Chapter 95

Daphne (5)

“What kind of person was your mother, exactly, for her to play a middle-aged-men dating sim…?”

I had no idea how she had ended up playing that game and getting possessed by it either, so there was nothing I could tell him.

‘It is strange, though.’

As far as I remembered, she had never seemed interested in that sort of thing.

Still, Stay-at-home Wifey no longer appeared to doubt me.

Even if I was the kind of person who lied every time I opened my mouth, he seemed to believe I would not drag my own mother into a lie like this.

“Huh? Wait. You’re currently doing the Illegitimate Child route, aren’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“No, then… that grave…”

Stay-at-home Wifey recalled whose grave I had dug up to end up in my current position, and his face filled with shock and horror.

Then, as though realizing something, he stared at me.

“So that’s why you asked me before whether I knew what Lunamoon looked like! The portrait really was your mother’s face. No wonder she looked like you… Wait.”

Stay-at-home Wifey suddenly tilted his head.

“But that’s strange. We possessed our customized game avatars, not our real bodies. So how could you and Lunamoon look alike?”

“There’s nothing strange about it. I used a customization based directly on a scan of my real face for the Illegitimate Child route.”

Safe Zone’s character customization system worked by scanning your real face first, then allowing you to add various adjustments on top of it.

Since plenty of gamers found customization bothersome, a surprising number of players simply used their real faces as they were.

Of course, I had not done it out of laziness.

I had simply needed an East Asian appearance for the Illegitimate Child route.

Whenever I played routes outside the Illegitimate Child route, I used an avatar with white hair and dark circles under the eyes—the exact same appearance currently used by the Unicorn Zone player.

That was my most iconic customization, so the other players probably remembered me by that face.

Come to think of it, Korean players tended to modify their appearances more heavily than others.

Stay-at-home Wifey, who had probably altered his appearance beyond recognition, stared at me in shock.

“What? Th-Then that face is actually your real face?”

“So what?”

“No way. That face with your personality… What a waste of a good-looking face.”

Did this bastard not own a mirror?

Even if my face was wasted on me, his customization was a million times more wasted on him.

While I was thinking that, Stay-at-home Wifey unexpectedly said something useful.

“Then I guess the impersonator in the Unicorn Zone copied your avatar, and since he possessed that body, he decided to pretend to be you.”

“Hmm.”

He was not an impersonator but the real “me.”

Still, it was worth considering why that version of “me” had possessed a body with a different customization from mine.

Why did we have different avatars if we were both “me”?

‘When I asked whether he was me from a parallel world, he avoided answering.’

In that case, the closest answer would be “a version of me from a parallel world who chose Unicorn at the convenience store.”

However, considering the bizarre amount of information he possessed and the sheer number of titles he had…

And considering that he had told me I had achieved an additional unlock faster than he had…

There was no possibility that he had possessed his body at the same point in time as the rest of us.

Yet he did not seem to have possessed someone in the past like the dating-sim players either.

That left me with only one conclusion.

‘This possession isn’t the first playthrough.’

At the very least, the Dopamine Addict in the Unicorn Zone had experienced this possession more than once.

His vast number of titles and all his information made sense if he had obtained them during a previous playthrough.

I still did not know why he alone had an adult body, or why both he and I—two Dopamine Addicts—could exist at the same time.

But it was not something I could solve merely by thinking about it now.

‘In a way, this is even better.’

At least if my opponent was “me,” he would entertain me far more than any other player could.

I wanted to enjoy this world for a very long time.

For that reason alone, it would be wise to properly investigate why we had been possessed.

If there was a purpose behind our possession, then once we fulfilled that objective, there was a chance we would be sent back to reality.

What I wanted was an endless supply of dopamine, not a return to the real world.

Therefore, I needed to understand possession and bring it under my control.

And it seemed the “Logout” system existed for precisely that purpose.

“Anyway, I’m thinking of trying to log out myself, partly to confirm what happened to my mother and your sister.”

Stay-at-home Wifey jolted in surprise.

“What do you mean, try to log out? Are you planning to kill yourself or something?”

Come to think of it, I had explained system unlock tickets and points to them so I could boast about how much I had done for their sake, but I had never mentioned that my additional system unlock had revealed a “Logout” function.

“There’s a ‘Logout’ option in the system.”

“What?! My system doesn’t have anything like that.”

“Mine does. I achieved something called an additional unlock.”

“So that’s why you were able to unlock other people’s systems. Damn… We were possessed in the same way, so why are you the only one so different? I guess the skills of an all-zone conqueror don’t disappear.”

‘Come to think of it, that other Dopamine Addict also said I was faster than him…’

No matter how I looked at it, that had to be because I had started in the Cola Zone.

Had I begun in the Unicorn Zone or any other zone, I would never have learned Lunamoon’s identity or discovered that Daphne was a player.

Without Lunamoon’s ring, I would never have inherited the Snow Giant’s supernatural ability.

