Chapter 31 – Two Dopamine Addicts

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Translated by Seoulbound

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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[SsapPossible: So there are two Dopamine Addicts?]

Two Dopamine Addicts, they said.

‘What on earth does this mean?’

When I checked other chat rooms, I saw that besides the public chat room, messages had also arrived from HomeProtector and T-Bastard.

For these chats as well, I only checked the most recent messages.

[HomeProtector: What are you doing that you aren’t even checking the chat?](+6)

[T-Bastard: What is your true identity?](+3)

Even T-Bastard went out of his way to send me a message first?

‘What happened while I wasn’t looking at the chat room?’

Since I felt I had to look at the public chat room first to grasp the context of the messages sent by those two, I decided to leave their messages alone and check the public chat room first.

“Meursault, I will go take a quick break.”

“Huh? No, you have only told me that the core of the operation is high efficiency, so what do you mean, take a break—”

Leaving behind Meursault, who was ‘gladly’ telling me to take a break, I moved to my room and scrolled all the way up the chat history.

The problematic chat seemed to have started from yesterday evening.

Lying on my room’s bed, I slowly read through the chat history starting from yesterday evening.

The one who sent the very first message was the player Junkie from the Cocaine Zone.

[Junkie: Um, I received a strange chat…….]

[God: A strange chat?]

[God: What kind of strange chat?]

[Junkie: It’s suspicious no matter who looks at it… Did the others not receive it by any chance?]

[God: There are plenty of suspicious chats~ Does anyone know anything~?]

[Junkie: If no one has, I will just handle it on my own…….]

[Dentist: Could that strange message be…….]

Oh, looks like the newbie is alive and well.

[Dentist: Are you talking about the message from the self-proclaimed ‘Dopamine Addict’?]

[Junkie: That’s right!!]

‘A self-proclaimed Dopamine Addict?’

Impersonating a self-proclaimed Dopamine Addict was something Safety8 had already attempted.

Had another bastard appeared to impersonate me besides Safety8?

I continued to read the contents.

[Dentist: I was also contemplating how to interpret it after seeing it.]

[God: Mmm, actually, I received that chat too.]

When God, who had been playing dumb until just a moment ago, changed his attitude and admitted that he received the chat, the other players who had been quiet also began to show up in the chat room one by one.

[SsapPossible: Oh, so I wasn’t the only one who received it?]

[HomeProtector: It did come to me as well.]

[Junkie: Then did everyone else receive it too?]

[IDontCryThatIsCardio: Huh? What chat are you talking about? I didn’t see it?]

[HomeProtector: But I thought it was an impersonator, so I didn’t open it at all.]

[HomeProtector: What are the contents?]

[IDontCryThatIsCardio: By any chance, am I the only one who didn’t receive this?]

[God: I also thought it was too suspicious and tried to ignore it, but since everyone says they received it, I’m curious about who sent this chat~]

[IDontCryThatIsCardio: No, I said I didn’t receive it!]

[God: The one that came to me had this content.]

[God: Exchange with other zones is possible, excluding Unicorn.]

[God: But the sender’s ID is ‘Dopamine Addict’.]

[Junkie: The one that came to me is exactly that! It’s identical, not even a single syllable is different!!]

[SsapPossible: But is that message really sent by Dopamine Addict?]

[HomeProtector: I told you it’s not Dopamine Addict, it’s 100% an impersonator.]

[SsapPossible: How can you be so sure?]

[HomeProtector: Because Dopamine Addict accepted my friend request.]

For some reason, he seemed to be feeling a bit proud.

[HomeProtector: If that ID was the real Dopamine Addict, the 1:1 chat should be sent, but it is blocked.]

[Dentist: He accepted your friend request? He ignored my friend request, though?]

[God: I got ignored too~ TT]

[HomeProtector: Then shouldn’t you have doubted it from the moment you received a 1:1 message? You can’t send a 1:1 message unless you are mutual friends.]

Oho, as expected of someone with experience, it was a highly reasonable deduction.

[Junkie: That’s why I said it was suspicious!]

[SsapPossible: No, why does everyone think it’s an impersonator? Couldn’t it be the real Dopamine Addict?]

[Junkie: I’m not friends with that person, so how could he send me a direct message?]

[SsapPossible: If it isn’t Dopamine Addict, do you even have a friend who would send you such a message?]

[Junkie: …….]

Come to think of it, neither Junkie nor SsapPossible had sent me a friend request.

Did Junkie not become friends with anyone?

[SsapPossible: Listen, he is different from us. Maybe a conqueror of all zones has a privilege to send direct messages without being friends.]

[God: But why isn’t Dopamine Addict saying anything~? Is he not watching this chat~?]

[Dentist: If he goes as far as to ignore all friend requests, I don’t think he would peer into the chat room regularly.]

For some reason, he seemed to be sarcastic.

[HomeProtector: That’s what I mean, why would that bad-mannered bastard, who doesn’t even accept friend requests, go out of his way to send you guys such a message?]

I knew that this wasn’t sarcasm, but an outright insult.

[IDontCryThatIsCardio: But if it isn’t Mr. Dopamine Addict, who on earth would send such a chat and for what purpose? And by impersonating Mr. Dopamine Addict on top of that?]

[God: Indeed~ Originally, aren’t we supposed to be unable to contact other zones until the Second Apocalypse?]

[HomeProtector: Well, in the game, there was a blue barrier so we couldn’t cross over, but…….]

[SsapPossible: Now that I think about it, this is reality now, isn’t it? Maybe there is no such thing as a barrier between zones?]

[Junkie: Ah! Then did Mr. Dopamine Addict find out about that and let us know?]

