Ch.BONUSSide Story – Perhaps, If It Were Our “What If”

In the darkened space, as if all the world’s electrical wires had suddenly snapped, a chill from the cold floor crept up my back.

This eerily familiar sensation filled me with anxiety. Even “anxiety” feels like a watered-down description.

This was terror.

Psychologically imprinted unpleasant experiences set off blaring red sirens in my mind.

“Huh, huff… huh…!”

Where am I? Where is this place?

No way. It can’t be. I couldn’t have returned.

I’m sick of being trapped in the sealed Great Cavern waiting for eternity. I can’t endure that life again, yearning for light while my mind wears away…!

“Ugh… ah, aah…!!!”

As I tried to stand, my body collapsed unevenly. By chance, I caught on some structure and landed on my backside, and in the rebound, something clicked on with a snap.

“What’s this…?”

Whoosh.

A rectangular screen illuminated with bright light. After so long, I recognized it as a computer monitor.

“Ha… haha… unbelievable.”

The monitor screen was frozen at the loading stage of the third series of the game “Eldchain.”

At that moment, I jumped up, grabbed the monitor, and clutched tightly at my pounding chest.

As I grasped the situation, waves of emptiness and exhaustion washed over me.

“No way. A dream… was it? All of this…?”

My past trapped in the Great Cavern, suffering all kinds of pain.

The moment I met Irefi and was saved.

The dawn moonlight of the night when we overcame trials and became one.

The countless bonds formed and broken, the long years of endurance until reuniting with Irefi, and even facing death together after countless years… all of it…!

“It was just my delusion? I collapsed after playing a game? But it feels so real…”

Snow-white hair flowing down to her waist. Blue eyes reminiscent of a moon-lit lake. Ridiculous strength disproportionate to her slender frame.

Everything about you remains so vividly etched in my mind when I close my eyes.

Was even that just a hollow delusion? Just the convenient adventure of a mentally ill person?

“No… it can’t be… Irefi…”

Even as I tried to deny it, the monitor glowing alone in the darkness imposed its reality on me.

It flickered as if admonishing me to accept my delusion.

Wanting to deny reality, I started the game with trembling fingers.

“…What is this?”

As I felt acid churning in my stomach, the game I launched rejected access, filling the screen with unintelligible characters.

Then the window forcibly closed, and in the game lobby, the DLC file was deleted. It was the file containing the narrative of Irefi, the hidden final boss.

After the DLC file was deleted, an emergency notice appeared.

It announced that due to irreparable serious issues with the main game, service would be suspended indefinitely, and full refunds would be provided.

I felt momentary relief that it wasn’t some nonsense about “player’s individual choice.”

I grew suspicious of these too-coincidental, mysterious events.

A sense of dissonance pierced my temples, as if the entire world had altered its perception.

But as a mere civil service exam student, my chances of discovering the truth were slim. I wasn’t blessed with a brilliant mind like Nepy, just an ordinary human in an ordinary world.

“Irefi…”

I simply sat down and rubbed my dry face, reminiscing about her figure that I would never see again.

Just then, there was a knock at the door.

My cheap, remote studio apartment wasn’t the kind of place anyone would visit. My parents lived far away in the countryside, and my friends had long settled in our hometown.

Therefore, a knock this late at night was enough to trigger anxiety.

Knock. Knock.

With a body so much weaker than Nepy’s, I took a nervous breath, being an ordinary human who would wince at the slightest paper cut.

“…Who is it?”

A kind female voice responded with an explanation.

“Police. We received a report and came to check. The landlord was worried because the tenant hasn’t left the room for over ten days.”

“T-ten days?!”

This claim made no sense.

As a civil service exam student, my daily routine involved leaving early for the library and returning in the evening after finishing my workout.

I only played “Eldchain” occasionally, with a longer session just this weekend.

“If you don’t mind, could you show yourself so we can see that you’re alright?”

“Ah, yes…!”

Perhaps because the officer was female, I unconsciously lowered my guard.

So I willingly opened the door and stepped outside,

And froze in place.

Because there stood a woman in police uniform whose appearance was uncannily familiar.

“Irefi…?”

No matter how many times I doubted my eyes, I reached the same conclusion.

She had the typical black hair and black eyes of a Korean, but from her build to her face, she was the spitting image of Irefi.

My surprise intensified as I realized her neatly tied hair would easily reach her waist if let down.

The one perfect difference was her name. The name embroidered on her uniform wasn’t Irefi Justitia.

[Lee Yu-ha]

The name was clearly written on her chest as she stared at me.

“Ah…”

An unexpected thin soprano gasp broke the silence.

Though she had asked me to show myself, she seemed to be the one stunned, staring at me as if her soul had left her body.

The moment that seemed frozen in time soon dissolved with my visitor’s smile.

“Found you.”

She smiled.

“Once again, I found you first.”

With eyes that could only belong to someone who had experienced countless years, Yu-ha—the woman who had come to find me—playfully said.

“Nepy. No,”

“Ha, haha…!”

My name, known only to Irefi in that other world, flowed sweetly from Yu-ha’s lips.

And so, the first sentence of the narrative that she and I would write once more adorned the first blank page.

That even in this darkness, as I despaired, she had come to find me.

The adorable woman who told me stories of being scolded by her supervisor because she spent too long comforting the foolish man who remained alone in place, crying.

She fills the page with excited cursive, saying she finally found me again.

It is not the possessed or the laws of the world that forge destiny, but purely the human heart.

That’s why, from beyond the observed world, I firmly grasp her hand and write down sentences that will never be forgotten.

I will love only you forever.

A confession I will repeat throughout my life, until it reaches you at the end of eternity.

I promise.

That our immortal hearts will live on together.