The authorized age for ‘esteemed’ players in Korea was 17.
After the collision in this industry.
For several decades there had been no legal age limit for players.
However becoming an esteemed player meant ignoring all laws of physics, stereotypes, sense, and logic.
It was a difficult task for an ungrown mind and body.
There had been big and small cases caused by an underage player being an esteemed player.
There had been propositions enforce regulative laws of esteemed players, but the lawmakers were passive.
And then, approximately 30 years ago.
The now-abandoned Segu primary school in Gangwon province.
Three classes were caught in the recklessness of an esteemed student.
The press went ballistic and the government and national assembly were heavily criticized for their lack of establishing a measure.
The result of that was the enforcement of the teenage esteemed player regulation.
Named ‘The Segu primary law.’
This law restricted those under the age of 17 from becoming an esteemed player.
From then on it was legalized to implant chips invented by the player’s association the moment players under the age of 17 were found with an esteemed ability that acted to ‘seal’ their esteemed ability.
And now.
1st January.
The me of this world was 17 and I was authorized to use my esteemed ability.
‘The seal is gone.’
On 1st January the seal he had on his left wrist, a red semicircle the size of his thumbnail, had disappeared. As soon as the seal was gone he could immediately feel the presence of the esteemed ability in his body.
<A miracles takes the form of light and descends on the body>
‘It’s the exact same description the white tiger had said in the game text….!’
He could instinctively sense what the esteemed ability was.
He also realized how to use the esteemed ability.
<Esteemed ability, ‘Accessing player’s history’’>
As soon as I used the Esteemed ability, hundreds and thousands of multicolored cards flooded out of my body.
I suspected my eyes the moment I saw the cards.
‘My playable characters….!’
What was imprinted on the cards were characters I had grown in the game for the last 10 years.
The sight I saw in the scene where I chose a character for a story or a quest.
All the characters in that scene were before my eyes.
The hero and heroine that were the stars of the game.
And the many characters that existed as side characters
The extras that appeared once or twice and died.
The white tiger that I had manipulated till the very end.
After scrolling through the cards I opened up to read the terms and conditions of the esteemed ability manual.
<Esteemed player, ‘Player history’ in detail for reading.>
[Player’s history]
The game is shown in the form of another world where it’s future, process, and dreams are replayed.
The detailed explanation of the esteemed ability proved it wasn’t only the completed physical attributes of the character that completed the last stage.
Even for one character the character’s progression and process were recorded in the cards.
Taking the white tiger’s card as an example there were tens of this card.
And….
‘This is Sanghee’s card…’
It showed her in the form of an evil slayer after she had made a deal with the goddess of revenge.
‘All that’s shown here is my player history.;
The future where Sanghee became a vengeful spirit was gone.
In this world, the biggest evil warrior Sanghee card I had was considered as a different world’s possibility and record.
Card after card
Various emotions passed over me as I went through the various character cards.
‘This card I used when I just graduated high school, this card I used when I was in the army, this I used when I was preparing for work….’
My player life was approximately 10 years.
There were happy times, hard times all shared with these player characters.
I was often consoled by the growth of my characters and motivated to do the same.
All my playing history and records.
They shined like stars in front of my eyes.
For a long time, I stared at the cards.
In the ending, all the playerballs characters of this game had died.
Of course, all the characters found in these cards had died.
‘I had even continued to grow the potential powers of the dead characters.’
I had been nostalgic over a character that died in the middle and used them for free battles or free quests to grow them.
I may have expected the obvious ‘The character you thought had died was actually alive.’’
In terms of the storyline, it was impossible to use the dead characters in the story mode but it was still possible to grow them.
I the loser of Fullma high had used every character and grow all of them without throwing them away.
‘Let’s hope for a happy ending this time.’
As though in reply the character cards shined brightly.
‘Let’s do this.’
Of course, the first character I chose was the white tiger.
Out of the various white tiger cards, I chose the final round version that no longer held restrictions of the ‘celestial wrath.’
But before I used the card.
I noticed the statement written beneath the card.
