Popular NPC in a Gender-Reversed Game – Chapter 2

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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They said that in 2046, a virtual reality game, nearly identical to reality, would be released.

Gamers loved this news.

Because every gamer dreamed of virtual reality.

While holding onto this dream, an unheard-of, never-before-seen company made a huge splash.

They announced a VR game, plastered with the phrase “Another Reality,” and uploaded a gameplay video.

The title of the game in the video was written like this:

[Demon’s Saga]

Overwhelming graphics! An overwhelmingly vast map!

Even completely autonomous NPCs designed with high-performance AI!!!

The world of Demon’s Saga, as seen in the video, was grand and captivating.

The setting, where you become an adventurer and defeat demons sealed in various parts of the world, was cliché but appealing.

It was only natural that pre-registered users snowballed in number and so, after a long wait… the game was finally released.

As expectations were high, the online communities, naturally, went wild.

[It’s finally here lol]

Let’s goooo lol

[I’m gonna slaughter all those demon bastards lol]

[First Warrior pick is mine, I’m gonna be the first Warrior]

[Shit.. gotta work overtime, gonna be 2 hours late]

[L Idiot hahaha]

[L You’re missing half your life www]

[This game has an adult 19+ mode, is it true?]

I swear I heard it somewhere

[O Surprisingly, it’s real]

[OO Surprisingly, it’s a feature supported by the game itself]

[OOO But I heard you can only activate it under specific circumstances, so don’t get your hopes up, you hikikomori loser gamer girl]

[L You bitch, what do you know about me?]

[Wow look at the graphics, holy shit]

Wow look at the sound, holy shit, wow look at the sensory reproduction, holy shit

Feels so real

But the characters’ faces are just ordinary…

[???: ‘Another Reality’]

[L They didn’t need to make even the NPCs’ faces like that..]

[I briefly went into the game, it’s seriously fucking awesome;]

[There are so many people in the tutorial area right now lol]

[Wait, with this many people, how is there no server lag from traffic?]

[L And with those graphics too, no lag at all, wtf]

[L Did they grind up aliens or something?]

Posts were uploaded every second.

It felt like the whole world was talking about Demon’s Saga, with maybe only a slight exaggeration.

That was how popular Demon’s Saga was.

It perfectly met the expectations of gamers.

As a result, the number of Demon’s Saga players increased exponentially…

Two months passed like that.

[Conditions not met!]

[You cannot use ‘Player’s Eye’ at this time!]

‘…So what the hell is this, damn it.’

Two months had already passed since the system window appeared before me.

It was the first system window I had seen in 22 years since I fell into this world, but I still had no idea what it was.

To think something like this existed in the world.

Having some kind of hologram window was fine.

But what was the point if I couldn’t use it?

There was no sign of the usual stat window, level window, or anything like that.

The only thing I could see was the trait called ‘Player’s Eye’… but it was unusable as the conditions weren’t met.

‘Still, it’s clear that something has changed.’

Otherwise, something like this wouldn’t have suddenly appeared.

It was times like this that I hated the forest.

There was no place to get information, even if I wanted to.

‘I should head to the city after a long time…’

When I was young, I thought I’d live my whole life away from civilization out of fear.

But thankfully, it didn’t have to be that extreme.

As long as I hid the black horn mark on my collarbone, I could blend in with ordinary people.

Of course, that didn’t mean I could go to the city center.

The mark was bigger than I’d like, and you needed proper identification to be there.

The only places I could go were some trading posts in the back alleys.

They didn’t ask about origins or anything like that.

So, to get information, I had to go to the back alleys, but…

‘Well, I’ll go later.’

I quickly gave up.

I was curious, but it wasn’t urgent.

Besides, I had already been there once two months ago.

I had purchased plenty of necessary supplies while I was there.

In my case, going there too often would only harm me.

The more often I went, the more familiar people would become with my face, and the higher the chance of getting caught.

Plus, the guys there, even I, who had been living the involuntary loner life for 12 years, could tell they were a bad bunch.

So, let’s hold back for now and focus on what needs to be done.

With that thought, I continued my exploration.

I had been slacking off lately, and my food supplies had run out.

The meat I had preserved in various ways – salted, smoked, dried – was running low.

Even my emergency rations were down to a handful, except for the really precious stuff.

Winter was coming in a few months, anyway.

It was time to replenish my food supply.

So today, it was hunting all day long.

Unfortunately, prey wasn’t easy to come by.

Maybe it was because the number of monsters had increased nearby, but the edible animals had disappeared and I couldn’t exactly eat ogre meat.

‘I’ll have to do some cleaning up soon.’

I had been complacent, thinking things would work themselves out.

It was a forest, after all, even with monsters around.

And here’s a common misconception: never assume that animals are weaker than monsters.

This land was exposed to magic.

As such, there were many animals that had mutated due to magic.

If you were lucky, you might even witness a mutated bear feasting on ogre meat.

It was such a bizarre land… No wonder I’d been neglecting my monster control duties.

Still, after wandering around for a long time, I managed to hunt a rabbit or two.

But this wasn’t enough.

I needed to catch at least a wild boar to replenish my depleted salted meat reserves.

