Left alone, the inside of the room exuded an atmosphere that was, to put it nicely, tranquil—and to put it bluntly, desolate.
From the bed to a small side table, everything was luxurious, yet warmth could not be felt anywhere. It wasn’t simply distinct because the items were brand new.
No matter how filthy rich one was, no place would swap out furniture every single day. On top of that, this was the residence where Dang Seo-gyeom had lived for over ten years.
One could make the excuse that the residence was too large for one person to use alone. But well… in Seo-gyeom’s eyes, it looked like nothing more than the traces of the real Dang Seo-gyeom’s desperate struggles.
A trace of his resolve never to attach his heart to anything.
Take those bed curtains, for instance. Suffering from an obstructed meridians syndrome, Dang Seo-gyeom had to drink herbal decoctions more often than he ate meals. The frequency was so severe that even if the windows were kept open all day, the bitter scent of herbs never dissipated.
The reason Seo-gyeom figured out this body’s identity was also thanks to the aroma of medicinal ingredients hovering around the tip of his nose. The Dang Clan seemed to have installed multiple windows in the residence itself for Dang Seo-gyeom, but this, too, did not seem to reach Dang Seo-gyeom’s heart.
“Isn’t this guy suffocating?”
Twitching his nose, Seo-gyeom looked at the curtains once more. What good were numerous windows if all of them were covered, failing to fulfill their purpose? The curtains draped over every window cast gloomy shadows.
Since it was thick silk gauze, light wasn’t blocked completely. However, due to that sense of disconnect, the distance Dang Seo-gyeom must have felt struck home even more sharply.
What did Dang Seo-gyeom think about in a place where not even a single ray of light came through properly?
Honestly, when playing , he had never given it deep thought. He had merely found it fascinating for a moment because they shared the same name, but he had never even set foot in the third young master’s residence. Now, however, this place was Seo-gyeom’s reality.
“If I knew this would happen, I would have checked every detail carefully.”
Regretting the past, Seo-gyeom thought that if he could only return, he would read through every single sentence without skipping. If he could go back, going back 4 years ago would be great too. If he never even laid a hand on , wouldn’t he avoid getting dragged into this place altogether?
No, wait. Is knowing something better than having zero information at all? Whatever the case, it was obvious that Seo-gyeom had a rough road ahead of him.
“Ah… Let’s organize things first.”
Pondering an unanswerable problem, Seo-gyeom let out a groan and slumped down.
There was an old saying that even if you were dragged into a tiger’s den, you could survive as long as you kept your wits about you. Although this wasn’t a tiger’s den, being dragged here for no rhyme or reason was identical. Fortunately or unfortunately, there were things he had discovered after dozens of escape attempts.
First, Dang Seo-gyeom could not leave the Sichuan Dang Clan’s outer castle (specifically, a 500-meter radius around his residence).
Whether it was because it was a system or not, there was not a single margin of error. If he tried to step out by even a single stride, an invisible wall blocked Seo-gyeom. Every time he slammed into the intangible barrier, it felt so sorrowful. Whenever he received the chilly gazes of the servant girls wondering what kind of bizarre antics he was pulling, he wanted to disappear from the world.
“Ugh…”
Recalling the days he ran around on his own two feet, Seo-gyeom rubbed his forehead for no reason.
Second, Seo-gyeom could not say or do anything that didn’t fit ‘Dang Seo-gyeom’s’ character settings.
It wasn’t just direct terminology like status window, skills, or inventory. Leaving aside when he was alone, if someone was by his side, Seo-gyeom had to faithfully play the role of a sickly and sensitive young master.
Let alone using polite speech with the servant, he couldn’t even whine after drinking medicine like, “Ugh… bitter!”, nor could he say ordinary things like, “Could I perhaps see Grandfather?”
He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t do that. As he recalled the tearful five-day escape saga, his motivation hit rock bottom. Gloomy, Seo-gyeom pulled the blanket over his head. How long had he been huffing like that? He had only intended to cool off his temper for a moment, but it seemed the system found it quite pitiful.
Rustle.
Along with a sound effect like paper unfolding, a flashing light penetrated through the blanket. Pretending to be unconcerned, Seo-gyeom pulled the blanket back slightly. As he half-opened his eyes, the system unfolded a scroll on its own.
[Dang Seo-gyeom (唐曙謙)] [The tragic youngest young master harboring a secret of his birth. Born with Yin-Yin Meridians, he could learn nothing despite being of the Dang Clan’s direct line. Since poison is his exact polar opposite, he grew up in the outer castle and considers himself the disgrace of the Dang Clan.]
[- Spawn Area: Dang Seo-gyeom’s residence within the Sichuan Dang Clan Outer Castle] [- Status Ailments: Yin-Yin Meridians, Frail Qi and Blood, Poison Qi Rejection]
“Why on earth does an NP… no, why does he have a secret of his birth? And what’s with these status ailments?”
From what Seo-gyeom remembered, Dang Seo-gyeom was an extra NPC who appeared only around the mid-game point. Calling him an extra was being generous. So little screen time was given to him that his name merely popped up briefly, and even his physical appearance was unknown. Innerly, Seo-gyeom speculated that having his own original face might simply be because there were no existing visual data values for the character.
