Return To Player - Chapter 3

Role-playing games (2)

Jisoo stood quietly, organizing her thoughts with what I said.

I looked at Jisoo and looked around. Since I thought it was about time for them to show up.

‘They’re here.’

Porolong.

Small eyeballs were floating in the air under the blue sky.

The problem is that it’s not just one or two.

It was a very bizarre sight, but it was a familiar sight to me.

‘Observers.’

It’s the name of those eyeballs.

The eyes of the Gods and GM.

Through those eyes, the Gods who participate in the game can watch the players’ actions carefully and decide whether to participate directly or continue to watch.

The observers here are observers directly controlled by the GM and are common observers that the gods can move directly using points. Observers can be divided into individual observers that can only be used by gods who have chosen their ‘Avatar’.

All of the observers present here are observers controlled by the GM.

‘Was the local GM here in Korea Acartus?’

Among the GMs, he was in a position that was neither good nor bad.

‘The observers are here now, so they’ll be coming to this server soon.’

A notification window appeared in the air.

[The Korean server managed by GM Acartus has been opened.]

[Currently, 53 users are participating.]

[From now on, you can access ‘Community’.]

53 people.

It was the same number as I remembered.

For reference, ‘user’ means ‘god’ who participates in the game.

Those who chooses us, the players and enjoy the game.

They watch the game through an observer, and when they find a player they like, they ask them to be their ‘Avatar’.

A player who becomes an avatar will be able to inherit the characteristics of the user, that is, the god, and will be able to receive points from the god.

Points are stats and various items. And since it is an important resource necessary for skill enhancement, there is a big difference between avatars supported by Gods and other normal players.

‘Moreover, players who didn’t become avatars are treated as NPCs, so everyone was desperate to become the avatars of gods.’

Of course, I was one of them.

Having not had a good start, I was desperately obsessed with getting stronger.

And as a result, I became the avatar of a god, but I realized too late that it was an incorrect choice.

‘Anyway.’

I cleared the notifications floating in the air and carefully looked at the remaining notification at the bottom.

‘What does it mean by being able to connect to the community?’

In a message I heard just before the fight with the goblin, it mentioned that I had gained community access.

‘It’s pretty easy to use.’

When I checked the help in the corner of the notification window, I came up with a rough access method.

‘You can say ‘Access Community’, or just click the icon in the status window.’

When I checked the status window, I saw an icon called ‘Access Community’.

“Sehan Oppa.”

As I was reading the description of the community connection skill in detail, Jisoo, who had already gathered up her thoughts, spoke to me.

“Yes?”

“It’s hard to understand, but I think I understand a little bit. Since monsters like these don’t suddenly appear in reality. Moreover, this notification window…..is not something you see everyday.”

Jisoo raised her finger and scanned the air.

Probably to point at the notification window she is seeing.

“In addition, the strange sound that I heard in my head.”

“Right. We don’t see this kind of notification or hear a message like that in the normal reality we knew.”

“Fuuu….right.”

Jisoo nodded her head.

Then she didn’t ask me anymore questions.

Trying to accept this situation in her own way.

‘She’s pretty calm.’

I just thought that, even in this situation, she did not panic like everyone else.

Most people were busy running away from the goblins while screaming like crazy.

For reference, there were no goblins approaching us.

Probably because I killed a goblin easily in an instant.

I guess they are trying to focus on the fleeing prey rather than touching me, who is currently standing still.

Jisoo was also aware of that fact, so she got closer to me and opened her mouth carefully.

“We have to clear the main quest, but what is the main quest?”

“They’ll tell us soon.”

Since users came in, it was clear that a notification window would pop up soon even if the players didn’t like it.

Unsurprisingly, a large notification window appeared in the air as soon as I thought about it.

==
Main Quest 1: Escape the University Campus!

From now on, there will be a lot of goblins targeting you.
You must either avoid them or defeat them to successfully escape from the university.

