Chapter 2
The carriage came to a stop not long after. Along with the coachman’s voice calling “Whoa— whoa—” to halt the horses, a thick, masculine voice followed.
“Dormitory Building C is right here, young master.”
Needless to say, this “young master” referred to me.
In this place, my name was Yohan Esperts.
I gave Adrinne a slight bow, shouldered my backpack, and stepped out of the carriage. The knight sitting in the driver’s seat spoke to me.
“Keep walking straight down that path, and you’ll reach Building C.”
“Understood.”
“And I am the lady’s guardian knight.”
With his words, the scent that had been pricking at the tip of my nose since earlier grew even stronger. The source of the smell that had wafted inside the carriage all this time was this man.
[The Smell of Death]
The system message that used to warn the player whenever danger approached during gameplay. That very system was now alerting me: this man was harboring murderous intent toward me right now.
I quietly looked up at the knight seated on the box.
Guardian Knight Joan.
A character who would not hesitate to kill when it came to anything involving Adrinne.
He spoke with an expressionless face.
“I unintentionally overheard the conversation you were having.”
The “conversation” he referred to was obviously the one I’d had with Adrinne.
This guardian knight had abnormally sharp hearing.
“And I protect not only Lady Adrinne’s safety, but also her honor.”
Of course, I knew exactly what kind of “honor” this knight intended to protect. There was only one response I could give.
“Don’t worry. I won’t let any scandal involving your ‘lady’ come out of my mouth.”
“Can you swear to that?”
“I swear.”
The piercing scent at my nose soon vanished. I had escaped one of the early bad-ending routes.
The knight gave a crisp nod, then urged the horses forward with a “Hup—!”
The carriage quietly pulled away, but I didn’t feel as though I had survived. The form of death had simply changed.
Left alone, I looked around.
Compared to the path packed hard by countless footsteps, tough grasses stretched out vigorously on both sides of the road.
I closed my eyes for a moment and savored the sounds.
The chirping of grass insects.
The sound of the wind.
The faint rustle of moonlight tickling the leaves.
I would probably never hear these sounds again.
I adjusted my backpack and started walking toward the dormitory.
***
Adrinne gently brushed the seat where Yohan Esperts had been sitting. He had left carrying only his backpack; the warmth he left behind still lingered.
Seven hours by carriage from the capital to here.
The short conversation they’d had at the very end still clung to her mind.
— “Um, Yohan. Right now, if someone confessed to me, I feel like I might actually accept.”
— “I’m the complete opposite. I don’t think I’d date anyone no matter who confessed to me.”
Had she been too hasty?
Or had her acting been too clumsy?
During her time at the Academy, she had wanted to secure at least one person who would take her side. And she had thought the boy sitting across from her was the perfect candidate.
The ring he wore bore the emblem of a dog and a wolf.
There was only one family in the empire that used such an emblem.
The Esperts family.
A house with a unique hereditary technique for detecting “crisis.”
Countless assassins and spies dispatched to the empire had revealed themselves in front of that family. Yet the true crisis that brought the Esperts family down had not come from knives or poison—it had come from a deck of 148 cards.
The family had gambled away their fortune and fallen into ruin.
Perhaps it had been a little cowardly. Throughout the entire ride sharing the narrow carriage with Yohan, she had deliberately maintained angles that let her expensive jewelry catch the light.
She hadn’t revealed that she was a princess, but she had certainly planted the impression that she came from a powerful house.
There are two things in this world that humans cannot hide: love and poverty.
Those in love and those in destitution have entirely different looks in their eyes.
But she had not seen the look she had expected from Yohan Esperts.
— “Isn’t it unfair that because of your older brother, your family fell, and now you’ve even been conscripted into the Academy?”
Even to that question, the same thing happened.
Far from resenting his brother, Yohan showed no complaint or dissatisfaction about being forced to attend the Academy.
“Beauty doesn’t work, and he doesn’t move according to practical gain either…”
Throughout her life, turning rational people to her side had never been particularly difficult. That was why she felt a faint spark of interest toward Yohan, who had shown no reaction at all to her subtle temptations and hints.
Before long, the carriage stopped again.
“Lady Adrinne. This is Dormitory Building A.”
Of course, Adrinne was an alias.
Stepping out of the carriage, she took a deep breath.
“This is where it begins.”
“Yes. I’ll carry the luggage from the carriage up for you.”
