HACKED 56

While being stuck alone in the world inside the mirror was lonely and sad, it was safe. As soon as the mirror broke and he was chased outside, the abnormal phenomena warned about in the rulebook occurred twice. <Sickly Model Student> clutched his head and wailed like a water deer.

“Uaaaargh!”

“Are you a Dueoksini? Why have you been screaming out of nowhere since a while ago? I feel like my eardrums are going to fall out…”

The man stepped back with a look of incomprehension. There seemed to be no trace of hostility or murderous intent on that innocent face. <Sickly Model Student> felt a bit embarrassed.

No, no. I can’t be fooled. Even if he looks normal, that Incarnation is in a ‘become strange’ state. The rulebook said so.

What was the next sentence? He racked his brain desperately. He couldn’t pull out the paper in front of this suspicious man, so he had to rely on his memory. Fortunately, it was content he had read countless times until now, so it came to mind without much difficulty.

If they continue to stubbornly insist even after being ignored, ask, ‘What kind of person was the former owner? What was it like when you met him?’

“Wh-what kind of person was, uh, the former owner? What was it like when you met him?”

He stuttered a bit because he was scared, but he finished the sentence successfully. Okay, he had asked the question. What was the next part again?

There is no need to listen to the answer. As soon as you finish speaking, bow your head on the spot, cover your ears, and wait.

That’s right! I have to bow my head and cover my ears!

Heh. <Sickly Model Student>, who sucked in a sharp breath, hurriedly raised his hands. However, before he could even cover his ears, the man’s words were heard.

“He’s tiny… Ah, though he is bigger than you. He’s wearing all sorts of strange things, maybe rings or earrings…? He is black, white, and purple… He looks like he’s stayed up for about three nights… and he ran away as soon as he saw me.”

<Sickly Model Student> even forgot that he was trying to cover his ears. He froze in an awkward posture, hands raised near his ears as if wearing invisible headsets.

Every single part of the description is too weird? Is this a game of twenty questions or what?

To roughly aggregate these bizarre words, the existence the man saw as the owner was like this.

He is taller than 160 cm and shorter than 200 cm. He is wearing strange things. He is black, white, and purple. He looks like he stayed up for three nights. And… he ran away as soon as he saw that man?

Does such a being actually exist?

Even using all of his imagination, he couldn’t picture a figure that satisfied all those conditions. He didn’t even know if the target the man was describing was human-shaped or not. A mass that looked like it had been roughly colored with three types of colored pencils floated vaguely in his head.

“Does such a thing even exist in the world? And you’re saying that’s our owner?”

“It’s true. I saw him myself. I don’t lie.”

“Mister, didn’t you see wrong? You might have confused him with a wandering spirit or a land-bound ghost around here…”

“Where are there ghosts here?”

“Why? Why do you think there wouldn’t be? It’s such a gloomy and hideous space, ghosts could definitely come out. And don’t ignore ghosts. I’m also similar to a ghost, if you think about it. I’m a collection of school ghost stories and urban legends about high school girl ghosts.”

“Ah, you were a ghost? Not a Dueoksini?”

“I don’t even know what a Dueoksini is. Dueoksini? That sounds like a word that would appear in a classical literature passage.”

“Glad to meet you! I’m Dokkaebi.”

“Yes. Glad to meet you, Dokkaebi Mister… Wh-aaat?”

<Sickly Model Student> stood with his mouth agape, looking up at the man. The man chuckled, scratching his hair which looked almost blonde due to the light pigment. It was a truly innocent-looking laugh that didn’t match his flashy, Western appearance.

Dokkaebi. Like that Dokkaebi that appears in folk tales?

Regardless of being an Incarnation motivated by ghosts himself, <Sickly Model Student> was afraid of unrealistic and supernatural beings. I mean, he himself had one foot in modern civilization… but that side was a completely legendary existence.

“Uwaaaaaa!”

<Sickly Model Student> fled with a shrill scream. However, his running was hopelessly clumsy and slow. It was exactly at the level of a high school student who usually does zero exercise but squeezes out every bit of strength to run during a PE performance evaluation.

Dokkaebi just watched his retreating back. It wasn’t that he couldn’t catch him, but that he didn’t. What would be the point of catching a kid who just screams at the top of her lungs? It would only hurt his ears.

As <Sickly Model Student> ran for dozens of meters, the banner hanging on the wall caught his eye. On this banner, too, there was that pattern he saw earlier… a pattern symbolizing the dawning sky.

“Kuaaaa, ah-hak!”

