Chapter 27. Lee KiHo and Mose

Every moment I returned to reality, I had to suffer from a sense of disparity, since I was different from myself in the world of , which had superhuman strength, reaction speed, and wits.

That distinctive dizziness I got after playing the game for a long time made the sense of disparity even more clear.

Even so, I got up from the machine to put myself to sleep, chewed gums to loosen up my chin muscles, and constantly moved my body.

The virtual reality game , which I started to change my life in reality, has rather changed my life in the game as ‘Mose’.

Furthermore, the satisfaction I acquired through experiencing things through Mose, which I have never experienced in real life, had made me, Lee KiHo, more uncomfortable.

I had to improve on this somehow. This uncomfortable relationship had Mose enjoying the things on behalf of Lee KiHo.

In the end, the main problem was ‘money’.

When the magic rank items were very high priced, I did anything to just get my hands on one of them. But after the lucky incidents, Mose’s path began to be easily pioneered, and ‘money’ was established as a concept that was not so important to Mose.

And as dumb as it sounded, I left Lee KiHo behind, who needed ‘money’ the most and decided to focus too much on roleplaying as Mose which had brought me to this situation.

“Haha…”

I laughed in emptiness because I found it funny that I called myself in the third person.

I was only just one of the majority of players struggling with the immersion beyond the imagination of virtual reality games.

I hurriedly opened and turned on my laptop.

I went on the Circuit’s representing community website and a popular search engine website and typed with my keyboard.

[ Ormachon* Token Trade ]

{PR/N = From this chapter on Orumacon will be changed to Ormachon.}

Soon, there appeared numerous websites, which were all looking to trade for Ormachon tokens.

Gold in was easily tradable from an official currency exchange office operated by the community, but Ormachon tokens weren’t easily tradable.

Ormachon tokens were classified as a currency other than gold, so the tokens had to be traded from websites that specialized in them.

One could think of it as ‘electronic money’.

[ 1 Ormachon Token current purchasing price

– 101,250,000 won ]

[ 1 Ormachon Token current selling price

– 98,750,000 won ]

Most of the websites received a certain percentage of fees for transactions.

One could tell immediately that the website was targeted towards the upper-class people from the simple and classy dark design of the website.

According to the community websites, these transaction fees were set as the tacit norm for most of the shops that exist inside .

If I wanted a full price for the token, then I would have to go through a cumbersome procedure of directly trading it for gold through the Bank of Arantis and exchanging that into real money.

The transaction fee cost a huge amount so I had no other choices.

And recalling the times of making huge expenditures, as if Mose was Lee KiHo himself, although Lee KiHo would not have made such expenditures, made my heart sink.

I ripped out my hair with both my hands.

That was the moment I finally came back to reality as Lee KiHo.

First, I had to do what I had to do.

I went to the gym in front of my house, and I exercised without any hesitation as a way to release all the anger I had in myself.

I knew I was going to get sore muscles since I had a weak body.

I checked all the monthly spendings after that.

I still had some money left over after paying for the rent and other various fees.

And after returning home from mindlessly living the life as Lee KiHo, I sat down to think and think again.

If I digest something called ‘luck’, then it usually leads to something called ‘growth’. However, if I couldn’t digest it well, it would lead to a disastrous result of ‘falling behind’.

I will grow.

I will do it no matter what it takes, and stubbornly. So I won’t fall behind in both real life or the game.

I gave myself to the connection device and closed my eyes while reflecting on those words in my mind.

“Connect!”

Everything in my mind became blank. And soon enough, I opened my eyes as I felt the sweet scent wafting around my nose.

An iron chandelier hung from the pale red brick ceiling, and in the fireplace below it, a shimmering flame devoured the firewood beneath its feet, making an occasional crackling sound.

Mose’s body was hard and strong.

I couldn’t possibly imagine that this was the state my body was in after waking up from talking and drinking with Caloir all night last night.

I was the only person left in this large room.

A hall filled with people wearing fur coats and equipped with swords in their back showed up as I hurriedly got out of the room.

As I approached the counter at the end, a little girl with blunt ears and big eyes bowed her head with a smile.

“The gentleman who left before you already paid for the bill.”

it seemed that Caloir woke up early and left for his way.

A farewell with an NPC felt somewhat different from a farewell with a Player.

A snowy wind blew across my entire body as I stepped out of the inn.

I looked around, shivering from the chill that engulfed me in an instant.

The sunlight pried through the snowy clouds to shine down on the ash-gray city of snow.

This superb view was just an everyday thing in the world of .

My broken armor couldn’t fully protect me against the cold air of this city.

I had to visit a clothing shop nearby to purchase a thick fur coat and moved on.

And the place I finally reached was the ‘Spatial crystal’, which was located in the middle of the plaza in Langeru.

Spatial crystals were a kind of mana crystal with unique properties like floating crystals or amplifying crystals used in transportation.

The unique property of the crystal was that it resonated with each other to share its location. It was often referred to as a ‘way point’ or a ‘portal’ amongst the Players.

I pulled out an object I received as I became a Sworder.

It was the same object I used earlier to move to Asparagan as I parted with Khea.

[Portal Stone]

Class: Mana Crystal

Rank: Rare

A well-refined spatial crystal that can resonate up to 8 other crystals.