[HomeProtector: No, I said it’s not Dopamine Addict.]

[SsapPossible: Even if it wasn’t sent by Dopamine Addict, couldn’t we find out the truth of whether we can go to other zones right away by checking if it’s blocked by a blue barrier?]

Hm, although I hadn’t checked yet since I hadn’t been to the end of the zone either.

I would have to go to the end of the zone during this subjugation battle.

However, the real problem was not the truth or falsehood of that message.

Looking down, there was indeed a player other than me who had realized what the real problem was.

[God: The way I see it~ even if it’s not Dopamine Addict, it’s a problem~]

[IDontCryThatIsCardio: What is the problem?]

[God: You do remember that this chat room can only be used by players who have unlocked the system, right?]

[HomeProtector: Ah.]

[HomeProtector: If it’s not Dopamine Addict…….]

[HomeProtector: It means another player has unlocked the system?]

[God: And considering that only one person from each zone is in this chat room~]

[Dentist: The player of the Unicorn Zone.]

[God: Even though you’re a newbie, you’re quick at math? Right, the only one left is the player of the Unicorn Zone. Besides, the hint is already in the message.]

[SsapPossible: Exchange is possible, excluding the Unicorn Zone…….]

[HomeProtector: Then what? The player of Unicorn went out of their way to impersonate Dopamine Addict to send this kind of message?]

[SsapPossible: But was it even possible to impersonate an ID? You can’t edit IDs, can you?]

I also thought that the one who sent the message was highly likely to be the player of the Unicorn Zone.

Although I didn’t know how they avoided entering the public chat room, or by what means they were using the ID by changing it to Dopamine Addict.

Unless the grand premise that only the player who first made contact with the meteorite item in each zone could unlock the system was broken, the only one left was the unconfirmed player of the Unicorn Zone.

However, no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t understand why the player of the Unicorn Zone went out of their way to impersonate me and send such a message.

The same went for the statement that the Unicorn Zone was excluded.

If exchange between zones was possible unlike the game, there was no reason for the Unicorn Zone to be excluded.

Even if there were no zones with the technological power to fly to the floating island, it was because the Unicorn Zone was not floating that high above the ground.

Since aerial monsters did not exist yet, exchange would have been possible even if they just built a tall staircase in the Cocaine Zone right below the Unicorn Zone.

So that message was as if…….

‘Like a warning telling us not to approach the Unicorn Zone yet.’

But why didn’t they send me a chat separately?

Come to think of it, did they say they didn’t send a chat to the cardio-guy in the Chicken Zone either?

Why didn’t they send it only to the two of us?

Although questions arose, those questions became unimportant due to the message Junkie sent below them.

[Junkie: But… I just discovered something strange]

[God: Something strange?]

[IDontCryThatIsCardio: Is there even more strange things…….]

[Junkie: I saw it before but didn’t care much, but look at the member list of the public chat room]

The next messages were sent after a little bit of time had passed.

[HomeProtector: What is… this?]

[IDontCryThatIsCardio: No way…….]

[Dentist: This… isn’t just a simple error, right?]

‘Look at the chat room member list?’

I also opened the list and checked the IDs present in the public chat room.

[Dopamine Addict

T-Bastard

God

Dentist

SsapPossible

IDontCryThatIsCardio

Junkie

HomeProtector]

A total of eight people in the order of entering the public chat room.

‘It looks completely normal, though……?’

What was strange could be realized after seeing the next chat.

[IDontCryThatIsCardio: This… instead of being eight people including me, was it eight people excluding me……?]

Excluding me… eight people?

[God: This is a bit… goosebump-inducing]

[Junkie: I saw it before, but since he was the one who made the chat room first, I thought his name was written twice at the top]

‘His name is written twice?’

Did this, by any chance, mean that my ID was written twice in other people’s lists?

The fact that there were eight people excluding me, but my ID was written twice in other people’s lists was…….

‘Does this list… not display one’s own ID?’

I calmly clicked on the Dopamine Addict ID written at the very top of the list.

If it was not another person, my information viewing option should have popped up.

However.

[Would you like to send a friend request to Dopamine Addict?]

‘Fuck? What is this?’

The ID written at the very top of the chat room list was not me.

This was clearly another ‘player’ who was not me.

[HomeProtector: This is a bit dizzying]

[HomeProtector: It means the number of people in this room was nine from the beginning?]

[SsapPossible: So there are two Dopamine Addicts?]

The chat ended there.

As if they had all grown sick of something, they had simultaneously stopped sending chats to the public chat room.

I also left the public chat room and checked the messages that other players had sent me.

First was HomeProtector’s 1:1 chat.

[HomeProtector: Yo lol]

[HomeProtector: Did you ignore all other people’s friend requests besides mine? lol]

[HomeProtector: Look at the chat room, it’s chaotic right now]

[HomeProtector: That isn’t you, right?]

[HomeProtector: Yo]

[HomeProtector: Fuck, check the chat]

[HomeProtector: What are you doing that you aren’t even checking the chat?]

“…….”

Pondering what to write back, I decided to reply briefly for now.

[Dopamine Addict: That isn’t me.]

Although it seemed like an overwhelming number of messages were coming from HomeProtector after that, I opened the chat sent by T-Bastard first.

After quickly reading through T-Bastard’s chat, I thought that opening this first was a good idea.

That was because.

[T-Bastard: Dopamine Addict, is that really not you?]

[T-Bastard: To call it an impersonation, he knew all the contents of the 1:1 conversation we shared.]

[T-Bastard: Since we were already friends, I thought he was you and even had a conversation with him.]

[T-Bastard: What is your true identity?]