Chapter 90

Entrance Exam (4)

My feelings toward the man I called my father… weren’t particularly positive.

It went beyond simple indifference toward me. He seemed completely incapable of understanding my thoughts or emotions.

When I asked where my biological father was, he merely smiled and said I didn’t have another father. That alone said enough.

At the very least, if your son asked something like that, you should ask why he thought you weren’t his biological father.

Even someone as uninterested in others as me would realize something was wrong if my young son asked me that.

But that man had merely laughed as though he had heard an amusing question.

In other words, he was someone who was seriously lacking in some fundamental way.

That was why I only felt wronged whenever people called me a sociopath.

I had simply behaved the way I had seen him behave growing up.

How could someone raised by a man like that possibly have learned how to act in every situation without being treated like a weirdo?

Even my mother had only ever told me bizarre things like how parents and children were programmed to feel sad when the other was unhappy.

Still, did I resent my father as much as I resented my mother?

No.

It wasn’t because he had taken care of me in her place.

It was simply because I didn’t like him very much.

Because I didn’t believe he was my real father.

That was why I didn’t resent him.

So I had assumed he didn’t particularly like me either, and since I wasn’t even his biological child, he wouldn’t care that I had disappeared after being possessed by this ridiculous game.

“You’re saying… Father was the one who sent me into this game?”

I asked, but the Other Dopamine Addict only stared at me with a grim expression.

He looked as though he were measuring something, doubting me, and even fearing me.

At last, he opened his mouth.

“You… really didn’t know everything.”

What did he mean, I didn’t know everything?

“You’re talking as if you know everything yourself. Couldn’t you be wrong?”

“How did you unlock the additional content?”

“I don’t know!”

My voice rose as I finally exploded at him for once again ignoring my question and asking only what he wanted to know.

“What do you mean it wasn’t Mother, but Father?”

He merely stared straight at me without answering.

It seemed like he was trying to determine how much he was allowed to tell me.

There was no helping it.

“I already checked with the other players. Every single one I asked had some connection to my mother. Not one player mentioned my father. And you’re still saying it wasn’t her?”

“…So you’re still only at that stage.”

“What?”

He forced himself to speak and gave a brief answer.

“It couldn’t have been all of them.”

“What did you say?”

“The players. The ones who told you they knew something about your mother couldn’t possibly have been everyone. Think carefully. You definitely heard something about your father. Otherwise, there’s no way you could have unlocked the additional content.”

‘I already heard something about Father…?’

I retraced everything that had happened until now.

Who had spoken to me about my father, and when?

This place, the Cola Zone, was filled entirely with traces of my mother. Why was my father suddenly being brought up now?

Truthfully, I didn’t care whether it was my father or mother who had sent me into this world.

I wasn’t dissatisfied with being possessed by the game in the first place.

But if Father really had been involved in my transmigration, then what had been the meaning of my mother’s grave that I had dug up, or the portrait I had encountered at that dramatic moment?

‘No matter how much I think about it, there was nothing about Father…’

The closest thing was Luna asking whether I missed my father in the real world.

That guy said not every player had been connected to my mother, but the only things I had heard from the other players were that Stay-at-home Wifey’s older sister had worked on the Salvation Project, that T-Bastard had started playing the game at my mother’s recommendation, and what I had heard from Shin Eunjo—

My thoughts stopped there.

“The CEO of Cthulhu Games…”

There had been exactly one person.

One player who had said they met someone other than my mother.

Shin Eunjo.

The person Shin Eunjo met had not been my mother, but the CEO of Cthulhu Games.

After hearing that story, I had thought the true beginning of all this was not my mother, but Cthulhu Games’ CEO.

Even if my mother had been the one who sent us into the Safe Zone, I had assumed that person was the one who had first sent my mother into the dating simulation.

Immediately after hearing that story, the additional content had unlocked for reasons I hadn’t understood.

And strangely enough, ever since then, I hadn’t thought deeply about Cthulhu Games’ CEO.

‘Why?’

Now that I looked back, Shin Eunjo had also shouted that he hadn’t been able to remember the company name “Cthulhu Games” until then.

I thought I understood what he meant.

Now that I was recalling the CEO of Cthulhu Games again, I could clearly remember the conversation I had with Shin Eunjo.

Before this, however, it had remained only as something vague and indistinct in my mind.

‘The CEO of Cthulhu Games…’

I had assumed that person must have had some connection to my mother.

Otherwise, there was no way my mother could have developed a game modeled after that dating simulation.

But I had never considered the possibility that the company’s CEO might be my father.

In my memories, Father had always worn an apron and cooked meals for me. He hadn’t seemed like someone who worked at a company.

“That man… is Father?”

The moment those words left my mouth—

Crackle!

A sharp electrical sound came from behind me.

I spun around in alarm and saw the symbol flashing and violently trembling.

Something resembling golden electrical currents rippled across it, illuminating the entire cave.

“W-What is that?!”

As I stumbled backward in shock, a force pulled me away.

