NoveLight ™
"Ubuyee..."
Jumping up!
At the last comment, Carto quickly got up and looked around. It was often said that nothing was scarier than Yujin, even more than war or disease, and today, Carto shouted "I can't take this anymore!" while scanning the surroundings. Of course, Yujin was nowhere to be found.
The mental fatigue had seeped into his bones. He had spent around twelve hours in the lab today. The only lucky thing was that, rather than dying under someone else's hands, he had made it through all the rounds... not exactly by himself, but carried through by someone else, forced to swallow credit and items by force.
It seemed like it was over, but Yujin, as always, discovered a deeper research facility at the last moment, and Carto found himself facing hell. This was the second encounter with Mecha Yujin.
"Today, I really feel like I'm gonna die..."
Somehow, after recovering the USB, he was hit by poisonous gas pouring down from the ceiling. Naturally, he barely survived, thanks to Yujin’s help, but by then, the truck was probably long gone, MIA. Then, he heard that the base had been attacked.
Carto had dragged several ammo cans weighing almost 100 kilograms around the base with little care, following Yujin for another fifteen-hour ordeal.
He checked the real-world time. It was past 2 a.m.
"Fifteen hours of broadcasting... wow. I never thought I’d be able to do this. I started streaming just after 9, and I never expected it to go on like this."
Of course, the past was just that—past.
Carto himself subtly realized it. He was beginning to feel, little by little, that he was changing from the core. Every now and then, he still made mistakes, but unlike before, he was now leading the charge and getting kills while bravely charging forward after firing himself. That reckless play was slowly being corrected.
‘But if I did that in front of Yujin, my head would probably be smashed first...’
Technically, it wasn’t entirely unacceptable. The reason was simple. In the end, Carto's playstyle and the key comedic moments in his streams had always been centered around such ‘reckless’ moves, and Yujin never intended to restrict that.
The real problem came later, when the Cobra Twist was applied.
Because it was VR, it didn’t hurt, and Yujin-ryeon could proudly throw the rope around Carto’s neck like some kind of ‘training content,’ creating a new comedic moment. In the end, it worked out well...
While drifting into these pointless thoughts, Carto suddenly checked the five pages of improvements, strengths, and weaknesses written on A4 paper.
And how much time passed since then?
"…I feel like I’m being completely dismantled."
As vast as the content was, the details were dense. It would have been impossible to list it all without exhaustion, but everything was accounted for: the position of the eyes, the steps, the order of the footfalls, the speed of CQB, muzzle positions, the subject's center of gravity, recommended attachments, and their placement.
It was so detailed that even without visuals, Carto could almost imagine it all in his head, and he let out a dry laugh before gently setting the papers down.
How much time passed?
───Wooong!
A text message arrived.
It came via virtual reality. He felt a sense of déjà vu even before reading the message and, sure enough, it was from the person who handed him the papers earlier—filled with all kinds of data files.
So, what was this? It turned out to be something based on the theory written on the paper—sort of a 3D model resembling Carto’s avatar data.
At that moment, another message was sent.
"Seriously, that’s scary."
Where am I headed?
Carto was slowly being sucked into the abyss.
Meanwhile...
"Whoa, why is Lorentina here?!"
"I told you, Shark is still in Korea."
"Heh heh, let’s fill up the missing harmonium today."
"Kyaaaah!"
It was the moment when Harmony’s designated delinquent returned.
"I see, this is the Gear Box place, huh? The building looks pretty shabby, but the inside is better than I expected."
"Long time no see. How have you been?"
"I’ve been all over the place. About a week ago, I think I went four days without sleep. It’s been pretty fun for a change."
"Hek..."
The Gear Box, not that big, and my personal space felt unusually cramped and noisy today.
Though it had been a while, I hadn’t expected Lorentina to show up like this. As the old saying goes, "when you talk about a tiger, it comes," and there she was—well, virtually speaking. At least that’s how it was for now.
Anyway, whether it was for one day or a week, she’d surely come up with all sorts of excuses to hang out again.
