Chapter 2 – What is Life?

 

What is a life?

A boiled egg is an egg.

What does this mean?

It means that no matter how hard you try, it means nothing.

I’ve been forgiving, but I’ve fallen into the game.

***

I’m going to put my hand on my heart and come clean.

I used the Editor to manipulate my save file.

But hear me out.

I have not a single shred of shame about using the Editor in games.

First. The game, whose name I can’t even remember anymore, is a single-player game, which means that no one is harmed by whatever I do to the save file.

Two. You might ask, “Shouldn’t a true gamer play a game for its integrity?

You’re right. You’re absolutely right.

If you truly love your game, you shouldn’t be using an editor that kills the excitement of achievement.

But I digress. My life in my late twenties was far too busy and tiring for the hobby I really loved, gaming. So I made a compromise with reality. By using the editor only as far as I needed to get started on my own terms.

That’s right. I used the editor up until the point where I switched to the Priest of Corruption, which is what made me buy the game in the first place.

The game, whose name I can’t remember anymore, was marketed as “infinite freedom,” and as such, it was a free world filled with tons of jobs. As I always did, I spent my spare time looking for news and information about the new game, and I became obsessed with one of its classes, the Priest of Corruption.

The Priest of Corruption.

Doesn’t sound like a worldly achievement, does it? If the Church of Corruption was a worldly achievement, it would be called the Church of Fermentation. Oh, I want to tear into that kimchi and eat it.

Anyway.

In the game, the Church of Corruption had already been wiped out. The player follows its trail, undergoes grueling trials, gathers rare ingredients, and finally succeeds in becoming a Priest of Corruption, embarking on a journey to find the 13 holy relics scattered around the world.

That’s all I know about Priest of Corruption, and I didn’t read the rest because it’s a spoiler.

My assessment of Priest of Corruption is pretty straightforward.

– Very difficult to advance. Playable difficulty is terrible. Performance sucks.

This single line of evaluation made my heart skip a beat. Performance sucks? That meant most people wouldn’t pick it up.

In the first place, I enjoyed doing a job that made me feel like a dead man playing games. Some might call it vapid hipsterism, but what can you do when you see a job that sucks and you feel like you were born to do it.

So I quit the game on the spot, and using an editor that was floating around the internet, I gave my character all the ingredients for the Priest of Corruption job title and moved him to the job location.

This is one of those choices I still regret to this day.

Why didn’t I make it more convenient?

Like maxing out all my stats, having tons of money in my pockets, or even turning on invincibility!

If I knew I was going to be dropped into the game, I should have just created a fraudulent character.

Once I had all the materials for the transfer, I looked at the transfer quest and mechanically pressed enter. One by one, the ingredients disappeared and the quest progressed quickly.

And the moment I hit the “yes” button on the last one.

I fell into the game.

As one of the “Priests of Corruption.

***

My skinny hands fumbled in my breast pocket.

And a single word took shape in my mind.

“Kill!

“Murder! Murder!

Yes, this is the Mother of Corruption I worship, screaming like an old death metal singer.

Actually, this is a long way of saying that she was only able to speak after she absorbed the divinity of the First Relic.

Until I took possession of the first holy object, she could not speak to me, but simply wriggled her withered hands as best she could to make her point. Nothing important, of course.

Five years.

That’s how long it took me to capture the first of the thirteen holy relics.

Five years ago. When I awoke in this game, all I had was a pair of Cult of Corruption priests’ robes and a hand that hovered over my chest.

This Hand of the Mother of Corruption was the final class material for the Corruption Priest, an item that was supposed to disappear upon conversion. However, somehow, it hadn’t disappeared, and the withered hand on my chest served as a walkie-talkie between me and the Mother of Corruption.

It was easier than I thought to admit that I had indeed fallen into the world of the game, thanks to the enormous presence I felt beyond the hand.

In particular, this Priest of Corruption was optimized for my modern-day body to survive in this world.

In the game’s setting, Priests of Corruption are enhanced humans whose bodies have been modified with drugs.

As the world’s official religion, the Priests of Corruption are an elite few, and much of the quest to become one is centered around gathering the rare materials needed to modify your body.

One of the best things about this body is that no attack that doesn’t contain the word “holy” can kill a Corruption Priest.

That’s why I was still alive when my head was blown off by the rangers chasing me earlier.

Exceptional physical prowess and keen senses. A body that cannot die unless it is divine. It was as if the body was designed for a modern man to live in a fantasy world.

However, there were fatal flaws in this modified body, now that it was mine.

Something in my brain seemed to have gone bad, and my sensitivity to emotions was a bit off compared to my five senses. I couldn’t stand the sight of blood, but now I was able to take in any gory sight.

Okay, maybe that’s more of an advantage.

The problem was that I was no longer able to taste anything.

I had lost my sense of taste.

