<b>Trantor: MarcTempest</b>
<b>Editor: NicoleTempest</b>
Chapter 239 A Wasted Life Saved by a Stone’s Touch
[Special Quest: HAPPY ENDING]
[Objective: Safely transfer the ‘Original’ data, which has be corrupted and can no longer function normally, to the recovery center.]
[Quest Time Limit: 7 days (168 hours)]
[If the quest time limit is exceeded, the temporary storage will be destroyed and the data will be lost.]
[Quest Completion Reward]
[>Preceding Quest Continuation]‘What is the recovery center?’
As I wondered about the unfamiliar word that kept appearing, the status window added an exnation.
[Recovery Center: A storage where the lost data gathers and waits for regeneration. All data whose usage period has expired are gathered in the recovery center and go through a regeneration waiting time before being consolidated into new data.]
In other words, it was a ce simr to the afterlife where people go after they die.
The image that the system showed me was a space where tiny pixel grains emitted light and gathered to form a gxy-like shape.
‘It’s beautiful.’
I felt a bit eerie thinking that each of those grains was like the soul of a dead person or something simr.
But it looked like a vast and beautiful universe that made me stare in awe.
The faintly glowing gxy flowed endlessly toward a direction that was hard to pinpoint.
I didn’t believe in anything like the afterlife, but it was amazing and strange to see such a simple recycling… or rather, reincarnation structure, as I would call it.
‘Can I ask one more thing?’
I asked the question that had been bothering me.
‘Why am I the one who has to do the quest, when both I and Cheon Ise are in the same situation of being dead, and I’m even a real dead person with a body that you call a storage?’
Then the system answered as if it was obvious.
[The main factor that affects the usage period of each data is the ‘data’s own persistence of will’.]
Ah.
I finally understood. Cheon Ise killed himself and I was murdered.
Cheon Ise’s situation had changed so much since he chose suicide. I couldn’t me him for wanting to live again now, but.
It wasn’t like he could maintain the life that someone else had given him, let alone inherit the ability to do so.
As I was silent for a moment, the system disyed the consent confirmation window again.
[Do you ept the special quest?]
[Yes/No]
And right away, a small exnation was added at the bottom, as if it was some insurance use.
[If you proceed with the new special quest, the previous special quest will be suspended.]
[The functions that you used as Cheon Ise (Lim Hyun-seong) will be deactivated due to the change of the quest in progress.]
[Deactivation Scheduled Function List]
[- Ability Value Adjustment]
[- Buff Skill]
…
As the list went on, I felt like I was bing a 19-year-old who knew nothing, a virtual person who had never existed in this world.
‘If I go back to reality like this, won’t I be useless?’
I felt a moment of panic, but it was no different from the situation when I first encountered the system.
It was better to do something than to wait for extinction. At least, if I started to judge and act for myself, something might change.
It was better to buy a lottery ticket and hope for a chance than to hope for a win without buying one.
[Yes]
I pressed the consent button without hesitation, and a countdown that I hadn’t seen in a long time, but felt familiar, began.
[Time left until the quest starts 10…]
[9… 8… 7…]
[6… 5… 4… 3…]
[2… 1…!]
As soon as the bright light shed, a burning pain started.
Did it have to hurt this much? I swallowed myints and waited eagerly for the pain to subside.
How long had it been?
It felt like a couple of hours had passed when I saw something blurry instead of darkness.
At first, it looked like a vague something, and I wondered where I was.
But as my vision became clearer, I could distinguish the objects.
What I thought was a background or a wall, a white and wide object, was not a single thing, but a huge flower bed. The sky was still dark and a white moon was floating unrealistically.
Below it, tiny flower buds swayed like cotton, forming a huge flower bed.
‘What is this ce?’
As I looked around and stepped forward, I had arms and legs that I could stretch on the ground, unlike before when I had no body, but I still didn’t feel any gravity.
‘Am I still in this strange virtual space?’
As I walked and walked through the endless flower field, I saw someone lying on the opposite side.
‘Who is that?’
I squinted my eyes to see better, but it was too blurry. I ran towards them and when I got closer, I was surprised to see a face I knew very well.
‘Is that… me?’
It was me, right before I died, lying on my side and asleep.
‘Did I die?’
I looked peaceful for someone who drowned to death.
I knelt down next to my sleeping self and saw that there were tags attached to the stems of the flowers around my body.
‘What are these…’
I picked one up and checked it. On the front, there was a name, and on the back, there was a short phrase.
[Choi Moon-seong]
[- Thank you for the treatment.]