But aside from that, my facility wasn’t exactly up to par to receive guests.
Harmony pointed out the issues without hesitation.
"Wow, it looks like it’s been bombed. I haven’t seen you for a while, and here you are, doing something new again. Who did this?"
"Artemis turned the base into a mess."
"How fitting for the youngest."
Why is this my fault?
Anyway, the storylines of the two in front of me weren’t much different from that of regular users. Lorentina, of course, hadn’t participated in the previous year’s final championship—though she had been busy clearing high-level PVE missions, and Harmony and I had already cleared nearly every PVE mission together at Omega rank.
Looking at it from a different perspective, Harmony, who had been with me on nearly every Omega mission, was now going through the same scenarios in EU mode that other users faced, which might indicate that the triggers for story changes could come from winning in international competitions.
But of course, Harmony wasn’t just curious about that.
"...By the way, what’s that monstrous machine gun?"
"That’s the KPV. It came in handy. You’ll understand when the edited video of the base attack goes up."
"I’ve already heard the rumors. You were the one firing it."
"You heard it all, so why ask?"
"Ugh!"
The moment Harmony’s cheeks were once again playfully assaulted by the hands of two gunman figures.
Meanwhile, Lorentina glanced at my watch, chuckling quietly. I realized she had seen a hologram showing an endless list of materials needed for the base’s reconstruction. Of course, the materials not listed here were being transported by the commander, but everything on the list would need to be obtained directly from the outside.
And the "outside" referred to the maps filled with users and bandits.
After explaining that to Harmony, who was sitting on Lorentina’s lap, she added:
"Why not just buy it from a flea market?"
"Then it wouldn't be fun."
"Ah..."
"Simple answer, our youngest."
What do you mean by 'simple answer'!?
Yujin kills people for fun... and then farms.
That’s just... more fun to farm directly.
Of course, no one really thought of that.
No matter how much the viewers screamed, Lorentina, who had visited VR’s EU mode after a long time, wasn’t planning on leaving without smelling gunpowder. And with two special guests invited, the viewers should be thanking me, right?
"Anyway, have you thought about anything today? Or are you just here to see our faces?"
"Since I’ve got about two weeks of vacation, it’d be a waste to just look at faces in VR. I should at least see Mecha-Young’s face."
"You’re going to leave with all the spoils, huh, Lorentina?"
"Seems like it’s obvious. People who can read quickly, huh?"
Mecha Yujin Dome, omg!! Wow, Shark and Green Cat are in the same team, lol Is this the Suicide Squad or something? The team that makes enemies kill themselves, lol How can anyone miss this content?
Well, if I were them, I’d probably check it out too, considering the lineup.
"By the way, are we going to wander around until Mecha Yujin comes out like last time with Carto?"
"Is there a problem, our new youngest?"
"Of course not, hehe. I’ll be ready right away."
That’s how an impromptu party was formed. Harmony and I started gathering items.
And then, the moment Carto handed over his knife to Lorentina, things were about to get more interesting.
And so, an impromptu party was formed. Harmony and I started gathering items.
The only catch was that Lorentina didn’t know the map at all, but I handed her a crumpled map from my Gear Box showing the area we were going to today and added:
"Do you need a gun?"
"Since it's the first round, let’s just explore the map a bit. I’d like to borrow a decent tactical knife, though."
"All our teacher-avatars seem to say the same thing."
Ignoring Harmony’s sharp remark, I handed Lorentina a knife.
I decided to ignore the bad vibes and swallowed them down.
"Alright, let’s go... The map we’re going to today is Customs. If you don’t want to get caught in a natural disaster, you better run quickly."
It was an impromptu party, and I didn’t care too much. What I was most curious about was what kind of antics Lorentina would pull.
And then—
"How many people did you kill?"
"I spawned near the northern dorms, so I asked some of the people wandering around there for a little cooperation."
Well, the cooperation seemed to have gone well.
Lorentina, who had probably performed close-range assassinations on about five or six people, was now fully covered in heavy armor.
No surprise there.