Chapter 99

(Notification) Miu has died!

Miu’s character went limp, becoming a cold corpse on the spot.

The party members stared in confusion.

—Huh? Was that a bug? There’s no way Miu would fail to dodge that.

(Cook) BBQ: Huh?

With Miu’s skill, he should have had more than enough time to evade it. Yet he had simply stood there and let the gaping mouth kill him.

Yeonhoo was just as baffled.

It looked like Miu was about to move when I warned him, so why... Wait.

As he replayed the moment in his head, he froze.

...Didn’t I just call him Ms. Miyoung?

In his panic, he seemed to have called Miu Ms. Miyoung without even realizing it.

—What should we do for now? The boss only has a few bars left. Should we just clear it?

While Yeonhoo stood there stunned, YoureGettingSued pinged the boss.

Just as she had said, Arister’s HP was already scraping the bottom.

(Cook) BBQ: We can clear it lol but isn’t this run ending way too fast?

(Cook) BBQ: We can keep going if you want to, Momo lol

—Right! We’ve already seen all the mechanics, but we can keep going if you want, Momo...!

YoureGettingSued and BBQ deliberately stopped attacking and circled the boss as they spoke. They looked ready to restart the moment Yeonhoo said the word, but he could not care less about the run right now.

His mind had gone completely blank.

He could not tear his eyes away from Miu’s corpse.

The others did not seem to think anything of it, but what was he supposed to do?

Miu must have heard him.

What excuse could he possibly make?

—What do you want to do, Momo?

“......”

—Momo?!

“Uh... We can clear it...”

Yeonhoo finally came to his senses at YoureGettingSued’s shout and barely managed to answer.

—Okay!

The two characters who had only been distracting the boss and holding its aggro immediately charged in.

(Notification) Boss Arister Valentine has died to BBQ’s final blow!

A notification announced the dungeon clear, followed by a cutscene.

—This cannot be. This cannot...

Holding his shattered baton, Arister Valentine collapsed to the floor.

He covered his face and sobbed.

Then a flashback began, finally revealing the full story behind the dungeon.

—We are not strange. We are perfectly well. My patients do not spread disease. My staff... They are all alive. They are alive...

When the zombie virus spread, the physically frail patients in Memoria Ward succumbed to the infection much faster than others.

Before long, every one of them had either turned into a zombie or died...

—Ah, how futile. So futile. Futile. Why?

Arister, it seemed, had been unable to accept the truth.

He had loved the hospital, and he had also been a collector. Among his collection was a music box capable of recreating the past.

He used it to remain trapped in those memories, over and over again, until the dungeon known as <Memoria Locked Ward> came into existence.

As the lonely figure of the sobbing boss faded from view, the faint ticking of clockwork that had been scratching at their ears finally stopped.

And with that, the dungeon ended.

(Cook) BBQ: Wonder how much they spent on the soundtrack for real lol

(Cook) BBQ: If the level bracket and rewards were better this dungeon would’ve been really popular lol such a wasteㅠ

The visuals and music had both been excellent.

Just as BBQ said, it was almost a shame the dungeon was so unpopular.

You have cleared the <Memoria Locked Ward> dungeon.

Check your rewards!

—Ahh! Finally!! Thank you, everyone!

YoureGettingSued sounded delighted, apparently having received the reward she wanted.

(Cook) BBQ: gg everyone~~

“Good work, everyone.”

It was the first dungeon Yeonhoo had cleared with his alliance members. Normally, he would have watched the ending cutscene with genuine appreciation.

But he could not do that now.

While the others wrapped things up, Yeonhoo could barely manage a distracted farewell.

(Notification) The raid has ended.

Once the raid ended, all four of them returned to the alliance territory.

(Alliance) ShinJadu: Oh you finished faster than I expected??

(Alliance) BBQ: lol who do you think we are

(Alliance) YoureGettingSued: Ahh~ Everyone was so damn good it was totally E~~ZZZZ

(Alliance) 1Poop1: Hey hey~ Guess you guys speedran the hell out of it?

(Alliance) FUNK: Ohthatwasreallyfastguessyouallplayedwell?

(Alliance) MouseTrap: Wow!! You cleared it so fast!!