Difficulty: E
Time Limit; 2 days
==

[The main quest has begun, the quest clear reward varies according to the level of achievement of each player.]

Porolong,

At the same time as the notification window popped up, several observers appeared and scattered all over the place.

To shoot scenes that the gods might like.

“Sehan Oppa, what is that?”

Jisoo raised her finger to see if she had just discovered the observers.

“I’ll explain later, let’s move first.”

“We’re moving? Where to?”

The bewildered Jisoo asked me, but her questions were neatly buried in screams from all directions.

“Ahhh! help me!”

“What the fuck!”

At the same time as the alarm announcing the start of the quest, goblins hiding in the grass rushed out.

Until now, only a few had been running around, but now the number increased to several dozen at once.

“Keeek!”

Each of the goblins wielded a blunt sword and swung it at people indiscriminately.

Choak!

“Aaaah!”

Bright red blood soaked the floor.

“Run!”

“Yes, yes!”

As the numbers increased, a group of goblins came running to us as well.

Me and Jisoo ran at full speed avoiding the goblins.

Other people started to group together, but we were running in a direction where there were the least amount of people.

Behind us, several are goblins chasing us.

“There are other people there….”

Jisoo clasped my hand with an anxious face.

Jisoo unable to say anything, I slowly stopped my feet and said,

“It’s okay.”

“Yes?”

“There won’t be many casualties yet. Goblins have similar muscle strength as adult males.”

In addition, everybody was scattered and were attacked indiscriminately, but when people start to unite, it will be in a state of lull for a while.

‘Until the Hobgoblin appears.’

The Hobgoblin is the boss monster that leads these goblins.

You can call it a stage boss.

After the monster wave is repeated several times, a Hobgoblin will appear, and the goblins it leads will sweep away the people who are clustered together.

‘So…….’

I took another step forward.

[You have entered the safe zone.]

“Eh?”

Jisoo’s eyes widened at the sudden message.

“A safe zone?”

“If this is a game, there will be areas where monsters can’t enter. And that place would probably be a safe zone.”

“Oh……. That’s right.”

In fact, this safe zone was a place I came into by chance while running away with tears in my eyes in my previous life.

I wasn’t feeling very well, so I needed a place to pass some time.

“Kieek?”

“Kieek?”

The group of goblins who were chasing us made unpleasant cries towards us as we entered the safe zone.

Then they looked around and ran in a different direction.

“We survived….”

Jisoo, who had been frozen by the group of goblins surrounding the safe zone, sat down as the tension had finally resolved.

“First of all, let’s spend some time here and move.”

“Ah yes.”

Jisoo answered with a tired smile.

In fact, unlike her, I wasn’t exhausted at all, but I thought I should prepare properly and then start moving again.

There it is.

‘Because I still have eyes to watch out for.’

I cast my gaze into the grass.

There was a small eyeball staring at us.

It’s the observer following us since we started running.

Perhaps he saw us moving independently of other people and wanted to see what we were going to do.

‘Go away, go away.’

The reason observers observe us is simple.

For the fun of the gods watching players through the observer.

In other words, if it’s not fun, they won’t watch it.

If you watch someone doing nothing in a playthrough, then it’s not worth watching.

Sheik.

After sitting still for about 30 minutes without doing anything, the observer trembled and moved to another location.

That was faster than expected.

‘He’s impatient.’

That’s why Acartus can’t become a top-tier GM.

He has no such thing as patience.

‘It’s good for me.’

After confirming that the observer had completely disappeared, I opened the status window.

‘Is it better to check the DLC store first? Or…..’

Let’s connect to the community.

I thought about it for a while and decided to use the community access skill.

I thought it would be better to see exactly what ‘community’ is and move on.

“Access community.”

As I muttered the ignition key, the air suddenly flashed.

Paah!

“Ugh?!”

I was surprised for a moment and inhaled a rush of wind, but looking at the reaction of Jisoo, who was quietly next to me, it seems that it was only seen by me.

