Chapter 96

Dopamine Addict’s First-Playthrough Highlight Reel

Before I even had time to figure out what “First-Playthrough Highlight Reel” was supposed to mean, the video began.

The first thing shown was a convenience store.

Judging by the angle, it appeared to be footage from the store’s security cameras.

And naturally, the convenience store captured by the CCTV was the place where we had been possessed.

The very same store we had mistaken for a Safe Zone collaboration event.

‘Could this be…?’

It seemed my guess was correct.

A moment later, a man wearing a familiar tracksuit entered the store.

It was unmistakably me.

Dopamine Addict.

“What is this…?”

I could not take my eyes off the video.

After entering the convenience store, Dopamine Addict looked over the shelves, took some pictures, and then spent a long time fiddling with his phone.

I had done the exact same thing, so I knew what he was doing.

He was posting about the convenience store on the Safe Zone community board.

‘Seen from the outside, I really do look addicted to online forums.’

After a while, Dopamine Addict finally looked away from his phone and began wandering between the shelves, choosing what to buy.

He passed the refrigerator containing the glass bottles of cola without a second glance and picked up one of the unicorn dolls farther inside.

I had never gone anywhere near the unicorn dolls when I entered that store.

That made me immediately understand what the title “First-Playthrough Highlight Reel” meant.

‘The Dopamine Addict in this video isn’t me.’

If my assumption was correct, this was footage from before the possession of the “me” who had chosen the unicorn doll in that store.

The other Dopamine Addict.

Holding the unicorn doll, Dopamine Addict strode toward the cashier.

However, the cashier’s face was different from the one I remembered.

The employee who had struck me over the head with a barcode scanner had definitely been a man, but the employee standing behind the counter in the CCTV footage was a woman with short black hair.

She did not hit Dopamine Addict over the head with a barcode scanner at any point during the transaction.

After paying, Dopamine Addict did not lose consciousness from being struck.

Instead, he casually walked toward the door.

‘Why was I the only one who got hit with a barcode scanner…?’

Dopamine Addict stood before the door and grabbed the handle.

He hesitated for a moment, then turned around.

In the next instant, he vanished from the screen.

‘Was that how everyone else was possessed?’

I had no idea why I alone had been unfairly assaulted by the convenience-store clerk.

The screen changed.

A white-haired child appeared, sleeping peacefully.

That face was also one I knew all too well.

‘My main customization…’

There was no longer any room for doubt.

This was the other Dopamine Addict.

It was footage of his playthrough.

Since the video had been considerate enough to label this his first playthrough, it appeared that bastard was not some fake regressor like me.

He might have genuinely regressed.

A moment later, the other Dopamine Addict woke up.

The screen filled with his ecstatic expression as he realized he had been transported into the game.

‘This feels a little like being forced to stare into a mirror.’

From that point onward, the video lived up to its title as a highlight reel.

It showed one scene after another of the other Dopamine Addict’s accomplishments.

He began as a child but became an adult in the blink of an eye.

Once grown, he conquered the other zones as effortlessly as rolling a piece of candy around inside his mouth.

What was strange was that none of the other players I knew appeared anywhere while he was conquering every zone.

Had different players been possessed during the first playthrough?

Or had the same people possessed bodies with different customized appearances?

While I watched the footage and considered those possibilities, the screen suddenly crackled with static.

Then the other Dopamine Addict’s face filled the screen.

Words began appearing above him, forming a sentence.

[Congratulations! You have survived in this world. Player Dopamine Addict, as a reward for entertaining me, I shall grant you one wish.]

The other Dopamine Addict stared silently at the words floating in the air before tilting his head slightly.

“A wish?”

When he asked in a dry, cracked voice, the words floating in the air changed.

[Yes! A wish! Anything you desire!]

“Anything…”

[Would you like me to revive someone who died? Or perhaps you wish to return to reality? Otherwise, shall I erase everything that happened? Come now, tell me what you desire!]

“I…”

The other Dopamine Addict opened his mouth, his expression devoid of emotion.

“I want greater stimulation.”

[…Excuse me?]

“I won too easily. I should have taken my time and enjoyed it more.”

[What are you…]

“I will play this game one more time.”

[You wish to play this game again?]

“This time, possess other players as well, not only me. It will be more entertaining that way.”

The words in the air merely flickered for a while, as though their author had been left speechless.

Only after a pause did a new sentence appear.

[Are you truly going to use your wish for that? You have an opportunity to revive someone, an opportunity to undo everything, an opportunity to erase the beginning of all this misery—and you wish to waste it on that?]

“Yes.”

The other Dopamine Addict continued with a subdued expression.

“I simply want to keep playing this game until I am satisfied.”

The words floating in the air trembled faintly, almost as if they were laughing.

[It seems I must grant you a new title: “Dopamine Addict.”]

“I have enough titles. They’re useless now anyway.”

[Do not worry. From the “next” game onward, I shall make them useful. Then… my precious player character, cursed with eternal boredom. I sincerely hope the next game will finally satisfy you.]

