Chapter 103

Seventeen Years Old (3)

The other me on the screen looked exactly the same as he had six years ago.

It was a stark contrast to how much I had grown over those six years.

Had his appearance been fixed like that?

“Did you send this airship?”

I asked the screen, but the Fake Dopamine Addict simply stared into the camera lens rather than looking at me.

—If you’re asking me a question, don’t expect an answer.

“What?”

—This is a recorded video. By the time you see it… about six years should have passed.

‘He recorded this six years ago?’

So that was why he hadn’t aged at all since the last time I saw him.

But even though it was a recorded video, his opening line had been, Hello, Dopamine Addict.

That meant he had known I would be the first person to enter this airship.

Apparently, he had been telling the truth about it being a recording, because the Fake Dopamine Addict continued speaking without paying any attention to us.

—If you’ve made it this far and are watching this video, you’ve probably already realized it, but this airship belongs to the “Dopamine Addict.” So you shouldn’t have any trouble using it.

I had sensed as much when I entered the control room without encountering any resistance….

But had he really sent it for me to use?

Stay-at-home Wifey didn’t seem to trust the Fake Dopamine Addict’s words either. He whispered to me with a suspicious expression,

“Is he really saying you can use this airship?”

“He’s not the type to hand something over this easily.”

“This is fucking unsettling. Is this thing going to explode?”

—You’re probably uneasy because I’m suddenly acting generous.

As if the recorded message were responding to our conversation, Stay-at-home Wifey narrowed his eyes even further.

“Is this really a recording? Sounds like bullshit.”

—I’m not giving you this airship for free. There’s a condition.

“A condition?”

—I don’t think it’s time for you to come to my zone yet. This airship has routes to the other zones stored inside it, but you won’t be able to set a course for my zone or the Cocaine Zone directly below it.

Hmm.

Was he telling me not to approach the Unicorn Zone while using this airship?

‘Come to think of it, when he told us there were no barriers between the zones, didn’t he say the Unicorn Zone was excluded?’

What was he doing in the Unicorn Zone that made him so reluctant to let anyone see it, to the point of giving me an airship?

Well, I could comfortably fly as far as the Love Zone and then walk the rest of the way to the Unicorn Zone.

The airship might be unable to approach the Unicorn Zone, but there was nothing stopping me from going there on foot.

—As long as you don’t come to my zone, you can use it to go anywhere you want. I won’t interfere with whatever you do in the other zones.

‘He’s completed the additional unlocks too… so he must know that my goal is to log out.’

And yet he was still telling me not to visit the Unicorn or Cocaine Zones.

Was he planning to take responsibility for unlocking the status windows of the players in those two zones himself?

He had to know that if logging out still didn’t become available after I unlocked every player in the other zones, I would eventually have no choice but to head for Cocaine and Unicorn.

However, since the Fake Dopamine Addict had declared this was a recorded video, there was probably no opportunity to ask further questions.

He smiled into the camera.

—In that case, congratulations on safely reaching seventeen. Oh, right. You can do whatever you want with the gift I included.

With those words, the screen went black.

A moment later, the message Automatic navigation in progress returned.

It seemed this airship really had been given to me after all.

But….

‘I can do whatever I want with the included gift?’

I wasn’t the only one confused by his final words.

Stay-at-home Wifey muttered with a puzzled expression,

“What gift?”

And then an answer came from somewhere it absolutely should not have.

“He means me.”

“…!”

At the sound of the unfamiliar voice, we turned toward its source.

A young man stood there with roughly swept-back platinum-blond hair and pale, thick eyelashes that made it difficult to distinguish the color of his eyes.

The sleeves of his tight shirt were rolled up to his muscular elbows, and one hand, covered by a black fingerless glove, rested on Stay-at-home Wifey’s shoulder.

‘That’s a character model I’ve never seen before.’

“Hello, ladies.”

“What the fuck?!”

Startled, Stay-at-home Wifey seemed to forget my warning not to fire.

He hurriedly drew the gun at his waist and aimed it at the platinum-haired young man.

He pulled the trigger with a clean, practiced motion.

The young man merely smiled and extended one hand.

After the sharp crack of gunfire, the only sound that remained was the bullet striking his outstretched palm, ricocheting away, and rolling across the airship floor.

After deflecting the bullet as though it were nothing, he raised both hands in exaggerated surprise.

