─Hey! BaeBongmani, where are you!
“GyeBongmani! Come up the hill.”
─I see you now!
In the distance, I saw a warrior holding a rusty sword and pot lid coming up—it was Dongwoo. Unlike Dongwoo, I was an assassin wearing a chipped shuriken.
“But GyeBongmani, when we’re on Discord, can’t we just call each other by our real names? It’s not like anyone’s listening.”
─Ah, you’re right.
We started cutting down trees with the axe Ssapseonbi-nim gave us earlier.
For a whole hour, we cut down trees while having conversations about comic books and seriously discussing our future paths. Dongwoo said he wouldn’t enter university either and would become an agricultural civil servant, and tried to persuade me to attend the academy with him.
In the meantime, my life level reached 2.
─Oh! That’s fast?
“Aren’t we going to hit 5 today?”
─Then we have to keep doing this for the remaining four hours?
“Hmm… Yeah. Dongwoo-ya, stop picking up apples. You don’t get much even if you sell them.”
─When I see apples, instinctively without realizing it…
Dongwoo’s family also runs an orchard and grows apples. Dongwoo’s mother makes organic apple vinegar and sells it online, and since that brings in a huge income, we were considering whether our house should make persimmon vinegar too.
While we were both happy about our life level going up, I heard footsteps approaching my room. Thankfully, wearing just one earpiece was a godsend.
“Hey! Su-su-su-su!!”
─Uh-uh!!
‘Su’ was referring to Daesu hyung.
Clatter.
“Hey! Eat!”
“Okay.”
“You played games again, didn’t you?”
“No.”
I quickly minimized the game window and opened a book, but as soon as Daesu hyung came in, he touched the back of the monitor and felt that it was warm, then laughed emptily.
“Who are you trying to fool?”
“Knock, please. Otherwise, I’ll fix the doorknob so I can lock my door again.”
“You know how to fix it?”
“No. You fix it for me, hyung.”
“You think I’ll fix it for you?”
“No.”
Pik, hyung closed my door and left in disbelief.
Fortunately, I didn’t get caught this time either. Seongheon hyung knows I play Earth, but he thinks it’s on a different server, and I didn’t log in as ‘Keyboard Cleaning,’ which the hyungs caught.
■Title: Keyboard Cleaning Wanted
■Author: Enter
(Keyboard_Cleaning_Wanted.jpeg)
As shown in the image.
Reward: 300 gold per kill.
Because on the day I got caught writing that comment, Seongheon hyung put a bounty on me. He said if you kill me, take a screenshot and attach it as a comment to that post, and he’ll give you 300 gold per kill.
300 gold was quite a lot of money. You’d have to complete all the quests that run for a whole week to receive 300 gold as a reward from the city hall NPC. For users, killing me once was more profitable than grinding for a week.
First, I had to turn off the computer, so I kept one earpiece on and gave a brief briefing on my current situation.
“I’m going to eat.”
─Me too, I have to go out with my dad after eating.
“Then let’s continue tomorrow. Tomorrow ends early, so two hours.”
─Okay.
Good, at this rate I could steal the Goldmess egg on Friday. I quickly opened my door and left before Daesu hyung came again.
***
<<You have successfully crafted a ‘Raft’.>>
<<You have completed Quest ‘To the Sea, to the Harbor’ Stage 1. (Acquired ‘Wooden Oar’)>>
<<You have acquired the title ‘Man of the Sea’.>>
Above mine and Dongwoo’s characters’ heads, the blue text ‘Man of the Sea’ appeared vividly.
─Daeyoung-ah, it suits you well. Because there’s ‘Man of the Sea’ above BaeBongmani.
“Really?”
I proudly stood in front of the raft and struck a ‘V’ pose as an emotional expression. Dongwoo said to hurry up and go, moving the raft to float on the sea.
Before getting on the raft, I marked the hyungs’ hideout location on the map and shared it with the party.
“If you press M, the map comes up, right? I marked the coordinates, so follow while looking at that arrow direction.”
I only heard the sound of keyboard tapping for a while, as if he was operating as I said.
─Hiiik!!! What, why is it in the middle of the ocean! It’ll take forever just to get there? Why is the boat so slow?
“That’s why you have to keep spamming space without rest.”
─But what if there’s a monster like a shark at the entrance when we get there?
“Hmm… I didn’t think about that.”
─Then all our hard work for days becomes futile.
“In that case, one person has to be bait and draw aggro.”
─Who would do that?
“You, with good control. Your tier is Platinum.”
─That has nothing to do with this game.
“There might not be anything like sharks. Let’s go.”
We each rode our rafts and sailed the sea diligently. This must have been such an absurd thing to do that some user passing by us even talked to us.
[General] Ttyungianirattyonginunde: Excuse me
[General] BaeBongmani: ?
