HACKED 24

“Mr. Myeong and <Mountain Hero>, no. Would it be wrong to call you that? Pet… that, uh, hmm, oh boy…”

The way Chirpy looked back and forth between me and Mountain Hero as he spoke was something else. I never knew a fist-sized fairy was capable of making such a complex and subtle expression.

‘Both of you, please just shut up…’

The other guy was the one who said that bizarre thing, but I was the one suddenly overcome with a shame so intense I wanted to die.

However, shame is shame and rage is rage. Forgetting all about fear, I shrieked.

“Stop talking through your ass. Are you insane? Wow, damn. A pet tiger? This guy is a total psycho.”

“Strictly speaking, I am not a dog-psycho, but a cat-psycho.”

“Oh my god, for heaven’s sake. What a mess.”

“Myeong, I don’t know if you know this… but tigers get very lonely.”

That’s news to me.

“But you made me all accustomed to your touch and then tried to bolt. If I become an abandoned tiger, I might get so, so lonely and miserable that I just drop dead.”

An abandoned tiger? That is a word combination I never could have imagined.

“But, why have you been talking like that for a while now?”

“Hahat.”

I let out a hollow laugh instead of an answer. It was so absurd that I wasn’t even angry anymore.

“I’m asking why you’re talking like that. ‘Stop talking through your ass’? ‘Are you insane’? ‘What a mess’? Hey, is that any way to talk? You shouldn’t be like that to me.”

“Hahahah…”

“In the first place, you jerk. Why are you only prickly with me? That rude Hwarang brat and the others who rushed at you to kill you from the start—you forgave them all, so why won’t you give me a break?”

“…”

“Fine, I want to be doted on by you too. Is that so wrong?”

The other person asserted this so confidently that for a moment I wondered if I was the one in the wrong. Is this really a conversation between an attempted murderer and his victim?

“Sorry to interrupt, but don’t act like you’re sane. I saw that insane status abnormality, ‘Love-Death’ or whatever it was.”

“Well, I wanted to be doted on so much that I did start wanting to kill you a little.”

“See. You’re not sane.”

I was floored by this nonchalant confession of murderous intent. If this isn’t a psycho, what is?

Hwarang also had a status abnormality with a terrifying name like ‘Unfading Hatred’. But that was caused by the contamination level and vanished the moment he was purified!

But this jerk had a status abnormality even with a contamination level of 0. This is important. There is a difference between a status abnormality that can be removed along with the contamination and one that cannot—it’s the difference between fake madness and the real deal.

“Thanks to you, I’ve learned one thing clearly: there is no one here I can trust. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to stay here a second longer. I feel like I’ll actually die if I stay any longer, so I’ll be going back now.”

Even now, having crossed the threshold of death several times, I still don’t know. Whether this situation I’m in is reality, a dream, a hallucination, or what.

If someone were to personally experience a situation like the opening of a cliché fantasy novel—being possessed by a game they were playing… there would surely be people who would be happy. They’d feel like they’d become the protagonist of a novel and try to do all sorts of things proactively.

But that is not me. I have no use for fantasy in my monotonous and inorganic life. Especially not a situation where I have to constantly rub shoulders with Incarnations.

In the first place, what was the reason I quit my job and played games while burning through my severance pay? It’s because I hate people. I hate having to have indispensable interactions with them, I hate having to use my brain every time I converse, and I hate the emotional drain of interpersonal relationships.

It doesn’t matter if the other person is a good person or a bad person. I just hate people as a concept.

Of course, the Incarnations of <No Lifer> are technically not people according to the lore. They are a collection of narratives, manifestations, and so on. But I consider them people in the broad sense. In the sense that they are personalities with egos and emotions, who think, conflict, and suffer for themselves, and interact with other beings.

That is why I don’t want to be here all the more. No, I can’t be here.

To think the “Master” everyone anticipated so much is such a pathetic excuse for a human. It’s the worst for me and for the Incarnations. No matter how much I think about it, I can only imagine a horrific catastrophe for the ending of this story.

‘One could say it’s a contradiction to hate people when I’m a person myself…’

There is no contradiction. Because the category of ‘people’ that I loathe includes myself.

“Going back? According to whose permission?”

San Gun made an ambiguous expression, as if he were mocking me but also not. It looked like he originally intended to smile, but as strength entered his lower jaw, his mouth twisted, and it became neither one thing nor the other.

“According to mine. Being together has been shitty, and let’s never see each other again. Goodbye…”

Before I could even finish my sentence, he slammed his hand down on the back of mine. My hand and the terminal were covered entirely.

Actually, it wasn’t something that could be expressed with a gentle word like ‘placed’. Due to the downward pressure, it felt like the terminal would be driven straight through the table and into the floor. Not to mention my hand caught in between.

“Are you trying to kill me again? If you’re going to do it, then go ahead. Give it a try.”

At this rate, I might actually get comminuted fractures in every single knuckle. The sight of five fingers dangling individually—that would be gruesome. I endured the excruciating pain and forced the corners of my mouth up.

“Honestly, I still don’t know. If this is reality, a dream, or some incredibly vivid hallucination. So go ahead and kill me. I think I’ll know once I die.”

