HACKED 109

Gacha games have a uniquely active user community compared to other games.

The species known as gamers does tend to entrust their sense of self to a community by nature. However, it is a bit more severe with gacha games. If there is a difference, it is just that male-oriented games prefer bulletin-board style communities, while female-oriented games prefer timeline-style social media?

For the record, the gender ratio of <No Lifer> users is nearly fifty-fifty. In a situation where even games aimed at being unisex turn out to be male-dominated when the statistics are actually taken, this is a very peculiar aspect.

In any case, why do gacha game users participate so diligently in communities?

Is it because gacha games lack in-game communication compared to other online games?

That might be true. Compared to MMORPGs where guilds, PvP, raids, and castle sieges are developed, or AOS and RTS games where you cannot even start the game without others, gacha games are practically close to single-player except for a few competitive and cooperative contents.

However, the user community of a gacha game operates on a slightly different mechanism.

Entrance into any community starts with lurking. At that stage, a newbie sees posts uploaded competitively by other users. There are guides and information posts, but most are posts about gacha results.

And understandably so, the impulse to not let gacha results remain only within one’s own memory, the urge to share them with other users, dominates the users’ brains. Since there is no proper communication function in-game, they naturally have no choice but to turn their steps toward the community.

Whether a gacha is a huge jackpot or a huge failure, it becomes a hot topic. And in that process, the larger the amount of money spent, the more views and comments increase in proportion.

While the former is called “flexing” and the latter is called “displaying a disaster,” the essence is the same in the end. Escapism. They want to turn away from the unconscious anxiety and emptiness of spending a large amount of money on something intangible like a gacha by boisterously bragging to an unspecified multitude of people beyond the screen, or by glossing it over with self-deprecating humor like “I guess I’ll have to eat only ramen this month” or “I should sell my organs.”

“That’s not it? I’m a heavy-spending user, but I’ve never been anxious or felt empty? It’s just fun?”

Of course, there might be cases where one thinks this.

If that’s the case, well, congratulations. You are either a rich person whose balance doesn’t even show a dent after blowing millions or tens of millions of won with a few touches, or the owner of an orichalcum-mithril-adamantium alloy mentality who can remain perfectly calm even after vainly squandering their entire fortune. Personally, I’m a bit more envious of the former.

Anyway, newbies who have learned by lurking at these posts start the game in earnest and begin rolling the gacha. And they follow in the footsteps of the preceding users.

If they succeed, they brag about it far and wide. If they fail, they gain a sense of relief that they aren’t the only ones who failed by looking at comments like, “It’s fine if you only burned 300,000 won? I poured in over a million and didn’t get a single thing lol. The pickup rates must be rigged lol.”

In that way, the user community of a gacha game flows into a structure that encourages mimetic consumption while envying, mocking, praising, and pitying other users.

Think back. Have you never harbored hope, thinking “If I spend just a little more, won’t it come out?” while looking at a verification post saying someone pulled a top-tier character in just a few tries?

Conversely, have you never felt a strange guilty pleasure while looking at a post despairing over not getting the desired character despite spending a massive amount? Have you never thought, “Compared to that, I’m a small spender. I can spend more”? Not even once?

If you ask why I am suddenly telling this story… it is because I am also suffering from a similar anxiety to what I mentioned before.

The end of <DriedAnchovyLowerEnds> does not leave my head. How did that person come to such a choice? How much must he have loved his Incarnation, and how terrible must his life as a Compiler have been.

That person, who said he was living in a future more than 300 years after mine. That kid, who looked barely past twenty at most, tearfully saying he wanted to go home and see his family but couldn’t, and so he would commit suicide.

I was afraid I would become like him. Afraid I would follow in his footsteps.

I’m not sure exactly what I’m afraid of. Whether I’m afraid I’ll come to love my Incarnation that deeply, or if I’m afraid I’ll find this world so burdensome that I’ll want to escape it even through death. Maybe it’s both.

At the same time, I felt relieved seeing his end. Thanks to him surrendering, I was able to be the final winner in this merger as well. For a moment, I was even happy that I didn’t have to fight anymore. And I felt disillusionment toward that version of myself.

