Chapter 106

Chapter 106
The coin headed directly toward the forehead of the jaguar. While a fast bullet would typically force any beast to dodge or flinch, a lazily drifting coin usually just provoked them into trying to swat it away. The one-horned jaguar was no different, attempting to knock the coin aside with a disdainful flick of its head. However, the moment the spinning coin struck the fractured horn with a crisp click and bounced back—

Crack.

The surrounding lightning suddenly converged. The coin turned cherry-red, and electrical current began sparking from the jewel itself until it flared golden. For a fleeting second, the gem radiated a brilliant beauty, and then it shattered with a sharp snap.

Thud.

The one-horned jaguar dropped onto the snowfield without a single death cry, as though someone had simply turned off a switch. Whenever I deployed this trick, Han Yeo-bom would usually make a huge commotion shouting, “Whoa! Thousand-Strike Thunderbolt!” Not hearing it now left a strange emptiness inside me. I could easily have dropped a full-scale lightning bolt straight onto the jaguar, but that would have charred the meat completely, leaving nothing edible behind. After all, these Candy Zone residents looked like they had simply gone out hunting for food and ended up in trouble. With my rifle still hanging over my shoulder, I walked over to the Dentist, who was still feeling around blindly on the ground in the snow.

A quick glance at his state revealed that the jaguar bite on his shoulder was the most severe wound, though claw marks had also shredded his leather clothing in multiple spots. Through the tears in his clothes, I could spot a torso covered in numerous smaller scars, including one on his arm that looked like it had been cleanly torn off and later reattached. Just how long has this guy been grinding away out here?

“Are you all right?”
“W-who…?”

Clutching his wounded shoulder where he lay upon the snow, the Dentist stared up at me with utter confusion at the stranger checking on him. I fully anticipated that he would open my Character Info immediately and ask if I was Dopamine Addict. Instead, his gaze slid past me toward something else entirely. He was trying to verify that the NPCs were safe. I used a calm, gentle tone to reassure him.

“My friend is looking after them. You don’t need to worry.”

I gently guided his head so he could see. The second he caught sight of Han Yeo-bom shielding the NPCs, the Dentist’s face melted into deep relief.

“Thank god…”

While he was still decompressing, I noticed a pair of thin-rimmed round glasses resting in the snow nearby. So that was what he had been searching for. Players inhabit the bodies of ten-year-old youngsters, yet he was wearing glasses? Had his eyesight deteriorated over the past six years? Well, even in the actual world, plenty of kids with flawless vision at age ten ended up nearsighted by seventeen. Players could recover through eating, but that only healed trauma; it didn’t seem to reverse natural aging or normal physical wear and tear.

As I bent down to retrieve the glasses, the Dentist flinched and pulled back into himself. So he was at least somewhat wary of me. I finished picking them up and extended them toward him. Looking mortified that he had been startled by something so trivial, he snatched the glasses and hastily put them on. With the world finally back in focus, he blinked a couple of times and stared up at me.

“Th-thank yo… huh?”
Hmm?
What kind of expression was that?
That certainly wasn’t the face of someone who had just checked my Character Info and recognized me as Dopamine Addict.

“Lee Dam?”

The unexpected name slipped right out of the Dentist’s mouth. Then, wearing an expression of absolute certainty, he grabbed my hand.

“You’re Lee Dam, sunbae, right?”

Not only my actual name, but adding sunbae on top of it? Now the tables were turned, and I was the one caught off guard. The Dentist had retained his own face, meaning that if he was someone I knew, I ought to have recognized him. The dilemma was that I had never laid eyes on this face before in my life. Even the face featured in the highlight video had belonged to a total stranger. Feeling quite bewildered, I questioned him in return.

“Who the hell are you?”

The Dentist’s face crumbled with genuine hurt.

“You don’t remember me? On Chi-yeol, from the Korea University rock band club.”

On Chi-yeol? It was a name that fit a dentist wonderfully, yet it still rang zero bells for me. I had attended Korea University and joined the rock band club, but I rarely attended club functions and ended up dropping out around my third year.

“You really don’t remember? My name isn’t exactly the kind of thing people easily forget.”

