Dating sim released
→ Luna Moon and Daphne are transported into the game
→ The Salvation Project develops Safe Zone
→ Square Soft develops the online version of Safe Zone
→ Group transmigration]

‘Would that be the correct order?’

I had placed the Salvation Project’s development of Safe Zone after Luna Moon and Daphne’s transmigration because, if a game called Safe Zone had already existed at the time, it would have been natural for Daphne to at least consider the possibility that this world was not a dating sim but an apocalypse game.

Yet Daphne had seemed completely unaware of the apocalypse.

‘But if that’s the case…’

After organizing the timeline, one thing finally became certain.

Luna Moon really was my mother.

‘The most natural explanation is that Mother was transported here as Luna Moon, died inside the game, returned to reality, and then created a game with the exact same world she had witnessed.’

For reasons I still did not understand, my mother had been so obsessed with creating the game that she had even neglected me, her own child.

The problem was that, even after accepting that Luna Moon was my mother, I still had no idea why she had gone so far to recreate Safe Zone.

If Mother had merely been another victim of transmigration, then the person who had truly begun all this should have been the head of Cthulhu Games.

Why, then, had Mother followed in his footsteps and created another game?

And the fact that I had been transported into the online version of Safe Zone without even knowing it had been developed by my mother…

‘Was that really a coincidence?’

For the first time, I wanted to return to reality.

There were far too many things I wanted to ask my mother.

And then it happened.

A message appeared before my eyes.

[You have taken another step toward uncovering the secret of the apocalypse……]

I had seen this message once before.

‘It appeared when I obtained Luna Moon’s ring!’

That was when the system had first been unlocked.

‘Then if this message has appeared now…’

[Additional system functions will be unlocked.]

‘As expected!’

When that message had first appeared, it had said, [A portion of the system will be unlocked], rather than simply, [The system will be unlocked].

Ever since then, I had suspected that more system functions remained inaccessible.

Apparently, the system expanded each time I drew closer to the so-called secret of the apocalypse.

So Shin Eun-jo would not find my behavior suspicious, I quickly read through the newly unlocked categories floating before my eyes.

[Ranking]

[Shop]

Neither rankings nor shops had existed in Safe Zone, but those were not particularly surprising.

The real problem was what came next.

[Log Out—Locked]

‘Log out?!’

It was still locked, but it unmistakably said “Log Out.”

‘We can actually log out?’

And that was not all.

[You have received one message from the game developer. Would you like to view it?]

The notification announcing a message from the game developer flashed insistently, as though urging me to open it immediately.

After telling Shin Eun-jo to attend tomorrow’s meeting with Daphne, I hurried back to my room.

I needed to examine the newly unlocked system functions.

The first thing I opened was the ranking.

When I selected [Ranking], an information window appeared.

[*Rankings are determined by the number of titles possessed. If multiple players possess the same number of titles, they will be ranked according to who obtained them first.]

Safe Zone had neither levels nor anything that could easily be converted into a score, so I had wondered what criteria the rankings would use.

Apparently, they were based on the number of titles each player possessed.

[*Only the top ten players will be displayed in the rankings. Rewards will be distributed monthly.]

So that was why the ranking system existed.

It gave out rewards?

[*Reward distribution will begin from the moment the additional system functions are unlocked.]

I had briefly wondered whether several months’ worth of accumulated rewards might be waiting for me, but apparently rewards could only be claimed from now on.

In other words, even if other players appeared in the rankings, they would be unable to claim their rewards unless they unlocked the additional system functions.

That was not bad for me.

[*1st Place Reward: 100 Points
2nd–9th Place Rewards: 50 Points
10th Place Reward: 10 Points]

‘There’s a huge gap between first place, the middle ranks, and tenth place.’

These “points” were probably a form of currency used in the [Shop], which had been unlocked alongside the ranking system.

Only after the information window disappeared was I able to view the actual rankings.

[1st: DopamineAddict
2nd: DopamineAddict
3rd: T-Bastard
4th: God
5th: IWon’tCryThat’sCardio
6th: HomeProtector
7th: TotallyPossible
8th: Junkie
9th: Stay-at-home Wifey
10th: Dentist]

“Wow…”

It was surprising enough that Stay-at-home Wifey, who had not even unlocked his system, had surpassed Dentist and taken ninth place.

But judging from the fact that “DopamineAddict” was listed in both first and second place, the Unicorn Zone player’s nickname really was DopamineAddict.

How in the world was that possible?

I was even more shocked when I opened the shop.

[Points Possessed: 50]

I had received fifty points.

According to the information window, first place received one hundred points, while second through ninth place received fifty.

‘Does that mean I’m second?’

How could that be?

Thanks to my All-Zone Conqueror privilege, I had inherited every title I had earned before.

The idea that another player possessed more titles than I did made no sense.

‘Seriously, who the hell is that person?’

Well, since the rankings were determined solely by the number of titles, it should not interfere with my future conquests.

Even so, I could not help feeling uneasy about that player’s existence.

For now… I should finish checking the shop.

[Note—50 Points
Allows you to send a message to a player who is not on your friends list.]

…Had the Unicorn Zone player used this item to send messages to the other players?

‘Then that would mean he unlocked the additional system functions long ago and has already been accumulating points…’

Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—most of the other items consisted of recovery potions, food, and similar supplies that did not seem particularly useful.

[System Unlock Ticket—100 Points
Unlocks the system of a player who has not yet gained access to it.]

Oh.

It was rather expensive, but this looked useful.

Still, I doubted many players would spend one hundred points merely to help someone else.

There appeared to be more items listed beyond the System Unlock Ticket, but they were hidden behind a locked icon.

Instead, the following text was displayed.

[*Unlock for 10,000 Points.]

[*Titles may be exchanged for 10 Points each.]

The visible items did not seem all that useful, so would anyone really save up ten thousand points just to unlock the rest?

It would probably be better to wait until someone else unlocked it first, then open it myself only if they discovered something worthwhile.

‘Then now…’

It was time to examine the problematic [Log Out—Locked] function.

Since it was marked as locked, I doubted touching it would make me log out immediately.

I selected the category.

[*This function will become available once every player has unlocked their system.]

Setting aside the condition that every player had to unlock their system…

‘Does that mean this function will eventually become usable?’

Was logging out genuinely possible?

Was that why the shop sold System Unlock Tickets?

Because we needed to unlock everyone else’s systems before we could log out?

Ordinarily, I would have had no intention of returning.

But now I had questions I wanted to ask my mother.

I could no longer simply ignore this function.

There were probably other players who wanted to return as well.

‘In that case… I’ll have to help the others unlock their additional system functions.’

The problem was that I did not know exactly what I had done to take another step toward uncovering the secret of the apocalypse.

With Luna Moon’s ring, there had been an obvious causal connection.

This time, however, the system window had suddenly appeared while I was organizing the timeline, so there was no single clear trigger I could identify.

‘I can think about that slowly…’

Now, only one thing remained.

I had to read the message sent by the game developer.