A loud scream was heard once again. He had screamed so much from his raw throat that his voice cracked grandly at the end.

“He really has a loud voice…”

Dokkaebi muttered blankly.

˙✧˖°🎮 ⋆｡˚

[‘Dimensional Boundary’ expansion has been completed.]

[Resource aggregation has been completed.]

Upon entering the space that used to be ‘Mr. <IsItPresbyopiaCrap>’s Pantheon’ and ‘Abandoned Michuhol-gu Neural Network Transplant Research Building Area C-113’, a new power system registration and gate connection procedure will be implemented for the first time only. Afterward, said space can be utilized freely like the existing Pantheon.

Finally, the reward settlement procedure was over. I turned on the resource status menu on the terminal. The numbers, which had been rising bit by bit every time the twins carried resources from over there to over here, had stopped at a certain value.

“It’s not as much as I thought.”

Objectively, it wasn’t a small amount, but it wasn’t that abundant for resources held by a level 427 Compiler. Chirpy offered a sort of consolation.

“We used some to repair the recovery room as soon as we received it. Considering that, it’s still quite a lot. Think of the recovery room repair as an investment for the future. Once the Incarnations recover, gathering resources will happen in no time. Besides…”

“……”

“Those gentlemen have already recovered without even needing to use resources.”

Chirpy glanced to the side and added. I didn’t look that way and stubbornly kept my head buried in the terminal.

It’s obvious without looking who ‘those gentlemen’ are. Two guys who became vibrant after sucking out my physical strength, mental strength, and various other things. They would be my proud 5-star melee dealer and 4-star ranged dealer.

The memory of a few hours ago is still vivid. Even while looking at the numbers on the terminal screen, the sensations of that time revived if my focus slipped even a little. The hands of men sweeping down and groping various parts of my body, the breath rising to the tip of my chin, the hot heat pooled in my lower abdomen.

I want to faint again…

In all my life, not only did I almost die at the hands of game characters I raised, but I even engaged in quasi-sexual acts with those characters. I have no right to curse at over-immersed otaku. Because right now, I have fucking become an over-immersed otaku myself.

“Myeong, but why does your complexion look so bad?”

“Too many things happened to me. It’s hard, really.”

“Pardon? I heard from Mountain Hero that you were sleeping until just now… Didn’t you get plenty of rest?”

It was absurd.

He spun it like that?

I wasn’t sleeping. I had fainted. To lump together lying there with eyes closed and unconscious as ‘sleeping’—what kind of personality is that? Where is the conscience? Especially for the very person who made me faint?

Anger surged from deep within my heart. So, forgetting my vow not to look that way, I whipped around.

San Gun was standing near the door like a gatekeeper, as always. As soon as my gaze landed on him, he stared straight back at me. Then he slowly closed and opened both eyes. It was at a pace slow enough to be called languid.

What kind of bizarre thing is that again.

It seems my thoughts showed on my face involuntarily. He burst into laughter, then winked toward my face, which showed no sign of smoothing out.

“Did you get a lid spasm? They say magnesium is good when your eyes twitch.”

“I was expressing my love for you.”

That ‘love’ talk again. I decided to briefly possess a male idol without *work ethic.

“Ah, for real?”

“You don’t accept it even once. How disappointing.”

“Ah, really?”

“Somehow the answer is half-hearted.”

“Ah, really-real?”

“What’s with that look in your eyes too. You look just like a pollack dried throughout the winter. It seems like you never had any professional… spirit to begin with. At least find your focus.”

How did he know I had neither spirit nor focus? My mood sank even further.

Well, yeah. Thinking about it, San Gun’s words about me sleeping aren’t wrong. I did sleep… in a different sense.

But why do I have to be the only one suffering internally.

I’m at the point where I can’t even focus on work because of the earlier memory, yet he’s clean and vibrant? Like an office worker who took a bridge holiday and rested through the whole thing while everyone else came out to work during the long weekend?

…It’s really annoying.

I stood up abruptly. Several pairs of eyes gathered on me at once. Chirpy, San Gun, Hwarang, the twins.

Let’s leave the twins out this time. Since they’ve been suffering constantly with the task of moving resources. Even while I was rolling around with those guys… Hah. Thinking like this even makes me feel guilty.

“You two over there, with full health. It’s time to work. You should earn the cost of your recovery, right?”

“Work? What work?”

Hwarang’s characteristic unenthusiastic and indifferent voice replied. I pointed out the window, unconcerned.

“Let’s go right now. To that area over there.”