Chapter 101

Seventeen Years Old (1)

The Cola Zone had not changed much over the past six years.

Shin Eunjo stayed for a few more days before obediently returning to his own zone.

Before leaving, he told me that as long as I possessed the Meteor Pistol, I could communicate with Home Protector, but I had no intention of contacting him.

It would be a problem if Home Protector learned that the Meteor Pistol was in my hands the moment I contacted him.

Besides, I had no intention of rescuing the bastard or returning the pistol.

‘And it’s easier to rob an empty house.’

While Home Protector remained detained in the Love Zone, I would loot the Tobacco Zone.

Home Protector claimed he had never seen another player besides himself in the Tobacco Zone, but he was smart enough that I couldn’t simply take his word for it.

And since the condition for logging out was unlocking the systems of every player, I couldn’t afford to overlook even one person.

I would have to check thoroughly.

Anyway, after Shin Eunjo left, my life became a repetitive cycle of managing the military academy cadets and participating in the subjugation campaign every year.

As planned, Meursault and Max had each become captains, while Plato had been promoted to major general last year.

I had finally been given a rank as well.

Perhaps they realized that giving me some half-baked rank would inevitably lead to insubordination, because they abolished the two-captain structure they had maintained until now and granted me the rank of captain too.

Even so, Meursault and Max still spoke to me respectfully, so in practice, I was more like a captain above the captains.

All of this proceeded quickly thanks to Anton’s active support behind the scenes.

Oh, and starting this spring, Stay-at-home Wifey and Taejeong also became commissioned officers with the rank of second lieutenant.

In truth, Stay-at-home Wifey had already received a two-rank special promotion for his contributions during the first subjugation campaign.

Rumor had it that he had used that rank to throw his weight around at the military academy every chance he got.

‘As for the next biggest change…’

It would have to be the existence of the “Players.”

I took some of the cadets I had enrolled six years ago and formed a new organization.

That organization was called the “Players.”

When choosing the organization’s name, I told the Commander that it was meant to honor Luna Moon and Daphne, who had once been players themselves, and he approved it without hesitation.

[You really don’t care what methods you use, do you?]

Luna was utterly exasperated with me, but being left with Shin Eunjo under CCTV surveillance must have been quite traumatic, because she refused to leave my side now.

Anyway.

The meaning of the term “player” had changed in our zone.

A “Player” no longer referred to someone who had crossed over from another world and possessed another person’s body.

It had become the name for an elite group personally trained by me, Haydam Goodman.

In other words, even if people from other zones came here claiming that I was a player or something, no one would properly understand what they meant.

‘Though disappointingly, no other players have reached my zone since Shin Eunjo.’

Perhaps because of the player in the Unicorn Zone, the players from the other zones seemed to be proceeding with extreme caution.

The public chatroom was practically abandoned. Aside from the occasional hysterical message from Ssappossible accusing us of plotting among ourselves on land, it remained quiet.

Until about three years ago, T-Ballom had regularly contacted me requesting supplies, but lately, his messages had become infrequent. Maybe he had found a way to obtain supplies within the Knife Zone.

I had also stopped receiving those “Player Highlight” videos, so if I wanted to learn what was happening in the other zones, I would have no choice but to venture outside myself.

That was why this subjugation campaign was important.

This year was the graduation year of the cadets I had raised—after outsourcing their training to Stay-at-home Wifey.

It was only natural that the Player cadets, who were regarded as an elite group, would be deployed in the subjugation campaign, which had now been consolidated into a small, highly skilled force.

If they successfully completed the subjugation campaign, the Commander would finally feel comfortable allowing me to leave the zone.

In truth, I had asked for permission several times to travel outside the zone and broaden my horizons, but the Commander had blocked me every single time….

‘It would probably be much easier to move around if I usurped him.’

But it still wasn’t time to carry out the usurpation route.

Once this subjugation campaign ended, I would need to leave for a long time and visit the other zones.

“All right, so….”

Inside the subjugation camp’s barracks.

I had sent all the other cadets out on reconnaissance, leaving only Stay-at-home Wifey and Taejeong behind.

