Squishy Squishy Secret Friend

“Ehehe…”

Hayun, returning from the bathroom, came back and sat down with a refreshed expression.

Ellie watched Hayun munching away at the pizza with a strange look.

Ellie’s secret friend, Squishy Raccoon, is definitely Hayun.

She confirmed undeniable evidence through Hayun’s phone screen.

Ellie swallowed hard.

If so, why?

Hayun, the Blood Demon King, why was she writing posts in the gallery praising her rival, Jupiter’s, skills?

And why, also, did she approach me?

There were too many things that didn’t add up to dismiss it as mere coincidence.

“Ellie, aren’t you going to eat more?”

“Ah, I should eat.”

Ellie, startled by Hayun’s words, mumbled with the pizza in her mouth.

Is she pretending not to know?

Ellie started a reasonable deduction, racking her little brain.

Ellie herself created the secret chat room and gave the link. Hayun didn’t approach first.

No, what if even this was Hayun’s scheme?

Ellie massaged her throbbing forehead and swallowed the pizza in her mouth.

She was so focused that she couldn’t properly taste the pizza.

“Hayun.”

“Eung?”

At Ellie’s call, Hayun turned her head with an innocent expression.

White cheese stretched long between her mumbling lips.

Ellie hesitated for a long time looking at that sight. Hesitated and hesitated again.

Throughout Ellie’s life, Sohee and Hayun were the only peers she had been so close to.

It was a bit ambiguous to call them friends.

That’s why Ellie couldn’t help but hesitate.

“Do you have something to say?”

Hayun said with a refreshing smile.

It’s the smile she always showed as the Blood Demon King.

“By any chance… do you want to become friends with me?”

“Yeah. That’s right.”

To the carefully asked question, Hayun nodded so coolly that it was almost anticlimactic.

At that moment, Ellie was able to understand the whole situation.

Why Hayun entered that chat room, why she was posting articles praising herself in the gallery.

And even the advice she gave in the chat room today.

Everything.

Ellie thought about Hayun’s age. The same 16 years old as herself.

Isn’t she just about to go to high school?

Unlike her mature appearance, her inner self was clearly still a shy girl.

She must have wanted to become friends with her. But she clearly couldn’t reveal her identity because of her shyness.

That’s right. Hayun was inducing Ellie to approach her first, without Ellie noticing.

Just like a fisherman casting a fishing rod.

Ellie’s little head started spinning busily, imagining various things.

Hayun probably doesn’t know that her identity has been exposed yet.

Ellie nodded. Hayun wants it. To hide her identity and peek out of the raccoon den.

Then, I’ll do as she wants.

If we can become friends by doing so…

Ellie nodded.

Secret friend, Squishy Raccoon, said.

If you want to become friends with your lunch date, try skinship.

Hayun was definitely a shy person. Hiding behind the mask of Squishy Raccoon, she was asking her to approach her first, wasn’t she?

Ellie nodded her head greatly and fiddled with Hayun’s arm.

Hayun didn’t strongly refuse or anything.

She just gave her a glance and continued to eat the pizza, reaching out her hand.

“Heehee…”

It’s a slender arm that doesn’t feel like it has any muscle.

She wielded a large magic sword with this arm and cut down enemies, she says.

Ellie brought her arm to that arm.

Two white and squishy arms stretched out side by side.

There was no big difference.

“Hmm…”

At that time, Sohee, who was sitting across from her, coughed uncomfortably and gave her a look.

Ellie understood Sohee’s reaction.

She must have felt like she was losing her close friend to someone else.

It’s an understandable reaction.

To become close friends with Hayun, she would have to become friends with her friend Sohee as well.

Ellie moved slightly to the side and smiled.

Then Sohee’s expression softened slightly.

***

After the enjoyable lunch time, we parted ways.

I stood side by side with Sohee, watching Ellie walk away.

She walked slowly, constantly looking back with a regretful look.

I waved my hand every time she did.

“Sohee, wave too.”

“My arm hurts, so I don’t want to.”

Sohee acted like a sulky child throughout the meal with Ellie.

I know why. She must have been expecting to eat alone with me.

I shattered those expectations. It was a situation where she could be angry enough.

But, I wanted Sohee to become friends with Ellie too.

“Shall we eat just the two of us next time?”

“Re, really?”

“Yeah.”

“A, are we not going to eat pork back-bone stew like last time?”

“No. You choose what you want to eat then, Sohee.”

“What I want to eat…”

Sohee swallowed hard, as if she had thought of delicious food at my words.

Inside the car returning home.

I smiled, looking at the sparkling phone screen.

It seemed that our secret friend’s blind date ended successfully.

Seeker of Light-[Squishy Raccoon-yeo. Thank you so much for the advice today.]

