Ch.88 – Back to Virtual Reality

“Writing numbers is so hard… NoName, help me!”

Arin enters the room with a sad face.

Without even changing her clothes, she immediately pulls out her textbook.

“I was supposed to turn this in as homework today but I forgot yesterday! The teacher said I need to submit it today, so I have to go back to school later.”

NoName takes the math workbook she hands over and flips through it.

She couldn’t quite understand why Arin would travel an hour round trip just to ask for homework help. Couldn’t she just ask her classmates?

“I need to count to 30, but how do you write from 17 onwards?”

This world’s education system was quite advanced.

In NoName’s previous life, rune characters were exclusively for nobles.

But here, even first graders learn them as basic knowledge.

Numbers, Korean, and runes. Having to write three different scripts must be quite a headache for children.

“Wow… NoName, you’re really smart.”

Regardless, NoName’s elegant handwriting filling in the blanks was truly admirable to Arin.

In Arin’s memory, even the smartest kid in class couldn’t write that fast. Was NoName even smarter?

For the past month, NoName had been Arin’s excellent tutor.

Although she couldn’t attend school for certain reasons, the Sister said she could start attending in the second semester. That alone gave Arin strength.

Arin simply loved that NoName didn’t discriminate against her like other children did.

At school, they avoided her because she was from the orphanage with “bad kids,” and at the orphanage, it wasn’t easy to fit in either.

Especially in recent months, Young’s bullying had gotten worse, so she thought it was fortunate to be separated from her at just the right time.

“NoName, did you know? Last week, Brother Minwoo got adopted by a rich family. And that rich man gave us capsules as gifts. Two of them!”

She had noticed the children were unusually noisy today.

Normally, they wouldn’t even come back at this hour, and many would be late for the return time set by the Sister. It seemed they had run straight from school to be the first to use the two capsules.

“Brother Minwoo is so lucky. Rich people can live in virtual reality all day without working. Playing in VR all day, even sleeping there—it must be so wonderful.”

“Not really.”

“You don’t like being adopted? Or games?”

“Both.”

NoName was quite content with life at the orphanage.

Although she couldn’t enjoy proper modern conveniences because the orphanage’s only internet PC was monopolized by the middle and high school students, the books Arin borrowed from the library were enough.

It was a bit ridiculous when she asked Arin to borrow the most difficult and advanced-looking book, and Arin brought back an entire encyclopedia.

‘Encyclopedias aren’t so bad though.’

At least it was a good opportunity to learn words she didn’t understand from the internet.

The reason for memorizing words?

There was no particular reason.

She was tired of living a life focused solely on one thing until burning out spectacularly.

She did it simply because she wanted to.

That was NoName’s thinking.

In her previous life, and the life before that…

“Thanks, NoName! Let’s use the capsule together when it’s free! I’ve got to go now!”

And somehow, she didn’t mind playing with this cute and innocent child.

I wonder if Seol-ah felt this way when she played games with me. It wasn’t easy to guess.

‘Ah… I should have asked Arin to open this when she was here.’

NoName had a staring contest with the mana potion that was still difficult to open alone. Without it, food wouldn’t go down well. Even if she tried to force herself to eat, she would only vomit.

Finally deciding to skip lunch, she came out to the central living room where the children were gathered.

These kids had no thought of lunch, excited only about using the capsules.

The high school students reluctantly returned to school for their studies, but the middle schoolers were different.

Unlike the high schoolers, they didn’t have much money, so going to internet cafés was difficult. In this situation, these capsules were like rain during a drought.

“These are the latest model capsules released this year, right?”

“They say the specs are so good that even with full Resonance options, the ping is always single-digit.”

“That’s insane.”

The two capsules eventually went to a first-year high school student who decided to skip school entirely and the biggest-looking middle schooler.

They seemed familiar with using capsules and immediately logged in to the game.

“Jaehwan, get on LoL and duo with me right now.”

“Huh? Brother Yongjun, aren’t you playing Resonance?”

“That’s too difficult for me. You know how to play LoL, right?”

Under Yongjun’s implicit threat, Jaehwan reluctantly logged into LoL. He just remembered this guy was a LoL main.

Jaehwan browsed through his list of available champions. Even though half the champions were deleted in a major update two years ago, the remaining 150 champions made him dizzy.

“Want to see my rank? I’m Cha Yongjun, Warwick specialist, ranked 3rd.”