[Usable for 3 seconds]
“What am I supposed to do with three seconds!”
Cards with excessive power had a limited usage period.
***
1st Jan 12:09 am
I left the house.
The wind was so strong I thought it wanted to cut through my body.
‘I’ll freeze to death.’
I immediately wanted to return home but there were things I had to do today.
The moment I had obtained the esteemed ability I had told myself that I will use it multiple times.
‘I had even considered boring the yellow tiger or Hong Kyubin’s strength at one point. I was glad that it wasn’t causing a nuisance.’
‘Player’s History’ was an unanticipated move beyond expectation, and a piece beyond expected.
Now it was time to move the piece to make the next move.
‘It’s like submitting to jump into hell.’
It made me creeped to even think about the past encounters with the enemy.
It was entirely different from tapping a smartphone from outside the screen.
‘Could I the loser behind screens possibly do a good job.”
Sigh~~
I sighed into the air and saw the fog disappear into the night sky.
Ding Dong
The alarm rang from the wearable device.
Namwook, Sangwook, and I.
The notification sound from our group chat.
There was a backlog of unread messages from when I had been gaining the esteemed ability.
[Namwook] Eushin, Sanghoon. Happy New Year. Even though I am going to a different high school lets keep in touch and meet up often. Looking forward to another good year ahead.
[Sanghoon] HNY
[Namwook] Sanghoon if you’re lazy to type, just send a voice message or a sticker.
[Sanghoon] K
[Namwook] ….forget it. Fine. It’s cold today so don’t catch a cold.
[Sanghoon] K
I stopped walking and stared at the message screen.
Then I moved my fingers and typed a message.
[Me] HNY
I sent the message and laughed.
I knew that Namwook would nag and Sanghoon would reply with a one-word reply like ‘LOL’.
Even though it wasn’t much the content of the chat seemed to make the air a little warmer.
I turned my device notification and GPS to be off and started running.
<Esteemed player, ‘Player history’ in detail for reading.>
The character card I had selected this year was a playable character from Eunkwang high’s 3rd-year advanced section, ‘light in the darkness Oh Hyeji.’
<Largest Esteem character, ‘the moon in the sky’ is being used.>
The esteemed power of the moon in the sky, allowed your jumping skills to leap forward with the limit of being the night and presence of a visible moon.
Within the game, it had been shunned as a rubbish esteemed ability and compared to other characters for it’s unbalance.
Even so, once the criteria were met, considering its movement abilities the moon in the sky character was extremely useful.
‘I need to use a useful character card to save strength and time.’
Fortunately, there was a super moon high up in the sky.
In the blink of an eye, my body was absorbed into the night sky.
***
New years party at one of Yeuido’s convention centers.
With the night sky and han river in the background, the background lights emphasized the structures of the building.
Each floor of the internal structure was around 500 square feet.
There were approximately 1000 party attendees.
With more than 100 security guards.
I looked at the area around the convention center.
The stationed security guards moved in a team of three and reported once every 10 minutes through their earring.
‘The security is tight. It’ll be difficult to infiltrate.’
Even though there was a good character to use for infiltration the efficiency was low.
The problem was whether this character would have enough energy left to make an escape.
‘So I prepared another option.’
I headed straight to the main entrance.
“Good evening, excuse me. May I see your invitation.”
I stopped in my tracks.
I was suited up in a tuxedo but it was obvious that I was just a kid.
Even so, the security guard spoke to me with respect.
‘The sons and daughters of some high flyers must be here.’
I looked at him blatantly and pointed my chin at him.
“Invitation?”
“Yes, this is an invite-only…”
“Wait!”
The guard standing next to him seemed to recognize me and stepped in.
“This student, he's the famous…!”
He looked like he wanted to ask me for my signature.
“He’s the son of the famous small red dragon Yeom Jun Yeol.”
I smiled at the guard who recognized me.
My face now appeared as one of the playable characters, red dragon Yeom Jun Yeol.
This was the red lion that made it within the counts of one hand.
The single son of the red lion team’s master and the king of prominence Yeom Jun Yeol.