Saved Spots (2/8)

– Asparagan Central Plaza

– Asparagan Sanctuary

History: We introduce you to the best invention brought to you by our ‘Dwarf Fist Industry’! It is a portal stone that is made and processed by cutting eight faces on a spatial crystal! Whether your spouse is an elf, a dwarf, or a beastkin of the Eastern Continent! With just one of these, the road to homecoming will be solved at once! – Billoton, President of Dwarf Fist Industries –

I brought the empty side of the eight-sided round portal stone to the huge spatial crystal of Langery. And soon after that, a phrase popped into my sight,

And with this, I could visit Langeru whenever I wanted.

I do not know exactly when I’ll be back here, but I was thinking of visiting the place again in the future to look around some places.

I threw the portal stone forward after I took off the fur coat and my weary armor plates and put them into my inventory one by one.

“To Asparagan!”

A dark blue mirror-like space was created above the stone, and I threw myself into the thing.

The chilly winter air disappeared the moment I jumped into the portal.

The Asparagan’s unique warming weather welcomed me.

Around the spatial stone was filled with people who were using the portal stone like me.

After wading through the crowds popping out of the portal, I saw a crowd of countless people standing at the square.

Originally, Asparagan was known for having a lot of people, but it was the first time I’d seen this many people, so I was surprised.

As I walked through the huge crowd, I saw two men facing each other.

Soon, ruthless shouts burst out from the crowd surrounding the two of them.

“Beat his ass!”

“I’m going to bet 3 gold on ‘Lethe the Black Foot’ winning this one!”

“Yeah right! Lethe’s gonna get his ass beat!”

The two men standing in the middle of the incredibly loud crowd ran at each other without a single word.

Both of them showed off a speed that surpassed the average player’s speed. One could tell that they must have a high level and equipment befitting of their caliber.

Furthermore, according to the crowd, one of them even possessed an ‘alias’ which meant that he was a famous player.

As the man in the black suit kicked with his long legs, countless thorns protruded from his legs.

People shouted loudly again.

“Black Foot!”

“Black Foot!”

“Black Foot!”

While the people were screaming like crazy, the man in a suit with legs that had changed into a mace-like shape naturally twisted his body in the air after the kick and landed on the floor with both his arms.

“There it is!”

“It’s over!”

The crowd was still screaming left and right. Putting the cheers behind, Lethe the Black Foot started to pressure the opponent with his hands on the floor, spinning his legs like a propeller.

I could see his patterns exactly with my eyes. However, I couldn’t help but admire him for his unusual attack pattern.

And so, my eyes naturally headed towards the opponent the Black Foot was facing against.

And I could feel at that very moment.

The opponent was also strong.

The opponent stood still and looked down on the windmill of death that was approaching him from where he was standing. And soon, he pulled out a purple whip from him.

The whip that came out in an instant from the shoulder swing was so fast that I would have missed it if I had not been paying attention.

The whip successfully grabbed one of the legs that were spinning at a very high speed, which pulled the Black Foot towards him.

And the man, towards the Black Foot that was flying towards him,

Thwack—

he thrust his fist into the abdomen of the Black Foot with all his might, with a sound as if a rock was breaking,

Black Foot was sent flying as the recoil and fell down to the ground helplessly.

The silence was only temporary. As soon as the crowd understood what happened they started shouting their throats out.

A person walked out of the crowd And raised his arm towards the man with the whip.

“Coskar the Serpent’s Tongue, wins!”

The shouts erupted once more, and the man who decided the victor of the battle handed the silver badge to the man called Serpent’s Tongue.

It was the badge used for the ranking system, which heated up and is still heating up the community.

Black Foot and Serpent’s Tongue battled each other for the ranker spot.

I realized after the fact that my heart was beating fast from the many exciting scenes that came from the battle.

Then, I hurriedly moved through the huge crowd. In the meantime, I noticed a woman I had seen a lot somewhere.

She began to talk busily with the man next to her again, after making very brief eye contact with me for a moment.

“Where have I seen that person before?”

Lost in my question for a moment, I immediately forgot about it and hurriedly moved toward the Asparagan Forge.

***

***

“JiHyun, You did a very good job today.”

“Thank you, director! I think you did a better job than I did today!”

JiHyun, the main caster of , which occupied an overwhelming audience rating regardless of public or private broadcast, said while looking at the multitude of people in front of her in wonder.

“Really, I didn’t know it’d be this popular.”

“Everyone knows watching others fight is the most fun thing to watch!”

Then a man who ran from behind grabbed the shoulder of the man called the director.

“Huff, Huff, Director, I just got a call from the HQ! They said we just hit 40% viewer rating!”

“Alright!”

Unlike the director who sank himself in this fortunate situation, JiHyun seemed to be immersed in thought.

“The Asparagan part which we were assigned to seems about finished. Almost all the talented people on this side have applied, right?”

JiHyun slightly shook her head at the director’s decision.

“Director, I also turned to the information guild for a lot of research, and came across this one particular thing.”

“And what is that?”

JiHyun briefly made eye contact with a man passing by, and immediately shifted her gaze back to the director and busily said.

“Apparently, there was a player who overwhelmed a bunch of rankers from the Number One guild, though they were rankers from before the official ranking system.”

“Okay, so what’s the name of that player?”

“Well, I heard that his name is ‘Mose’ from a person who came to get my autograph…”

“Is that so? I heard that from the information guild and the information about that name was pretty expensive.”

“He may still be in Asparagan!”

Hearing JiHyun’s bold question, he looked around for a moment and opened his mouth.

“How can we find him among these many people? And I heard that a player named Mose was armed in a full armor set, but I’m pretty sure there are like a few hundred people in full armor set here.”

He said as he shook his head.