Supporting Characters in the Game are Obsessed – Chapter 5

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Simzy
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At first,

When I came to in the game world, I was surrounded by garbage.

Mountains of trash piled high as far as the eye could see, obscuring my view of the surroundings.

The stench that stung my nostrils was a smell I’d never experienced before.

The odor of all sorts of things mixed together made me dizzy.

‘Where am I?’

Even if I spoke to myself, there was no one to listen.

I slapped myself, wondering if it was a dream, but the sharp pain only brought a sense of reality.

“Is anyone there?”

The voice that came out wasn’t my own.

The voice of a young child I’d never heard before.

My hands were tiny.

My lowered field of vision was disorienting.

With each step, sharp pieces of trash tore at the soles of my feet.

But I had no time to worry about the pain.

Oblivious to the stinging in my feet, I frantically searched my surroundings, looking for something.

I still don’t know what I was looking for.

Panic clouded my thoughts.

I just wanted to find something, someone, anything.

I wandered through the landfill for a long time.

Eventually, halfway up a trash mountain, I spotted a few people rummaging through something.

I ran towards them.

“Excuse me! Hello!”

I was kicked.

A sharp pain jolted me awake, and I instinctively clutched my stomach.

My lowered head didn’t lift.

My knees were on the ground.

I couldn’t clearly remember what they said.

“What a surprise. Who’s this? Looks like they have nothing. Just kick them away.”

Those words drifted in and out amidst the pain.

Kicked again, I tumbled down to the deeper depths of the trash mountain.

Lying on the ground, looking up, I saw a cloudy gray sky.

I gritted my teeth.

I needed to figure out where I was.

So I started climbing the trash mountain.

Maybe 10 years old?

My younger body made it difficult to move.

But I thought if I could reach the highest point and look around, I might be able to figure out where I was.

“…This is so hard.”

And after struggling to the top of the trash mountain, I met a “kid.”

Their face was barely visible due to dirty, matted hair. I couldn’t even tell their gender.
But their shining golden eyes remain a vivid memory.

The kid glanced at me.

Afraid of being punched in the stomach again…

I hunched my shoulders and lowered my posture defensively.

The height was drastically different this time.
If I fell again, I might die.

Then…

The kid spoke.

“What are you looking at? Wanna die?”

“…….”

That’s how it was back then.

Somehow…

I became friends with that kid.

Even though this was a game world…
That kid was the only person I interacted with and became close to during the roughly 10 years I spent here.

And today…

I bowed my head to “her,” who could no longer be called a kid.

“Sorry I didn’t contact you! But what can I do? The game was fun!”

“Ugh, just go die!”

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Known in the mercenary world as “Shooting Star” because she appeared suddenly like a star falling from the sky.

Only those in the know were aware, but she was the living legend and central figure who resolved the incident (the game’s main story) where the entire city of Neon City was almost blown up by a nuclear bomb.

The true protagonist of the cyberpunk game I played.

And my longtime friend.

Her name was Catherine Lee.

I kept my head bowed.

Momentum was important for apologies.

I tried to appease her, Catherine.

“It’s not like I intentionally didn’t contact you. There were unavoidable circumstances.”

Of course, there were no circumstances.

“What circumstances?”

Saying I was playing games would probably get me hit.

I wondered how she grew up to be so violent.

…Actually, thinking about it, her violent tendencies were the same as before.

“There were… circumstances.”

“…Do you really want to die?”

“Really, really. Just forgive me this once, and it won’t happen again.”

“How many times have you said that and then disappeared?”

Typical tough guy trait.

Doesn’t remember things like that.

[The database records three instances, I testify.]

…Be quiet.

It was fortunate Catherine couldn’t hear Eve. Otherwise, it would have taken longer to calm her down.

“I’m really sorry. This won’t happen again.”

“…Really?”

“Really.”

[I am learning that the phrase ‘lying through your teeth’ applies to situations such as this.]

You shouldn’t be learning that.

Of course, even now, I didn’t think I had done anything wrong.

And I also believed there was a high chance I wouldn’t contact her again.

But if I said that honestly?

I wanted to walk home on two feet today.

It was simply a situation where I had to lie for survival.

Even if she was a close friend…

A bad temper is a bad temper.

…But…

Thinking back to our time together in the landfill, she seemed to have grown up well, all things considered.

Is this what it feels like to be a parent?

“…Ha. Seriously, if you ignore me again, you’re on your own. I’ll find a way.”

“Understood, sis.”

“Don’t call me ‘sis’. You’re asking for it.”

I managed to get through it.

Of course, I could already imagine myself being scolded for the same reason in the future…

But that was for future me to deal with.

Right now, it was more important to escape this situation.

I finally lifted my head.

Golden eyes stared at me.

“So.”

“Huh?”

Wasn’t it over?

Catherine stretched her legs and rested her feet on the expensive ceramic table.

Her neatly tied-back golden hair swayed slightly.

My eyes almost drifted to her black stockings…

…but I restrained myself with superhuman willpower.

Catherine’s gaze shifted towards the window.

Bright neon signs flickered rhythmically.

