A New Game

I think I’m pretty damn good at games.

FPS, MOBA, RPG, etc. No matter the genre, if I start a game, I always hit the peak at least once. Of course, if you ask if I’m as good as a pro gamer… I guess it’s half yes and half no.

One of the reasons is probably my lack of immersion. Pro gamers focus on one game, analyzing, studying, and digging deep. But I quickly got bored with the games I saw on the monitor.

In short, I’m a “rank 1 찍먹 (jjikmeok)”-someone who just dips their toes in.

The simple act of clicking, clicking with the keyboard, mouse, or controller felt futile. The funny thing is, I enjoy new games more than anyone else, but I get bored after a while.

No matter what content was updated, I wasn’t interested.

I guess you could say it felt unreal. I can’t really explain it well. I just can’t enjoy a game for a long time.

If I think about the games I played the longest, it was RPGs. The process of getting to raids and studying the gimmicks of raids that I thought were difficult, and the sense of accomplishment when I cleared them, definitely felt good.

But no matter what RPG it was, after a while, the gimmicks and the DPS rotations became repetitive, so I couldn’t help but get bored.

This time, after deleting the game I was playing, I was wondering if there was a game worth playing.

But what’s this?

I looked around.

Blue sky with beautiful clouds floating around. A pleasant, cool breeze. Medieval buildings and countless people around me.

I was standing in the center of what looked like a plaza.

,Reincarnated into another world?’

No.

The reason why it’s not just a simple reincarnation into another world is right in front of me.

A long red bar on the 11 o’clock side of my vision is visible to my eyes.

No matter how you look at it, this is a health bar. A health bar that shows my health. Then, of course, the one below it is mana, and the one below mana is stamina.

Octahedrons were floating above the heads of passersby. And something was written below it. Judging by the fact that different words were written on each one, it seems to mean nicknames. And the English letters and numbers attached to the side of the nickname.

LV : 54

Anyone can tell that this means that person’s level.

,A game?’

A UI that looks like it’s straight out of an RPG is floating in my vision.

Is this like those common tropes in manga, anime, and novels where you get transferred to another world? But the sounds I hear around me are just the kind of stories you’d see in the global chat of an RPG.

From hunting grounds to dungeons, items, potions, etc., they’re talking about ordinary RPG games, and with the occasional sound of “logout,” I don’t think this place is just another world.

“Hey, see you tomorrow. I have to go to hagwon (private academy).”

“What? Are you still going to that English hagwon (private academy)?”

“Yeah. It’s annoying. I told Mom that the English teacher is annoying, but she won’t change him.”

“Oh, really? That sucks. See you tomorrow, good work.”

“Okay, okay.”

Two guys who looked like students were talking back and forth next to me, and then the boy who said he had to go to hagwon (private academy) put his index and middle fingers together and pointed them down into the air, then kept gesturing in the air and disappeared.

Like he logged out.

,A virtual reality game?’

I was dumbfounded even thinking about it. Now they’re talking about whether to make games with Unreal Engine 5 or not on the internet, and suddenly it’s a virtual reality game.

But all the senses I’m feeling right now are so vivid.

The sunlight is blinding, I can feel the cool breeze, and the various pieces of information coming in are no different from reality.

Like that boy who disappeared earlier, I raised my hand.

,Huh?’

The hand that came into my view was very foreign. This isn’t my hand? My hands were bigger and rougher. But the hand I see now is clearly the hand of a young girl.

Only then did I realize something was wrong.

,Tall.’

Everything around me was tall. From people to buildings and various objects.

Usually, I was tall enough to see the tops of people’s heads, but now I had to look up at those people.

,I’ve gotten smaller…?’

Is this a dream?

When I looked down, I saw a small body. Both hands were small and dainty, and I was wearing a skirt, and the feet on the ground were so small.

In the glass of the building next to me, the figure of a small girl was revealed. That little girl was looking at me.

A small girl with long, straight black hair neatly down to her waist and no expression on her face.

The eyes of the expressionless girl moved, and when the corners of her mouth went up, I realized that the small, cute girl reflected in the glass was me.

,What is this? Is this really a dream? But it’s too vivid to be a dream, isn’t it?’

When I pinched my cheek with my hand, I felt pain.

But that pain was strange.

,Vibration?’

At first, I thought it was pain, but it felt like I had a smartphone against my cheek and it was vibrating.

My head hurts.

I can’t sort out my thoughts because of the sudden change in situation and my appearance. But I think I know this.

That this place I’m in now is a virtual reality game like the ones I often see in manga, anime, and novels.

