Chapter 79

Chapter 79
Shin Eun-jo belonged to the Love Area as a player. Her grandmother had stood among the most celebrated great shamans in all of Korea. Influential politicians and globally famous stars alike sought out her grandmother’s counsel, treating even Eun-jo, the granddaughter, with deep and careful respect. Eun-jo never minded receiving such bows. When she was ten years old and began withering away from an unexplained, mysterious illness, she firmly believed without a single doubt that she was destined to become the next great shaman, and she truly wanted it.

Yet, on the eve of the spirit-descent ritual, her sickness vanished entirely as though it had never existed. It turned out not to have been a true spirit sickness after all. Because her grandmother had already gathered every spirit-daughter under her wing for the occasion, Eun-jo fully anticipated facing severe punishment. Instead, the elderly woman simply looked at her and remarked that it had come to this after all. It sounded as though she had always known the affliction was never a genuine spirit sickness, but Eun-jo, weighed down by guilt toward her grandmother, never inquired about the hidden meaning behind those words.

A malady that had plagued her for an entire year had suddenly evaporated overnight. Even stranger was what came next: starting that exact day, her grandmother began instructing her in everything a woman needed to master in order to live as a mudang. Eun-jo did not understand the reasons, but out of profound respect for her grandmother, she applied herself with all her heart. The old woman imparted extensive knowledge and left her with even more instruction, lessons that would later prove invaluable when Eun-jo eventually began posing as a shaman herself.

By her twentieth birthday, following an ordinary school career, any lingering faith in shamanism had completely vanished from her mind. Her earlier spirit sickness had merely been a rare pediatric condition with an unknown origin; her grandmother had been well aware of this fact, and the grand spirit-descent rite itself was nothing more than an elaborate fraud. Thus, the revered great shaman was, in reality, simply a human being gifted with extraordinary insight. Adopting that perspective made things much easier to bear, especially after her grandmother was murdered by a deranged individual claiming opposition to superstition while Eun-jo was away attending school in Seoul. Had she truly been a genuine great shaman, she would have foreseen her own death. And even if the end was inescapable, she should have at least left her granddaughter a final word of parting.

Whenever that phrase—that it had come to this after all—surfaced unbidden in her thoughts, recalling the words her grandmother uttered when the illness finally departed, the emotional anguish became almost unbearable. It felt as though the old woman had approached her final moments with that exact same resignation. Following endless days and nights of inner turmoil, Shin Eun-jo reached a firm decision. That wretched killer who murdered a grandmother—who had offered advice to strangers while leaving almost nothing for her own flesh and blood, functioning ultimately as a wise counselor rather than a mystic—would not be allowed to live in peace.

By that point, however, the man was already locked behind bars serving a sentence so lengthy that early release for good behavior was entirely out of the question. Consequently, Eun-jo began leveraging everything her grandmother had taught her to masquerade as a false shaman. If she could not exact direct vengeance with her own hands, she would harness the power and influence of other people to ensure that bastard suffered for the remainder of his days. At least, that was the initial plan.

Even acting the part of a mudang proved far more difficult than it appeared. Everything that looked effortless when performed by her grandmother refused to function when Eun-jo attempted it. While she possessed a sharp eye for face-reading and geomancy instilled by her grandmother, genuinely reading a person’s soul was an entirely different challenge. At times, she could not help wondering whether a true god really had descended upon the old woman long ago.

Sitting by herself inside a vacant shrine devoid of any clients, Shin Eun-jo uttered those hollow words aloud, wishing she could have received the spirit descent back then. Had it been a genuine spirit sickness, perhaps she would have sensed her grandmother’s impending death beforehand. An impulsive shrine venture, a revenge plot that had not yet begun, and a despair so profound that she felt unworthy of touching her grandmother’s footsteps caused a single tear to slip silently from her eye.

That was the exact moment the man appeared. His hair was as black as absolute night, possessing an unnatural darkness even for a Korean that instantly caught the breath and held her gaze. He parted his lips and asked why she was crying. Before she could process her actions, Shin Eun-jo poured out her entire story—her quest for revenge, her grandmother’s murder, the girl who once aspired to be a shaman, and the spirit descent that never came to pass. He listened until the end with an utterly expressionless face, yet she remembered distinctly that he never once appeared bored.

He told her that no other god was permitted to claim her because of his intervention. When she blinked in confusion at the mention of a father, the man offered a charming smile and explained that his father had taken a liking to her, and one day she too would hear the call of the Father dwelling in heaven. Realizing he meant a religious father, she briefly wondered if a Christian was even permitted to visit a fortune-teller. He was certainly an eccentric individual, yet his presence brought genuine comfort.

