Chapter 114. Familiar Peace
Late at night, I logged into the game at a time when I would normally have already logged out.
After watching the back-and-forth between that manga guy and the traitorous woman just moments ago, an indescribable embarrassment came rushing over me.
Worse, the sense of immersion that should have kicked in earlier had suddenly started burning at full force.
I couldn't endure it anymore, so I escaped into the game.
“Father? What brings you here at this hour…?”
The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was Jayeon.
She was sitting on the bed like a little teddy bear, fiddling with the Void Beast's Heart.
When I reached out and played with her tiny cheeks, their soft texture pressed against my fingers.
Jayeon stared at me with a confused expression.
“I never thought I'd say something like this while I was alive… but the game is more peaceful than reality.”
This was a game where players fought one another bloody over all sorts of things.
They tricked each other.
Harassed each other.
If you only looked at the chat window, you'd wonder whether there could possibly be another race of people this obsessed with fighting.
There were so many people constantly arguing that I sometimes mistakenly thought—
Wow, there really are a lot of people living lives similar to mine.
Yet in reality, I kept thinking everything felt like a game.
And inside the game, I was finding the peace I'd always wanted in reality.
Maybe I really was a little messed up as a human being.
“Are things very difficult for you?”
“Hmm… nothing particularly difficult happened. Something confusing just suddenly happened. Thinking about it now, I think I was just too shocked.”
I pulled Jayeon closer and sat on the edge of the bed with her in my arms.
Unlike Mallang's cool, squishy softness, Jayeon felt warm and fluffy.
It was a different kind of comfort.
From now on, I should keep Mallang on my head and carry Jayeon in my arms.
Yes.
Let's do that.
I can't give up either of them.
Ah.
What if I hugged both at once?
Wouldn't I get cool squishiness and warm fluffiness at the same time?
Though Jayeon would probably hate that quite a lot.
“Want to go outside and get some fresh air?”
“I don't think this is a very good time for that.”
Jayeon had been giggling happily while I hugged and rubbed my cheek against her.
But the moment I suggested going outside, she gave me a troubled look.
…Now that I thought about it, the Village Chief wasn't here either.
Neither were Ien or Mallang, who should've been in the room next door.
I couldn't even sense Levi, who normally went as far as making a hole in the wall just to stare at me.
GRRRRRRAAAAAH!
“…Is the village being attacked by monsters?”
“Yes. Giant wasps and several other monsters came here in groups from the Forest of Mazes.”
“Giant wasps… as in human-sized?”
“Yes. That's why everyone rushed out to deal with them. Since they're monsters from the Forest of Mazes rather than normal monsters, it seems to be taking a little longer.”
Hmm….
So there were creatures trying to destroy my peace again.
Those damn Chairman-like bastards.
I wanted to just stay here and relax.
But now that I knew what was happening, I couldn't simply ignore it.
What if the members of our party got hurt while fighting without me?
I normally tanked most of the attacks for them, so their HP wasn't exactly that high.
But going outside to fight at a time when I should've been sleeping sounded annoying too.
Wasn't there some other way?
“Let's at least go outside and take a look.”
“Yes. Ah! I think I'll be able to finish the Void Beast's Heart with just a little more work!”
The previous one had flashy effects, but it also had a record of knocking Ien's mother unconscious.
If Jayeon had fixed that problem, its value as an actual product would increase quite a lot.
“Ohhh! My daughter is amazing! Then, son! Come out!”
“Modak has arrived!”
The moment Modak appeared, his soft glow illuminated the dark room.
As more time passed and he absorbed more of Jin's teachings, his appearance was gradually becoming clearer.
The child who had once looked like a flickering flame was slowly turning into a complete, adorable pretty boy—
…Actually, he hadn't changed that much, had he?
Hmm.
His skin glowed a little more.
It was paler.
His hair no longer flickered as violently and now simply gave off a warm orange glow.
Ah, right!
He had gained a little muscle!
His body was still small like Jin's, but it had begun giving off a sturdy feeling.
Unbalanced!
“Seeing my son become more dependable by the day is enough to bring tears to his father's eyes.”
“I've always been dependable!”
“That's true.”
I'd go outside with the kids and briefly figure out what was happening.
If it seemed serious, I'd find a solution.
If it looked like there was no real need for me to interfere, then since I was already outside—
No.
Since I'd already logged into the game, I should check whether there was an area in the Abandoned Zone where people could actually live.
