episode_0002

“Woah, isn’t it some kind of event? Or maybe there was a bug that moved you to the boss’ perspective… … .”

Connection termination, game client blocking, forced termination.

I tried every logout method that came to mind, but nothing worked.

All methods were in vain and I just felt empty.

“It doesn’t make sense… … This is ridiculous.”

Is it possible to move into the game world?

That kind of thing only happens in games and novels!

Maybe it’s just a dream, but moving into the game world… … .

Wait, a dream?

I felt like I suddenly came to my senses at that thought.

I decided to try a time-honored method for waking up in a hurry.

I quickly pulled up the straw covering my arms, exposing my bare skin.

Even in the dark, Elena’s pale skin looked as white as if it were glowing.

If it weren’t for my arm, I might have given it a pretty good rating.

Fed up, I tried to pinch my left arm with my right hand as hard as I could.

My left arm was red and swollen, and it felt like pain would hit me at any moment.

But surprisingly, I felt nothing.

To be precise, you can feel your fingers touching your arm, but there is no pain itself.

It felt like I was watching someone pinching someone’s arm from the side.

It doesn’t hurt at all? Now I feel like I want to cheer.

The fact that it doesn’t hurt at all means that this isn’t reality, it’s a dream!

“That’s right! Could this really happen?”

In the end, I couldn’t hold back any longer and burst into cheers.

I feel a little relieved now. Well then, this can’t be reality.

I must have stayed up all night for too long and my hair was damaged.

Now that I think about it, I’ve been playing games for so long that it’s a bit excessive these days.

Except for the time you were sleeping, you were all connected to the game to achieve 100,000 kills.

It was probably because I was overexerting myself that I had this strange dream.

Having regained my composure, I was now able to observe my surroundings with a much more relaxed feeling.

My eyes, which had become completely accustomed to the darkness, began to see the surrounding scenery one by one.

It was a very familiar scene to me. Cold stone walls, bones rolling on the floor, chains with suspicious stains, and even a bed placed in the middle of the room, which didn’t match.

I immediately realized where this was.

Actually, it would be strange not to know. Because this is the same place I’ve visited a hundred thousand times.

This is the deepest part of the Glummarch Castle dungeon. This is Elena’s boss room, which has already been visited 100,000 times.

I tried to get up. But soon I lost my balance due to the unfamiliar sensation and almost fell.

“Well, what is this? Why is my body like this?”

It is a strange feeling that I am experiencing for the first time in my life.

Just like when I pinched my arm to wake up from a dream a little while ago, I felt an unfamiliar sense of discomfort, as if I was dealing with someone else’s body, even though it was clearly my own.

After lying in bed for a while and carefully moving my arms and legs, I was soon able to realize the identity of my discomfort.

Those limbs were so thin that they seemed excessively thin compared to mine, and were much slimmer.

Of course, he must have felt uncomfortable. I don’t know why, but right now I’m in Elena’s form.

After passing the bridge, I suddenly looked down and immediately saw a pair of huge hills filling my field of vision and cleared my throat.

Elena, I thought her movements were slow for a boss. I guess it was because I had to carry such a heavy thing with my thin limbs.

In the end, I decided to try moving by rolling on the bed instead of moving with an unfamiliar body.

Fortunately, Elena’s bed was big and soft enough for such lazy observations.

After looking around the room for a while, I was soon able to come to a conclusion.

“This is so detailed that it’s strange?”

The more I looked at it, the more I couldn’t help but admire it.

The boss room in my dream (it sounds a little strange, but I guess I have to call it that now) was realistically implemented, not only in the game but also in the smallest details that were not usually noticed.

‘For example, things like this.’

I crawled to the corner of the bed and lifted the dusty brass candlestick from the floor.

I felt like my back was swaying due to the feeling that it was heavier than I expected, but I was barely able to keep my balance.

While playing the game, I couldn’t even tell if what was placed here was a candlestick.

This is where I thought it was a simple graphical error as most of the image was covered by the bed.

