HACKED 8

“Hic!”

I felt Chirpy flinch violently in my arms. As he tried to lift his head, I pressed down with my palm to make him duck back down.

It was understandable that he’d be startled. In a situation where even muffling one’s mouth and staying quiet wasn’t enough, I had suddenly launched a three-second forward shout out of nowhere.

Stop.

Everything came to a halt. The light that had been flickering closer, and the sound of the hem of a garment brushing the floor. A terrifying silence ensued for several seconds.

Rustle…

Soon, a sound was heard. A sound slightly slower and softer than before.

It wasn’t the presence approaching us. If my guess was right, that was the sound of the “fox” turning around and covering its eyes.

And then, next.

“I’m eating dinner.”

An answer came back, dragging out the syllables to match the tune of the song that every Korean person knows.

It was a bizarre voice that made it impossible to guess whether it was male or female, adult or child, or even if it was a living being. The voice echoed everywhere like a cave, making it even more eerie.

“What’s the side dish?”

“Frog side dish.”

The second answer came back a bit faster than the first. I swallowed hard and asked the final question.

“…Are you alive, or are you dead?”

For a moment, I felt as if the opponent over there laughed softly as if mocking me. Even though there was no way such a small sound could be heard from this distance.

“I’m alive.”

Fortunately, it wasn’t the worst-case scenario. It wasn’t the best, either.

Having finally come to his senses, Chirpy began to wiggle. At this exact timing? Are you dying to be killed? Squeeeeze. I pressed down on his body even harder.

“Kueeeeek…”

Fine, just suffocate against my solar plexus. It’s better for you to be unconscious right now anyway.

“…….”

Without blinking once and with my breath held, I stared across the passage.

There wasn’t much information to be gained with the naked eye. Only the darkness filling every direction and a small, blue halo of light shining like a dot. It felt like I could see the silhouette of something within it, yet it also felt like I couldn’t.

However, I felt as if my eyes had met with the “fox” that would be in the center of that pale blue, swaying foxfire over there.

<The Nine-Tailed Maegu of Cheonggu>.

It was one of the 5-star Avatars I possessed in <No Lifer>. The name is a bit of a mouthful, so it’s hard to understand what it means at a glance, but it’s basically just that. A Korean Gumiho.

As far as fox spirits go, there are also the “Yoko” of Japanese origin or the “Huli Jing” of Chinese origin. These are types that appear not commonly, but not rarely either, when you pull the gacha during the Oriental Folk Tale pickup period. Their rarity is usually between 1 to 3 stars.

There’s no need to possess multiple characters with the exact same attributes. So, when low-rarity fox spirits appeared as duplicates, they were usually ground up immediately to become synthesis materials for other high-rarity Avatars.

However, the <Nine-Tailed Maegu of Cheonggu> I possessed was different. He was a fellow who truly pulled his weight, with a good reason for being a 5-star.

First off, his appearance practically screams, “I am top-tier rarity. I’m an SSR. How about it. Killer, right?” and his stats and skills were nothing short of excellent.

Active Skill: ‘Foxfire’

: I was crossing a winding mountain pass in the middle of the night, and saw a blue flame dancing in the distance.

Inflicts long-range damage using a projectile. The target is everyone within range, including the user. If the battlefield is mountain terrain, all combat participants except the user receive a minus correction to evasion. (Current projectile stack: 9 [Max])

Active Skill: ‘Fox, Oh Fox’

: What are you doing?

Designates the caster as the ‘Tagger’ and one enemy target as the ‘Playmate’. The moment the Tagger and Playmate are decided, neither can attempt to evade the other’s attacks, and they receive the same effects as mountain terrain regardless of the current battlefield. The game cannot end until the Tagger declares the end of play or one side withdraws from battle.

Passive Skill: ‘Dance of the Morning Sky’

: At this time, a spiritual beast appeared in Cheonggu; a beast with bright white fur and nine tails appeared with a book in its mouth, manifesting an auspicious omen.

Provides a plus correction to night vision and anti-demon resistance for the entire unit the caster belongs to for the duration of the battle. Unit members do not easily fall into status ailments.

It’s a beautiful lineup. I remember using him effectively as a long-range dealer on maps with attributes like <Night Battle>, <Mountain>, or <Undead>.

Once, in the user community, someone posted a screenshot bragging that they had pulled <Hakumen Konmo Kyubi no Kitsune> (White-Faced Gold-Furred Nine-Tailed Fox).