“Whoa, don’t do that. You’re wasting ammunition.”

A magnetic shield.

He was a player from the Unicorn Zone.

‘Character Inspection.’

I opened his profile to inspect his player information and couldn’t help widening my eyes.

[Name: Micky Soccer
Title: High-Intelligence Test Subject
Affiliated Zone: Unicorn
This system is bound to Player Dopamine Addict.]

‘Micky Soccer?!’

I had wondered whether it was possible, but had he really come to that convenience store and gotten possessed?

However, more unbelievable than the fact that the man Taejeong had told me about had truly been possessed in the Unicorn Zone….

Was the fact that the Fake Dopamine Addict was the master who had unlocked this bastard’s system.

‘I spent points unlocking the system of the bastard who used to steal my guides?’

“Stay-at-home Wifey?”

Micky Soccer must have opened Stay-at-home Wifey’s Character Inspection as well, because he tilted his head.

“A player I’ve never seen before.”

He slowly began reaching toward Stay-at-home Wifey, who was still frozen in confusion because his bullet had failed.

I unfolded my collapsible baton and prepared to rush him.

But the languid words that came from his mouth stopped me in place.

“So you’re the obstacle Haydam mentioned.”

Haydam…?

‘He knows my real name?’

How?

Had the Fake Dopamine Addict told him directly?

‘How much does this guy know?’

The possibility of additional unlocks flashed through my mind.

However, after briefly glancing at me, Mickey Parker continued reaching toward Stay-at-home Wifey.

I shouted,

“Snap out of it, Han Yeoreum!”

The moment I called his real name, Stay-at-home Wifey came back to his senses and hurriedly retreated from the approaching hand.

Mickey Parker hadn’t actually done anything yet, so my response might have seemed excessive.

But the way he looked at Stay-at-home Wifey while calling him an obstacle was far from friendly.

Considering the Fake Dopamine Addict had tried to kill Stay-at-home Wifey from the very beginning, this bastard, as his sub-player, might be thinking along similar lines.

More than anything, the wording of Mickey Parker’s title bothered me.

‘High-Intelligence Test Subject.’

That was the title given to players who had been reduced to public-use test subjects in the Unicorn Zone.

The Fake Dopamine Addict should have been the one effectively ruling that zone.

The fact that he had allowed this man to become a test subject and then made him his sub-player was unsettling.

For someone who had supposedly been used as an experiment, his body looked strangely intact, and at first glance he resembled a carefree, charismatic guy.

It would have been easy to mistake him for a normal person.

‘But his eyes are completely gone.’

A preemptive strike was always the path to victory.

I couldn’t exactly let a player who had trespassed into my zone go unanswered.

After confirming that Stay-at-home Wifey had put some distance between himself and Mickey Parker, I clenched my fist, glanced up toward the deck, and said,

“Shoot him again.”

“What? But this guy has a shield—”

“Just shoot!”

Rather than argue further, Stay-at-home Wifey aimed his gun at Mickey Parker.

“Hmm~”

Mickey Parker merely tilted his head slightly, showing no intention of dodging even with the barrel pointed at him.

“Bullets don’t work on me.”

“I know.”

Kragagagag!

The moment I answered, something seemed to slam down onto the airship from above.

The vessel shook violently with a deafening roar.

Mickey Parker, who hadn’t expected the airship to move, lost his footing beneath his large frame and staggered.

Stay-at-home Wifey, however, had already realized what I was planning.

He held onto the machinery to steady himself while keeping his aim perfectly fixed on Mickey Parker.

“What did you just—”

What else?

I had broken the airship’s magnetic shield before hitting him.

“Eat this, you plagiarizing bastard.”

Crackle!

The lightning bolt that struck through the deck pierced straight through his back.

The magnetic shield surrounding his body shattered.

He stared at me in surprise, but Stay-at-home Wifey had already pulled the trigger.

Three gunshots rang out.

Seizing the opportunity, Stay-at-home Wifey fired in rapid succession, sending the bullets toward him at terrifying speed.

But there was no sound of them tearing into flesh.

“What… the hell?”

I stared at the bullets floating impossibly in midair.

The bullets that had been flying toward Mickey Parker now drifted around him in slow elliptical paths.

It was a surreal sight.

They resembled planets orbiting the sun.