With a sharp pop, the screen went dark.

“…What did I just watch?”

This was…

A lot to take in.

I calmly replayed the video.

Then I watched only the final portion again.

“I want greater stimulation.”

“I won too easily. I should have taken my time and enjoyed it more.”

“I will play this game one more time.”

“This time, possess other players as well, not only me. It will be more entertaining that way.”

“I simply want to keep playing this game until I am satisfied.”

No matter how many times I checked, nothing changed.

I buried my head in the bed.

‘It was me.’

The person who had dragged the other players into this game.

It had not been my mother or my father.

It had been none other than me.

It really had been me!

‘I don’t think this video is fake.’

Everything Dopamine Addict said in the video was something I could easily imagine myself saying.

They were thoughts I might have had.

A wish I might have made.

“No.”

I abruptly lifted my head from the bed and sat up.

The one who had made that wish was the other Dopamine Addict.

The Dopamine Addict from the first playthrough.

Not me.

I had chosen Cola.

I existed as an entity completely separate from the other Dopamine Addict.

‘So that bastard made a wish like this during a previous playthrough, then came to me and spouted all that nonsense?’

I could no longer trust anything the other Dopamine Addict had told me.

A bastard who had made that kind of wish had told me that my father was the one who had possessed us?

No.

Fine.

There had to be someone else who had originally transported the first “Dopamine Addict” into this world.

I simply could no longer trust that it had really been my father.

“If it had been your mother, why would she deliberately set the possession point ten years later? If she wanted to return to this world, why would she need to transport so many people? Why would she even drag in the child she abandoned?”

Right.

Come to think of it, he had not lied about my mother.

The one who needed so many people transported into this world had not been my mother.

It had been himself.

No wonder he had sounded so certain that she was not responsible.

However…

There was one strange point.

‘The other Dopamine Addict’s wish was to transport other players. That wish doesn’t explain my existence.’

The Dopamine Addict from the first playthrough had not included another version of himself in his wish.

And yet, the other Dopamine Addict had gone out of his way to come all the way to the Cola Zone and check whether I was growing up properly.

The fact that he had come looking for me meant he already knew I existed.

In that case, one possibility could be considered.

‘There wasn’t only a first playthrough. There may have been a second—and perhaps even more.’

The Dopamine Addict who had crushed the other players and survived during the second playthrough might have made a new wish.

This time, he may have wished to face “himself.”

Because I was him, and he was me, I understood.

If I had failed to find satisfaction even in the second playthrough, I would undoubtedly have made that kind of wish.

If my hypothesis was correct, it explained many things.

Why he and I could exist simultaneously.

Why his ranking was higher than mine, even though I had inherited titles through the all-zone-conqueror privilege.

And it also meant that the game developer had certainly not sent me this video with good intentions.

‘They deliberately sent footage from only the first playthrough.’

If the developer merely wanted to warn me about the other Dopamine Addict, they could have sent footage from every previous playthrough.

Instead, the developer had sent me only the first.

They had even deliberately placed the scene where he wished for the possession of other players at the most dramatic point in the video.

Originally, this video had arrived immediately after my additional system unlock.

Perhaps they wanted to show me that, just as I believed I was drawing closer to the secret behind the apocalypse, the truth was that this possession had been a disaster I had brought upon myself.

‘I felt it before, but…’

The “someone” watching us was unquestionably a malicious spectator.

This ridiculous highlight reel was further proof.

They were deliberately showing me things that would provoke me, then watching to see how I reacted.

The very existence of a video with the absurd title “Dopamine Addict’s First-Playthrough Highlight Reel” proved it.

The “game developer” was such an obsessive viewer that they had recorded everything and edited together only the most sensational scenes.

They were watching me—watching all of us—as entertainment.

‘I’ve lacked content before, but this is the first time I’ve become someone else’s content.’

They had probably wanted to see me shaken after learning that the true culprit behind this mass possession was not the convenience store, but me.

However, the developer had overlooked one thing.

Even if I truly was the one who had caused the other players to be transported into this world…

So what?

I was not soft enough to be shocked or feel guilty over something like that.

Showing me this would not produce the reaction they wanted.

At most, it only made me wonder what wish I should make if the last surviving player was granted one.

Just then, more messages arrived in succession.

[Dentist’s Candy Zone Conquest Highlights (NEW!)]

[Home Protector’s Tobacco Zone Conquest Highlights (NEW!)]

[Totally Possible’s Beer Zone Conquest Highlights (NEW!)]

[I Won’t Cry, That’s Cardio’s Chicken Zone Conquest Highlights (NEW!)]

[Junkie’s Cocaine Zone Conquest Highlights (NEW!)]

[T-Bastard’s Knife Zone Conquest Highlights (NEW!)]

[God’s Love Zone Conquest Highlights (NEW!)]

It was almost as if someone were asking:

Could you truly remain unmoved even after watching these?

‘A newbie!’

Without hesitation, I played the Dentist’s Candy Zone conquest highlight reel.