A person committed suicide before my eyes. A life that was more than young, just a child, perished by his own choice. And yet, for me to be gloating that I survived right now….

The orphanage director I despised so much, the military seniors, the bosses at work. Those humans who didn’t hesitate to trample others and climb up to survive—what, exactly, is the difference between them and me right now?

It’s okay because I didn’t commit the murder myself? Because I didn’t get blood on my hands, it has nothing to do with me?

“No. That kind of thing is nothing but a shallow excuse.”

Lee Jaeyoung, <Sickly Model Student>, <DriedAnchovyLowerEnds>… I killed them all. Since they died because of me, it is no different from me killing them.

Despite that, I alone struggle persistently to keep living, and even while my mind is incoherent, I make a fuss and act out asking for medicine. I can’t stand myself because I’m so disgusting.

That’s why.

“Let’s have sex.”

I’d rather San Gun take every bit of energy from me to recover. I want him to prove that I am not a worthless being, that my body has a use, even in that way. Even though I know this thought itself is a pathetic thing to do.

“Since you’re from the old days, it’s not like you don’t know what that means. You knew what a kiss was.”

“…….”

San Gun did not answer immediately. He stared down at me blankly with an expressionless face.

Unlike his usual self where he parted and swept his hair back, his bangs were naturally down. Beneath them, his amber pupils glittered. Because the room wasn’t very bright, his pupils momentarily looked fluorescent green rather than black.

I guessed he would either like it or hate it, one of the 두. However, his reaction was neither.

“…Is he, angry.”

He was quietly enraged. Why?

“Kiss…? Ah, a kiss on the lips? Do that all you want with your lover.”

Was it because of what he said last time? If he is mistaken that I have a lover….

“To make an explanation that isn’t really an explanation for what I said then, I don’t have a lover. Would I have one? A guy like this?”

“…….”

“And I thought you came here to ask me to recover you, Mister San Gun.”

“No, Myeong.”

I didn’t want to hear the words that would follow. Whatever they were. So I babbled recklessly.

“You don’t usually like this kind of menial work anyway. You don’t need to go this far. It’s not like I heal faster just because someone is beside me guarding. But for you to be here of all places…”

‘Aren’t you here to suck a few mouthfuls of my blood while I’m sleeping?’

I was going to sneer like that. If only San Gun hadn’t cut my words off mid-sentence.

“Do I need a reason to say I want to see my Master.”

This time it was my turn to be at a loss for words. To me, who had frozen blankly, San Gun dealt an additional blow.

“Is that Jaeyoung or whoever that important to you? Enough for you to see hallucinations and struggle this much?”

Immediately after <DriedAnchovyLowerEnds> died, I saw the hallucination of Lee Jaeyoung along with the hallucination of the model student.

That wasn’t the end. While lying in bed suffering, I had countless nightmares and was paralyzed countless times. Naturally, among those, nightmares where Lee Jaeyoung appeared were quite frequent.

Still, I thought I had never called out his name out loud. I guess that wasn’t the case.

‘What on earth did I babble? How much does San Gun know? Surely the other Incarnations didn’t all hear too?’

The more I thought about it, the more my sense of self-loathing grew. Damn it.

While I was hurrying my brain, San Gun’s words continued.

“So…”

“…….”

“Instead of that bastard, how about me.”

Out of all the things San Gun had said so far, it was the one that made the least sense. What on earth did he mean by “how about me.”

Before I could react, San Gun gritted his teeth firmly. Sharp canines were slightly visible between his lips. Veins stood out on his straight neck above his black shirt with the top button open.

“If I said that even by turning back time, crossing dimensions, swapping existences, and twisting every axis of the world, I wanted to die instead of that bastard back then, would you…”

“…….”

He shook his head slightly.

“I misspoke. Forget it. Whether he’s dead or alive, he’s human, and I am not.”

I didn’t know what these words meant either. I was confused. I couldn’t grasp the core of this conversation even slightly.

He gave a short laugh like a sigh. However, only his mouth was forced into a smile while his eyes remained coldly frozen.

“Fine, let’s do it. Myeong. What you want.”

So, what the following words he had tried to say were, I ended up unable to know after all.