That character’s stats were enormous. Since its stats were higher than the <Messenger of the God Inari>, which was previously known as the top-tier Japanese fox spirit, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say it hit the peak of that tech tree. The poster probably burned an astronomical amount of money just to pull that one character.

But I wasn’t jealous at all. Because my <Nine-Tailed Maegu of Cheonggu> was strong enough. I was confident that even if I put that Hakumen-Konmo-whatever and my fox in a 1:1 “delete-your-character” Korea-Japan fox spirit match, it would result in a draw at worst, and I wouldn’t lose.

That was how much affection, money, and time I had poured into raising him. It wasn’t an exaggeration to call him my digital child, raised with my heart and my wallet.

But that fellow is now…

Coming to kill me…

“…Whew.”

I finally exhaled the breath I had been holding. My head was dizzy from how long I had stopped breathing.

Chirpy in my arms showed no reaction. Judging by the fact that I could feel his heart thumping, it didn’t seem like he was dead.

“Are you alive, or are you dead?”

I repeated the same question as before. At the same time, I slowly raised my body. Now was the only “cooldown” period—the time to safely widen the distance.

However, before long…

“I’m dead.”

In this context, for the <Nine-Tailed Maegu of Cheonggu> to say “I’m dead” is no different from saying “Now you are truly finished.”

To borrow from the game’s skill description, the moment he says this, the <Nine-Tailed Maegu of Cheonggu> begins to pursue the marked enemy. No matter where the enemy is, he closes the gap at maximum speed and via the shortest distance before taking the kill.

The kill motion is also very Gumiho-like. He takes a motion as if thrusting a hand with long-grown nails into the opponent’s solar plexus to pull out organs while they are still alive.

On maps where vision is not secured, terrain is rugged, and the enemy abuses all sorts of debuff skills, there was no skill as useful as this. Because he ignores terrain and vision to rush over and kill. From the player’s perspective, it was a refreshing, “cider-like” skill that cleared away frustrations.

The problem now is that the skill is about to clear a hole right through my heart.

The moment I heard those words, I lunged off the floor. Whether I made noise or not, whether my presence was detected or not… I had no room to care.

I ran like mad through the darkness where I couldn’t even see my feet. With the determination that even if I were to fall flat on my face, I would fall after going even one meter further. My breath reached my throat in an instant.

Still, there was no place to run to. Only endless darkness continued. There weren’t even structures, doors, or side paths.

It felt as if a bluish energy was spreading from behind my back. Had that bastard already caught up so closely?

“…….”

In a split second, I felt a chilling sensation. A very foul feeling, as if someone was blowing cold breath into my ear.

A shiver ran down the nape of my neck, and my concentration momentarily shattered.

“Ugh…!”

Thump!

In the end, I tripped and fell over. It was a miracle I hadn’t tripped until now while running through a place where I couldn’t see ahead.

Sharp pain spread from my ankle. Did I twist it while falling? I reflexively curled my body halfway.

And finally, I was forced to face it. The pale face looking down at me.

It was tall. It looked at least a span taller than the average adult male. To see it looking down at me with its body hunched over from that great height… It could only be described with the word terror.

Long, white hair had become parched and was tangled messily together. That disheveled hair hung long and vertically from above, tickling my cheek. It was a foreign sensation, closer to an animal’s mane than human hair.

The attire was a dirty white hanbok with something unknown smeared on it, and over that, a similarly filthy white jang-ot was draped. A face whose expression couldn’t be read. Dark cracks ran across the corpse-like white skin, like a rice paddy cracking during a drought.

Reflecting off the bluish foxfire, a shadow was cast on the wall. Behind the large figure that loomed over me, nine fox tails were swaying. It was an extremely surreal sight.

The most horrifying part was the eyes. Inside the pupils, which should originally have been a vivid red like a Gumiho’s, something black and viscous was pooled. Something that looked like tar, or perhaps the rotten fluid that comes out of a corpse that has been dead for a long time.

It was absolutely not the case that the Avatar known as <The Nine-Tailed Maegu of Cheonggu> originally had such a… visual that belonged in a nightmare. If it had, <No Lifer> would have been released with a horror game tag in the first place.

This was probably that. The influence of 100 Contamination.

Contamination as a game element was just a numerical value. A value no different from HP, MP, or stamina.

But as the game became reality, the “contamination” faced in person… was not such a simple numbers game. That appearance, looking as if the deepest core of the soul was rotting away. I felt strangely in a way that was hard to describe.

While staring at me with those pitch-black eyes, it spoke.

“My husband.”