Chapter 112

Anyway, once that conversation was over, the character selection screen appeared on both of their monitors.

“What class are you going to play, Yeonhoo?”

“I’m going to...”

Before Yeonhoo could answer, Kwon glanced at his screen and snickered.

“Oh. Necromancer?”

Old habits really were terrifying.

Without Yeonhoo even realizing it, his cursor had already drifted over the Necromancer.

“Necromancer’s good. It’s such a great class. You know, I really like Necromancers.”

...No.

Seeing that smile, absolutely not.

“When I see a Necromancer, sometimes it reminds me of someone. For example...”

“Ah, that was a mistake. Now that I think about it, Necromancer doesn’t seem that great. I’ll play this one. Wow! This looks cool. Seriously, who even plays some gloomy-looking class like Necromancer these days? Right?”

Panicking, Yeonhoo hurriedly clicked on a random class.

Kwon turned back toward his own screen and gave the slightest tremble.

“Ah. Sure.”

He was pretending to sound calm, but anyone could tell he was holding back laughter.

Yeonhoo’s face crumpled.

He knows everything and he’s doing this on purpose!

Kwon pretending not to know, teasing him to his face, then secretly laughing about it was infuriating.

Annoying as hell.

But what could Yeonhoo do?

While he swallowed his resentment as best he could, Kwon finally composed himself and leaned over slightly.

“But are you really going to play that?”

Yeonhoo looked properly at his screen.

The class he had selected was floating there.

Judicator

“I covered my own eyes so that I might face the truth.”

Petty emotions only cloud the eyes. Weigh the world with reason honed to a razor’s edge! To evil, become the merciless blade of judgment. To the forsaken, become the sacred refuge of salvation. The battlefield’s executor!

The character held a pair of scales and wore a blindfold, giving her a holy air. It was a versatile class capable of filling both damage and support roles.

“Yeah, well... she looks cool. She’s carrying scales, she’s pretty because she’s a female character, and the veil gives her a nice vibe...”

“You must’ve found the Judicator really memorable.”

“Yeah. I mean, the character stands out, right...?”

In truth, he had just mashed the first thing he could to get away from the Necromancer.

Still, maybe YoureGettingSued’s flashy recent performance on the class had stuck in his mind.

But the more Yeonhoo talked, the worse Kwon’s expression became.

He almost looked offended.

Yeonhoo wondered if he was imagining it, then tilted his head at what came next.

“Why not play Sniper?”

“Sniper?”

“Yeah. Sniper’s cool too.”

Me? Play Sniper?

Just imagining himself playing such a difficult class made Yeonhoo’s pupils shake.

Then a thought suddenly struck him.

Wait... is he testing me? Is he going to watch my reaction and tease me again, or use it as evidence?

He remembered that Sniper was Miu’s class.

Absolutely not.

Yeonhoo quickly schooled his expression and nodded.

“I-I don’t actually know what kind of class Sniper is, okay? I really don’t know, but... I don’t think it’s my style.”

“Ah. You don’t think it suits your style?”

“Right. I definitely like Judicator better!”

And thus began Yeonhoo’s desperate fight for survival.

“I don’t know anything about Sniper, but even the name sounds scary. Judicator sounds reliable just from the name, doesn’t it? The scales are cool, the character’s pretty...”

“Wow. That’s pretty specific. You must be really interested in Judicators.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure. I mean, it catches your eye...”

“Yeonhoo.”

Kwon smiled softly.

“We are talking about the character, right?”

Only his mouth was smiling.

His tone and his eyes were so menacing that Yeonhoo faltered under the pressure.

Then, as if he had no idea why he was getting nervous in the first place, he answered cautiously,

“Of course we’re talking about the character...?”

“Right. We’d better be talking about the character.”

For some reason, he looked ready to kill someone if they weren’t.

Does he hate Judicator that much?

Kwon’s sudden foul mood was so baffling that Yeonhoo raised his voice as if to change the subject.

“Then what are you playing?! You’re obviously going to—”

He stopped before the rest could come out.

He had been about to snap, You’re obviously going to play Sniper.

“I’m playing Judicator.”

“...What?”

Judicator?

Where had that come from?

Yeonhoo stared at him in confusion, but Kwon apparently meant it. A female character in a white veil was displayed on his screen too.

“You’re... playing Judicator?”

His disbelief was understandable.

Kwon Mieon was Miu, and Miu was Kwon Mieon.

The class that suited him best was obviously Sniper—a damage dealer capable of blowing someone’s head off in a single shot from halfway across the battlefield.

“Why? You don’t like it?”

But Kwon’s reaction was strange.

He sounded almost sulky.