(Alliance) YoureGettingSued: Yep Momo did really well!!! Ahh

(Alliance) FUNK: ?

(Alliance) 1Poop1: Oh??? What happened? I’m damn curious

As the alliance members welcomed the four of them back earlier than expected, Yeonhoo was too busy watching Miu to respond.

He heard me, didn’t he?

Miu had not said a single word since the moment Yeonhoo called him Ms. Miyoung.

The longer the silence continued, the more Yeonhoo’s suspicion hardened into certainty.

After hesitating, he cautiously sent Miu a whisper.

(Whisper) 0momo0: Miu are you there???

(Whisper) Miu: Yes

(Whisper) 0momo0: Oh you were there!!

(Whisper) 0momo0: Um

Fortunately, Miu replied immediately, so he had not closed the game.

But Yeonhoo found himself unable to continue.

Should I ask whether he heard the name first? And if he says yes... do I admit I already knew him?

But how was he supposed to explain that?

Putting himself in Miu’s shoes, if someone he had met in a game suddenly called out, “Yeonhoo!” he would have been deeply unnerved too.

(Whisper) 0momo0: I was just going to say you worked really hard today!!!

(Whisper) 0momo0: Thanks for helping me haha

...He had no choice but to pretend nothing had happened.

When Yeonhoo casually brushed past the subject, Miu remained silent for a moment.

(Whisper) Miu: I’m going to log off first

Leaving only that message behind, he disconnected.

Naturally, all the color drained from Yeonhoo’s face.

“I’m screwed...”

Why had he called out her name then of all times...?!

He clutched his head.

He had gotten so immersed in the game that he had made an absurd mistake.

What am I supposed to do now?

He stared blankly at the screen as every possible disaster unfolded in his mind.

What if Miu suspected him of being a cyberstalker and reported him?

If a report was filed, his identity might eventually be exposed.

And what if Ms. Miyoung saw ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) his face and fainted from shock?

F-First, I should just explain...

He had to be honest.

He immediately regretted pretending not to know anything.

Yeonhoo hurried into the game messenger and opened his private channel with Miu.

Hey Miu actually about what I said earlier there’s this café I go to all the time and someone there was playing this game.... It looked fun so I started playing too and then I happened to run into that person in the game and I think that person might be y22.gif

—Bzzzt, bzzzt!!

“Ah!”

The phone suddenly vibrating at full force made Yeonhoo jump like the protagonist of a horror movie.

He picked it up from the table, then froze.

Incoming Call

Kwon Mieon

Slide to answer

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Kwon Mieon was calling him.

Why now, after not contacting me all this time?

Yeonhoo stared at the screen in confusion.

After telling him good night that day, Kwon had stopped messaging him altogether, despite having contacted him every day before that.

Yeonhoo had also left all their chat rooms because he felt as though he was becoming too conscious of Kwon, and he had not reached out first either.

What could this be about...?

Yet now Kwon was suddenly calling him.

When Yeonhoo hesitated and did not answer, a message arrived.

❮Kwon Mieon⠇

Text Message—SMS

(Now)

Yeonhoo

Please open the door

“...The door?”

What was that supposed to mean?

Yeonhoo stared blankly at the screen and started to rise, only to realize he was still wearing his headset.

The moment he took it off, the loud chime of the apartment building’s entrance intercom assaulted his ears.

Who is it?

Startled, he immediately checked the intercom and froze.

—Bzzzt, bzzzt.

His phone began ringing again.

Incoming Call

Kwon Mieon

Slide to answer

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Yeonhoo could no longer ignore it.

Because at the exact moment Kwon’s call appeared on his phone, the man on the intercom screen raised a phone to his ear.

A cap pulled low over his face.

A zip-up hoodie.

Light clothes that made it look as though he had run out of his house without a second thought...

—Yeonhoo.

The voice he heard the moment he answered was lower than usual.

Kwon tilted his head up at an angle and stared directly into the camera, almost as though he knew Yeonhoo was looking at his face.

—I have something I need to ask you. Can we talk face-to-face?

Kwon Mieon, who had not contacted him once in all this time, had come to see him.

—It’ll only take a minute.

At his home.