Chapter 35 – How Are You Dopamine Addict

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Translated by Seoulbound

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Telling CornerHoney that I was Dopamine Addict was something I had decided to do after making him owe me a life debt.

And now, having taken the bullet flying toward him instead, was the absolute best timing to confess that I was Dopamine Addict.

It would also be problematic if he misunderstood the Unicorn Zone player to be the real Dopamine Addict.

CornerHoney, after being flustered, barely managed to ask me.

“You… what?”

“You heard it all.”

“Why are you Dopamine Addict?”

The fellow spat out in succession in an excited voice.

“How are you Dopamine Addict? Didn’t you say you were T-Bastard? If you are Dopamine Addict, what is that guy from earlier? No, why are you only telling me this now?”

‘He’s talking without even breathing.’

Feeling like I needed to calm CornerHoney down a bit, I opened my mouth.

“It’s not that I hid it on purpose… no, I did hide it on purpose, but.”

“What?!”

“If you had known I was Dopamine Addict, would you have cooperated with me to this extent?”

“…….”

Perhaps remembering how he had heavily cursed at Dopamine Addict when we first met, CornerHoney silenced for a moment.

However, thinking about it again, he must have still felt wronged as his hand went up.

“You bastard, even so!!”

“I’m a patient.”

“Ah, fuck……!”

Although pissed off, CornerHoney couldn’t smack me, who got shot instead of him, so he continued with the treatment.

“No, seriously, this is ridiculous… no wonder every single thing you did was out of your mind……”

“Don’t heal it completely. Just enough so that when Meursault returns and looks at it, he’ll think ‘Ah, it was a minor wound after all’ and let it go.”

“Ah, you really talk way too fucking much. You kept your mouth shut just fine while deceiving me all this time.”

He was definitely going to hold a grudge over this for a long time.

After concentrating on the treatment for a moment, CornerHoney looked toward Taejeong with a face of realizing something.

“But looking at his reaction earlier, it seems that bastard over there knew you were Dopamine Addict?”

“Ah, right. Taejeong knows.”

“What? Why did you tell that bastard but not me……!”

“There was a circumstance for that.”

“What circumstance?”

“The player who was hanging around with Taejeong was impersonating me.”

“Impersonation? There was a player like that?”

“The guy from earlier seems to be my impersonator as well. Probably.”

CornerHoney wore a dumbfounded expression.

“Why are there so many damn impersonators! What is there to gain from impersonating a sociopath like you!”

I had thought about that too, but hearing it from his mouth, for some reason it felt bad?

“Anyway. The guy who first impersonated me died after failing the strategy, but the guy just now is a bit dangerous.”

“You don’t have to tell me. He copied and followed even your customization completely. Goosebumps.”

“…It’s not just because he copied me.”

Having recovered to some extent, I raised my body and sat up.

“That guy is a player of the Unicorn Zone who unlocked the system just like me.”

“Unicorn? Ah, that’s why the hoverboard……”

“And although I don’t know the reason, he went out of his way to impersonate me and send messages to other players.”

“He sent messages to other players? What messages?”

“That exchange between zones is possible… Ah.”

Having spoken up to that point, I realized one thing.

“Seeing that he came all the way here, it seems the absence of the barrier is indeed real.”

“No barrier? Then does it mean we can go to other zones even before the Second Apocalypse comes?”

“It seems so… Mmm.”

The moment my shoulder throbbed, I stopped speaking for a bit, and CornerHoney grabbed my arm saying we should heal it a little more.

Receiving treatment from him, I spoke again.

“And… you saw it just now. That body.”

“Right! How is only that guy in an adult form? If he is a Unicorn Zone player, is it forced growth through scientific technology, or something like that?”

Forced growth through Unicorn’s science and technology.

Although it was a part I hadn’t thought of, it was not without possibility.

However…….

“The way I see it… it doesn’t seem like simple forced growth. There is definitely something more to it.”

‘Although I don’t know what it is either…….’

From the moment I saw him, a sense of incongruity had felt.

As long as I was Dopamine Addict, he would be nothing but an impersonator, but… he was far too perfect to be a simple impersonation.

While his tone seemed even more annoying, how on earth did he copy even my stride?

His words about coming to check if I was growing well were also bothersome.

At my words that there would be something more, CornerHoney wore a very uncomfortable expression, but soon spoke indifferently like the empty-headed person he was.

“You were going to go to Unicorn when the Second Apocalypse came anyway. That’s good. Since a reason to absolutely visit Unicorn has appeared.”

“Well… that’s true……”

Just then, Taejeong, who was guarding the surroundings, approached and whispered softly.

“Meursault is returning.”

Looking up at those words, Meursault was seen running from not far away, leading other soldiers.

“Talk again later. And if anyone asks about today’s matter, do not answer anything.”

“Got it.”

“Yes!”

Because the soldiers who rushed in with Meursault hurriedly tried to load me onto a stretcher to treat me, we stopped our conversation and put on a passionate performance of me being severely shot.

* * *

By the time Meursault returned, CornerHoney had already healed most of the wound.

To other soldiers, it would have looked like the bullet had lightly grazed me.

However, despite not being a major injury, I was forcibly admitted to the ward by Meursault.

And the commander visited me.

“How is your body?”

“As you know, it’s fine.”

Because the commander knew that I possessed the same healing ability as Lunamoon, he showed no signs of major agitation even at my injury.

Since he did not come immediately upon hearing the news that I was hurt and only visited late at night after all his work was done.

Because of such appearance, I heard the nurse soldiers whispering that he was an iron-blooded dictator who wouldn’t budge even if his own son got hurt.

Although not coming to find me immediately was a highly cool-headed and precise judgment, it was a bit regrettable for me.

