NOVEL NEXT Chapter 34
‘Just by making eye contact with him, I couldn’t look away for a moment (well, quite a while)…’
‘What do you do if you start feeling entranced by a game character? Am I weird?’
‘?Or… I’m entranced too.’
‘?222222222222’
‘?333333333’
‘Guys in this chat, are you also feeling entranced by this character?’
‘Yes…’
‘ㅇㅇㅇㅇ’
‘Lol, this is insane, what’s up with this guy?’
Just making eye contact with the boy’s light chocolate-colored eyes brought the gap between game and reality crashing down.
It made you tense and thirsty.
‘One thing is certain. This character is the masterpiece of the company’s graphic designers…’
The boy’s presence sparked ambition and possessiveness in those who watched him.
His slender neck looked pitiful just to look at, and his blinking eyelashes invoked a mysterious allure.
‘How old is he, anyway?’
‘Isn’t he too young? Wasn’t the minimum age for characters 15?’
‘He’s probably a severely underdeveloped 15-year-old…’
‘Why can’t we see his status window? I want to check his age.’
‘?It said the windows would open sequentially 5 minutes after the round starts.’
‘?Thanks, thanks.’
Despite the cannon shot announcing the start of the survival game, the nameless boy character stood still, showing no signs of awareness.
‘Why is he so dazed?’
‘He has no sense of tension.’
‘Kid, get a grip.’
Standing alone in the shadows of the jungle.
He finally raised his head and listlessly looked around.
His brown eyes held no resolve, only a gentle light, yet they were so clear and neat that they made hearts ache.
[Inventory]
Was he finally thinking of engaging in survival like the other participants?
His fingers opened the inventory and skimmed through food, water, and a basic pocket knife.
His delicate, thin fingers reached the potion category. He pulled out one item.
[Throwing Sleep Potion]
‘?’
‘?’
‘Why is he taking that out now?’
‘There’s no one around?’
The game screen showed the boy staring at the light blue potion, alongside the viewers’ puzzled chat messages.
Moments later, he opened the container and stared at it again.
Then he lifted the container high, tilting his head back.
The light blue liquid slid down his throat.
The next moment, the empty container fell into the jungle underbrush.
Soon after, the boy’s body also collapsed into the foliage.
‘I’ve never seen someone take a potion and fall asleep right at the start…’
This place was a field teeming with wolves, a potential hunting point.
But to take a sleep potion and fall asleep immediately as the round began?
Even the seasoned players of this brutal game were shocked by the boy’s method of committing what seemed like suicide.
‘I choose death.’
‘Oh, don’t make jokes, this is serious.’
‘If he dies like this, it’s a national loss.’
‘Baby!!’
‘You can’t sleep now!!!’
‘Wake up!!!!’
‘Get up!!!!’
‘Stop it, viewers, he can’t hear you anyway.’
‘ㅋㅋㅋㅋ큐ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅋㅋㅋ’
The boy lay there, helplessly in a state of sleep.
Even if he miraculously survived the wolves, his life would likely end the moment one of the other 499 participants noticed him, quickly becoming an easy kill point.
He would be an effortless target, providing someone with kill points without any resistance.
‘Are the admins crazy?’
‘What a waste of talent;; Why create such a beautiful face just to have him take a potion and die? This is so pointless.’
‘He’s not dead yet.’
‘How long does the sleep potion last?’
‘If no one wakes him up, it can last a whole day…’
‘This is so messed up.’
‘Guys, the status window is open now!’
After 5 minutes had passed, the status windows for the new characters became accessible to the real-world users.
Hundreds of fingers almost simultaneously accessed the status window of one character. And everyone was left speechless.
[Name] Akata / [Level] 1
[Gender] Male / [Age] 15
[Intelligence] High / [Killing Intent] Moderate
So far, it seemed ordinary.
[Health] 4 / F
[Strength] 3 / F
[Agility] 8 / F
From here, it became extraordinary.
‘Whoa… look at his status window.’
The viewers had all seen it. They were all dumbfounded by the unique combination of numbers and grades they had never seen before.
‘The admins are too much.’
‘They gave him great looks but garbage stats.’
‘Is life really fair…?’
Previously, the admins had posted guidelines on the website to help users understand the basic stats of characters.
