I Have Returned, but I Cannot Lay down My Gun

〈Chapter 10〉 9 – Virtual

* * *

Suddenly, let’s talk about something.

Humans naturally need a certain amount of sufficient sleep, and almost everyone struggles to secure this time.

However, as society progresses and numerous reasons arise, the infringement on the right to sleep begins to accelerate even more.

If you’re a soldier, you stand watch or perform guard duty.

If you’re a student, you finish the given assignments.

If you’re a working adult… well, there are many reasons.

In any case, in modern society, various people have their sleep time infringed upon for various reasons, and as a result, they suffer a lot of mental fatigue and stress.

Most of them would convert this stress into anger and irritation and express it.

So, why did I suddenly bring up this story?

───!!!

Because I was rudely awakened by the ICARUS device on my left wrist suddenly emitting a bright red light and vibration, as if the world was ending.

When I came to my senses, I found myself holding a tactical tomahawk in one hand and staring forward.

I was in a stance where I could strike at a virtual enemy at any moment.

…Haah.

I felt a surge of irritation.

“…Why is this happening at three in the morning?”

But in my mind, I was already analyzing the type of alert, as I had been trained to do.

Normally, wearing special lenses would tell you what the alert is about. Besides, there was no reason for sound or light to occur during an operation because of the risk of exposure.

Since it was unfamiliar information, reverse engineering it was easier.

“…Information leakage alert?”

Had the entire ICARUS data center been hacked or the nodes been completely compromised? Why was this alert sounding now?

Feeling a late dizziness, I sat in the chair and turned on the monitor, which I had turned off.

The computer linked to the device displayed the warning content in large letters.

The screen was endlessly filled with numerous scripts that I didn’t even want to read.

Roughly checking, it was about comparing data investigated on the internet with the data inside the device to see if there were any matches or similarities.

The problem was that there were thousands, exceeding five digits.

If it had been just a month ago, I would have immediately deployed somewhere, but at this point, I had crossed worlds.

That means….

“It means there’s a lot of related content on the internet…”

One thing was certain; it was no longer an alert I needed to care about. After a few manipulations, the red light and vibrations that filled the room quickly disappeared.

It was three in the morning, and naturally, it was pitch black outside… Given the vibration, it must have meant that some significant data had been collected.

Since I had to stay without a major schedule for a while anyway, I decided to investigate and go back to sleep.

The computer was still processing, and opening additional windows might actually shut it down, so most of the confirmation had to be done through the device’s hologram.

I excluded unrelated content.

Lee Yoo Jin, New York, Washington, terrorist, Artemis, Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, etc… Things that had no direct correlation when searched independently.

Among the information derived from the keywords entered into the search engine, those unrelated to my life or the previous world.

After excluding trivial or randomly categorized information and sorting meaningful data,

“…Dark Zone?”

Why does this term keep appearing?

There was no need to dig deep into my memory. It was a term I heard just today while contemplating which gun to shoot before the range.

However, to recall the entire context of the conversation at that time… Certainly, more effort was required than before.

Little by little, my memories resurfaced.

…Wasn’t it said to be a very popular game?

It had been a very long time since I played a game, but the echo of my memory before facing the cold winter of New York faintly resonated.

My hand, which was about to search for it on the internet, stopped abruptly.

After a brief silence, the typing resumed.

-Searching Tree Wiki….

…My distant memories told me that for games, you should refer to sites written from the user’s perspective.

Although the site’s name differed slightly from what I remembered, the main homepage layout was intuitively understandable.

The search bar at the top right. I carefully entered the keyword “Dark Zone.”

Before I even pressed enter, numerous related searches unfurled.

And───

“…Ha.”

Found it.

You bastard.

*

Well, it’s the same anywhere in the world,

In this world, there are media and creative works dealing with a person’s life or the world at the time associated with that person, including autobiographies and memoirs.

Whether it’s fiction or reality, person or event, people refer to numerous materials and historical records to recreate them anew and pleasingly.

They become movies, books, novels, and the reborn lives and worlds of many people.

Watching those, I sometimes harbored curiosity.

It’s an old story and a simple question.

Just, well… What if one’s life or information about where I was is processed into a new medium and shown to people?

And what if the person involved witnesses it?

What would they think?

…But, in this world, even that was more common than expected.

Many people whose lives were made into movies were already gone from the world, but given the era, there were also cases where they were not.

However, from a general person’s perspective, that was something they’d never be involved with.

I thought it would be the same for me.

But,

-Click.

“…The sun’s already up.”

Seeing it in reality, the feeling was quite new and shitty.

To the extent that I forgot about the passage of time.

A sudden story, but I… liked FPS games before.

You aim, place the enemy in the center of the sight, and pull the trigger.

In somewhat realistic games, you consider bullet drop and travel time.

You kill the enemy that way.

Among the many things in the category of games,

FPS games, where only the graphics, system, and UI have advanced, held the clear goal of killing the opponent, which remained unchanged over time.

Of course, as times changed and technology developed, various elements were added to this genre.

For example, damage by body part, healing, needs like hunger, and goals not centered on killing the enemy but on survival….

However, even these could not deny that the basic premise was the FPS genre.

So, I liked the simple FPS games where you just had to kill the enemy without worrying about other complexities.

But….

[View full article] [Latest]

-Dark Zone, now a huge platform beyond just a game….

-Maintaining 15 million simultaneous users worldwide for a year… What’s the secret of Dark Zone?

-Opening a new horizon in virtual reality: overwhelming background and worldview, endless updates, and continuous balance patches!

-Dark Zone, the first to surpass $700 million in global esports market size!

-Mark Henslow, CEO of ICARUS International, completely denies any similarity between Dark Zone and the actual U.S. military!

-Recreating numerous past FPS games in virtual reality!

Next up, a survival FPS genre escaping from closed contaminated areas, Quarantine Escaping…. [6 months ago]

-….

-…………

…New York, Washington, and numerous other major cities I had risked my life countless times to restore.

The fact that all of these were turned into a virtual reality FPS game,

“Ha….”

What’s there to hide?

The information and storylines I gathered while browsing this wiki, all of it was what actually happened and what I experienced.

The fact that it was consumed as just a game made me feel quite dirty.

But what’s even more ironic is why this exists in the world I returned to.

The world remembers my past. In a very trivial way.

It was like facing a huge black box. But unlike the former, which you don’t have to check, I had to enter this game to find out what it was about.

The way I returned, and how I should live from now on, was unclear, and a sudden task fell in front of me.

I wanted to relax my frown, but I couldn’t.

I wanted to ignore it, but I couldn’t.

The search results derived from the keyword “Dark Zone” were like a fishhook. Once you witnessed it, you just got dragged along.

This game was inseparable from me, and even if I ignored it now, it would eventually come back to me like a boomerang.

Whether sooner or later, it was inevitable.

Taking a deep breath, I grabbed the mouse again.

If I had to go in, there was no hesitation. I cleared all unnecessary thoughts and kept only the methods to converge to one result in mind.

It would be a long investigation. It would take even longer since I wasn’t very talented in gathering information. I might not get the desired answer when I reached the end.

I didn’t care.

“…Then.”

First, let’s find out how to access it.