He then stated that he came because he had a favor to ask. When she stammered in disbelief that he wanted her opinion even knowing she was a fraud, he replied that regrettably there was no one else whose perspective he could seek. Rummaging through his suit bag, he produced a game cartridge. When she asked if it was a game, he explained that at his father’s will he had created it and wished to know if it would appeal to young people.

Wondering if he had designed some form of religious game, Eun-jo accepted the cartridge and read the title printed on the surface: Middle-Aged Man Romance Simulation. When he asked if the title itself felt seductive, she privately wondered if he belonged to some bizarre cult. Despite the peculiar title, the man had provided genuine solace, prompting her to promise that she would play it herself and forward her impressions. She noted that while she was not a genuine mudang, she was young and could determine whether it resonated with youth. He expressed gratitude and offered to grant her a single wish in return.

Assuming he made the offer out of concern that she might demand a heavy consultation fee, she assured him she had no intention of charging money. When she started to state her wish, he interrupted, saying it was unnecessary to speak it because it had already been granted. Convinced he said that simply to avoid paying a fee, and figuring anyone wandering into a fake shaman’s shrine to test a game lacked spare cash, she told him payment was unnecessary. The man laughed softly, insisting she did not yet believe him but soon would, adding that she would witness the miracle of God. Viewing him as a cultist, she watched as he departed the shrine.

Shin Eun-jo spent the entire night playing Middle-Aged Man Romance Simulation, successfully reached an ending, and dispatched her feedback to the email address left on his business card. Her message to Nyarlathotep@cthulucames.com explained that even for a middle-aged romance title, Hayden’s age seemed a bit excessive, restricting the player perspective exclusively to soldiers was slightly disappointing, and she questioned whether the Commander’s facial model was based on him, noting that while he was handsome, players might find it off-putting.

No response ever arrived for that brutally honest email. After waiting all day without a reply or read receipt, she concluded the address contained a typo or the man had simply panicked upon learning she was a fraud. The following day, the detective handling her grandmother’s case informed her that the lunatic responsible for the murder was found dead inside his prison cell, having been brutally slaughtered. The guard reported it looked as though he had been mauled by a beast possessing an absurd number of teeth. At that exact instant, the man’s promise that she would soon witness the miracle of God echoed in her mind. Gripped by a nameless terror, she snapped back to reality to find every trace of her playthrough and review email completely erased, while the object resembling the game cartridge lay burned to ash in the sink.

From that day forward, the inner thoughts of other people began unfolding before her eyes as clearly as printed text. Shin Eun-jo chose to interpret this phenomenon as the granted wish the man had mentioned. The business card had vanished, and despite all her efforts, the email address refused to return to her memory. She lived for a long time without recalling him until she discovered Apocalypse: Safe Zone, an homage to Middle-Aged Man Romance Simulation.

Noticing that Hayden appeared as a young man around thirty alongside Luna Moon, while a female NPC named Daphne had been added, she observed that Hayden’s face still bore a resemblance to that mysterious man. Realizing he had indeed read her email, she brushed aside memories of the unreleased title, recognizing proof that her encounter had been neither a dream nor an illusion. A mixture of fear and a fierce urge to see the game through to the end drove her to start playing Safe Zone, where she first learned of Dopamine Addict.

Initially, she suspected Dopamine Addict might be the man himself due to the familiar aura emanating from the Cola Area avatar, assuming he simply customized it to resemble Commander Hayden since that user pioneered the illegitimate-child route. Soon, however, veteran players tracking the convenience-store address shared by Dopamine Addict began vanishing. Having experienced the impossible firsthand through the sudden, inexplicable demise of her target for revenge, she immediately recognized these disappearances as extraordinary events, prompting her decision to investigate.

Living without a concrete goal since her revenge ended in anti-climax, the reports of missing people sparked a fierce hunger within her rather than fear. Determined to discover what awaited at that convenience store, Shin Eun-jo made her way there. During her initial visit, she selected nothing and simply walked back out, recognizing the internal symbols as clear indicators of the nine Safe Zones.

This presented a potential opportunity to finally escape a lifetime of deception and abandon her role as a false shaman. Gathering other players, she instructed them to select the exact same zone symbol as her own, enabling her to manifest a body inside the game world and stand before the staggering landscape shaped by Dopamine Addict. Seeing the black storm clouds swirl and dissipate at a mere gesture from Dopamine Addict was a spectacle beyond ordinary human comprehension, draining the spirit just by looking at it and inspiring an absolute terror that threatened to freeze the tongue. More disturbing still was the fact that the wielder of such immense power neither understood the impossibility of his actions nor cared to analyze them.

Turning toward her, the boy resembling chaos itself spoke in a gentle voice, asking if she now believed in the miracle of God, echoing precisely what that man had said on that fateful day.