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Rescue efforts would’ve started right away in reality, but this is a space created by the former head of the association.
I decided to figure out what was going on first.
Under the circumstances, a truck that ran a red light seemed to have hit a medium-sized SUV that had been stopped from the side.
‘There’s a skid mark at the point where it passed the collision. It didn’t slow down until they crashed?’
The cause was unknown, whether it was a vehicle defect or human error, but I can see that the truck driver didn’t apply brakes.
I looked at the car and saw that the body was badly damaged.
It’s hard to recognize, but based on when the final chapter of PMH was updated, the car model seems to be released more than ten years ago.
Putting in the clues, I concluded.
‘Is this Gye Bastard’s car accident?’
Sung Siwan ran to the vehicle while I checked the traces left on the ground.
However, when Sung Siwan’s hand tried to rip off the car door, a gush of air stopped him.
[Did you forget what you said? I’m glad I called Jo Euishin too.]
With the former head’s cold attitude, Sung Siwan thankfully calmed down.
Sung Siwan opened his eyes as he looked inside the car window that was only half visible due to the broken glass.
“…Idam’s inside.”
As expected, this was the car accident that Gye Idam experienced.
Sitting in the back seat, Gye Idam was seriously injured.
Sung Siwan looked confused.
“Why is a player like Gye Idam hurt so badly? He looks like he’s in middle school. No, he’s actually a little bigger than when he just entered the school…”
Gye Idam’s age during the incident is similar to his apparent age in this world.
It was hard to recognize because he was covered in blood, but seeing that he was wearing a uniform of a science high school in the Seoul metropolitan area, he seems to be a high school student.
Sung Siwan’s acquaintance Gye Idam wearing a different school uniform would surely be confusing.
“The cars and surrounding facilities are old too. Is Idam just a witness to this? Ah, the nametag shows a different name!”
Sung SIwan suggested a plausible hypothesis, but the former head immediately denied it.
[No, who’s inside is who you call Gye Idam.]
“What?”
Sung Siwan seemed to have a lot of questions to ask, but the former head didn’t speak further.
In the end, Sung Siwan had no choice but to watch.
Meanwhile, those who witnessed the accident began to respond.
Passers-by reported the incident, a driver stopped over to place emergency lights, and a seller from a store went out with a fire extinguisher.
An ambulance and a fire engine arrived quickly.
However, the car door was damaged enough to make it difficult to recognize its shape, so even with a hydraulic spreader, the door didn’t open easily.
“The rescue is late! Are there no players around here?”
The car would’ve been opened quickly using a player’s skill, but there’s no such thing in this world.
The former head of the association who read Gye Idam’s memories to some extent, seemed to have noticed something.
[…]
Will the AI of the former association understand this situation?
I came here prepared for this situation.
Sung Siwan and the former head aren’t my playable characters, but they are trustworthy so I judged that it was alright to let them know my history.
‘I’m a little worried about how much I can tell them though.’
Then, at last, Gye Idam was loaded on a stretcher.
His face was swollen as if his nose and jaw were cracked and broken, but he was still conscious.
He couldn’t speak, but he blinked every time the rescuer said something.
Seeing that he has enough energy to react even if he can’t control his body, he must remember what happened.
“…That’s a relief.”
Sung Siwan was relieved to see Gye Idam transferred by ambulance.
In a world where no energy waves or powers exist, Gye Idam was rescued fairly quickly and survived despite severe injuries.
And Gye Idam was the only one who survived the incident.
[His memories are cut off after this. The next memory is… Yes, the hospital. He was hospitalized.]
“He’s hospitalized, so is he not getting outpatient treatment with recovery items?”
[Recovery items weren’t used. No, they couldn’t be used.]
“What?”
Recovery items and healing powers in this world are common sense.
It seems difficult for Sung Siwan to understand.
‘The former head seems strangely quick to understand it though.’
Soon, the scenery changed.
The next place was a single room in a general hospital.
The spacious single room was filled with gifts like flower baskets, beverage sets, and letters.
Gye Idam was sitting on the bed with plaster bandages all over his face and body.
He wasn’t alone.
“…Please say it.”
The doctor nodded at Gye Idam’s words.
Then, an old man who seemed to be a relative of Gye Idam, calmly explained what happened.
The perpetrator who caused the accident that injured him and killed his parents had died.
The car manufacturer owns up to the vehicle’s defect and will provide compensation.
‘Did my family’s car accident happen before this?’
I felt suffocated by the old memory.
My family also had a car accident due to a vehicle defect.
The difference was that there were no survivors of our family’s accident.
“It’s rare for a manufacturer to admit a vehicle defect so easily. Not long ago, I think a chess prodigy’s family had a similar accident and the public opinion was already against them so they seemed to have no choice but to own up to it.”
My family and Gye Idam experienced similar things, just at different times and locations.
However, Gye Idam seems to have been forced to forgive for the benefit of the car manufacturer.
I knew that there were a series of accidents caused by that manufacturer’s vehicles.
