Chapter 177: Unknown Past (1)
"This fricking nut. Is he a celebrity or something? He's always shooting ads!"
"I just want to flick him in the head."
"Hey! Mr. Lee! Open the door!"
"This is why I said popular guys aren't allowed!"
All the voices in the moving car were cursing Sang-Hyeon.
"... Stop reading them," Sang-Hyeon muttered, a little annoyed.
Seeing that, Ju-Hyeok giggled in the driver's seat.
"Wait, why? I read that you get carsick if you go on your phone in a moving car, so I'm reading them out loud for you."
The source of the voice was from Ju-Hyeok's phone. It was a cellphone feature that read aloud text to voice. Ju-Hyeok turned it on for Almond's comments.
"Turn it off."
Sang-Hyeon reached his hand out and turned off the phone.
Tap.
"You're no fun," Ju-Hyeok complained as he turned the wheel.
"Anyway, you know that we have a work dinner today, right? It's the first official work dinner."
Ju-Hyeok was still checking their schedule.
Sang-Hyeon nodded, "Ah, of course."
Today was when the three of them, including Ji-Ah, decided to have their official work dinner together. Since they never had an official company dinner before, this time, Ju-Hyeok suggested that they eat at a decent place. They earned a lot of money, and it was also a celebration of their remarkable growth. It felt like a party to celebrate their achievements at the company.
"Feels weird calling it a work dinner. We're not even a company. Right?"
"... Huh? Everyone just calls it that."
"You have to eat at a company for it to be called work dinner."
"I don't think it's that literal... do you not know because you're from the US?"
"No, that's not what I meant..."
Ju-Hyeok mumbled something.
'What the?'
Sang-Hyeon wasn't the type to complain about tiny little things like this. It was strange. In reality, Sang-Hyeon wasn't particularly complaining.
Sang-Hyeon stared at Ju-Hyeok driving and asked him, "Hey, do you want to make company—"
HONK!
A huge truck honked past them.
"Damn...!"
Ju-Hyeok angrily swore, and Sang-Hyeon forgot what he was about to say. Afterwards, they arrived at the hospital.
***
Swiff.
The white pages swiftly flipped by. On it were densely packed graphs and neatly divided charts.
Swiff.
After flipping through the last page, Song Ha-Na took off her thin glasses and spoke, "The assessment results are good."
Sang-Hyeon lit up hearing that.
"It seems like you've been working out. Your body fat and muscle strength are all excellent. Even when we specifically examined your brain, it wasn't too different from ten years ago. I don't know if that's good or not..."
"Ah, alright. Then how long is my play time now?"
Song Ha-Na glared at Sang-Hyeon after hearing his question. She was signaling him not to rush.
"Since the brain shows the same activity, I think the play time limit is still the same."
"Ah..."
Sang-Hyeon couldn't hide his disappointment.
"I hear you're entering a tournament?"
"Ah, yes."
How did she know? Song Ha-Na answered his question right away.
"I told you. I always monitor you."
"Ah..."
"Tournament play times are quite long by default. What made you decide to enter the tournament?"
"Umm..."
Sang-Hyeon loved sports.
Standing on the stage, proving his efforts and overcoming challenges, and the thrill of achieving victory. He wanted to experience that feeling again. To achieve a moderate level of success on a reasonably big stage. That was all. It wasn't a decision made after deep contemplation. It was like most of Sang-Hyeon's decisions.
"Because of the sense of achievement."
"... Sorry?"
Song Ha-Na asked again, surprised by the unexpected answer, but Sang-Hyeon didn't repeat himself.
"T-Then, do you have a backup plan or something?" Song Ha-Na unusually stuttered, taken aback. "Like... is there a substitute player?"
"You've seen the stream, so you should know. In these small tournaments, there aren't any subs."
"Then what are you going to do?"
"But I did find a solution."
‘A... solution?’
Song Ha-Na suspiciously looked at him. Sang-Hyeon lifted his left hand.
"What if I just use this?"
"Left... ah, so you're saying, if you limit the use of your body, you can extend your playtime?"
"Yes."
Song Ha-Na stared at the results for a bit. She flipped through the pages to look for something and underlined it. Sang-Hyeon couldn't understand the professional vocabulary.
"Hmm... It's possible. It makes sense because the energy consumption increases when you use your right arm."
"!"
Sang-Hyeon was surprised to see her give permission so easily.
"Really?"
"Yes. Hmm... There's one more patient with your case, but with them, both of their legs don't work, so this wasn't a choice. With you, it's only the right arm, so this could work."
Sang-Hyeon stared at his left hand. He had been consistently practicing and training to only use his left hand at the possibility of it being a solution to his problem.
"However, the game still uses brain waves. Your brain is still damaged, so you need to remember that."
Tak.
Song Ha-Na handed him a chip.
"This is a capsule data export chip. I can't export personal data online, so every time you visit me, please bring this with you. If you want, you can also mail it in. I'll assess your data every week."
"Alright."
"Ah, and... this isn't all."
Song Ha-Na proudly brushed her hair as if to say, 'The assessment took this long. Did you think that was all?'
"Do you remember the Fantasia survival game from a while back?"
It was the stupid survival test game Fantasia set up for him in the past. It was set up so the player could dodge several projectiles to accurately measure their VNS.