Losing my sense of taste didn’t bother me at first, but as time went on, it became more of a disadvantage.

I want to eat good food, I really do. I want grilled pork belly wrapped in kimchi! I want fried rice with kimchi stir-fried all over it! I want jajangmyeon and tangsuyuk!

“Murder!

Mother Corruption’s voice pulled me out of my reverie.

“I’ll move without your urging, Mother of Corruption.”

I took heavy steps across the snow. The thick layer of snow hindered my steps relentlessly, but my steel body pushed through it with ease.

“Murder!

“No matter how hard you try, I won’t be looking for my next holy object right away. I need a moment to hide from prying eyes until this commotion calms down. Mother.”

It is said in the Chinese language, 一口二言 二父之子.

They say you have two fathers if you say two things with one mouth. I have two mothers because I wrote for an editor once.

Still, the Mother of Corruption was the only person in the world I could trust without question.

I was the only priest of a goddess who was hated by all, so I didn’t hate the sound of her voice every day.

As the sun set, the forest descended into an unforgiving darkness.

Fortunately, as an enhanced human, I could see ahead with just enough light, and my tireless legs carried me along.

Flesh-cutting cold whipped through the wind and slapped me in the face.

The cold was bearable, but it didn’t stop my mind from racing with thoughts.

I should have picked a career that ended in death, like my mother always told me.

A warrior. A wizard. Shaman. All those fake jobs.

If I’d picked one of those, at least I wouldn’t have had to experience having my head blown off in this snowy field.

Snow began to blow on the wind.

A blizzard.

Even enhanced humans had their limits. I quickly scanned my surroundings, looking for a place to hunker down until the blizzard stopped.

I saw a dark cave in the distance.

As I trudged through the thigh-deep snow and entered the dark cave, a pair of eyes stared back at me.

It was a bear the size of a house.

“Kill!

“I will not fight, Mother of Corruption.”

I crouched down at the front of the cave, under its wary gaze. That giant bear wouldn’t attack me first.

As a Priest of Corruption, most monsters and animals in the game were neutral, meaning they wouldn’t attack me unless I took the initiative.

From my own experience in this body, animals and monsters seem to sense unclean energies that intelligent creatures do not.

As a result, all but a few unusual species shy away from me.

Under the bear’s gaze, I closed my eyes and settled inward. A status window slowly appeared in my mind, omitting everything.

[Divinity: 1623]

All the stats that were supposed to be there were gone, and the only thing left in my status bar was a divinity.

That divinity served as a kind of skill point for the Priest of Corruption.

The exchange was very simple.

Pay 10,000 divinity and get 1 “power”.

It wasn’t a vending machine, you put your divinity in and the power pops out.

But thanks to that vending machine-like system, I recently succeeded in absorbing the entire sanctity of a single holy object and awakening a single power. A power that, if wielded openly, would have me hunted down by every church in the land.

As I leaned against the cold cave wall, I felt a slight sense of dread.

What a pain in the ass to be caught in the middle of a game.

“Murder!

“I’m not depressed, mother of corruption. Don’t worry about it.”

I clutched the withered hand in my arms.

At least I’m not completely without allies, I thought, and I felt a little calmer as I clutched the withered hand.

Yes, thirteen holy relics. No, the Mother of Corruption would grant me all my wishes if I gathered the divine power of the 12 remaining holy relics.

I should ask her to restore my sense of taste first.

I echoed the self-suggestion I’d been making in my mind ever since I fell into this world.

This world is just a game after all, and I’m just playing a slightly realistic virtual reality game.

So let’s enjoy this life.

My ass stung a little from the hard stone floor. I muttered grimly.

“Still, I’m a little nervous.”

***

“Stop there.”

The guards stopped me. Their well-maintained equipment indicated that they were quite well organized.

“Please present your identification.”

I smiled and said in as reverent a voice as I could muster. By now I had pulled my priestly robes from one of the two compartments in my inventory.

“May unwavering happiness be maintained in your life. I lost my identification on the way here.”

After looking me up and down, the guard asked briefly.

“What kind of priest are you?”

“I worship the Goddess of Preservation, who protects daily life.”

It is a great grave sin for a priest to falsely state the name of the deity he serves. The punishment was imposed on the priest by the gods themselves, not by the church. Non-priests impersonating priests is also punishable by death. Those who impersonated priests incurred the wrath of the gods and were branded. A mark of sin visible only to the faithful of that order.

The guard gave a small bow.

“Welcome to Guise. Priest. You’ll want to get some new identification as soon as you enter, though.”

I smiled benevolently.

“I will keep that in mind.”

“Murder!

Our merciful Mother of Corruption was very forgiving of such impersonations. With her protection, I was able to impersonate other priests without paying the price of any impersonation.

Thus I entered the northern city of Guise, impersonating the god I worshipped in my snow-covered body.