There were more than one or two accidents, but I remember hearing that an influential family was involved.
I guess that was Gye Idam’s family.
‘He’s using a private single hospital room, and the person with him brought three lawyers.’
Those accompanied by the old man were wearing Sharon flower gold badges and a lawyer nameplate.
They’re to help plan to deal with the accident and the inheritance process.
‘The Gye Idam I remember wasn’t very well off.’
I thought about a time when Gye Idam was discharged from the military.
Perhaps he almost lost his inherited property to his other relatives.
No matter how unfortunate an event may be, people don’t sympathize for long as long as there’s money involved.
Those who visited Gye Idam in his hospital bed said similar things.
“You’re lucky.”
“You’ve got a heavenly fortune.”
“Lucky.”
He was involved in a car accident, but he survived with all his limbs intact.
After the accident, he wasn’t subjected to any harassment by the manufacturer or any media mischief.
With the help of his powerful relative, he inherited a huge fortune through legal procedures.
He had a friend and a relative purely concerned about his future.
Everyone thought Gye Idam was lucky.
Hearing those words, Gye Idam would only shut his mouth.
[A lucky person huh?]
The former head said cynically as he quickly spilled his memory.
It was fast forwarded to a time when all the plaster bandages were removed, but Gye Idam was still alone in a hospital room.
All the articles he seemed to have read were related to traffic accidents.
‘That one’s about my family.’
The accident that my parents experienced was also mentioned.
They were referred to as an accident in the family of a chess genius.
According to statistics, about ten people die in traffic accidents every day.
And not all of them receive media attention.
Gye Idam’s parents were only two of the ten people who died that day.
They seem to be quickly forgotten and buried.
“…I’m lucky?”
Gye Idam crumpled the newspaper.
“How the hell am I lucky?!”
Gye Idam violently threw the gifts and flowers off the shelf.
The needle attached to his arm was pulled out, scratching his skin and causing blood to splatter.
“Idam-ah…”
Sung Siwan muttered under his breath as we watched Gye Idam, but there was no way he’d be heard.
A glass fell and broke, the sound making a nurse run into his room.
Memories quickly flowed afterward.
Gye Idam dropped out of school and locked himself in his room.
Sung Siwan lamented.
“Idam-ah, why are you writing that to someone you don’t know…”
Gye Idam wrote malicious comments on the internet.
He mainly put it on articles related to traffic accidents.
‘You’re lucky you didn’t die.’
‘You’re pretending to be sad alone.’
Gye Idam wrote a lot of unpleasant things.
Most of the comments that he wrote though were words that were said to him as well.
Worried about Gye Idam rotting in his room and writing malicious comments for the rest of his life, a relative forced him to take a qualification exam and the CSAT, so he went to university.
He entered college at the age where he could be in active military service, but he barely passed since he had no intention of studying in the first place.
Gye Idam was unable to adapt, and at that point, he slowly lost contact with his military friends.
Then, one day, Gye Idam saw a game .
“Mobile RPG commercial poster? That’s Soohyuk and Dain…!”
Sung Siwan was shocked at the poster.
Joo Soohyuk and Ahn Dain were looking up at the night sky with their backs against each other.
It was a poster of the mobile RPG game Player Master High School.
‘So that guy’s been a fan since the game’s launching.’
It was no exaggeration that the whole nation was bombarded with PMH s just before it was launched.
They were always on TV, posters were plastered everywhere on public transportation, and banners were on every website.
I never get tired of watching the promotional video with the title hero and heroine, and the same seems true for Gye Idam.
He stared at the screen in amazement.
It was like that until PMH was launched.
“Are you serious?”
In the Nameless Tutorial level, Gye Idam died in an instant and spat out curses.
“What are you doing to Ahn Dain’s pets, you little brats? You shameless brats!”
“Dead? I’m dead again?”
“Ah, I’ll quit the game until this Choi Pyeondeuk bastard gets fired!”
“Ahn Dain’s new outfit is out. I gotta pick this one.”
“God, this quest reward is crazy!”
Gye Idam, once a malicious commenter on traffic accident articles, changed his fixation and became a malicious commenter for PMH.
The Gye Bastard repeatedly talked about how messed up PMH was and started fights with anyone who would praise the game.
Sung Siwan watched the scene in shock and confusion.
Then, the space began to crumble.
[He’s starting to lose his mind. Let’s move on.]
“Is Idam in a bad condition?”
[He’ll lose his mind if we drag this out for long.]
“…!”
Even though he saw all kinds of ugly things, Sung Siwan was still worried about Gye Idam.
The former head skipped a lot of parts of his memory.
The scene changed dramatically.
[There is a conscription in this world. Your junior is fulfilling his military duty.]
“What?”
[Well, not junior, but juniors.]
Gye Idam had three lines in his military uniform.
That means he’s a corporal.
Beyond Gye Idam’s gaze, there was someone who just became a private and was assigned to his battalion.
He was looking at me.
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