If the commander had set aside everything and come to find me, I would have gained a bit more influence, but.

Conversely, I also understood the commander’s desire not to make me a weakness.

If the commander had rushed to me right away, the factions that were displeased with him would have immediately tried to take me hostage.

Although I would walk out on my own even if I became a hostage, so it was better to receive the commander’s favoritism.

The commander stared at me quietly and asked.

“Who on earth is that guy?”

Asking that first?

He must have heard from Meursault how I ended up getting shot.

He was a person who wouldn’t even grant permission to hunt because it was dangerous, and since I got shot and was carried back as soon as I went outside the zone, he might not grant permission next time.

By the way…….

‘Just how much did Meursault remember and pass on?’

Even that his name was ‘Dopamine Addict’?

Since that guy rambled in Korean, no matter how smart Meursault was, he wouldn’t have been able to convey the entire conversation to the commander, but.

Since CornerHoney had called him ‘Dopamine Addict’ multiple times, Meursault would have noticed at least that it was his name.

I briefly reviewed the conversation I had shared with the Unicorn player.

‘No highly meaningful conversation was exchanged…….’

Since the Unicorn player avoided answering and disappeared after unilaterally muttering only words we couldn’t understand.

Come to think of it, CornerHoney seemed to have carelessly mentioned the word ‘player.’

If so…….

“I don’t know either.”

“You don’t know?”

Although the preceding words were omitted, he roughly seemed to want to ask, ‘Do you, a regressor, not know?’

It seemed he was refraining from speaking because there were other people in the hospital room besides us.

The commander intended to thoroughly hide the fact that I was a regressor.

That made it easier for me to move as well, though.

“I heard Meursault said that you described him as someone you know if you know him, and don’t if you don’t?”

…That fellow Meursault, he seems to be more loyal to the commander than me for now.

Well, this much is not difficult to explain.

“It is exactly as it sounds. I once knew him… but now he is someone I do not know.”

At those words, one of the commander’s eyebrows arched upward.

“The meaning of those words……”

The commander seemed to have quickly understood that it meant we became strangers upon returning to the past.

Of course, it was a bluff.

“Everyone, step back for a moment.”

When the commander spoke, the soldiers who had followed to assist the commander and the nurses waiting nearby all left, leaving only the two of us in the hospital room.

“Now tell me. Was he someone you knew before you regressed?”

From here on, I had to speak carefully.

So that the front and back did not contradict.

At the same time, so that I wouldn’t be caught as a player instead of a regressor.

“If my memory is correct, he is a person from the Unicorn Zone, but I do not know why he came all the way here. Perhaps he has regressed as well.”

“That person is a regressor too?”

“I’m saying it could be possible. Because……”

Sensing that the commander wanted to ask more, I made the first move.

“That person. He called himself a ‘player’.”

“…Yes. I was about to ask because Meursault said the word ‘player’ came out of that guy’s mouth.”

Ah, as expected, he had heard even the word ‘player.’

It was a good thing I confessed first.

The fortunate part was that because that guy had the appearance of an ‘adult’ like Lunamoon, we, who were still children, would not be suspected of being ‘players.’

Although I would have to keep CornerHoney’s mouth shut tighter.

…Did that Unicorn player guy try to eliminate CornerHoney because he thought he would be a hindrance to me?

Hmm.

For now, I talked a bit more.

“If he is a real player, it explains why he pretended to know me. Since he must be someone who watched this world through the game just like Mother, he would know me too.”

“You mean a new player?”

“Perhaps as I regressed, a new player came to appear.”

“…….”

Whether the commander accepted my words as reasonable, he thought about something for a moment, and then spoke to me.

“Go to the military academy.”

Going on about the military academy again?

“Wasn’t that discussion already over?”

“Even if you are a regressor, the young body must not be familiar to you either. That must be why you suffered such an injury.”

It seemed the commander thought that my getting injured this time was something that happened because I couldn’t adapt to a child’s body.

Then again… it is indeed difficult to explain why I, who defeated eight cadets about to graduate in the training simulation, got shot just to protect a single CornerHoney.

Since getting hit by the bullet in the first place wasn’t because I couldn’t dodge it, but because I hit it on purpose to make CornerHoney owe me his life and test his healing ability.

However.

“It is a wound that heals quickly anyway if I use the ability, though.”

“Such an attitude is dangerous.”

In an unprecedentedly firm tone, the commander replied.

“You can lose your life from a single moment’s mistake. Keep in mind that your mother, Lunamoon, also possessed the same ability as you but ended up dying of a plague.”

“…….”

Seeing how he even brought up Lunamoon’s death, it seemed he was truly worried that something might go wrong with me.

Although I believed Lunamoon died because she failed the clearing strategy…….

‘If he finds out that Lunamoon might have died because he married Daphne, this man will despair, right?’

Since Daphne also did not seem to have told the commander the story that Lunamoon might have died from failing the clear.

As someone who needed Daphne’s assistance right now, there was no reason for me to bring up a story that would worsen the relationship between the commander and Daphne.

Still, I was not particularly keen on the military academy.

“But… you know we don’t have time, right?”

“I’m not telling you to attend for six years. Train together with the cadets at the academy at least until your body becomes accustomed.”

“’Until the body becomes accustomed,’ until when is that?”

“Until you can dodge a flying bullet.”

He must be joking.

Perhaps because he saw my ‘are you kidding me’ face, the commander smirked and continued.

“At least until before participating in the next subjugation battle… wouldn’t it be easier for me to grant you an officer position if you attend the military academy even for a short while?”

Ah… indeed, I couldn’t act as an operations officer in the subjugation battle without any rank.

Well, for me, I can just consider it taking a brief rest, but.

Rather than me, I think the cadets will like it even less?