That was a fair assessment, yet I still drew a total blank. Hadn’t I been a complete recluse in college? I barely spoke to my own classmates, let alone underclassmen. How on earth did this guy know me? He looked genuinely delighted to see me, while I had absolutely zero memory of him. I suppose college was the period when I remained thoroughly indifferent to everyone around me. More importantly, this guy had looked to be in his mid-thirties in that convenience store video, and he was my junior? He must have gone through absolute misery training to become a doctor.

My junior had… attended classes for me when I had urgent matters and grabbed whoever was available to cover…

“More importantly, you should probably do something about the blood gushing from your shoulder.”
“This isn’t worth stressing over. I’m a player here—if I eat something, the wound closes up. Uh, but…”

While still speaking with lingering excitement, the Dentist’s expression suddenly stiffened, as if a realization had just struck him.

“If sunbae is here… that means you’re a player too, right?”

He caught on quickly.

“But how old are you, sunbae? You look younger than me…”

I simply hadn’t finished growing yet, that was all.

“You still haven’t opened my Character Info?”
“Pardon?”

The Dentist tilted his head and delivered a response that completely shattered every expectation I held.

“What’s that?”

…Ah. This newbie, or junior, or whatever he was—I clearly had a lot of teaching to do.

Hearing the Dentist inform the NPCs that I was his university senior, Han Yeo-bom whispered in an awestruck voice,

“Whoa. How do you manage to run into a university junior way out here?”
“I already told you I don’t remember him.”
“And holy crap, Daehan University?”

I was not a Daehan University guy. Was he even listening when I mentioned dropping out? Furthermore, I had expected him to look down on me for it rather than express admiration.

* “Why does that make you like me more?”
* “Because even a Daehan University graduate can still turn into a game shut-in. Gives me hope.”

This little jerk… And for the record, I did not graduate from Daehan University; I dropped out. The one saving grace was that in front of Han Yeo-bom, the Dentist had only referred to me as his university senior. If he had called me “Lee Dam, sunbae,” even someone as oblivious as Han Yeo-bom would have connected me to Dopamine Addict from the Unicorn Area. Of course, with the Dentist around, it was probably only a matter of time before Han Yeo-bom discovered my real name anyway.

“Saint, are you genuinely alright?”

The NPCs supporting the Dentist—who had recovered somewhat thanks to the Star Candy I distributed—asked him anxiously. They were the ones who had originally suggested heading toward the Candy Zone. They seemed remorseful about leaving the one-horned jaguar’s carcass for me and Han Yeo-bom to drag while they assisted the Dentist, but thanks to them, we could approach the zone without drawing suspicion, so I appreciated it overall.

“You got hurt again trying to protect us…”
“I’m fine. I can heal up quickly anyway.”
“Just because you can heal doesn’t make it okay to get injured!”

As expected of low-level zone residents, their hearts were in the right place. They gazed at the Dentist with profound guilt. Han Yeo-bom looked over at them and asked,

“So how did a large-class monster end up this close to the zone? The dangerous ones don’t usually roam out this far, do they?”

Having witnessed me drop formal speech with the Dentist, Han Yeo-bom had casually dropped his own formal tone as well, though I hadn’t done the same with the NPCs. Not that the Candy Zone residents seemed bothered in the slightest; they replied without any hesitation.

“We’re wondering the exact same thing. The region near the forest is relatively secure, so we typically only hunt the smaller creatures around here… Then this massive beast we had never seen before suddenly materialized out of nowhere and terrified us half to death.”
“It was running like something was hunting it down, and then it crashed right into us, right?”
“Yeah. It looked like it was terrified of something, and then it spotted us and completely flipped out.”
“Yet you managed to take down that giant thing so effortlessly…”
“Come to think of it, what was that lightning earlier? That’s how we ultimately caught it, though.”

True to the nature of low-level zone locals, none of them even entertained the notion that a human could wield that sort of power. The Dentist, who had been face-down in the snow and missed my entire hunting display, looked blankly confused by the entire conversation. I didn’t particularly mind if they figured out my abilities, but it might make the Dentist—who was currently treating me warmly as his senior—feel uneasy, so I steered the dialogue elsewhere.

“Ah, by the way, you were calling my junior ‘Saint’? What is that about?”

The moment I referred to him as my junior, the Dentist beamed with pure joy.