“Thank you. Please do.”
She steadied her loosened expression. There was no way a member of the imperial family attending the Academy would be free of political calculations.
And in her belief, everything about human relationships was politics.
***
As I climbed the stairs to my dormitory room, I admired the design of the corridor. It basically followed the Baroque style—of course, that too had been my concept.
I lightly touched the curved, overflowing moldings. It felt like stepping into a three-dimensional version of the concept art I had drawn.
The game I had started making when I was twenty.
Thinking back on its development brought a bitter taste, followed by a dull, aching pain.
This game had failed.
It never even received a proper evaluation from the public.
If it had flopped simply because it wasn’t fun, at least I wouldn’t have felt so wronged.
The ridiculous truth was that the game I made couldn’t pass the ratings review.
The Game Rating and Administration Committee of South Korea evaluates seven categories in total.
The items I failed to pass were these:
[Obscenity/Sexual Content]
[Violence]
[Horror]
[Inappropriate Language]
[Drugs]
[Crime]
[Speculative Gambling Elements]
In short, every single category received a “distribution prohibited” verdict.
By the time we submitted it for review, nearly ten years of development had already gone into the project.
Completely overhauling it at that point was simply impossible.
Everyone has a breaking point.
And at that moment, I collapsed.
My last memory before coming to this world was an endless stream of alcohol. And the woman who tried to stop my rampage—Mi-ri.
I never became a successful developer, but I did become a stubbornly persistent drunk.
Mi-ri would probably be the witness to that. After living together in a cramped room for over ten years, co-creating the game, I finally drove her away.
The memories after that are still hazy. All I can dimly recall is that the end was death.
Maybe I fell down the stairs of that rooftop room and died.
And the lingering dependence on alcohol remains even now.
I unpacked the backpack I had brought.
Inside, nestled among clothes, was a bottle of Esperts-family wine along with some mocha bread.
According to the game setting, it was viciously strong liquor. And the past month here had already proven that no amount of drinking would send me back to the original world.
On the desk in the dormitory room lay a single letter.
I pulled the cork out with my teeth and read it while holding the bottle.
[To the esteemed student Yohan Esperts,
First, welcome to the Academy, the Empire’s cradle for training gatekeepers.
Tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock, you will move according to the guidance of the instructors. Before then, please be sure to complete the following procedure today in order to confirm the lineage and aptitude of your dantian.
The following is the procedure for the Blood Plate Method.
…….]
It was all familiar information.
The Blood Plate Method.
The method to determine the type and aptitude of one’s dantian.
[On the bookshelf above the desk, there should be a glass bottle containing black liquid and a short knife. To identify your lineage and aptitude, simply drop a few drops of your blood into that liquid.
The form of qi that a dantian can emit varies from person to person.
The reason our Academy conscripts students around the age of 18 is precisely because of this characteristic of the dantian. A person’s dantian begins to take shape around this age…]
Several more pages of lengthy explanation followed, but I summed up my impression in a single sentence.
Well, so what?
I tilted the wine bottle in my hand.
“Huuu…”
The flavor that had only existed in text now felt vividly real on my tongue. Yet even though it was supposed to be brutally strong liquor, I didn’t get drunk no matter how much I drank from the bottle.
Only my drinking habits came out naturally.
“Mi-ri, this is the game we made.”
I raised the empty bottle toward the ceiling and spoke. Of course, there was no reply.
Perhaps this was a grand hallucination gifted to me by some god. Even though the game never launched, at least let me experience it this way.
Now, if I cut my palm with the knife and dipped the blood into that liquid, my specialization would be revealed.
And tomorrow, the main story would truly begin.
Since I knew this world’s setting and progression inside out, I would surely adapt quickly.
But—
For what purpose?
It was the question I had asked myself every day for the past month since arriving here. What exactly was I supposed to live for “in this place”?
This wasn’t the world I grew up in, and there was no one here who shared time with me.
The woman who created the game alongside me had left me, and the game itself never even launched.
Was I really here just to experience the game I made—all by myself?
A wry, bitter smile crossed my face at the thought.
“I decline.”
I shook my head with the mutter.
I knew it already. Life cannot be sustained on mere self-consolation like that.
One month had been enough.
Enough of this bizarre creative experience.
I slipped the knife into my pocket and left the dormitory room.
I passed a few people moving luggage and our eyes met, but I had no mood to even nod in greeting.