And without that ability, I would never have been able to persuade Shin Eunjo.

‘Was it really a coincidence that I started in the Cola Zone?’

It had certainly been my own decision to choose Cola.

Even so, an unpleasant feeling lingered.

For now, I needed to finish explaining the logout system.

“Anyway… if ‘Logout’ exists as a system function, that should mean logging back in is possible too. It must be different from dying and returning to reality. It has to be.”

“It has to be?”

“Once I resolve my questions about my mother, I intend to return here.”

I expected him to look at me strangely for wanting to come back to this world, but Stay-at-home Wifey’s expression was surprisingly calm.

“I… feel the same way.”

“You do?”

“Like I said, I want to live a long life.”

Ah.

Now that I thought about it, he had said that his real body would not have had much time left to live.

“Once I confirm that my sister is safe, I want to come back to this world too. If returning is possible, then I agree that we should try logging out. How does this Logout thing work? Is it something I can do too?”

“Hmm.”

The system only stated that the logout function would be activated once every player had unlocked their system.

I could not tell whether only players who achieved an additional unlock would be able to use Logout, or whether the function would become available to all players once everyone’s system had been unlocked.

For now, the fastest approach would be to satisfy the minimum condition for Logout—unlocking every player’s system—and then see how the function worked.

“There’s a condition for unlocking the Logout system.”

“A condition?”

“Every player has to unlock their system.”

“What? We don’t even know how many people have been possessed. Is it even possible to unlock all of them? You said unlocking systems costs a huge number of points.”

“That’s why…”

I raised two fingers toward Stay-at-home Wifey.

“There are two ways to unlock Logout.”

“Two?”

“One is…”

I folded down one of my raised fingers.

“To make use of players from other zones who have system unlock abilities. I probably won’t have enough points by myself.”

Stay-at-home Wifey crossed his arms thoughtfully.

“Shin Eunjo might cooperate, but I don’t know about the players from the other zones. Would they really want to log out badly enough to spend that many points? We have reasons to return to reality, but do you honestly think the shut-in game addicts who played Safe Zone would want to go back? Taejeong seems to prefer living here too.”

Taejeong had indeed said from the moment we first met that he was happy to conquer this world together with me.

As I had once considered before, it seemed as though only people like him had been gathered and possessed.

There probably would not be many players willing to help me for the sake of logging out.

T-Bastard in the Knife Zone and the dentist who did not even know what this game was would probably cooperate in order to return to reality, though.

“There may not be many, but I do know a few players who would probably cooperate.”

“You said the points needed to buy system unlock tickets only become available after achieving an additional unlock.”

That was true.

Even more problematic than the points was the additional unlock itself.

I had no idea how to make another player achieve one.

I did not even know whether I could help someone else with their additional unlock.

Fortunately, I had already thought of an alternative.

“If we don’t have enough points, we can use another method.”

“There’s another method? What is it?”

I folded down my remaining finger.

“We kill everyone except the players whose systems are already unlocked.”

“…Huh?”

“If only players with unlocked systems remain, Logout should become available. Every living player would have a system.”

“Why are all your ideas so outrageously evil?”

“I’m simply efficient.”

“Yeah, well… That might actually be faster than unlocking everyone. As long as I survive, I don’t care.”

This bastard was gradually learning to think like a sociopath too.

“But how are you planning to contact players in the other zones?”

“On the day you graduate from the military academy, we’re going to leave for another zone.”

Stay-at-home Wifey’s eyes widened.

“You’re… planning to go to another zone?”

“There’s no other way.”

“B-But there are still six years until we graduate from the military academy!”

“We’ll leave once we’re a little older. Going to another zone will be on an entirely different level from staying in the Cola Zone. And if we leave our zone now, there’s no telling how Shin Eunjo might react.”

“Ah…”

Even putting Shin Eunjo aside, there was no telling what might happen while we were away.

Daphne had died just today.

Not long ago, Radu had tried to poison me.

Meursault was unstable, and there was Anton, who had probably attempted suicide.

The NPCs might cause another incident, so we needed to remain in the zone for the time being.

Furthermore, the difficulty level of our zone was only Low.

The NPCs in the other zones might be too difficult for us to handle by ourselves.

Therefore, we needed to wait until our bodies had grown to a reasonable extent before making our move.

Seventeen years old.

That would be the day we left the zone.

And…

‘It’s time to open it.’

Whenever I opened the system, the same message continued to flash.

[There is one message from the game developer. Would you like to view it?]

I was finally prepared to open it.

Now that I knew either my mother or my father had been involved in the game’s development, I was confident that no matter what message had been left behind, it would not surprise me.

After sending Stay-at-home Wifey back to his room, I opened the message.

Contrary to my expectations, I could not help but be shaken.

The moment I opened it, a video appeared before my eyes.

At the top of the video was the following title:

[Dopamine Addict — First Playthrough Highlight Reel]

…No.

What the hell was this?