To sum it up, Dang Seo-gyeom was nothing more and nothing less than a plot device to bring the protagonist closer to the exceptionally reclusive Dang Clan. Why else would he die immediately, even after finding an herb capable of curing the Yin-Yin Meridians?
It was the player consensus that the Yin-Yin Meridians or whatever existed solely to connect Namgung Yoon to the Dang Clan. Seo-gyeom, who used to enjoy playing characters like Dang Mu-jin or Dang Yu, had also skipped the ‘Death of Dang Seo-gyeom’ event without even watching it.
“Damn it…”
Swearing under his breath in a voice as tiny as a mosquito, Seo-gyeom covered his eyes with his hand. Being an extreme Yin-attribute constitution, the skin touching his face was icy cold. Feeling the heat gathered around his eyes subside, Seo-gyeom recalled the final fact he had learned.
Third, it seemed Seo-gyeom hadn’t been put into a capsule, but had entered inside the actual game world.
One might ask what kind of game-addict nonsense this was. He sympathized. Seo-gyeom had also lamented at first, thinking, ‘I’ve finally become a total addict.’
However, there were far too many suspicious points for this to be inside a cozy capsule. It was true that Seo-gyeom had been playing for over four years, even after it degraded into a trash game. The same went for living inside a capsule every weekend.
People who don’t play games often might say, “If that’s not an addict, what is?” but Seo-gyeom had his own ironclad rule. He never entered the capsule on weekdays, and if he played for more than four hours, he made sure to stretch for at least ten minutes.
“It was definitely Thursday.”
Although he had doubted upon first opening his eyes whether he had fallen asleep inside the capsule, the last moment Seo-gyeom remembered was Thursday. He could still vividly recall Deputy Kim next to him crying out, “Gasp, today wasn’t Friday?!”
“And besides…”
Recalling his subordinate’s voice, Seo-gyeom muttered gloomily. Removing the hand that had been pressing gently over his eyes, he saw a bruise spreading dark blue from the middle of his wrist. It was the side he had used to brace himself against the ground when he fell earlier.
Though it was currently no larger than a single finger joint, it was bound to grow bigger and bigger as time passed. Extremely faithful to the setting value of a sickly young master.
Picturing the predictable future, Seo-gyeom gripped his bruised forearm with his remaining hand. Whose arm was this? It was exceedingly slender, wrapping around completely within a single hand with room to spare.
Confirming that his thumb and middle finger overlapped by a full joint length, Seo-gyeom let out a sigh and exerted force in his grip. As he applied pressure to the point of trembling, his fingertips turned past red into pale white, and he could even feel a thumping pulse.
Tingle.
Then, finally, a faint yet unmistakable pain was felt.
Even counting only the virtual reality games released after , there were well over hundreds. The important thing was that among them, there was not a single kind that reproduced actual pain.
“What was it again?”
Something about how shocks received in the game shouldn’t affect reality? At any rate, Seo-gyeom had never felt pain inside a capsule either. Even though the Jianghu was a place where they’d sever your arm off over a single wrong word.
[Dang Seo-gyeom (唐曙謙)]
As Seo-gyeom’s eyes sank deep into thought, the quiet scroll shone with light once more.
“Ah. Got it. You’re telling me to do it properly, right?”
Answering without a shred of sincerity, Seo-gyeom waved his hand toward the scroll. As if understanding his words, the system, which had been singling out and emphasizing only his name, stopped flashing. Seeing it gradually fade away, a cold smile formed on the corners of Seo-gyeom’s lips.
“So in the end… you’re telling me to die quietly.”
However, just because it told him to die didn’t mean he would actually die.
Seo-gyeom, who had pretended to obey whatever AI system or deity this was, began his rebellion from the very next day. Though he had to drink the herbal decoction to leave his quarters, when he shut his eyes tight and gulped it down, it seemed tolerable.
The servant seemed subtly delighted. That was likely because the young master, who used to turn away even when precious snacks were prepared, was now eating every meal without fail.
Though all he could do was shyly reach out his hand as if unable to ask for it due to maintaining a face, the servant was overjoyed by just that. If Seo-gyeom—who couldn’t even say “Are those snacks mine?” due to the system’s meddling—had known, he would have felt quite wronged.
Having succeeded in stepping out of his residence after endless hardships, Seo-gyeom enjoyed the freedom granted to him. Although the space Seo-gyeom could move around was roughly 500 meters centered around his residence, in reality, it was a distance equivalent to looking around an apartment building.
In other words, it meant he could check out nearby walls, and Seo-gyeom made frugal use of every inch of those 500 meters. Thinking it might be fine as long as it wasn’t the main gate, he had fallen off while trying to climb over a wall, and he had even grabbed a passing servant girl to ask if there was a dog hole anywhere.
Though nine out of ten ran away before he could even open his mouth, causing him to pity Dang Seo-gyeom… whatever the case, there was a takeaway from it all.