“Sunbae! So you do remember me after all?”
No.
“Saint means exactly what it sounds like—someone we admire and strive to follow. There isn’t a single person in our zone who hasn’t benefited from the Saint’s kindness. He always gives away his food, claiming he doesn’t need to eat…”
“I genuinely don’t need to eat, though.”
“…and he steps forward to block monsters himself, insisting his wounds heal instantly…”
“They really do heal instantly.”
“See? As long as he’s human, there’s no way he doesn’t need nourishment and no way it doesn’t hurt—yet he continues acting this way. Naturally, we call him Saint.”

The Dentist looked thoroughly exasperated. Right. I couldn’t verify the meal situation, but judging by the scars covering his body, he had thrown himself into helping others often enough to earn that title. He himself still looked utterly bewildered as to why anyone would label him a saint.

“Ah, we’re almost there. That’s our zone.”

Where one of the NPCs pointed, two-story log houses stood in picturesque rows, and past the end of the road, a dull, candy-shaped stone mass came into view. It was the Candy Zone’s meteorite. The log houses had been constructed in a ring surrounding that meteorite, and every path in the zone directed toward it, which was why it was visible before even stepping inside the zone proper. I inquired of the NPCs out of courtesy:

“Since we’re outsiders… is it truly alright for us to just walk inside?”
“Of course! If it weren’t for the two of you, we—and the Saint—would have been in serious trouble!”
“We only secured food thanks to both of you as well.”
“You both still look so young, just like the Saint… We don’t know how you wound up in our zone, but since you’re his acquaintances, you’re welcome to stay as long as you desire.”
“We’ll speak with the captain for you. For now, go rest at the Saint’s house.”

Truly exceptional, deeply naive residents. While watching the NPCs take the one-horned jaguar’s carcass off our hands and drag it away, Luna muttered quietly from inside my pocket.

[You truly don’t even need to scam them.]
I told you I had no intention of doing so.

Well, truthfully, I had planned to add just a tiny pinch of seasoning, but the Dentist recognizing me had rendered even that small spice unnecessary. They were welcoming me more warmly than I was greeting them—what was left to fabricate? Still, I wondered how he would react once he discovered I was Dopamine Addict. Would he remain this welcoming upon learning I was the player who ignored his friend request and earned the label of hedonist from the broader player base?

“Please sit down here for a moment, I’ll bring tea right away, just let me change first.”

After ushering us inside, the Dentist shed his bloodstained clothes and returned to set water to boil. A wooden interior, a rocking chair, and warm air. Beyond the wide-open window stood green trees, while a leather rug covered the floor. Scanning the room, Han Yeo-bom murmured:

“Completely different vibe from our zone. It’s cozy.”
“Aside from the monsters prowling outside the forest, it’s a pretty comfortable place.”

Overhearing Han Yeo-bom’s remark, the Dentist jumped in as though he had been waiting for the prompt.

“Do you know why this is the only forest in the snowfield where snow never accumulates? The trees you saw approaching are Christmas trees, and miraculously, the temperature rises near them. A meteorite crashed onto this land long ago, and its influence reportedly altered the nature of the trees. Did you notice that massive rock on your way in? That’s the meteorite—it provides the energy that helps the trees grow and serves as the power source for this entire settlement. Not to brag, but every time I touch the meteorite, it glows, and the leftover heat is enough to power the village’s electricity. And also…”

Han Yeo-bom and I sat smiling, letting the newbie talk at length. This newbie… I genuinely wanted to drop him into a higher-difficulty zone right this instant. If we managed to log out, I was definitely going to force the Dentist to clear other zones. I should start bringing up the topic of logging out soon.

The water finished heating. The Dentist returned bearing two mugs filled with a sweet-smelling liquid and asked, as if the thought had just crossed his mind:

“Come to think of it, which zone did the two of you come from?”
“We—”

I slammed a hand over Han Yeo-bom’s mouth before he could cheerfully blurt out an answer.

“Before I reply to that… there’s something I need to ask you.”
“Something you need to ask? What is it?”
“You. Why do you have no idea what Character Info is?”

Finally, I put the question lingering in the back of my mind into words.

“You received messages from players in other zones, didn’t you? You definitely did.”