[General] Ttyungianirattyonginunde: Newbie? There’s nothing here
The other person’s life level must have been quite high since their boat was a 10-person one.
[General] Ttyungianirattyonginunde: If you’re lost, I can take you to the harbor?
[General] GyeBongmani: It’s okay
[General] Ttyungianirattyonginunde: What are you doing here?
[General] BaeBongmani: Just because I like riding boats
[General] Ttyungianirattyonginunde: Concept roleplayer? Then bye
After parting with us, I watched the stern of the boat quickly disappearing. If we had taken that, we would have arrived at our destination and then some, but we hadn’t even reached half of halfway yet.
─Hey, what are you doing? Hurry and press space. I want today to be the last day.
“Yeah, okay.”
─By the way, what are you going to eat when you meet Dongmi tomorrow?
“Hmm… Seongheon hyung asked how about a steakhouse, so I’m going there.”
─Wow, really? Let me join!
“If you join, won’t she know it’s a lie that you’re dating Dongmi?”
─Then how about coincidentally passing by there and running into you?
“I’ll buy for you next month. The lunch menu for 25,900 won.”
─Really?
“Yeah.”
The steakhouse was a family restaurant, the biggest and most expensive place in this area. Even among friends, the price made it hard to visit unless it was a birthday.
Actually, I didn’t want to go there this time, but Seongheon hyung remembered that I enjoyed eating there before and made an appointment there.
‘Seongheon hyung is good not only to me but also to my girlfriend…’
Dongmi said she’d mooch something expensive, but she couldn’t readily bring it up to Seongheon hyung, so I was relieved that he set up an appointment at a nice place. Now tomorrow the three of us would eat a delicious lunch and part ways, and it would be over.
“Huh? Is that it?”
When we reached the marked coordinates, an arrow appeared on the mini-map at the top and sparkled.
─This must be it. Daeyoung-ah, be careful. Your hyung might suddenly come into your room.
“He said he had homework to do urgently earlier and went upstairs even during dinner. He’s busy so he won’t come in.”
─Are you sure?
“Yeah. Before I logged in, I put my ear to hyung’s door and he was on the phone with school people.”
After arriving at the destination, I stopped the raft. Being in the vast ocean, even after checking several times, I wondered if this was the right place. And for now, the surroundings were quiet with no monsters in sight. I didn’t know about under the sea though.
“Should we dive?”
─Yeah.
Before removing the raft, I set this location as a teleport point. Even if we got caught by monsters, we could move here at once. Dongwoo did the same just in case, then dove underwater with me.
The underwater was bright unlike reality, perhaps because it was a game. So the scenery of passing fish and coral reefs was reminiscent of some foreign sea. And the shark we were most worried about wasn’t there.
When we dove a bit deeper, a huge hole that looked like a cave entrance appeared in the distance.
“I think that’s it?”
─Hey, my HP is draining as we dive.
“What’s your HP?”
─Me? 580.
“Huh. Mine’s 530.”
─You’ll die first.
“I should set teleport right before dying. That way we can move to this depth at once.”
─What was the shortcut key?
“Control T!”
Kkoreureuruk, bubbles rose around the character. We frantically pressed the space key like when we rowed the oars on the raft, gradually approaching the cave.
“My HP is almost bottomed out!”
─I think I’m going to die soon too.
At the same time I said “dying” to Dongwoo, my character floated up and disappeared.
─Did you save the teleport?
“Yeah. I did.”
─Then stay in town for now.
After returning near the return stone, when I looked at my character, I was empty-handed as if I’d dropped the shuriken I was holding. Soon after, Dongwoo appeared with a flash at the return point. Dongwoo was also only holding the pot lid, as if he’d dropped his sword.
“You look like someone who came from boiling ramen with just the lid.”
─Talking about ramen suddenly makes me crave it.
“Do this first, then eat. But did you make it to the entrance?”
─Yeah. I went and there was nothing special. Follow me well as soon as you teleport. Then we won’t die this time.
“Got it.”
We teleported at the same time and entered the underwater again. Since we’d been there once, we swam to the cave entrance in one go.
When we entered the dark cave, it was pitch black to the point we couldn’t see anything. So just when I thought this might not be the cave, a faint light began to appear in the distance.
“Huh? That must be it.”
Following the light inside, surprisingly there was another path inside the cave.
We swam up along the vertically extending pathway. I thought we might come out above the water surface, but the destination also had a cave ceiling. However, like being outside the water, there was no water in that space.
First, I stuck just my face out to check if anyone was around or if this was the right place. This place had torches lit here and there like a cave on the surface, and looking at the surrounding decorations, it was the cave I saw before.
Once again, I inwardly admired how amazing it was that the hyungs found a place like this.