So, I headed further towards the outer edges of the forest.

There were bound to be more ordinary animals there.

I could eat mutated animal meat too, but it was a pain to hunt and even more troublesome to prepare.

‘It’s been a while since I’ve been near the surface layer.’

This forest could be divided into three layers.

Surface, middle, and deep.

The deeper you went, the denser the magic became, and the stronger the monsters that appeared.

Even in the deep layer, there were places where I had to risk my life.

That was why I lived in a cave in the middle layer.

The monsters were manageable, there were hardly any human footprints, and there wasn’t much to worry about.

Moreover, there was a small lake inside the cave, so I didn’t have to go far to wash up.

For these reasons, I lived in the middle layer.

Anyway, it was quite rare for me to visit the surface layer.

Still, the prospect of going after so long brought back memories.

‘…’

To be honest, they weren’t exactly pleasant memories.

Rather, most of them were of me desperately crawling back up to the middle layer.

I wasn’t always capable of effortlessly taking down monsters.

There was a time when I struggled against even a single animal, when I had to run and hide from pursuers who came into the forest.

I remember scavenging the carcasses of animals lying at the bottom of the food chain, and nights spent huddled under rotten trees because I couldn’t find a proper place to sleep.

It was those dark times that allowed me to live like this now.

‘But I’m still alone.’

Come to think of it, nothing much has changed, damn it.

As I cursed my miserable reality, I continued walking and eventually reached the boundary of the surface layer.

There was no clear dividing line between the surface and middle layers, but I could roughly tell by the difference in the size of the surrounding trees.

This must be the surface layer by now, I thought.

But I couldn’t go any further.

“Aaargh! Somebody help me!!”

A scream came from ahead.

Upon hearing the voice, I immediately hid behind a nearby tree.

Peeking through the foliage, I saw a woman being chased by an adult wild boar.

Judging by her leather armor and iron sword, she seemed to be an adventurer.

She must have run into the boar while entering the forest, provoked it somehow, and ended up in her current predicament.

“Shit, why is it so fast! Just go away!!”

Her voice sounded quite desperate, but I had no intention of helping her.

‘It’ll be troublesome if I’m spotted.’

Helping her wasn’t the issue.

But what would happen if she went back and told everyone about me?

Naturally, I’d be in trouble and forced back into hiding.

It might seem cold-hearted, but it was the right call.

Besides, wasn’t she an adventurer?

It was a profession that came with risks, she should have been prepared.

“Tsk, tsk, screaming like that will only agitate it further…”

Still, I needed boar meat, so I trailed behind them.

If she managed to escape, the boar would be mine.

If she died… well, too bad, but the boar would still be mine.

But as I watched, it became clear she wasn’t going to make it.

Screaming at the top of her lungs while running, throwing her weapon and further enraging the boar… she kept making mistakes.

One should be quiet in this forest.

Monsters lurked everywhere.

There was no ruling out the possibility of attracting unwanted attention from other monsters with loud noises.

And throwing away her weapon? Seriously?

Even if she somehow outran the boar, she would need a weapon to get out of the forest.

What an idiot.

The direction she was running in was also a problem.

Even if this was her first time in the forest, she was heading deeper into the middle layer instead of towards the surface.

No matter how panicked she was, wouldn’t that only worsen the situation?

Honestly, judging by her getup, she looked like a newbie adventurer.

It was a mistake to even enter this deep into the forest in the first place.

One should hunt in hunting grounds that matched their abilities.

In the end, whether from exhaustion or something else, she gave up running and offered her body to the boar.

Thud-!

“Gah-!”

With a dull thud, her body flew through the air.

The boar dug its hooves into the ground near where she landed, a sign it was about to charge again.

She cursed in a voice filled with despair.

“Oh, damn it…”

They say people tremble in fear when they’re about to die, but she looked strangely peaceful.

Had she already resigned herself to her fate? Or did she simply not care about her life?

It was an unexpected reaction.

“…Huh?”

For a moment, our eyes met.

Oh no, it seemed I had let my guard down while watching the spectacle.

I thought I wouldn’t be spotted from this distance, but she noticed me.

But it didn’t really matter.

She was done for anyway.

It didn’t matter if she was staring at me in a daze or not.

Squeal!

The boar charged, trampling over her body.

A meaningless death, typical of a beginner.

Watching the scene unfold, I muttered softly to myself.

“Tsk, natural selection at work.”

But don’t worry, I’ll get my revenge on that boar for you.

And that evening…

A strange post appeared on the [Demon’s Saga] forum.

[I found something strange while exploring the newbie map, what is this??]

(Photo)

Isn’t this a high-level zone? A place where no one lives?

So why is this guy just standing there, watching me die??

[????]

[It’s too far to see clearly… but is that a man?]

[Why would a man suddenly be there? That doesn’t make sense?]

[Is it photoshopped? Maybe you mistook something else for a person?]

[L It clearly looks human]

[Wow, zoomed in, he’s super handsome lol]

[L Cap?]

[L Bitch, when you zoom in, the graphics get pixelated, you can’t even see properly]

[L But even just the silhouette looks handsome lol]

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[Bro just became bigfoot lmao]