Squishy Raccoon-[Did it go well? Did you become much closer?]

Seeker of Light-[We got very close. Quite close. She didn’t even refuse skinship.]

Squishy Raccoon-[It seems the other person likes Seeker of Light-nim too. I’m so glad.]

Seeker of Light-[I was worried that she might think it was rude because of the sudden skinship, but I’m really glad.]

I felt proud looking at the secret friend’s message.

Someone who followed my advice found love.

I became Cupid today.

The car, which had been speeding quickly, stopped in front of my house.

It was the moment I was about to get up and get out of the car.

“Wait. Hayun-ah. Take this with you.”

“Again…?”

Sohee handed me a bag of Squishy Chewy Cow candies.

Sohee always gave me Squishy Chewy Cow candies like this when she played with me.

It seems like there’s a special meaning hidden in it, but I haven’t figured out yet what conditions I need to meet to receive more Squishy Chewy Cow candies.

“There’s still a lot left from what I received on Christmas…”

“You haven’t eaten them all?”

“If I eat them every day, I get a little tired of them…”

“Hmm…”

Sohee nodded at my words and rummaged through the large bag in the back.

What came out of it was a strawberry-flavored version of Squishy Chewy Cow.

“Heok…”

Unlike the sky-blue packaging, the surface was pink.

The fluffy clouds and the dopey calf holding a strawberry looked truly cute.

“This is?”

It’s not that I dislike Squishy Chewy Cow candies. I just got a little tired of eating only one flavor all the time.

Strawberry flavor is welcome.

I reached out my hand and hugged Sohee’s gift dearly.

“Thank you!”

“I had fun today… but I hope we can meet just the two of us next time.”

“In Deron?”

I asked, just in case, at Sohee’s words, but she closed her mouth without saying anything.

She probably wants to meet in reality rather than in the game.

I waved my hand awkwardly with a smile.

“Se, see you next time!”

After parting with Sohee and returning home, Harang was lying on the living room sofa watching TV.

It was an amazing sight to see this game-obsessed bastard watching TV in the living room.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh… you’re here?”

“Yeah. But why the TV?”

“Ah, I’m patching Deron.”

As expected, I knew something was up.

I nodded and sat down next to him.

Harang tossed and turned, seemingly displeased that the lying position had become uncomfortable.

I use my phone to browse the gallery and the Deron website.

It seemed that a small bug had occurred in the game.

This patch was a short patch to fix it.

“The server is closed, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I have to go to the field boss.”

“I already turned it off in that spot, log in when the patch is done, I’ll pull you in with a summons.”

When the server is completely closed and reopened, the field boss respawn cycle in Deron is initialized.

There were others besides us who were aiming for this time.

I nodded and got up from my seat.

According to the announcement on the website, the server was scheduled to open in 30 minutes.

I was going to go and wait in advance.

Returning to my room, I put the Squishy Chewy Strawberry Cow candies I was holding on the desk.

And I looked down at the boxes piled up in the corner with a strange look.

Four boxes with a large cow drawn on them.

There were five at first, but even after giving one box to Harang, there were still four boxes left.

Naturally, these boxes contained Squishy Chewy Cow candies.

To think that this much is still left from what I received on Christmas.

Will I be able to get rid of them all before the expiration date?

I tore open the packaging of the Squishy Chewy Strawberry Cow candy and shoved it into my mouth.

“Uum…”

The milky scent and the faint strawberry scent spread throughout my mouth.

Feeling the strawberry-flavored chewy cow candy filling my mouth, I sat down in the capsule.

I couldn’t log in yet because the game was still under maintenance, but I was going to put in a queue and look for new information by browsing various community sites.

New quests, new hunting grounds, highly efficient money-making places, etc.

I was browsing the information tabs of Inven and the gallery.

I was able to find a post with an interesting title.

[The highest difficulty ever, the worst raid. ‘Fallen Moonlight’]

[Another collaboration event? Invitation from VRS.]

Has there already been an attack party challenging the raid?

I clicked on the post to check the contents.

Of course, the raid strategy was not written there.

It was just an interview format, with the content of a 1-on-1 conversation with the attack party leader who was challenging the raid.

The attack party leader who responded to the interview was vehemently saying that this raid was the highest difficulty ever.

Come to think of it, our Squishy Chewy Cow party also needed to be reorganized.

Because so much had changed with the start of the new season, many people had left Deron.

Of course, it’s not that there were no new players, but the empty spaces left by the people I had grown fond of felt large.

I frowned and went into the next post.

The collaboration event between Deron and VRS had started again.

It seems that the main content this time is that Deron’s PVP rankers are going to VRS to do an event match.

Since they came here once, it’s right for us to go there once too.

I licked my lips and checked the event details in detail.