“…”

“Maybe death in this world is the trigger that sends me back to reality. Anyway, I don’t have the silver knife this time, so there won’t be any stroke of luck where I come back to life.”

“…”

“But wouldn’t it be a loss for you guys if I die? If the biological battery you finally obtained disappears again, it’ll only be a matter of time before the power system goes haywire.”

San Gun’s eyes, with irises expanded to the limit within his bright yellow pupils, met mine. Two pairs of eyes clashed intensely in the air.

Actually, it wasn’t particularly intense. As a regular human, it was all I could do to endure his gaze.

However, no matter how little I knew about the circumstances here, I knew that if I lost this battle of wills, I was well and truly dead. So I held on for dear life. Only Chirpy, caught between the two of us, looked back and forth between us with a face so pale he looked like he might keel over any second.

An explosive situation where something felt like it would blow at any moment. It was then.

BOOM!

“Ugh…!”

Something actually blew up.

Literally. The entire space shook with a massive explosion. The floor beneath my feet, the air, the furniture, and the fixtures all wobbled. For a moment, I wondered if a very strong earthquake had occurred. It was to the point where everyone here lost their balance and staggered.

Naturally, I wasn’t the one who caused it. It wasn’t San Gun, and it wasn’t Chirpy.

Beep! Beeeeep!

The terminal lying under my and San Gun’s hands rang loudly. It was a noisy, sharp sound I had never heard from this terminal before. It was as unpleasant as a scratch on the optic nerve, yet loud enough that I couldn’t help but pay attention.

This sound… if I were to compare it to a smartphone in the real world, it’s like the sound that plays when an emergency disaster alert arrives.

[Warning!]

[Warning!]

[Warning!]

A ‘Dimensional Collision’ has occurred.

The ‘Dimensional Boundary’ has collapsed.

‘Dimensional Merging’ has begun.

Target of ‘Dimensional Merging’: <UserMyeong808>’s Pantheon, <IsItPresbyopiaCrap>’s Pantheon, Abandoned Michuhol-gu Neural Network Implant Research Building Area C-113 (Total of 3 dimensions)

Please prepare for unexpected situations, overcome the crisis, and survive the merging.

“What’s Dimensional Merging?”

I looked at Chirpy first. Chirpy’s mouth fell wide open stupidly.

“D-D-Dimensional Merging? I know, right? What could this be?”

“Why are you acting like it’s the first time you’ve heard of it?”

“Because it is the first time I’ve heard of it!”

“What am I supposed to do if you don’t know? You’re the helper fairy!”

“It’s not like I know everything… no, Mr. Myeong. I feel wronged too! It’s been ages since the communication was cut because the power system broke, and hiding in the underground storage just to stay alive was the best I could do! Even so, I survived stoutly with the single hope of meeting Mr. Myeong again… and you’re just driving me as if I owed you something! I’m really, really sorrowful!”

“Ah, okay. I get it. I feel like my ears are going to bleed. Stop it.”

Seeing him go that far, it seems he really doesn’t know. I changed targets and looked at San Gun.

“What about you, Mister San Gun. Do you know anything?”

San Gun, who had been pressing down hard on my hand regardless of the surroundings shaking, pulled his hand away as if he had never done so and replied.

“Is that any of my business?”

“Pardon?”

What kind of talk is this now?

“Like you said, what business does a shitty cat-psycho have with that? You handle it yourself.”

“Are you sulking?”

“Can’t you tell by looking? I’m cat-sulking.”

“You’re doing too much. You’re being childish. And it’s a bit creepy how you’re stoutly sticking ‘cat’ in there instead of ‘dog’ even in the midst of this.”

“People naturally get more childish as they eat more years.”

“You aren’t a person.”

“Don’t you know what a metaphor is, a metaphor? You’re being childish too, sitting there nitpicking such things, Myeong.”

I’m going crazy. I feel like my intelligence is dropping just by talking to these two. Since both Chirpy and San Gun seem to be of no help, I’ll have to try and deduce this myself.

Dimensional Merging? It’s a feature I’ve never seen in the <No Lifer> game. Was it a new update after I quit because I was hacked? Or it could be an abnormal phenomenon that occurred after I was possessed by this dimension. There are countless variables.

‘Please prepare for unexpected situations, overcome the crisis, and survive the merging…’

‘The explanation is too vague.’

There’s no information value at all. It’s as empty as the opening of an official document saying something like, ‘We pray for the one-sided prosperity of your company’. So what am I supposed to do?

After the first big shock lashed the entire space, things calmed down a bit. But there was still a residual trembling. It was hard to stand properly because the walls and floor were shivering.

This is likely the influence of the ‘Dimensional Collision’. I was anxious, not knowing when a collision like the one before would strike again.

For now, the only breakthrough in this situation was the terminal. I glared desperately at the palm-sized screen.

Ding!

A message has arrived from another Compiler.

<IsItPresbyopiaCrap>: You there?

<IsItPresbyopiaCrap>: UserMyeong808?

<IsItPresbyopiaCrap>: So we got matched like this whew

<IsItPresbyopiaCrap>: hello

What is this now?