Perhaps because of the outside lights, a faint blush colored her cheeks.

Since we were in a private booth on the second floor, no sound could be heard from outside.

As a place for receiving requests away from prying eyes, the soundproofing was excellent.

I blankly stared at Catherine, who had suddenly fallen silent, waiting for her to speak.

What now?

“……So.”

“So?”

Our precious child.

What’s troubling you?

“…Where did you move?”

“……Huh? Suddenly?”

As I responded meaninglessly, Catherine quickly leaned towards me.

I instinctively recoiled, pressing my back against the chair. Her sudden closeness startled me.

“What do you mean ‘suddenly’? You moved without telling me, where do you live?”

“……Haha. Well…”

I wanted to keep some distance because it felt a bit overwhelming.

But I couldn’t say that honestly, could I?

“It’s not even near here. And no one else knows either… What if something happens and you really can’t be reached? I need to be able to find you.”

“…Hmm. That’s true.”

Well, my address wasn’t a big secret.

There was no particular reason not to tell her.

After a brief moment of contemplation, I sent Catherine a message with my address.

“Whew.”

Catherine chuckled after checking the message.

Getting angry and then calming down in an instant… truly our precious child.

Now that her anger had subsided…

It was my turn to speak.

“So why were you looking for me so desperately?”

I was curious about the reason for the barrage of messages over the past week.

At first, I thought it might be an important request, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
If it were, the messages would have mentioned a request.

“At first, I just wanted to see you.”

“Hmm.”

“And then I got angry because someone wasn’t answering for a week.”

“Ah.”

I shouldn’t have asked.

I quickly tried to change the subject, nodding repeatedly.

“Well, it was understandable to be worried.”

“Tsk. Glad you know.”

She was right. I had never been out of touch for this long before.

I usually checked in at least every two days.

This time, there was an unavoidable reason (being too engrossed in the game).

Feeling much more at ease, I asked Catherine,

“So can I go home now?”

“?”

Oops.

Was it not that time yet?

For the second time today, I bowed my head.

“…Whew. Did you finish?”

[I inquire as to the context of your seemingly irrelevant statement.]

“…Just… because.”

It was a K-joke.

The sorrow of a prophet not understood.

Only after promising to “definitely answer next time” was I finally released from Catherine’s grasp.

Naturally, it was already night outside.

The nights in Neon City were deeper than elsewhere.

Especially in the lower levels.

The darkness of the city’s underbelly was inversely proportional to the brightness of the tall building shadows and the vibrant neon signs.

The brighter the upper and mid levels, the darker the lower level became.

A natural principle.

I felt the cool night air.

I slowly walked down the quiet street.

Perhaps because of the late hour…

There were fewer people than in the evening.

I could feel the gazes of homeless people scanning me from the back alleys…

…but since I wasn’t stumbling around drunk…

The chances of being harassed or attacked were low.

“Hey, you there!”

“Come here for a second!”

Low, not nonexistent.

Sigh.

Why couldn’t they just let me go home peacefully?

I roughly scratched my head.

I didn’t have enough time to go home and play games.

I looked towards the back alley where the voices came from.

“……Aren’t those the guys from the elevator earlier?”

[I concur.]

There, the two male mercenaries who had gossiped about me earlier were standing with a swagger.

The color of the cigarette smoke they exhaled was strange.

Red and blue simultaneously, yet somehow not mixing.

It definitely looked unhealthy.

I approached them in the back alley.

“What?”

They puffed smoke at me without a word.

I could hear the purification filter in my mask activating.

“We also want to have good connections, you see.”

“Yeah, yeah. We called you over to be friends.”

“Oh really?”

[Activating voice evaluation module. The probability of falsehood exceeds 90%, I assess.]

I knew without being told.

The way they hid one hand behind their backs…

The mocking expressions on their faces…
And the fact that they had badmouthed me earlier…

Wasn’t it 100% rather than 90%?

Sigh.

Just more sighs.

This was truly tiresome.

I subtly manipulated the ‘mana’ in the air.

A cyberpunk mage is still a mage.

And smog-ridden mana is still mana.

This was one of the advantages of being a mage.

Because mages were so rare…

No one noticed even if you prepared magic openly. They didn’t even bother to take precautions.

It was an advantage of being in a niche profession.

“You called me ill-tempered in the elevator earlier, right?”

“…Uh? You heard that—?”

“You’re right.”

Immediately…

I detonated the mana I had gathered beneath their feet.

Boom!

“Waaaaaaagh!!”

A sudden gust of wind swept through.

The resulting blast shook the entire alley.

The surrounding neon signs flickered out, and trash swirled and scattered everywhere.

Along with the two men flying into the air.

“If they’re lucky, they’ll live.”

[An aesthetically pleasing spectacle, I remark.]

I almost wasted my time on something pointless.

I needed to hurry home.

‘Once I get home, I’m not leaving for a month…’

I made up my mind.

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The next day, someone knocked on my door.
Catherine was standing there.

“Hey, hey, I found out the place next door is vacant. So I moved in.”

…Oh.

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