Yeom who was in his second year in Eunkwang high possessed the looks of a young noble and was well known for his grand esteemed ability.
With the halo of his father, Yeom was soon an immediate star in the Player’s classes the moment he started playing.
The ‘player history’ reproduced his outward appearance perfectly.
‘Yeom Jun Yeol hated the adjective ‘small’ that PlayerSAT-K had added to his name small red dragon.
The word small as his trigger point.
To call him a small red dragon was asking him for a fight.
Now was the time to act aggressively.
I imitated the crankiness of Yeom I had seen in the game.
“Small red dragon?”
“…..Ah! Sor-sorry. Red dragon, sir! You look much more mature than you seem on TV!”
That was true.
Yeom’s current age was 18.
The esteemed ability I chose was from when he was 19.
To be more accurate it was Yeom who had died at 19 in the storyline and who’s power I had continued to grow.
I decided to continue acting thick-skinned.
“You want to check my invitation after seeing my face?”
The guard seemed taken aback by my fierce attitude.
“Please excuse my…my manners. Red dragon, sir! Could I verify your player identification or student id at least….you see, there are some players who imitate the famous ones.”
<Large esteemed character, “red dragon’ is benign used.>
Instead of replying I spread my hands into the air and summoned the forces of the fire dragon.
Fwahhh!
The dragon's head appeared from the space between my hands.
It was impossible to possess similar or exact esteemed ability, esteemed abilities were not replicable.
The presence of the fire dragon should be proof enough to identify me as Yeom.
“Is this something others can imitate…?”
“I apologize.”
The security guard pressed the earring with one hand and reported what was going on.
“….yes, this is the main door. The red dragon Yeom Jun Yeol is here….ah, alone….yes….yes…”
They would suspect his sudden appearance.
But Yeom opened a door to a vast network, which was too tempting.
It would be hard to decline.
‘They will try to seize an opportunity with this chance.’
If it was Yeom alone they could even take him down.
They might even consider using him as a hostage,
Or use his participation at ‘this event’ to his disadvantage.
I was confident that the organizer would let Yeom in.
“Sorry to keep you, please enter!”
As expected they made way.
As I had borrowed the small red dragon Yeom’s name the event manager escorted me in.
Pass the carpeted corridor to a duplex event hall.
The duplex hall was full of guests in tuxedos and dresses.
The brightly lit Chandelier and golden velvet curtains covering the windows were hurting my eyes.
‘Maybe the dress code had been Vegas Gold….’
Here and there I saw Vegas gold colored dresses, head ornaments, cuff buttons, and handkerchiefs.
‘They sure splurged.’
There are some A list and S list celebrities who would have spent the new year in far more expensive locations such as air hotels over the sky.
But the ones here waiting for the new year countdown were considered winners of society.
After all, the organizer owned this convention hall.
“At this party, all communication material besides the ones approved and used by the security teams intranet are not allowed. We seek your understanding.”
The event manager then advised me other cautionary measures and handed me a gold box with a silver coin.
‘Enjoy your time.’
The event manager bowed and disappeared.
I looked down at the silver coin.
<Item information update>
[Item name] Copy of the silence oath coin
[Type] Prop
[Rarity] SR+++
[Effectiveness] It is used for silence oaths
[Explanation]
Copy of the silver coin used by the evil king of spectatorship and silence Sidelentium.
The head of the coin shows the seal of Sidelentium, and the tail shows a crow.
If you use this item to make an oath to keep silent over any matter, you are not able to deliver any similar or related content.
This silence oath item of rarity SR+++ is not destroyable unless the item’s curse is lifted or the tongue is removed.
This item was manufactured by the sad bear goddess amongst the 8 deities, who was from the bear tribe in the great methodology.
As expected this party was related to the bear tribe I was looking for, the sad bear goddess of the 8 deities was involved.
‘If I can’t find her here it will make things complicated.’
But for now, there was a more pressing matter at hand.
I will think about the sad bear goddess another time.
I silently left the event hall and headed to the targeted location.
