Chapter 454: Another candidate (6)

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Gye Idam couldn’t take his eyes off the pure white sword’s trajectory.

Feeling Gye Idam’s gaze, Baekho stared at him coldly, sending a cold chill down Gye Idam’s spine before he continued inside the gym.

Mesmerized for a few seconds, Gye Idam belatedly came back to his senses.

‘Why is a mythical tiger in here? Was he at the tutorial level? No, those people wouldn’t have died if he was there!’

Gye Idam did not really read the story of PMH properly, except when several female characters, especially Ahn Dain, appear.

He often just taps soullessly on his cellphone screen as he does something else in the background.

Gye Idam often talked about PMH’s tutorial level, but he doesn’t remember the exact content.

He remembered that the character ‘Baekho-gun’ was the last playable character standing in the game’s ending, but it took him a few seconds to confirm that the character was in fact not present in the tutorial level.

— Beeeep!

An enemy detection alarm from the Player SAT-K sounded belatedly on Gye Idam’s device.

When the boundary was lifted, the player's satellite belatedly relayed the existence of an enemy.

Following immediately after was the notice of the enemy’s defeat.

— Wanted enemy, Rhinoceron Level 13 has been defeated.

— Player SAT-K successfully obtained the region's record device.

— Player SAT-K is analyzing the detailed defeat process.

Gye Idam had no idea what happened inside, so he assumed that the biggest contributor would be Baekho.

It hasn’t been long since Baekho entered the gym, but with his level of skills, he was perfectly capable of catching the rhinoceron at once.

However, Gye Idam’s prediction was wrong.

— Biggest contributor: Jo X X (Unregistered person: Limited information)

Gye Idam was surprised to see the name ‘Jo XX’

It wasn’t Baekho’s name that was listed as the biggest contributor.

‘Don’t royal lineages use registered player identities when disguising themselves? I don’t think they can disguise themselves as unregistered 17-year-olds… So Baekho didn’t knock down the enemy?’

He had no time to think for long.

Gye Idam decided that it was best for him to get out of there and return to the other students before coming back again.

He was worried about what happened inside the gym, but he decided to cover up for himself first.

‘I should get out of here first, and then… the medical staff should be moving this way already.’

Teachers and students who saw the enemy notification alarm were starting to gather.

Gye Idam wandered around the gym and mixed himself with the crowd.

Although there were injured people, everyone inside the gym was rescued, giving Gye Idam a sense of relief.

‘I’m glad Professor Kim Shinrok is safe. The examinees survived too… It turned out well.’

Following the sense of relief, his mind became clouded again.

He finally knew the reason why he was so confused all this time, but he also felt fear.

‘Why am I in the PMH world? Gah, out of so many games, why am I inside this failed game…!’

Gye Idam wanted to run away at that moment.

He didn’t play PMH seriously so he wasn’t very knowledgeable about the details of the story, but he knows one thing.

The number of playable characters, including the new characters added as the story progressed, was around three digits.

He had a rough idea of how the number came to zero.

Considering the game’s ending, it’s likely there’s virtually no place for him to run away to, but it wasn’t like there wasn’t any way for him to prepare to survive alone.

But even if he was scared, he couldn’t find himself running away.

‘How can I leave those freaking people behind! Those were all playable characters!’

The people that caused confusion for Gye Idam in the year that he lived here were all playable characters.

In the previous world, those people were simply background characters he simply knew by name from the illustrations of Ahn Dain that he looks at.

They were just characters of the failed game that he played in his youth, but that wasn’t the case now.

Those people were now Gye Idam’s teachers, seniors, and classmates, not just playable characters.

‘What about Jiikhoe? What happened? I don’t think it appeared in the game…?’

He remembered that the autonomous organization for dormitory students was lost in the wake of the ‘PMH concrete layer collapse’ incident.

The annihilation of Jiikhoe.

As soon as those words came to Gye Idam’s mind, he felt as if his eyes had turned black.

He burned up at the thought of those people dying in vain, a death terrible enough that they weren’t properly dealt with in the game.

‘…So Siwan hyung and the other Jiikhoe people will die?’

It wasn’t just Jiikhoe.

All the members of the student council will die too.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he made a promise that he never would’ve made when he arrived in this world for the first time.

‘I should take them with me if I wanna run away. But those guys won’t run… So… Then I have to fight.’

Gye Idam decided not to run away.

When he made up his mind, he heard a system notification, the same one that he dismissed as noise from his neighbors before he came to this world.

Gye Idam didn’t know what that voice was, but he felt it instinctively.

‘…It’s the thing that sent me here!’

He began to realize that he heard the words “candidate” and “support program” before he woke up to the entrance ceremony.

Following the notification that the support program has ended, another notification sounded.

Candidate perks?

Its identity was unknown, but it was clear that it could be something useful for this situation.

Gye Idam nervously anticipated what the perk would be.

That was the end of the notification.

After that, no matter how long Gye Idam waited, nothing else came.

Being a former user of PMH, he quickly grasped the situation.

‘This freaking Failed Gameeee! Where’s the perk! You gotta give me some tools or skills to deal with this freaking mission! This freaking game has always been a mess!’

Something that should’ve been given to Gye Idam apparently was replaced by the support program he went through.

He doesn’t know exactly what support program the notification was referring to, but he was informed that it was now over.

Now Gye Idam is nothing short of a bare and naked foreign man who came to this world.

He despaired, but he did not give up.

There was still hope.

‘I didn’t do anything, but those Group 13 kids still survived. There must be something.’

