Chapter 21
***
It felt like she’d had a long dream.
In a darkness where she couldn’t tell where it began or ended, Baek I-hae blinked blankly.
‘Where am I?’
She seriously wondered if she’d died and come to the afterlife, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
Tilting her head, she flailed her arms wildly. She didn’t touch anything, but her movements weren’t restricted.
Realizing that, she promptly rolled forward like a somersault and righted herself.
“Oh, it worked. I can stand even without a floor.”
Though truthfully, she couldn’t tell if what she was standing on was the ceiling or the floor.
Letting out a sigh of admiration, Baek I-hae blinked her large eyes. The surroundings weren’t complete blackness.
It was a sparkling, mysterious darkness, like gazing at the universe. Entranced by its beauty that seemed to draw her in, she soon snapped out of it with a start.
‘This isn’t the time. Get it together.’
She couldn’t let her guard down when she didn’t even know where she was.
“Status window.”
Baek I-hae muttered softly. She recalled that whenever she got caught up in strange events, the status window had always explained the situation.
As if it had been waiting, the familiar status window appeared before her eyes.
[Tutorial Complete!]
‘Tutorial?’
A tutorial was like the instructions at the start of a game, explaining controls and elements.
‘Are you saying everything I’ve been through was a tutorial? The relationships I formed, the incidents I endured?’
Baek I-hae couldn’t control her expression and scrunched up her face.
Then the status window began to expand lengthwise, with flashy movements as if demanding her attention.
[Tutorial Complete!
‘Adapt to Baek I-hae’s body and exceed the favorability threshold with at least one person!’
Success: Begin Year 2 Episode, Status Window Interference Rejection Possible
Failure: Baek I-hae Death.]
“Death….”
Unable to hold back her anger any longer, Baek I-hae burst out yelling as if spitting it out.
“You drag me here on a whim, and now you’ll kill me on a whim?! If you’re going to kill me, just do it! This isn’t some game with a person’s life!”
To begin with, she’d never once thought about wanting to possess a character in the game she’d played.
It was an obsessive kind of love, sure, but she’d envied the female protagonist being loved by everyone.
“Damn it. I really hate this. I hate it all.”
The kindness she’d shown had been reduced to mere favorability points by some game system.
‘I didn’t do nice things just to raise favorability….’
Tears threatened to spill, so Baek I-hae took a deep breath and held them back as best she could.
She absolutely didn’t want to show a powerless side in front of the status window over something like this.
[Current Favorability Rankings Announced!
1st: Seo-yeol (Max)
2nd: Seo I-heum (+50)
3rd: Chai Ryeong (+15)
4th: Seo Do-gyeom (+10)
5th: Baek Yeong (+10)]
‘I don’t know what the favorability threshold is, but at least thanks to Seo-yeol, I’ve avoided the crisis.’
She didn’t know about Seo-yeol, but just as she’d saved him, he’d saved her in return.
Letting out a hollow laugh, Baek I-hae frowned at seeing Chai Ryeong in 3rd place, then spotted 4th and 5th.
“No way, that guy Seo Do-gyeom stuck to me like glue and only has +10 favorability? Lower than Chai Ryeong? And why did that jerk Baek Yeong raise his favorability in such an annoying way?”
Some people had survived deadly situations thanks to her!
Huffing in irritation, Baek I-hae soon stared silently at the status window. Maybe this unknown world was created by the status window.
Perhaps it was trying to convey something that couldn’t be revealed in reality.
“The reward being ‘Status Window Interference Rejection Possible’ means you’ve been the one messing with my memories up until now, right?”
She’d felt something off for a while. It was like someone had cut the flow of her memories with scissors, leaving abrupt gaps.
She couldn’t remember the sub-male lead’s face, whom she’d thought was handsome, or the subsequent plot developments.
‘Did you think knowing the original story would make me a hindrance?’
She was about to feel offended, thinking she had no intention of interfering anyway, when she recalled Seo I-heum’s survival.
Come to think of it, she had a flashy track record of derailing the original story’s direction from the very beginning.
Since she didn’t expect the status window to answer, Baek I-hae was pondering alone when it happened.
[A message has arrived. Would you like to view it? YES / NO]
‘A message?’
It was sudden. She could accept favorability and status windows from a dating sim game, but messages?
‘…From whom?’
As Baek I-hae hesitated, the YES button slowly pressed itself.
[Player: Yeah, that was me.]