Of course, it was just a ranking based on number of games played above a certain tier, not actual tier ranking, but no one bothered to point that out.

“When did you play 700 games? Did you skip school every day or something?”

Besides, being Diamond 1 alone made him an object of envy to ordinary people.

While everyone was chattering, NoName, who was peeking from the very back, had her gaze drawn to the bottom right of the screen.

[Hall of Fame]

[Ladder Rank 1 – Anaconda (1394 points)]

…

[Games Played Rank 1 – NoName (4032 games)]

NoName couldn’t help but laugh.

Did I really play that much?

That number probably wouldn’t increase for a while. Perhaps someone else would finally claim that undisputed first place this year. Let them have it.

Unless she went crazy again, she wouldn’t be playing this game.

* * *

[Did NoName get permabanned?]

Haven’t heard anything about them lately.

-After being immortalized on stream, how could they not be banned? lol

[NoName officially dead.rip]

2043.03.05. ~ 2050.06.11.

Rest in Piece

-It’s “peace” you idiot

ㄴDon’t you get the joke, Mr. Proper?

ㄴNoName really did end up in pieces

-Looking at how they meticulously put periods after dates, must be military

ㄴI’d be grateful if public service counted as military service

ㄴGet lost

[Wasn’t NoName dead?]

Then who’s this? lol A ghost?

(Screenshot)

-Season 1’s epic resurrection

-How did they get around the permaban!

-21/0/2 wtf? Even for a normal game

ㄴMeanwhile our team’s Yasuo is always 2/10/2 smh

…

It doesn’t feel real.

I’ve finally returned.

To my homeland.

The incident started entirely because of Arin’s stubbornness.

“I heard it’s a school trip.”

“I decided not to go.”

Early morning, despite the bus departing at 10, Arin prepared for school as usual.

In early July, elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools all go on field trips one day apart from each other.

The destinations change every year, but elementary schools go for 4 nights 5 days, middle schools for 3 nights 4 days, and high schools for 2 nights 3 days.

Arabyul Elementary, Middle, and High Schools were all run by the same foundation, as their names suggested.

Being private schools, I thought the field trip costs would be quite high, but surprisingly, for low-income students like us, participation was almost free.

Arin had been chattering excitedly about this event to me for about a month.

When I asked why she wasn’t going, she avoided my question, saying she just didn’t feel like going anymore.

“So, will you play games with me tomorrow? All the older kids will be gone too. Please?”

“I don’t really like capsules…”

“Ugh… NoName, you’re mean.”

What could I do if she was upset? She ran to her bottom bunk bed and buried her face in the pillow. It was quite cute how she kept glancing at me.

“Hey… why do you hate games so much?”

“I’m tired of them.”

“Did you play a lot before?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“All day.”

“How much is all day?”

At some point, I stopped answering her endless barrage of questions.

Instead, I pinched her baby-soft cheek and stretched it.

“Eeeeeek.”

“I’ll play just one game with you.”

“Really? Really really really?”

Arin’s eyes suddenly widened. Was she that happy? It was just one game. It wouldn’t even last an hour.

Unfortunately, her interests were solely focused on LoL.

She could have been interested in Falling Guys or Blockcraft, but all the orphanage children were obsessed with LoL, so perhaps that influenced her.

“But I’ve never played LoL before, what should I do?”

“It’s okay.”

“I really don’t know anything about it?”

“I’ll carry you.”

“Wow, NoName, that was so cool just now!”

She jumped and hugged me.

I lost my balance and fell to the floor.

I kept forgetting something because I always thought of Arin as a baby—the fact that my body was smaller than hers. I hope they develop growth-promoting mana potions soon.

I stopped her from nuzzling my cheek and helped her up.

“I’m going back to sleep now. You should head to school.”

“You just woke up and you’re going back to sleep? They say sleeping too much stunts your growth!”

“Then I’ll just stay small.”

I couldn’t give up my precious sleep.

The still-energetic Arin wouldn’t understand.

“Even if I go to school, I’ll be all alone… Getting scolded by the PE teacher is a bit scary though…”

“Do you dislike school, Arin?”

“I prefer playing with NoName.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Arin bit her lip. Did she understand what I meant? I wasn’t sure, but even if she did, it wouldn’t change her situation.

I just hoped Arin wouldn’t get used to loneliness.