If possible, I'd like to give it a slightly dystopian theme.
The Abandoned Zone already looked like that anyway.
Rather than forcing some medieval atmosphere onto it, or turning it into some futuristic black market, I'd rather make it feel like everything had been roughly patched together from random scraps.
“Son, do you like bugs?”
“They're pretty nutty if you roast them, so they're fine?”
“Then you can go eat your fill later.”
When I walked out of the inn, the whole village was in chaos.
Unlike my usual playtime—from around ten in the morning until midnight—this was the time when most other players were active, so everything felt even noisier.
Monsters were pouring in endlessly.
A player who had just revived was cursing about the insane difficulty while desperately trying to repair his equipment before rushing back out.
However, as everyone knew, this game pursued realism to an absurd degree.
Repairs couldn't simply be completed instantly.
If your equipment was almost broken, it was far better to equip spare gear.
“W-Wait, twelve hours?! Are you insane?!”
“B-But! An item with such a complicated clockwork mechanism will naturally require that much time to repair!”
Tsk, tsk.
If he'd developed a habit of playing while wearing crappy armor, this wouldn't have happened.
Either that or he should've made friends with people who had trained their repair skills like maniacs.
There was a reason I always asked the Village Chief to prepare things in advance and waited while preparations were being made.
“…Jayeon, do you have one of the better Void Beast Hearts? What's its condition?”
“This heart is something similar to a vacuum.”
Jayeon lifted the heart while explaining.
“It's completely empty inside. Because of that, if you make even a tiny opening, other things immediately rush into it and alter the heart's characteristics.”
She continued.
“In the Abandoned Zone, it seems they were exposed to darkness for such a long time that they eventually became Void Beasts. But I still haven't solved that particular problem.”
Hmm….
I'd sensed something similar back when we treated Ien's mother.
Then…
What would happen if we put that player's armor inside the heart?
“That's a very… fascinating idea, Father!”
“Should I steal it?!”
“No.”
I immediately stopped Modak.
“You have to cherish and nurture newbies so the game lives longer. We need to be kind.”
I walked toward the player.
“Excuse me!”
The newbie had a character appearance I vaguely remembered seeing a few times on the World Gate forums.
He looked around nervously before replying cautiously.
“W-Why?”
“You haven't been playing for very long, have you?”
“Yeah… about two weeks.”
“Oh dear. Then it's understandable that you wouldn't know. This game is such a trash game that you need to carry plenty of spare equipment.”
“Ah… but there's an EXP event going on right now…!”
“If you help me with a small quest, I can give you some equipment I don't use anymore. Would that be okay?”
The newbie flinched in surprise and began hesitating.
Hah.
Cute.
Judging by his behavior, he probably wasn't someone who normally played games very much.
If I actually smiled because I found his awkward behavior amusing, he might think I was creepy.
So I kept my expression as neutral as possible.
I took the Void Beast's Heart Jayeon had refined and pressed it against the armor the newbie had handed over to the NPC.
Then I made a tiny opening in the heart so it could effectively absorb the equipment.
Crack! Crunch!
The armor was violently sucked into the heart.
The visual effect was far more aggressive than I'd expected.
“Huh?! My item!”
“Ohhh.”
Ignoring the dramatic effect, the result was extremely interesting.
A sphere had been created.
It contained the original equipment's abilities, along with several random bonus stats.
From the newbie's perspective, his armor had just been destroyed.
He should've been furious.
But maybe I'd made a good first impression, because he didn't complain.
Did he still believe this was actually a quest?
“Here. You can have this.”
“…Huh?”
His eyes widened.
“Whoa, what is this? I've never seen an item like this before. Is it treated like an accessory? Whoa! It's floating!”
Just like when it had existed inside the Void Beast's body, the item floated near its owner.
Of course he'd find it interesting.
I'd given Ien's mother one identical to this as well.
I wondered whether it had actually reached her safely.
I replaced several more pieces of the newbie's equipment with other experimental items and gave him potions and other supplies useful in combat.
“W-Why are you giving me this much…?”
“It's fine. Here, take some money too and keep enjoying the game. Good luck!”
“Yes! Thank you!”
The newbie walked away with a cheerful grin.
The items were still experimental, so they couldn't exactly be called finished products in terms of performance.
Still, judging by the newbie's reaction, they must have looked pretty good to him.
I'd also discovered that someone could possess up to three Void Beast Hearts containing absorbed items.
So the experiment had been useful to me as well.