It was the status window’s first response to Baek I-hae’s question.
[A message has arrived. It will be viewed automatically.]
When Baek I-hae froze and stayed still, the message opened automatically this time too.
It was as if telling her she had no right to refuse.
[Player: You wished for it. That you’d be fine dying if you could just help someone.]
[A message has arrived. It will be viewed automatically.]
[Player: I just thought your memories and such weren’t necessary in the process.]
With the messages pouring in one after another, Baek I-hae gaped, her mouth opening and closing. Before she could even respond, another message arrived.
[Player: But if you refuse now, I won’t do it. I’ll share the hidden information too, so from now on, it’s up to you to decide—your path ahead.]
My path ahead?
Baek I-hae felt like her brain was about to overload from the flood of information that was about to pour in. A groan escaped her lips involuntarily, and in that process, she realized a truth she had forgotten.
It was the existence of the status window that had informed her that Chai Ryeong was the action captain of the Baek faction. In other words, even though she had received advance notice about Baek Yeong, that memory had been forcibly erased, leading her to face danger.
It was as if someone had manipulated things to their taste, making sure she couldn’t easily escape from the peril.
‘Plus, the sub-male lead I mentioned in jest turned out to be Baek Yeong.’
Her hazy memories from her previous life’s game started to resurface. The person who had revealed with a sneer that he himself had planted the spy who killed Seo I-heum in Seo Do-gyeom’s midst.
Back when it was just a game, she’d admired how handsome he was, but to think that was Baek Yeong all along.
‘I knew his face and name, yet I still fell for it. I thought possession into a game or status windows were absurd enough, but tampering with my memories like that…’
A chilling sensation washed over her.
Baek I-hae clamped her mouth shut and glared straight ahead. She could see the status window, but she had no idea who—or what—was beyond it.
Was it a god? A devil? Or perhaps some entity designed to curse her?
“What exactly do you want from me? Is it just to help ensure a safe ending? Then can I go home?”
She didn’t remember ever saying she’d be fine dying as long as she could help someone. But perhaps the implication had been to help someone specific.
That someone was probably the male lead, Seo Do-gyeom, with high probability.
[Player: It’s about seeing a happy ending. A happy ending that everyone can agree on. But to make that happen, we need to adjust the male lead’s intensity level.]
“Intensity level?”
It was a game rated for users 19 and up. And the reason for that was the game’s ‘brutality.’
Adjusting the intensity level meant…
[Player: Making sure the female lead gets a truly happy ending.]
It seemed to mean changing Seo Do-gyeom’s cruel disposition. Still, since she’d prevented Seo I-heum’s death, there was at least some possibility.
Baek I-hae nodded and asked,
“Once that’s done, I can go back home, right?”
[Player: You don’t even have a family waiting for you—do you really want to go back?]
“Just answer what I asked.”
[Player: Fine, if that’s what you want. I’ll send you back to right before you crossed over here.]
Only then did Baek I-hae relax her frown and nod.
“Got it. But in exchange, I’ll handle things my way from now on, so don’t ever touch my memories again.”
[Player: Okay.]
“And you said you’d give me answers to my questions if I saved the old man, but why didn’t you deliver the reward right away? Status window, are you slacking on the job?”
Baek I-hae ground her teeth as she spat out the words. It felt like the thing was trying to gloss over forgetting the reward after making her go through all that hardship.
In response, the status window labeled Player replied.
[Player: …Ah.]
“Ah? Ah? Ah~?”
The absurd, non-excuse response made anger surge up in Baek I-hae. She repeated it mockingly for emphasis, and the message window popped up hurriedly.
[Player: Calm down. That was my mistake.]
“If I hadn’t pointed it out, you would’ve just let it slide. You put someone through hell and think ‘oops, forgot’ makes it all better?”
[Player: I admit I was wrong. If there’s something you want to ask now, go ahead.]
“Forget it. I don’t have any right now, so just show up and answer immediately when I do ask later.”
[Player: Well… As long as they’re questions that don’t heavily influence the plot.]
“And since you didn’t reward me on time, fork over another compensation.”
[Player: ?]
She couldn’t see a face since it was a status window, but if the other party were standing in front of her, they’d probably be staring with an expression like, ‘Is this some thug?’
Even so, Baek I-hae shamelessly extended her hand and prodded insistently. It was the epitome of top-tier thug behavior, leaving no room for doubt.