An example was as follows:
F = Capable of lifting only a spoon
E~C = Average human level
B = Athlete level
With each ‘+’ sign indicating an additional 100kg of lifting capacity.
S = Capable of lifting a car
No character with an S grade had appeared yet, but this was the first appearance of a character with an F grade.
‘How can he survive lifting only a spoon!!’
Someone briefly lamented in the chat.
‘Is that why he’s trying to commit suicide…?’
‘He must have looked at his stats and thought there was no hope…’
Everyone fell silent. It felt strange to be so somber over a game character, but the chat window took on the atmosphere of a funeral, with everyone paying silent respect.
Someone proposed a different idea.
‘Could this be an event?’
‘Maybe it’s a challenge for the top-tier characters to see if they want him.’
‘We’re entranced, so the characters probably are too.’
‘Wouldn’t characters like Shemarin want him?’
‘? He’s just a pretty face and too young. He’s not a man yet.’
‘What use does Akata have besides his face? This is about recruiting soldiers.’
‘? Face!!! Super important!!!’
‘LOL’
‘The F rating is shocking, but it’s not that serious.’
‘The lower the rating, the smaller the gap between grades, so raising an F rating to a D should be easy. The higher grades are the hard ones.’
‘But seriously, the visuals are insane… How did they create such graphics? Unahar, the previous top male character, was like the most handsome movie star in the world, but Akata is just otherworldly. If someone asks what Narcissus from Greek mythology looks like, I’d say Akata.’
‘LOL That’s a fresh take.’
Never before had there been a character with such hopeless stats.
Even the avid viewers who knew all the characters’ status windows before the game launched had never seen an F rating.
They thought it was only theoretical.
In reality, unless one of the top characters personally scouted him, Akata’s survival seemed impossible.
‘Anyone here to watch Akata sleep, gather around.’
‘I’ll set up camp here until the 1.5 round live ends.’
‘Today’s broadcast lasts 10 hours.’
‘Well, he’ll probably die before that.’
‘Ah;;’
Viewers started to give up on Akata’s survival. They resigned themselves to watching the angelic boy’s sleeping face.
‘Kid, you’ve got dirt on your hands, yuck.’
‘He’s sleeping without knowing he’s dirty…’
‘LOL why is he a kid? He’s 15.’
‘15 is the youngest in the game. That’s a kid.’
‘Okay, got it, got it.’
* * *
### The Start of Round 1.5
I chose Gio and Unahar for the team to bring back subordinate characters.
In reality, Unahar would do most of the work. Gio wouldn’t be much help in selecting subordinates, so he was just there for protection.
From the lookout, I had large monitors displaying the cams of my guild members and the new characters.
With a limit of three participants, I could still join the round, so I planned to watch the situation and then head out myself.
Once I left, Kanel and Lilith would take over the lookout.
Communication between players in the game and characters in the fortress worked like this:
The lookout characters couldn’t transmit their voices to the game field.
But field characters could shout into the air, requesting remote support from the lookout. It was one-way communication.
However, the guild leader was an exception.
[“Rudel, when are you coming?”]
“Well, we’ll see. I might not need to go at all.”
As the guild leader, I could communicate with the guild members in the field through the status window. This applied even if I were out in the field.
“Unahar, I’ll disconnect for a moment. I need to ask someone else something.”
[“Understood.”]
Moreover, guild leaders could communicate with other guild leaders, though the other party had the choice to accept or not. But I was confident that the person I was contacting would accept.
[“Rudel!”]
As expected, the voice of the saint was filled with delight.
[“It’s been a while. Just hearing your voice makes me happy.”]
“Yeah, I’m happy to hear yours too.”
[“I wanted to visit you, but I couldn’t.”]
“Why?”
[“My vice guild leader wouldn’t let me. She said that with the guild being newly established and chaotic, it wouldn’t do for the guild leader to be absent and cause a disruption.”]
The vice guild leader must be that short-haired woman I met last time.
She was the one who decided to punish the characters who attempted to assassinate Aleon in Round 1 and became his advisor.
Her name was Ifrea, if I recalled correctly.
“Well, she’s right. Now that Round 1.5 has started, you should focus on selecting subordinate characters. By the way, Aleon.”
I smoothly transitioned to the main topic.
“What criteria are you using to select players?”