"Didn't you feel something strange toward the end?"
"Ah... I think so..."
He remembered the environment getting slower because he was processing things too quickly. The engineer explained to him that it was because he was in a new capsule. It happened because there was no limit to the synchronization.
"... I remember at the end, my body stopped moving like I was broken. And then the game was over."
Sang-Hyeon wasn't eliminated. He was forced out of the game. He could've complained, but he didn't go through the trouble. Sang-Hyeon didn't like to complain about the result that was already given. If he really had the skill, all he needed to do was just prove himself again.
"I knew it..."
She knew it? Song Ha-Na seemed to know something about the incident.
"The engineer and I did some research together. We concluded that the synchronization spiked up."
"Is it like when the ping spikes up?"
"Yes. It's when there's a significant spike in a short period. For Almond, it went up, but it spiked up too significantly. That's why your movement was held back, and in the end, your synchronization with the avatar shut down."
"Ah..."
It was true. He was forced to exit. When he was thinking of redoing the challenge next time, Song Ha-Na continued, "But—"
She showed him a familiar chart.
"There's one other person with the same result as you, right?"
The same result? Sang-Hyeon was confused.
'Ah.'
It was JeonJaPa. He remembered that they had the exact same score. It was completely identical.
"Sigh. It took a while to figure this out because the two of you aren't the type to complain about your results whether you were forced to quit or not. What kind of person just accepts that fact?!"
Song Ha-Na shuffled through her documents.
"The engineer came to this conclusion. These people made up for their handicaps through image training, resulting in a superhuman power level in virtual reality. However, if they were to maintain this hyper-focus state for too long, the machine wouldn’t be able to handle it. Especially the latest model in Fantasia with no limiter, the phenomenon was more prominent."
Sang-Hyeon was dumbfounded for a moment.
"Then, JeonJaPa as well..."
"That's right. The reason you and JeonJaPa had the same score was because the machine went through the same error."
"Ah..."
JeonJaPa had a handicap too? It was his first time hearing this.
"Both of you have gone through physical complications at an early age and consciously imagined your body as normal through image training. As a result, that's being represented in-game. In games, the avatar's legs and arms are made possible by the image created by the user. As a result, it creates massive freedom for the users."
Sang-Hyeon became even more dumbfounded upon hearing her explanation.
"Legs…?"
"The other person has a problem with their legs."
The other person was JeonJaPa.
'If it's legs, then that woman...'
A certain woman crossed Sang-Hyeon's mind, but every video of him in the media wasn't like that. And he was a man. Did she cross-dress? That was possible, but...
'How did they walk around?'
JeonJaPa normally walked around. The woman he knew couldn't walk. He suddenly remembered another piece of information.
'The nerve booster!'
It was about the nerve booster.
“There's another patient who wants to receive the booster again, but I don't think it'll ever be possible. It's detrimental to the user's life.”
'So they received it...'
Now the puzzle was coming together. The same score as JeonJaPa, the high concentration, the moments when everything around him slowed down, the woman in the wheelchair...
It all connected.
"... You must've figured it out."
Song Ha-Na smiled after reading Sang-Hyeon's expression.
"I've actually already gotten JeonJaPa's permission. When I explained that both of you were in the same state, she happily obliged to fund the research for the both of you."
"... So it is that person?"
"Yes. The one who helped you last time with the hospital bills was JeonJaPa, aka Choi Sa-Rang."
"... Wow."
Sang-Hyeon let out a breath in disbelief.
"I wasn't trying to trick you."
"I know. Of course, it's personal information."
"Anyway, don't you feel a little better now that you know the source?"
"... Yes. Definitely."
"Choi Sa-Rang insisted she wanted to keep this a secret."
Sang-Hyeon nodded.
"I won't say anything."
"Of course, I realize you don't have a big mouth. I explained that to her as well, but... she's quite cautious. Even the teammates she worked with still think she's a man."
Cautious. She did seem like that. She seemed like the type of person to wear a glove for everything she touched.
"But don't see it as a bad thing. Despite her high status, she's an innocent person."
Sang-Hyeon recalled them eating dim sum together and smiling while talking about LIL. Calling her innocent was fitting.
"This is it for the assessment today. Let's grab a meal with the three of us next time or something."
***
Sang-Hyeon's expression was difficult to figure out as he left the doctor's office.
"What. What's wrong?"
Even Ju-Hyeok asked while he was playing his mobile game. Sang-Hyeon didn't say anything. He needed time if he wanted to say what he heard in his own words. He decided to wait until their work dinner.
"Hey, what? Are the results not good?"
"Ah, no, I was just thinking of something. The results are good. It's the same. And I just need to adjust the playtime... ah!"
Sang-Hyeon remembered what he heard earlier. He added as he lifted his left arm, "This strategy works, but she's going to check every time."
He already told Ju-Hyeok about his left-hand strategy.
"Oh!" Ju-Hyeok instantly reacted. "That's great! Then the tournament will go a lot smoother!"
"Yeah, but my performance might go down a little."
One problem was out of the way.
"Alright, let's go to the shoot."
Hearing about the shoot, Sang-Hyeon glowed up again and returned to his simple-minded mindset.
'Green Diamond!'
He was finally going to shoot an ad for the almond cereal.