“Does it annoy you that much just seeing me pick Judicator? Like I’m somehow contaminating a character you like?”

...What?

“No. I never thought that...”

“You did. Your face was saying, How could someone like you possibly play Judicator?”

What was wrong with him all of a sudden?

He sounded like a little kid grabbing onto every tiny thing just so he wouldn’t lose an argument.

“I just thought a much cooler, more difficult damage-dealer class would suit you better...”

Yeonhoo meant it sincerely.

It was hard to imagine Kwon as anything other than a Sniper.

“......”

Kwon said nothing in response to the straightforward compliment.

Feeling awkward, Yeonhoo could only turn his head away.

I should just pick my own class properly...

For some reason, now that Kwon had chosen Judicator too, Yeonhoo had lost interest in it.

Maybe he should play something else.

He started browsing through the class list, so he never saw Kwon staring fixedly at his own monitor, pressing his fingertips hard against the corners of his mouth to keep them from curling upward.

Anything else worth playing?

After reading through a few class descriptions, one caught Yeonhoo’s eye.

It was Mechanic, the other class he had considered alongside Necromancer when he first started Zombie Village.

Mechanic

“The world is most beautiful when it runs according to a flawless design!”

The groans of zombies and the screams of humans are nothing more than noise in the system. Now, overcome the limits between man and machine and become the battlefield’s true master!

The brutal heavy weapons mounted along the character’s arms gleamed menacingly and immediately drew Yeonhoo’s attention.

He especially liked the massive muscles emphasized whenever the character moved, along with the destructive visual effects.

“I’m playing Mechanic.”

“Mechanic?”

“Yeah. The muscles are awesome.”

Watching the Mechanic roar while slaughtering zombies with a physique that was the complete opposite of the Necromancer’s slender frame, Yeonhoo nodded with satisfaction.

Kwon stared at him for a moment, apparently at a loss for words.

“Mechanic is a class that barely anyone...”

Did Yeonhoo know?

In the class population rankings, Necromancer was second from the bottom.

And dead last was Mechanic.

Its player base had already gone past lying down in protest and become cold corpses, to the point that hardly anyone even posted on the board anymore.

“...Never mind.”

Kwon was stunned by Yeonhoo’s eye for classes, but Yeonhoo clearly liked it too much for him to say anything more.

“Did you pick your nickname?”

“Yeah. What are you going with?”

Kwon had already entered the tutorial.

His Judicator, dressed in white clerical robes with her eyes covered, was beautiful.

Oh. He did a good job.

Yeonhoo had no interest in customization and had simply chosen the default model, but Kwon had managed to sculpt his character with surprising care in that short amount of time.

Come to think of it, he’s really good at this kind of thing.

Yeonhoo suddenly remembered the gleaming bald head of his own Necromancer.

It wasn’t like he cared much about whether game characters were handsome or pretty in the first place, and back then the circumstances had hardly given him room to care.

I wasn’t exactly in a position to be picky.

For someone playing a game like this for the first time, customization had been far too difficult.

He looked pretty human later, though.

Once Yeonhoo got that Necromancer hood later on, bangs had apparently come included as part of the default look, finally freeing him from baldness.

Did I get attached to him? I keep thinking about him.

As Yeonhoo nostalgically remembered his bald Necromancer, Kwon’s gameplay caught his eye.

With a shimmering sound effect, a set of scales appeared, and the character aimed a gun marked with a cross.

Brilliant light burst from the muzzle.

The allied targets positioned around the training ground recovered HP, while elaborate buff effects spilled across the screen.

“You’re really going support?”

Judicator could function as either a damage dealer or a support, but Kwon’s skill window didn’t contain a single damage skill.

“Yeah. I’m going support.”

Kwon as a healer.

It felt oddly mismatched, but watching him play, it somehow suited him too.

It’s like a Sniper who heals.

When a Judicator fired at an ally, the shot registered as healing; when fired at an enemy, it dealt damage.

And the more accurately you hit an ally, the more HP they recovered.

Watching the health bars of every ally Kwon shot refill at frightening speed...

That’s literally Miu.

Anyone could see that his aim was far beyond ordinary.

Anyone familiar with Miu’s skill would recognize him instantly.

What the hell? Why does he look cool even playing Judicator?

So good aim was obvious even when you played support.

As Yeonhoo was thinking that, something strange caught his eye.

Kwon had just zoomed his camera out and switched to third-person view.

His nickname appeared overhead.

“Your nickname is...!”

Yeonhoo’s voice shot up in horror.

His hand began trembling almost violently.

“What is it, Yeonhoo?”

NotMiyoung

“Is there a problem?”

You fucking bastard!!!