I CHOKE WHEN THE REALISATION finally sinks in. I ruined the little choice I had the moment I recklessly set Gaal's Grove on fire and The System took me to the neutral space just to tell me that. Blackmailing me with Shin Woo so I'd go back to the other world? How could I have been so naive, placing myself on such a high pedestal? That was never the System's motive. That was no one's motive.
"How . . burn? No . . ." Shin Woo is hyperventilating, spewing broken words but I don't blame him. I'm hyperventilating too.
The pain is intolerable. It does not extend beyond my arm but it is fixated so much on a single place that I get dizzy from it. I'm not much of a science student and I absolutely have no experience in first aid or treating injuries but I could safely say this is not how burn injuries felt. And unfortunately, it is like every neutron in my body was focussed on my arm, intensifying everything. But even numbing the pain was the fact that I'm actually hurt. And the fact that Shin Woo could clearly see it.
Before I can wrap anything around my mind, Shin Woo shatters out of shock and instantaneously pulls me off of my bed. "Let's go to the hospital. I'll go get ahjusshi." He quickly gets changed, throwing his pyjamas haphazardly, so out of character since he is the type to obsess over neatness. But I just stare at everything shell shocked, biting in the screams of agony and horror threatening to spill out.
I got an injury from the game world. Kang Shin Woo can see it.
"What are you doing sitting like that!"
I've never seen Shin Woo like this. Frantic, loud, face flushed and eyes wide. I try to snap out of it, but my mind is a chaotic symphony of the two sentences over and over. Even the pain can't snap me out of it.
But a cold does. The System's.
I think it is the adrenaline, but my stunned brain finally notices the start of her cold– the invasion. The way she slithers into me. It is as soft and inconspicuous as background noise, but sharp. Like a delicate needle.
I'm ready when the System speaks into my consciousness.
"Continue quest: Reach the city gates of Brumdn Cove."
It is the same thing I've heard a lot. Few times in real; a million times in my nightmares but my stomach still falls when she says the words. Yet I face her back with another familiar question.
"How many lives do I get?"
We're at a stalemate and though the System probably doesn't have a physical body, if she does, we'll be having a stare down with some heavy breathing.
She finally loses the stare down.
"I don't know." It is not an answer per se but it smothers down some of my other questions. So even the System doesn't know everything.
"Will I be able to return?"
She replies to me the same way again, but pauses and inputs more. "I don't have any control over it nor know a way, but seeing you return once, it is not empty to assume you can again."
I don't reply as I clutch my hurt hand. If she thinks that desultory excuse of an answer was enough to sway me, boy is she wrong. We are once again in a stalemate until I'm pretty sure the System was actually staring down against me. But I don't budge, pain or not, that she finally gives up. Again.
Poorly concealed exasperation seeps through but it is me who is getting dumped in an alien world with no freaking explanation, whatsoever. Not her. I deserve answers. No, scratch that. I demand them.
She mildly huffs, her voice going down a notch. Then, whispers, as if letting me in on a grave secret. "Finish the game. You will definitely return."
Opposite me, Shin Woo is frozen. The Neutral Space still doesn't feel friendly or as safe as the System vouches for, but it isn't oozing any sinister aura this time, so I take my time staring back at him. How am I going to explain this injury to Shin Woo when I get back? If I get back.
Without giving myself time to talk myself out of it, I make up my mind. In the Neutral Space, the pain dampens, till it doesn't feel as searing as it did back in the comfort of my real bedroom. And though I'm not a hopeless optimist, even me and my recklessness knew that waiting in the cocoon of denial for me to literally burn to death is worse than actually returning to a burning forest. At least there, I have a chance. Though there is a gigantic possibility that the System might just be making vain promises.
I'd be pathetically lying if I say I don't think about my family for a second. Maybe that's what dead people see before they cross the alleged bridge to the River of Forgetfulness. I even see my sister. That is extreme.
Shin Woo's eyes are wide open, looking where I had been back in the room. I flick his forehead like he always does to me. I'm not a hopeless pessimist either, but I feel like this might be the last time I'll get spoiled by my exasperated best friend in a while.
"Be safe," I whisper.
I don't question the System about how I'd get back into the game world. I just close my eyes and urge myself to not feel anything. And when I open them, I get greeted by the sound of embers falling and the smell of dry leaves burning.
Ah darn, not even puny login rewards? Wonderful.