The moment I stepped out of the dormitory building, the same intense scent I had smelled in the carriage stabbed at my nose again.
[The Smell of Death] detects murderous intent from anyone—regardless of who it comes from. And that “anyone” included myself.
And the source of this particular [Smell of Death] was none other than me.
It was time to end this game.
There was no longer any reason to delay.
I walked toward the destination I had decided on long ago—followed by the scent wafting from my own body.
It wasn’t far.
The empty lot behind the dormitory.
It was the final place I had decided on.
And it wasn’t for some dramatic, poetic reason like wanting to die while looking at something beautiful.
I simply…
Wanted to close my eyes while looking at a trace of Mi-ri.
Jeong Mi-ri.
The woman who handled the programming for this game had—by mutual agreement with me—left behind exactly one trace.
Right here, on the bulletin board in this empty lot.
I stared at the bulletin board. It listed the dormitory room numbers and residents’ names.
Of course, my name was among them.
Yohan Esperts, Room 1205.
1205 was also her birthday.
My gaze slowly traced downward along the letters. Somewhere in here, there had to be the phrase that Mi-ri and I had left behind.
Of course, I still remembered exactly what it said.
[Thank you for purchasing the game “The Savior from Another World.” The first game carefully crafted by Yohan and Mi-ri. We hope you enjoy it.]
It had been her suggestion.
Instead of putting developer credits at the end after the ending, why not display them right at the beginning of the game?
And so we decided on this bulletin board.
In the game, when the player first arrives at the dormitory and [investigates] the bulletin board, they would naturally read this message.
I thought back to the game development that began with nothing more than faith in me.
After countless routes were completed, and finally even the true ending route was finished, I had made a decision.
Out of gratitude to her for silently staying with me until the very end, I would scan her handwritten message exactly as it was and paste it here.
It didn’t take long to find it.
The very last line of the board.
Her messy handwriting—pressed hard with consonants—was cleverly inserted to fit perfectly between the spacing of the room numbers and names.
But I was slightly startled.
“…This is…?”
It was definitely her handwriting.
Yet the content was different from what I remembered.
The final fragment of my memory sharpened, and my vision blurred. I let out her name like a groan.
“Mi-ri…”
Clang—
The dagger slipped from my hand and fell.
I rubbed my blurred eyes once, then read the words again.
[In memory of the beloved Yohan. May he be an unyielding challenger even in the heavens.
—Mi-ri.]
One single word pierced straight through my chest.
‘Unyielding.’
Like someone whose heart had truly been run through, I collapsed to my knees.
Because the belated memory of my final moments had come rushing back.
The day my efforts in my twenties were declared meaningless.
From the day the game’s release became irrevocably uncertain…
My drinking never stopped.
And finally, when Mi-ri left me, I came up with one way to end the binge.
By giving up on my life.
I calmly hammered a nail into the ceiling of the rooftop room and hung a rope.
“Hrk…”
Tears burned as they slid down both cheeks.
I remember.
Staring into the round loop of the noose right in front of my eyes, I recited a line from the game.
“In the end, life and death lead down the same path.”
And I remember.
The chilling sensation of the rope touching beneath my chin the instant I slipped my neck through the loop.
“Hic… hrrk…”
Tears I couldn’t even remember when I last shed poured out without stopping.
And it wasn’t because I pitied the self who had died like that.
I wanted to eat.
Not some extravagant feast—just the pork soup rice she used to make for me.
I wanted to drink.
Just one beer with her after an all-nighter of work.
And more than anything, I wanted to see her again.
That faint smile she would sometimes show me.
Suddenly, rage seeped into my chest.
“Damn it…”
She must have found out how I died.
A wave of self-disgust crashed over me.
The absurdly complicated game design document I had written.
The boyfriend who had taken on that long challenge based on it.
And the girlfriend who had quietly stood by him through it all.
If I had even a shred of conscience, I should never have shown her the sight of me taking my own life.
“Urk— kgh. Krrrrgh—”
Like a faucet unable to withstand the water pressure, incoherent emotions kept surging up my throat.
Because I kept picturing what she must have looked like when she confirmed my death.
How deeply must it have wounded her?
Only now—only after I was already dead—was I finally starting to worry about what happened to her afterward.
“Khk— kuhk.”
All the memories I had avoided came surging up, exposing their ugly nakedness.
I was a loser.