‘That surprised me.’

As I calmed my beating heart, a large notification window appeared in front of me.

No wait, this doesn’t look like a notification window……

‘A web browser?’

It looks like an internet community site.

[‘Earth’ has been selected as the location for the newly opened role-playing game.]

That is the most striking phrase on the window.

A large banner caught my eye as a new game had been opened and advertised.

‘It’s like this?’

I’m starting to get a rough idea of what the community is.

When I opened the banner and entered, I was directed to a website.

It was the site of the newly opened online game ‘Earth’.

‘Free bulletin board, strategy bulletin board…. And then a chat room.’

It was structured like an ordinary online game community site.

The only difference is that the user is not a human but a ‘god’.

When I looked through the free bulletin board, I could a few articles posted by the ‘gods’.

Well, since the game hasn’t been open for a long, most of it was just a courtesy message like ‘Congratulations on the opening.’

‘Then how about a chat room?’

There were currently no posts on the free bulletin board or the strategy bulletin board, so my interest was in the chat room.

After a bit of hesitation, I clicked on the chat room.

[Anonymous guest No. 48 entered.]

As I entered the chat room, a familiar phrase appeared.

‘The way it’s used is also not different from a normal internet chat.’

The approximate UI and the way to use it were the same.

When you press the left panel that appeared in the air, a keyboard appears.

Greek Captain: Who is the anonymous god who just came in? No introduction?

For a moment, my heart dropped at the writing that sniped me just by looking at it.

Do I have to reveal my identity the moment I come in?

Missing one eye: Ugh, this old-fashioned bastard is at it again. There are a lot of gods who just created an ID for this game that just opened.

Greek Captain: Do you want to introduce yourself?

I barely swallowed the insults that would have flowed into their conversation.

‘Can you not surprise me like that?’

The chat that followed was just a pointless story.

The moment I was surprised, I felt embarrassed and wanted to write something, but I decided to keep quiet.

In the first place, there were so many anonymous people that no god was interested in me.

Anonymous22: What server are you guys joining? I’m on the American server right now.

Faster than lightning: I’m not joining any yet.

Anonymous 62: I’m in China.

Greek Captain: What, no god from the Korean server?

My eyes widened at the sudden mention of the Korean server.

However, among the gods who participated in the chat room, the reaction was extremely cold as there was no one watching the Korean server.

One-eyed Mia: Isn’t their GM Acartus? I’ve seen his quests, and the quests are just normal.

Captain Greece: But he got some really good players. There was a cute girl earlier.

One-eyed Mia: Do you choose your avatars based on appearances?

Greek Captain: I never choose males.

One-eyed Mia: Heeh, even before the first main quest is over, you’ve already picked an avatar?

Greek Captain: I thought I would, but a certain bastard was standing next to her. After running away for a while with the girl, they entered the safe zone.

The game is tempting: They are already in the safe zone? How did they find it?

Greek Captain: I think they just got lucky. But they’re not doing anything, so the Observer moved away after a while.

I read the chat up to there and then closed the window.

Because I decided that there was no more information to be obtained.

‘…..That was probably our story.’

Participating in a chat room may not be all of the Gods participating in the game, but I could approximately see the public opinion.

‘The Observer seems to have completely lost interest in us.’

If there was an observer nearby, there would be no reason that the Greek captain would not have mentioned it.

‘It’s not bad, is it?’

As the game progresses a little later, I will be able to get various information through the community.

Especially when it comes to choosing an ‘Avatar’.

‘I need to check it regularly.’

More importantly, I can also write in it.

This will be a huge advantage.

It means I can manipulate the information flowing between the gods.

‘Now that I’ve finished checking the community, now I should….’

I opened the DLC shop, which I had put off for a while to check out the community.

I looked through the sales list with a serious face.

The community was important, but in fact, it was this one that really mattered.