The Other Dopamine Addict had yanked me behind him, hiding me at his back.

The streams of light thrashed through the air like countless tentacles, as though something might burst out of them at any moment.

But after flickering several times, they faded weakly.

Only after the symbol had gone completely still did I hear the Other Dopamine Addict murmur quietly.

“…Good thing I erased part of it beforehand.”

I stared at him.

When I had first discovered the symbol, I had thought parts of it showed signs of deliberate damage.

Had he been the one who erased them?

Was that symbol the reason this place was unsafe?

Just what was it?

What had almost happened a moment ago?

Instead of explaining the symbol, however, he said,

“This place is dangerous, so go back now. And never come here again.”

That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

“Answer my question.”

The Other Dopamine Addict reflexively began to frown, but then seemed to remember that the person standing before him was himself and made a resigned expression.

If he truly was me, then he knew exactly how stubborn I was.

He also knew I wouldn’t obediently leave just because he wanted me to unless he properly convinced me.

“Do you really need my answer? You already seem certain.”

“Let’s assume I’m right about the Cthulhu Games CEO. Then what was Mother? Why did she create the Safe Zone?”

This time, he stared at me with a deep crease between his eyebrows.

“I know because I’m you, but…”

He removed my hand from his collar as he continued.

“What we’ve already discussed should be enough. You can guess what happened.”

“Guess? Guess what? Didn’t you just say my previous guess was wrong?”

I deliberately mocked him, but instead of rising to the provocation, he answered coldly.

“Why Mother had to create the Safe Zone. Why our name is ‘Idam.’ You know now, don’t you?”

“…”

He was right.

I knew now.

Why Mother had created the Safe Zone.

Why my name was Idam.

Assuming that Mother had begun creating the Safe Zone after returning to reality from the dating simulation—

I had already realized it then.

Mother had wanted to reclaim the child she had lost in another world.

That was why she had named the child she gave birth to in reality Idam, but that alone hadn’t been enough.

She had created a game called the Safe Zone that was identical to that other world so she could be possessed by it once again.

Perhaps the reason she had disappeared in front of me was that she had entered the game.

But how was I supposed to acknowledge that?

Was I supposed to accept that I had existed merely as a substitute for the child she had lost inside the game?

And besides—

“If what I’m thinking is right, then it still means Mother was the one who sent us into this world.”

“Think again.”

The Other Dopamine Addict spoke in a gentler voice.

“If it were Mother, why would she deliberately set the possession point ten years later? If Mother wanted to return to that other world, why would she need to send so many people there? Why would she even drag in me, the child she abandoned?”

Right…

I had gotten so worked up that I had forgotten several important facts.

By the time I entered this world, Luna Moon had already been dead for ten years.

If my mother had created the game to return to another world, there was no way to explain why the game’s story began only after Luna Moon and Haydam had died.

Even if she knew the real Haydam’s soul was inside the ring and wanted to awaken him, ten years was far too late.

There was no reason to wait that long before entering the game.

Moreover, every possessed player had entered the body of a ten-year-old child…

There were too many additional conditions for it to be as simple as wanting to return to another world.

And what exactly had that convenience store been?

Would my mother truly have had any reason to use a convenience store like that and bring other players into the world alongside her merely so she could return?

And Mother had repeatedly emphasized that I needed to be happy right before she disappeared.

Would she really have allowed me to be dragged into the game?

“That’s… true.”

When I finally forced myself to accept the possibility that Mother had not been the one who sent us here, he whispered softly.

“Don’t doubt Mother. She’s even more… pitiful than you think.”

I was sure she was.

She had named her child Idam, only for that child to dig up her grave, impersonate her son, and then give her real son the name “Luna.”

How could she not be pitiful?

He glanced toward the symbol and then spoke again.

“As you saw… I wasn’t lying about this place being dangerous. Go back now.”

So he still had no intention of explaining what had happened earlier.

Was he under some kind of restriction too?

‘Not that I intend to believe everything this bastard says anyway.’

I now believed he was “me.”

He had shown me proof.

But ultimately, I couldn’t trust “myself.”

‘If it were me, I’d consider even myself a rival.’

Even if everything he had said until now was true, he must have had a purpose for telling me.

Even if this man and I were the same person, as long as we were separate individuals, we were different players.

I stared at him for a moment before opening my mouth.

“Fine. I’ll go back.”

When I agreed so readily, he looked surprised.

“But I have a condition.”

Only after I added that did he look at me with an expression that said, ‘I knew it.’

“As long as it’s something I can do.”

Right.

He had just said that as long as it was something he could do, he would do it.

I held out my hand to him.

“Give me a hoverboard.”

“…What?”

“I’ll ride it back, so give me a hoverboard. You have a few more stored in your inventory, don’t you? If you’re me, then what’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is also mine.”

“…”

The Other Dopamine Addict looked as though he wanted to argue that this logic was deeply flawed.

Nevertheless, he obediently took out a hoverboard from his inventory and handed it to me.

Whatever this bastard was hiding, I might as well take whatever I could get before leaving.