“Even the smallest details like this are implemented. Isn’t that a bit too realistic?”

Feeling absurd, I threw the candlestick onto the bed.

After completing a brief investigation, I sat cross-legged on the bed in the middle of the room.

Thinking that this was the bed Elena used in the game, I felt somewhat uncomfortable, but it seemed better than sitting on the cold stone floor.

“Why on earth did I have this dream?”

The biggest question is still that.

I can at least understand the view of the room, which is so well-finished that it seems a little harsh.

After 100,000 repeated plays, I became so familiar with the structure of Glum March Castle that I could move it even with my eyes closed.

It’s surprising that I was able to imagine something that wasn’t visible to the eye, but perhaps that was also a result of my imagination stemming from familiarity.

Perhaps this is a lucid dream or something. I have come to that conclusion.

In fact, lucid dreaming is a fairly common phenomenon these days when virtual reality games have become widespread.

The experience of becoming the game character I was controlling in a dream and having a short adventure is a common review found in the gamer community.

In real life, I’m probably fast asleep with my virtual reality device on right now.

If I had known that I would have such a strange dream, I would have taken off the device and fallen asleep peacefully.

But there were still unanswered questions.

Why did I end up in Elena’s body?

“Did I always particularly like Elena?”

I seriously thought about that possibility, but immediately shook my head. I don’t think that was the case after all.

To me, Elena was just a boss who dropped items. This means that he was an object of interest and had nothing to do with.

Would it be possible to feel affection for each and every ant that one encounters while walking down the street?

Of course, Elena is quite a pretty ant, but that doesn’t change anything. I didn’t like Elena.

On the contrary, there were many times when I felt annoyed by Elena, who, let alone showed affection, did not drop extremely rare items.

In the latter half of the 100,000 Kills, there were more times when people called me by derogatory terms like ‘Jokrena’ or ‘Haereena’ rather than the name Elena.

After thinking about it, I eventually raised both hands and messed up my hair.

“Ah, I really don’t know. By the way, when are you going to wake up from this dream?”

The unfamiliar feel of soft hair against my fingertips gave me goosebumps.

The feeling of using someone else’s body, especially a woman’s body, was something that was difficult to get used to.

Suddenly, I became irritated, lifted the candlestick and threw it against the stone wall with all my might.

Immediately, a loud noise that seemed a bit excessive echoed off the stone walls and resounded throughout Glummarch Castle.

I unconsciously covered my ears from the deafening noise.

Normally, it was such a loud noise that I would have already woken up, but there was no sign of waking up from the dream at all.

I was still Elena, and the dark and cold scenery in front of me was still the same.

“Now that I think about it, the last one was a bit strange.”

I woke up to a terrible noise and thought back to the moment I was attacked by Elena.

Elena is clearly dead to me. I checked the death log and even checked item drops. I can be sure of this.

But at the last moment, Elena clearly came back to life and attacked me.

Was there a hidden pattern added to Elena that revived her without my knowledge?

That can’t be possible. Elena is a very popular boss, and if there was a hidden pattern, it would have been revealed a long time ago.

Suddenly, the achievement window that appeared right after Elena died came to mind.

The achievement ‘He who carries Elena’s grudges’ is unlocked when the condition for achieving 100,000 Elena kills is met.

Could it be that Elena’s resurrection and that achievement have something to do with it?

As of now, that is the most likely hypothesis. I carefully placed my hand on my thigh to get up.

‘huh? What is this?’

Suddenly, I felt a foreign body in my pocket.

When I put my hand in my pocket, I immediately felt something like a small rock. I carefully reached in and took it out.

What came out of the pocket was a jewel about the size of two fingers.

Because the surroundings were so dark, I couldn’t see the colors clearly, but if I squinted, I could faintly see something vaguely vague, like fog, swirling around inside.

What on earth is this? Did Elena have something like this?

With that question in mind, I carefully touched the jewel with my fingers.

Suddenly, a phrase popped into my head.

[Elena’s Curse Stone]