Episode 63: The Bond of Dreaming Eyes (2)
More than anyone else, as far as I know, Minseong is famous around this area as the friend with the longest game playtime at school.
Was gaming not a driving force for Minseong to live his life?
If that’s the case, then why did he endure playing a game he hated for such a long time and achieve such a high rank?
I asked him while looking out the window.
“… Did something happen?”
Minseong, my long-time friend, was in a patient gown, with a needle stuck in his right arm receiving IV therapy.
Looking at that scene, I suddenly realized how much time had passed since I met him.
“… I wish I hadn’t started from the beginning…”
“But still, you’re the best among us, right?”
“Exactly!… That’s the problem. I already knew I was the best among you guys. And I know that fact better than anyone else. But what can I do with that gaming skill?”
Minseong, who had been sitting on the bed, suddenly stood up.
Struggling to maintain his balance, he barely grabbed the wall with his left hand while holding the IV stand tightly with his right hand. I couldn’t help but watch him.
His unsteady figure looked quite tired.
“Pro gamer? Yeah, to be a pro gamer, I need to be way better than this. Even if I somehow managed to become a pro gamer, there are already so many top players in that field. Personal broadcasting? Honestly, if you want to do that with gaming, skill broadcasting doesn’t mean anything anymore. People prioritize fun now. In the end, I can’t make a living in the future with this!… I would have preferred to be at a lower tier like the others, or just average… It’s harder because I’m ambiguously high… I thought I might get a chance to go pro… No, I believed I could become one.”
Minseong moved his left hand from the wall towards the IV stand, gripping it tightly with both hands to maintain his balance.
He looked extremely excited at that moment.
“Just calm down… Besides, you’re pretty good at studying too, right?”
“Ha…”
Leaning against the wall, Minseong looked straight at me.
“What do you know about me? Have you ever lived as ‘me’ even for a single moment, even for just one second?”
“That, um…”
“Others probably think like you. They always envy my tier when they see it. I didn’t intend for things to turn out this way from the beginning. The moment I first played a game, it felt like I was wandering in a new world. It allowed me to do things I couldn’t do in reality, just like a dream. That’s why I got hooked on gaming. In this never-ending dream, I kept running forward… When others envied my skill and the tier that proved it, it felt like all the stress I had experienced was rewarded. And the tier was everything to me; it even helped me make friends when I first entered middle school. Just because I had a slightly high tier. I felt like I owned the world. At least until I was in middle school.”
He emphasized his middle school days with a loud voice.
“When I first entered high school and joined the Hunter Department, I worked hard enough not to lose to anyone. To reach a new level. However, the saying about ordinary people’s limits isn’t just a saying. I hit that wall as well. I thought I could overcome it quickly. But… I was playing more, yet my tier remained the same… Did you see me studying back in middle school?”
“You were… someone with no relation to studying at all.”
Through the window, the sight of snow falling and the morning sunlight piercing through it reflected in Minseong’s eyes.
His dark circles combined with the sunlight created an illusion that his eyes were reddening.
“Right. You know well. I suddenly studied like crazy during the winter break of my first year of high school. The results were really good. I got a grade of 2 in all subjects. But I wasn’t satisfied. Be it gaming or studying… I have no idea when I’ll get to experience the term ‘victory’ in my life. Winning in a game? If we call that winning… then I’ve only experienced losing as a loser in my life, acknowledging that I could only find victory in games? I’m not an idiot, so I tried harder. For a grade of 1. But it didn’t work out. Was I being too greedy? Being a gaming addict… And you know the reason why I aim for a grade of 1, right? Unless it’s for jobs or hunters in this school… it’s really hard to enter a university without a grade of 1.”
He started to lie down on the bed.
The hospital bed seemed quite soft.
I could feel a bit of his mental anguish being next to him, but I never imagined it was this severe.
“No matter how hard I try in studying or gaming, if I knew in advance that I could never be the best… I probably wouldn’t have tried at all, foolishly. I’m sorry for getting angry earlier.”
But then, I finally saw that he had bandages tightly wrapped around his left leg when he lay on the bed.
“Ha… I understand your situation well, but why are you hospitalized?”
I casually gestured toward his left leg.
“It’s nothing serious, just a minor traffic accident.”
“Really? As long as you’re okay, that’s fine. But what about those burns?”
“Oh… this is just a magic mark—”
“Stop lying. If you have a secret, just tell me now. We’ve been friends for 11 years, right? We’re about to be friends for 12 years now. What could there possibly be to hide?”