The moment the cadets left, Stay-at-home Wifey flopped onto a makeshift sofa, while Taejeong sat across from him with perfectly disciplined posture.

“Now that we’re seventeen, shall we revise the plan?”

Even though we were seventeen, we already looked nearly like adults.

By Korean age, we would probably be around nineteen.

Stay-at-home Wifey had grown so much that his legs hung over the edge of the makeshift sofa, but Taejeong had grown to a truly astonishing degree.

Stay-at-home Wifey, whose character customization must have taken an unimaginable amount of effort, attracted the admiring gazes of countless women.

Taejeong, meanwhile, received looks of respect from countless men.

I could only marvel at the fact that he had built that body himself, without the help of a title or any kind of player enhancement.

By comparison, Stay-at-home Wifey had relatively little muscle and was mainly growing more handsome, but now that he had become exceptionally good-looking, I figured he would undoubtedly prove useful someday.

Recently, I had even started advising him to properly maintain his appearance.

Of course, I had grown a lot too.

I was still smaller than Taejeong and Stay-at-home Wifey, who had already surpassed 180 centimeters, but… I was only seventeen.

I would grow more in the future.

Stay-at-home Wifey kept subtly watching my reaction and lowering himself whenever he stood in front of me, but that actually irritated me more.

I was perfectly satisfied now that moving around was easier than when I had possessed the body of a ten-year-old.

Other than that, I hadn’t changed much.

Not long ago, Meursault had remarked with a regretful expression that although traces of my angelic childhood face remained, my eyes looked far more unhinged than they had back then.

It didn’t matter.

There wasn’t a single NPC left in this zone who would be fooled by my smiling face.

Ah, my smile still worked on the Commander, who only ever said that I looked more like Luna Moon with each passing year.

[You’re still a child to me.]

Luna, perched on my shoulder, whispered that to me.

Yet Luna herself had not grown at all over the past six years and still looked like a tiny kitten.

The people of this zone had never seen a cat other than monsters, so they seemed to assume cats were naturally this size.

“So we’re finally leaving the zone?”

Stay-at-home Wifey sounded slightly excited as he spoke.

“I am curious what Shin Eunjo’s been up to.”

They hadn’t looked particularly close.

That was unexpected.

Had they somehow become attached to each other during that brief time?

Taejeong also seemed surprised. He glanced at Stay-at-home Wifey before asking me,

“Where will we go first?”

“I’m thinking of making the Candy Zone our priority…. What do you think?”

When I asked, Stay-at-home Wifey sat up from where he had been lying on the makeshift sofa.

“What is there to think about? If that’s where you want to go first, then we go there.”

“I also do not care where we go first, as long as it is what you desire, Hyung-nim.”

“Taejeong, I expected that from you… but even you, Loner?”

Stay-at-home Wifey glared at me indignantly for a moment.

“I have my own reason for needing to log out, so I’m going to cooperate as much as possible, okay? And that Dentist or whatever in the Candy Zone is a newbie, right? I want to see a newbie too.”

Like Stay-at-home Wifey, Taejeong also seemed curious about the newbie.

“I did not realize someone who had never played Safe Zone could also be possessed.”

“Exactly. There’s a reason that bastard became the Dopamine Addict. If what he said is true, that newbie must be pretty damn insane too. I’m fucking curious.”

I had actually tried showing the Dentist’s highlight video to the two of them.

However, perhaps because it belonged to my system, they said they couldn’t see anything even when I played it.

I also tried sending the video file through the chat, but a system message said it couldn’t be shared.

So I gave up and simply summarized the video’s contents for them, and both of them showed great interest.

That was why no one objected to retrieving the Dentist first.

“The problem is how we’ll get to the Candy Zone.”

The Cocaine Zone and Unicorn Zone were currently the closest zones to the Cola Zone.

Next came the Love Zone and Tobacco Zone.

The Knife Zone was slightly farther away, while the Chicken and Candy Zones were separated by a distance comparable to traveling from one end of the Korean Peninsula to the other.