‘A supernatural ability?!’

Unless my memory was wrong, that was the power of a legendary monster that wouldn’t appear until after the Second Apocalypse.

The monster that dragged around anything made of scrap metal….

The Fake Dopamine Addict’s first-playthrough video flashed through my mind.

One of the highlight clips had definitely shown him killing that monster.

‘Did he use the legendary monster’s gem he brought back through regression on this bastard?’

Since it was an ability belonging to a monster that wouldn’t appear until the Second Apocalypse, the regressor—the Fake Dopamine Addict—had obviously been involved in Mickey Parker obtaining it.

‘Why the hell did I give a legendary ability to a plagiarizing bastard…?!’

Even as I thought that, I called down another bolt of lightning on Mickey Parker.

However, the bullets floating around him acted like lightning rods.

They absorbed the bolt in his place and dropped to the floor.

Calling down another bolt wouldn’t have been difficult.

But when the bullets on the floor rose back into the air with a gesture from Mickey Parker, I stopped summoning lightning.

I had no idea how many strikes the airship could withstand.

I couldn’t destroy my own airship just to kill one bastard.

‘Damn it. Did he deliberately send someone with a counter-type ability?’

Mickey Parker brushed aside the bangs that had fallen over his face and stared at the bullets crackling with residual electricity.

“I heard you obtained the Snow Giant’s ability six years ago… and you can already control it this well?”

‘He knows I possess the Snow Giant’s power.’

I had suspected something when the Fake Dopamine Addict found me collapsed in the cave that day.

It seemed the other me truly had arranged for me to obtain the Snow Giant’s ability.

But just how much had he told this bastard?

Wasn’t this guy friends with Taejeong back in our world?

Had the Fake Dopamine Addict not told him about Taejeong?

“What the hell?!”

Unlike me, Stay-at-home Wifey didn’t seem to realize the bullets floating in the air were Mickey Parker’s supernatural ability.

With a flustered expression, he pulled the trigger several more times.

Each bullet he fired joined the rotating formation, curving gracefully around Mickey Parker.

Mickey Parker looked at Stay-at-home Wifey with contempt.

“I was told you had terrible judgment when it came to choosing friends. I suppose it was true.”

“What did you say?!”

The moment Stay-at-home Wifey snapped back, every bullet orbiting Mickey Parker shot toward him at once.

“Argh!”

“Han Yeoreum!”

The same number of bullets he had fired tore through his body in an instant.

Stay-at-home Wifey let out a pained groan and collapsed backward.

“Ah, hold on.”

As though asking us to wait, Mickey Parker reached inside his clothes.

Then he drew a gun and fired several more rounds into Stay-at-home Wifey until he stopped moving.

“Phew….”

Mickey Parker lowered the gun and smiled at me.

“This should keep him from ‘eating.’”

‘He sent me a complete lunatic and called him a gift.’

He had shot Stay-at-home Wifey that many times just to prevent him from healing?

The Fake Dopamine Addict and this bastard alike….

Why were they so determined to kill Stay-at-home Wifey?

I had no idea whether mentioning that Taejeong was in this zone would benefit me at all.

Nor did I want Taejeong meeting a psychopath like this.

“Hey, are you okay?”

When I tried to approach Stay-at-home Wifey, Mickey Parker stepped in front of me with a sly smile.

“You’re going to save him?”

“Move.”

“Haydam said the other players wouldn’t be of any help to you.”

“I don’t need help in particular.”

“Why not start associating with players who match your level, Little Boss?”

“Players who match my level?”

“For example, me.”

I snorted.

When I laughed, his expression soured.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Because it’s funny hearing a plagiarist talk about levels.”

That clearly struck a nerve, because his face flushed red.

“That was… in my previous life. I’m different now!”

“How different?”

“Very different! At the very least, I’d be more useful than the bastard lying behind me.”

“You?”

“Yes! You think that rookie is pathetic too. That’s why you didn’t interfere even when I turned him into a bloody rag. With your abilities, you could easily have protected him.”

“No. I just left him alone because there was no need to protect him.”

“What?”

I looked past Mickey Parker and quietly said,

“He’s already become someone who matches my level.”

Mickey Parker stared at me, unable to understand.

Then Stay-at-home Wifey drove his knife into the back of Mickey Parker’s neck with all his strength.