I tried the gesture I had stopped doing earlier again. Then, with a “ttiring” sound, a hologram window appeared. It was the menu window. And when I scrolled down the menu window, I saw the logout button.

Unlike the games in those famous novels, there was a logout button.

I want to press the logout button right now, but the desire to play this virtual reality game was even greater.

I’m in the virtual reality game that I thought would never come out until I died.

,I have to play this right away.’

First, I decided to learn about this game. I sat down on the chair in front of me and immediately started tearing apart the menu window.

As expected, I was level 1 right now. Just looking at the clothes I was wearing, they were definitely clothes that a beginner would wear.

In what looked like an inventory, there were 10 potions and a one-handed sword. I clicked on the one-handed sword.

I hurriedly grabbed the one-handed sword that appeared in front of me.

The weight transmitted from my hand. The cold handle. This sword feels like a real sword right now.

In the next menu, there was a quest window. There was only one quest there, and the name of that quest was Tutorial.

The content of the quest was simple. It was a quest to catch one goblin.

When I pressed the navigation button below the quest window, a path appeared on the floor in front of me. I immediately started running along that guide.

As soon as I arrived according to the quest guide, what I saw was a plain where goblins, which I had seen in various media, were wandering around.

Monsters with small stature and green skin, goblins. Each of those goblins was holding a small dagger.

The people around me were diligently catching those goblins. Not just clicking, clicking basic attacks or skills like in a computer RPG, but moving, attacking, and dodging directly.

LV : 1 Goblin.

I pointed my sword at the goblin in front of me right now.

It’s pounding. Emotions I’ve never felt before in my life dominate my body, and the moment I focus all my attention on the goblin.

[Ah, Arang-a!?]

A beautiful woman’s voice echoed in my head, and a hologram appeared in front of me.

[Forced Logout]

Executing forced logout due to external request.

You can no longer play the game.

The connection to the server will be terminated.

Huh?

==

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a pure white hospital room. Not just any hospital room, but an incredibly luxurious one.

There were various machines around me, and there was a woman gently shaking my body.

She’s so pretty.

As soon as I saw the woman, I couldn’t help but think she was pretty. You could say she had a cool impression and a charismatic older sister vibe.

An older sister who wouldn’t be outdone anywhere was shaking me while wearing a suit.

While repeating the word Arang.

Come to think of it, the beautiful woman’s voice I heard before I lost consciousness seems to be this older sister. And she said, “Arang-a!”

I was thinking about why this older sister was calling me when.

“Ugh!”

A headache that felt like my head was splitting open came.

“Arang-a! S-Teacher!”

The headache was so bad that I fainted, and when I regained consciousness, a vast amount of memories had all entered my head.

==

To put it simply, I’ve become a young girl named Lee Arang.

Should I call this possession? I don’t know.

This world right now wasn’t the world I lived in, but a slightly more futuristic world. I also learned that the place I was in earlier was a virtual reality game that’s currently popular.

The problem is that this young girl is dead. Of course, she didn’t die physically, but mentally.

The reason is because of the situation that this young girl, Lee Arang, is in right now.

Lee Arang has no arms or legs. Due to a disease that she acquired later in life, her arms had to be amputated slightly above the elbows, and her legs slightly above the knees, and the muscles in her body continued to weaken.

Arang, who was only 10 years old, couldn’t withstand such a terrible disease.

The older sister who was looking at me earlier is Lee Anna, Arang’s older sister.

Anna-nunim (older sister) and Arang’s parents took care of Arang diligently, but in the end, Arang’s mind, unable to overcome the mental illness, died.

The doctors said that Arang had no hope because she didn’t react to anything, not even pain or any kind of stimulation.

In reality, Arang is dead. But I’ve entered that dead Arang now.

All of Arang’s memories and the emotions of how difficult Arang had it were all transmitted to me.

I was confused when these memories and emotions first came in, but now I’ve adapted.

Now I have to live as Lee Arang.

I have to live without arms and legs. It will be very uncomfortable and difficult, but I have to overcome it.

But when I think about it more carefully.

Our house, or rather, Arang’s house, is a very, very well-off house. We own an apartment building and have enough to live on for three generations?

On top of that, in Legacy of Raid, the virtual reality game I was playing earlier, also known as Leole, I was definitely running on two legs and holding a sword with two hands.

Do I really need to work hard in reality?

Even if I don’t have arms and legs, I can enjoy that famous virtual reality game…? Without worrying about money…?

==

Arang in the Game