PP Chapter 4

[Party] Peach: A bit?

Dohwa was about to type that it was fucking hard into the chat window before he hit the backspace key.

There was a real person behind the screen, so outright swearing felt like a bit much.

However, Won burst into laughter, seemingly predicting the hidden sentence behind Dohwa’s “A bit?” He then kindly explained that the difficulty naturally spiked from this dungeon onward, and that it wasn’t because Dohwa was bad at it.

It was a fact that would have been better to know before he had confidently entered the dungeon.

“You should have told me beforehand.”

Speaking like a sigh, Dohwa swept his hair back and let out a low breath.

Hearing that only dungeons like this would appear from now on made his future feel bleak.

At the same time, the thought that he must not lose Won, his healer acquaintance, felt so, so incredibly desperate.

Whether he knew what Dohwa was thinking or not, Won was just sending chats saying they should go to the next dungeon together as well.

[Party] Won: Let’s go to the next dungeon together too.

[Party] Peach: Yes……

[Party] Won: I don’t see any motivation in that answer?

At the remark that hit the nail on the head, Dohwa’s lips parted slightly before he spilled out all the words he had been holding back.

[Party] Peach: No, honestly, the dunngeon is too evil, I never want to go back

[Party] Won: Lololol

“You’re laughing?”

He glared with narrowed eyes for a moment at Won, who only laughed at his sincerity. But at the chat that popped up next, Dohwa instantly became docile.

[Party] Won: I’ll go with you every time from now on.

“Hmph, well…… fine. If you go with me, it doesn’t matter.”

Muttering softly, Dohwa clumsily moved his character.

Won was following closely behind his character.

Once he was fed up with the dungeon, he didn’t want to push the main quest, and he didn’t know what else to do.

Because of that, Dohwa, who had just been circling around the area for a long time, suddenly asked in the chat.

[Party] Peach: To be honest, I don’t wnat to push the main quest anymore. Is there anything else to do??

[Party] Won: It looked that way. Hmm, do you like things like cosmetic items?

“Cosmetic items?”

Wondering what that meant now, he blinked until Won answered his unspoken question.

[Party] Won: Cosmetic items are clothing pieces you can put on your polygon character. I know a look that would fit your character really well right now, should I make it and give it to you?

Dohwa hesitated for a moment at those kind words.

To be honest, he really, really hated the basic items he was currently wearing.

In such a situation, being offered a cosmetic item was something he should welcome with open arms.

But……

“Aren’t I receiving too much?”

Even if they had become close, it was an online relationship. To be honest, he didn’t even know why he was being so nice to him.

He wasn’t sure if it was okay to just keep receiving like this.

Because it was his first time forming a relationship online, it was even more confusing.

Dohwa’s eyes rolled as he agonized. The ends of his fine eyebrows crumpled slightly from the worry.

Just then, Won, who had been tinkering with something in a corner, suddenly requested a trade.

He reflexively clicked accept, and something white entered his item window.

“What’s this?”

[Party] Peach: Wht is this?

[Party] Won: It’s the cosmetic item. Go into your inventory, right-click it, and press ‘Equip’.

“Go into inventory… right-click cosmetic item, and equip…”

He slowly followed Won’s instructions.

Then, the basic outfit his character was wearing changed into a beautiful white dress.

“Wow!”

It was an outfit so beautiful that the gloom from the dungeon vanished instantly.

It was a one-piece dress that covered everything from the neck to the ankles, and it even looked like a wedding dress.

Excited, Dohwa moved his character this way and that. The pure white hem fluttered naturally following those movements.

They said Betting Bad’s strength was its smooth animations, and indeed, it was a dazzling sight.

Dohwa, who had been staring entranced at the swaying clothes, belatedly remembered that he had received this from Won.

With an ‘Oh,’ he sent his thanks, and Won just laughed, saying it was nothing.

[Party] Won: I’m glad you seem to like it. Let’s go to the marketplace to look at cosmetic items when you have time later. There are more pretty things than you’d think.

[Party] Won: If there’s anything you like, tell me. I’ll make it for you if I have time.

Dohwa poked his tongue out and licked his lips at the kind words.

It felt strange to see someone so kind that they’d be hard to find even in reality.

Feeling inexplicably shy, Dohwa grew quiet. Won then disbanded the party, mentioning it was time for his raid, and disappeared somewhere.

Left alone, Dohwa stared at his character on the screen for a long time.

Then, at some point, he picked up his phone and called Sohyun.

-Yeah, hello? What’s up suddenly?

“Hey, listen carefully. I met someone while playing the game……”

-Uh-huh.

It was an answer that sounded insincere to anyone’s ears, but Dohwa stubbornly continued.

“That person is being really, really nice to me. Does this mean he likes me?”

At those words, Sohyun was silent for a long time on the other end of the phone.

Then, he suddenly burst into an unpleasant laugh and almost shouted.

-Ah, seriously, what am I going to do with this naive bastard! That person is a veteran player, right?

“Veteran player?”

-You’re talking about BetBad, right? I mean someone who runs raids in BetBad, rides the deep-sea fishing boat when they’re bored, and has every class maxed out.

At that, Dohwa thought about Won for a moment. Won had just gone to a raid, mentioned doing fisher-related events that users often called the ‘deep-sea fishing boat’ when he had nothing to do, and ultimately, had every class at max level.

“…I think he is a veteran player. He just disappeared saying he was going to a raid.”

-Where did he go? Check his location.

“Deathmatch Final Chapter.”

-Ugh, he’s a rotten veteran.

Sohyun made a fuss, saying that even the term veteran wasn’t enough.

-Babe, do you know the defining trait of veterans—no, hardcore players? They are so damn kind to newbies because they’re afraid their small, precious, shitty game might fail. Then, when the newbie they were raising grows to a certain point, they release them into the wild.

And with that, he abruptly hung up, claiming he was busy with his own raid.

Dohwa pouted his lips as he stared at the phone after the call was cut off.

‘No, I mean, of course, I never! Never thought Won had romantic feelings for me either.’

It’s just… he thought he at least wanted to be friends.

Yeah right. It was just a type of sudden pop-up quest called ‘Raising a newbie who’s so game-ignorant they die from falling.’

“I don’t want to be set free into the wild.”

The problem was that Dohwa didn’t want to be released.

According to Sohyun, what Won was doing right now could be seen as a form of temporary foster care.

But temporary foster care, my foot. In Dohwa’s dictionary, there was only ‘care until death’.

Once you pick something up, isn’t it only right to take responsibility until the end?

Thinking thoughts that Won would have found absurd if he had heard them, Dohwa waited quietly until Won returned.

“Since it’s come to this, I should do something so he can’t throw me away.”

To prevent Won from releasing him, he had no choice but to appeal to him somehow.

Dohwa stared at his idle character and pondered what he could do for him.

Then, he suddenly remembered how Won always ate food before going into a dungeon or a raid.

“Did he say it was an item that gives buffs?”

Dohwa rested his chin on his hand, muttering to himself.

There was no way a person who only did dungeons, PVP, and extermination battles when Dohwa wasn’t around would be short on food.

‘Still, wouldn’t he find it cute if a newbie made and gave him food as a way of repaying him?’

……I really hope so.

Picking up his phone, Dohwa glanced sideways to confirm that Won’s location was still the Deathmatch Final Chapter, and then searched for how to make food.

It said you could make food if you leveled up a cook, which is one of the crafting classes.

“Come to think of it, Sohyun said crafting was hard……”

Betting Bad’s crafting was famous for being a heavy grind.

Some even said that leveling up one crafting class to the max was harder than leveling up all the battle classes to the max.