“Is that so? Well, I guess it’s ‘the courtesy’ I can offer to a friend for the last time.”
“What? Last?”
“Where should I start to make it easier for you to understand… Alright, since the moment I was born—”
I have been physically unwell since birth.
The symptom is magic deficiency.
In today’s South Korea, magic deficiency is a deadly problem.
When people reach adulthood, at the age of 20, they must undergo awakening assessments by the Hunter Association.
But for me, that assessment is meaningless.
I have no magic at all.
The rankings are in descending order: S, A, B, C, D, E, F.
E or F indicates an ordinary person.
But I can’t even be classified as an ordinary person.
Because even ordinary people possess a small amount of magic and are classified as E or F.
E is often the ranking of people who participate in physical sports.
Anyway, putting my hand on the glass orb that measures the magic to obtain the ranking results in silence; it means nothing comes out.
If I were to live as a hunter… my rank would be nonexistent or perhaps G.
But, to begin with, if you have no magic, you cannot enter a hunter role.
At the very least, if you don’t reach D rank, you won’t be accepted into any party.
So E or F are classified as ordinary.
Was it just a coincidence?
Later, my parents said that there was a boy sitting next to me who also had a magic deficiency.
But that boy passed away before turning four years old.
The cause of his death was precisely due to magic deficiency.
Magic deficiency simply means that everything that should have existed has either been completely used up or is lacking compared to ordinary figures; it uses the term deficiency when something that should exist is absent.
It’s just as it sounds.
As previously explained, I am lacking in magic due to magic deficiency.
No, I have none at all.
From the moment I was born, my body couldn’t withstand magic and couldn’t inherit mana from my mother.
My mother and father are not at fault.
I was simply unlucky.
So why is magic deficiency such a serious illness that poses a threat to life?
The reason is simple.
In our modern society, there is magic everywhere on this earth.
Gates are generated anywhere, causing magic to flow.
Before I was born, countless gates have already been created for unknown reasons, spilling magic for decades.
The magic that has flowed for those decades has now become a part of Earth, and bodies that cannot accept magic cannot endure it.
To put it metaphorically, it feels like living in an environment where the air on Earth is filled with nicotine-laden cigarette smoke.
It sounds strange saying it like this, but it might be better to say it’s a strange-smelling healthy cigarette.
Because those who can easily accept magical energy tend to live long and healthy lives.
But it’s not like cigarettes, right? They are harmful to the lungs.
Anyway, so perhaps due to that, whatever actions I took, the actions thoroughly drained my lifespan.
So my parents made sure I could only do what I wanted indoors.
I knew I was terminally ill since I was five years old.
Of course, my parents knew as well and tried to help me enjoy my remaining time.
Hearing that I could do anything I wanted made me overjoyed.
I told my parents something I wanted for the first and last time.
– ‘I want to play games on a good computer!’
That was the best wish conceived in my little five-year-old brain.
When the computer came home, I played games endlessly all day long.
I jumped from game to game, but I couldn’t keep at any of them for long.
Was it because I got bored?
Or was it because I didn’t find any excitement from the start?
Did they simply not satisfy my thirst for excitement compared to the first game I played?
No, the answer was that other games were simply inferior compared to the very first one I played.
I turned on the game that I had first started.
And before I knew it, two years had swiftly passed.
My parents explained to me that being a student was a good thing.
So I told them I wanted to try going to kindergarten.
At seven years old, the name of the first friend I talked to in kindergarten was ‘Han Shiwoo.’
It was a silly-sounding name.
I felt like I had to look after him from then on.
At that moment, we played house together.
It was boring.
‘This is way more fun than playing games at home.’
‘Siw, does he find this fun?’
‘Mom said that school life would be fun.’
‘What a liar.’
The kindergarten teacher came in and smiled at us, who had just met.
I still remember that smile.
And I also remember what that kindergarten teacher said.
– ‘Our little friends~ I know this might be hard to understand at your young age, but please remember this when you grow up~?’
What she meant was.
– ‘Always, always be humble.’
After meeting him for the first time and bonding for six years, I suddenly recall the time we played together on the playground when we were in sixth grade.
Yes, even at that moment, the snow was falling just as it is now.
The snow settling seemed to whisper to all living beings that it was time to sleep.
I heard good words from my father.
My father often used poetic expressions, implying it was related to literature.
I couldn’t understand it as a child.
So on snowy nights, I would fall asleep comfortably, dreaming.
…
– ‘Life… being? Is it whispering to such beings?’
I had heard good words.
I wanted to make sure to tell Shiwoo.
… I really wanted to tell him.