If we drove the entire way, every destination would be reachable within a day.

But this world was crawling with alien monsters and buried beneath snow, which placed limits on traveling by car.

That was probably why it had taken both Long-tailed Tit and Shin several days to reach our zone.

It might take several weeks to reach the Candy Zone.

The fastest method would be to ride the hoverboard I had extorted from the Fake Dopamine Addict and fly over the monsters and snowy plains….

But even for me, flying while dragging two bastards behind a single hoverboard went beyond the realm of dopamine.

‘I should have extorted two or three more.’

After thinking that far, I looked at the other two and asked,

“Should we stop by the Unicorn Zone on the way and extort an airship?”

“…Pardon?”

“What kind of confidence makes you think you can just extort another zone’s airship?”

“I was joking.”

“No, you absolutely weren’t. Do you think I’ve only known you for a year or two?”

Hmm.

Just as I had come to know these guys well, they had also come to know me far too well.

Stay-at-home Wifey was right.

I had been completely serious.

The Unicorn Zone was close, and the Fake Dopamine Addict would undoubtedly sense me approaching and appear on his hoverboard to investigate.

There was no guarantee that he would still be friendly toward me now that I was seventeen.

But if he was truly the same kind of “Dopamine Addict” as me, he would at least leave me alone until the Second Apocalypse.

Because that would make things more entertaining.

‘But now that I think about it… trying to solve everything too easily would probably bore him.’

He might be willing to hand over a hoverboard, but if I suddenly showed up demanding an airship as though I had left it in his care, he would definitely become irritated.

I cleanly abandoned the plan to visit the Unicorn Zone and extort an airship.

“Even if it takes a while, I guess we’ll just have to go.”

“Why don’t we visit them in order of distance instead?”

Well, it wasn’t a bad idea.

From a route-efficiency standpoint, gradually looting the zones from nearest to farthest might be better.

However.

“We should loot the zone with the lowest difficulty first. We still don’t know how many zones the three of us can clear.”

And it would be more entertaining to start somewhere easy and gradually move toward the harder zones.

However, Stay-at-home Wifey didn’t look particularly convinced.

“Is that really a problem when you’re with us?”

Hmm.

I appreciated his faith in me, but….

“We need to go to the Candy Zone first to secure the newbie.”

“Why?”

“If the players start sharing information that we’re going around looting zones, the newbie might become wary of us.”

“That’s true. Then we’ll go to the Candy Zone first and work our way back from there in order of distance?”

“That would be better.”

“Then the order is Candy, Chicken, Knife, Tobacco, Love, Cocaine, Unicorn….”

I was thinking that Stay-at-home Wifey’s intelligence seemed to have grown over the past six years when Taejeong asked,

“You said we would also bring T-Ballom back from the Knife Zone, correct?”

“Yeah. Ah, but he might attack us while trying to kill me, so you’d better be careful.”

“What? Did he find out that you were impersonating him at the beginning?”

“No. He just went through quite a lot in the Knife Zone.”

“When I met him at the convenience store, he seemed like a rather respectable gentleman….”

Aside from the Dentist, I had decided to bring T-Ballom back because he knew my mother.

I didn’t know how old he was, but he claimed to be my mother’s senior.

That meant he might know something about my father—or about this game.

And I didn’t want the Unicorn Zone’s player to steal the Meteor Knife in his possession.

Even if I wasn’t planning to take the item from him immediately, I wanted to keep him within my sight for now.

“So the only players we’re bringing back are the Dentist and T-Ballom?”

“That’s right.”

“What will you do with the players in the other zones?”

“If they cooperate with logging out, I’ll tell them about the additional unlocks….”

“And if they refuse to cooperate?”

“I’ll eliminate every player in that zone whose system remains unopened.”

At that moment, a tremendous roar suddenly slammed into our ears.

The barracks flapped violently in the wind generated by whatever had caused it.

“What now?!”

Stay-at-home Wifey, Taejeong, and I hurried out of the barracks.

A massive airship was hovering above our camp, casting an enormous shadow over the entire formation.