What does this mean? I picked up another tag from a nearby flower.
[Jo Min-ha]
[- Thank you! I will study hard.]
[Park Han-bit]
[- I want to grow up fast and be a cool adult like you!]
The phrases written in neat handwriting on each tag were like the flowers and thank-you notes left at my funeral, or the gratitude I received over the years.
I quickly checked a few more flowers and recognized some names, but most of them I didn’t remember.
I didn’t help anyone specifically, but I set up a foundation to help anyone in need.
It was only natural that I didn’t know the individuals I helped.
I felt embarrassed. I didn’t think I did anything remarkable to deserve so much gratitude.
I lost my words and sat next to ‘Lim Hyun-seong’, looking at myself. I noticed something in my lightly clenched fist.
Paper? No, a note.
I opened my cold hand and unfolded the neatly folded note. There was a short sentence written in a tidy font.
[The reason why you have to keep living]
Before I seeded as a businessman, what I really wanted to achieve was…
To make sure that no child would ever feel alone and helpless, without a single adult to ask for help.
‘I have to go back.’
I couldn’t just sit here and wait for oblivion.
I closed my eyes with the note in my hand, and unlike the silence before, the city noise pierced my ears.
“What the…”
I gasped. I could speak. I opened my eyes and found myself standing in the middle of downtown, where the shuttle to the idol stage was.
“Wow.”
I looked around and everyone was busy going their own way, not paying attention to me.
What day and time is it? I reached for my phone in my pocket, but all I had was a few bills.
It made sense. I didn’t exist on paper right now. I was an unregistered person. I couldn’t have a phone that required an identity to activate.
“Damn.”
I took out the bills and checked them. 25,000 won.
It was an awkward amount. I was d to have something, but what could I do with it? I was homeless right now.
‘Let’s check the date first.’
I memorized the members’ phone numbers, so I could call them if I found a payphone. But wait, do payphones still exist? I hurried to find a nearby phone booth, but it was almost deserted, with nothing but empty booths.
‘I’m in trouble.’
I went to the convenience store next to the booth and looked at the newspaper. It was 5 or 6 days after thest date I remembered.
‘Doesn’t that mean that the system can’t fix this if it tried for 5 days?’
I felt a chill down my spine. Then the owner of the store asked me.
“What do you want?”
I shook my head and backed away.
“No, I was just looking at the newspaper…”
He snapped at me in a grumpy voice.
“Then go away! Don’t bother my business.”
Geez. Have some manners, old man. I wanted to frown, but I held it in and tried to leave quietly. But then I saw the entertainment section of the newspaper and my eyes widened.
“Hey, wait a minute! I’ll buy this!”
How much is a newspaper? Is it still 1,000 won? I grabbed a copy and handed him a 5,000 won bill. He gave me 3,000 won in change.
‘…’
This felt like ripping off a kid’s money.
I didn’t want to haggle over a thousand or two thousand won, and I was in a hurry anyway, so I took the newspaper and the change.
‘If something had gone wrong with the business, it would have been in the news.’
It wasn’t a general business-rted article that would be slow to report unless it was a rtively big ident. It was an entertainment article, so if something had happened, it would have been a mess right away.
‘Let’s see… any articles about theposition or the climax…’
[- Offbeat Music Safe wins first ce for the first time, Kyunghwa, thanks for cheering for our new start.]
They won first ce. This time, they didn’t have to rely on fan votes to easily win first ce.
They also won first ce on cable music shows and other terrestrial music shows. They had three trophies in a week, so they were all doing well.
‘Did I… underestimate Cheon Ise too much…’
A strange feeling of regret or relief crossed my mind, and then I noticed something weird.
‘Huh…?’
At most of the ces where the leader should have spoken, such as the eptance speech, it was Kyunghwa or Hwijin who held the microphone, not Cheon Ise.
‘What is Cheon Ise doing.’
He was the leader and the representative, so why didn’t he have the microphone at all.
I decided to check the inte articles and headed to a nearby PC room.
‘If I had a phone, I could just use Wi-Fi or data.’
It was unfortunate, but there was nothing I could do about it. I prepared myself mentally and tried to log in to SNS, which was faster than the articles.
‘What.’
[The password does not match.]
‘…?’
This is correct. I typed in the familiar password a few more times, but after failing more than five times, a window popped up asking for phone verification.
‘Don’t tell me… Cheon Ise changed the password?’
I felt a chill run through my body.
‘…Sigh.’
Nothing was easy. I moved my eyes back to the monitor and started searching the inte with a restless mind.