Gye Idam speculated that there were other factors besides Baekho’s behavior that was different from the original PMH storyline.

And that “other factor” was quickly determined.

‘Jo Euishin? Jo Euishin was in Group 13?’

There were no playable characters or NPCs with the name Jo Euishin in the game.

If there was, then there’s no way Gye Idam would forget.

‘The voice said I was a candidate. Then is Jo Euishin the real fit…?’

Gye Idam speculated that the ‘two-dimension future transform object fit’ mentioned by the mysterious system message was Jo Euishin.

There was also a possibility that both of them were candidates but Jo Euishin received his perks.

However, considering when and where Jo Euishin appeared, he thought Jo Euishin was something different from himself.

The conviction grew over time.

‘Jo Euishin started at the gym with the Group 13 students. He became the ‘nameless supporting role’ at the tutorial level.’

And then came the existence of a Red Wall Thief who wielded a power very similar to Yeom Junyeol.

Considering those two things, it was clear that Jo Euishin was in a more special position than himself.

‘…That game junkie is changing this world.’

Objectively speaking, Jo Euishin was a smart guy who cared a lot for this world.

On top of that, he was reliable enough to receive special abilities from whatever sent them to this world.

However, Gye Idam couldn’t be relieved.

‘I’m screwed…’

Gye Idam bullied that smart and strong-willed guy!

He can’t use his age superiority in Eungwang High unlike in the military.

He should never, ever, let his identity be revealed to Jo Euishin.

‘Should I apologize now? No, but will he recognize my face?’

Gye Idam was conflicted, but he continued living his high school life like stepping on thin ice.

Finally, Ahn Dain entered Eungwang High, but her classroom was right next to Jo Euishin’s classroom so Gye Idam couldn’t visit her.

He felt shocked when Sung Siwan told him about Jo Euishin, but it couldn’t be helped since it was clear that Jo Euishin was doing something to save the world.

Luckily, the second semester came without him getting caught.

Though his luck ran out too.

***

I wasn’t a tad bit curious about Gye Idam’s freshman life.

However, it was somewhat informative to hear the story of my playable character mentioned by him.

There’s no guarantee that this rotten person was telling the truth, but seeing that he managed to control his temper up to this day, it seemed like the memory loss part was true.

I don’t know exactly what Gye Idam’s support program was, but I could roughly guess from the details.

‘That support program was definitely to send Gye Idam here as a freshman.’

The transcendent universe didn’t seem omnipotent.

That’s why it brought here this malicious commenter as a candidate.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Rehabilitating Gye Idam and inducing him to move for the sake of this world was the support program given to him.

‘He doesn’t have perks because of that support program, but if he didn’t go through his freshman year, he would’ve abandoned Eungwang High and run away.’

It’s a waste that he doesn’t have perks, but this bastard shouldn’t be given that much strength anyway.

The light skill that he currently uses was already excessively good.

Pushing aside my disappointment, I carried out a rough plan.

“Roll forward. Roll backward.”

He rolled left and right, back and forth, and when he slowed down, I made sure to give him a kick.

Gye Idam rolled around like I ordered to not get hit, but his balance eventually collapsed.

“Why aren’t you rolling?”

“Gah, how am I supposed to roll backward when I can’t even use my arms!”

“Sounds like your problem. I told you to stop complaining.”

“Ah, the thing you asked earlier…”

“Don’t complain.”

Hit! Kick!

Gye Idam looked at me like he was being treated unfairly.

The basis of bullying is irrationality.

He gives two options, A & B, but no matter which one you choose, you’d still be cursed and shouted at.

The result is not just physical pain, but also mental.

I beat around the bush as I hit Gye Idam while organizing my thoughts.

‘This guy’s no use without game knowledge and candidate perks. It’s so kind of my playable characters to regard this garbage as a friend.’

No matter how much I thought of it, that was how I evaluated Gye Idam.

By the time Gye Idam was exhausted enough that he couldn’t even look at me as if he was being treated unjustly, the time I spent on him slowly became a waste.

‘…Should I go see Baekho-gun?’

Now that Gye Idam was in this shape, it would be difficult to talk about the secret association with Sung Siwan today.

I’ll ask Sung Siwan later to understand and postpone today’s appointment.

I feel sorry that I didn’t tell the tigers in advance that I’d be visiting the mansion, but I remember that Baekho-gun did tell me that I could come as I please if I wanted to see Olmu.

I left Gye Idam in the battle room and went out.

“Euishin won!”

“Oh, great work.”

“Euishin-ah, you hungry? We prepared some snacks.”

“I’ll get you a cup.”

When I came out, the dormitory kids in my class were waiting outside — Saeum of April, Maeng Hyodon, Hani, Kwon Lena, and Mok Wooram.

The sun set hours ago, but all of them must’ve waited for me.

I’ve dealt with that Gye Idam garbage for so long that I felt my body purify when I saw my classmates.

And it wasn’t just them.

“Hi, Euishin-ah. You’re not hurt anywhere. That’s a relief.”

It’s Yeom Junyeol!

Why didn’t he come home?

Oh no, was my student worried about me?

“Junyeol was very interested in the battle so he waited here. Do you wanna release the record of your battle?”

Behind him was Yong Jegun with his usual ecstatic look.

Unfortunately, however, he wasn’t the only royal lineage here.

‘…Why is he here in that appearance?’

Hwang Jiho, who was in the form of Chairman Hwang Myeongho, was looking this way.

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