The Veteran Swordmaster’s Stream (Novel) - Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Remembering one’s past life was not a particularly good thing.
“Hey, do you want to go to a capsule room after class?”
“Today too? Even though we went yesterday?”
“Yeah. So, what’s your answer?”
“Of course I’m going. Why even ask?”
Seo-jun, who was an extremely ordinary college student except for the fact that he remembered his past life, thought as he listened to the whispered conversation of the students sitting in the back.
“We will end today’s class here…”
The lecture ended.
As always, the professor’s last words were drowned out by the sound of students packing their bags and rising.
Seo-jun also packed up his things unhurriedly and stood up from his chair.
“Hey, hey. If we’re late, there might not be any capsule seats left.”
“What are we, middle or high schoolers? For there to be no seats if we’re late after school.”
“Then what?”
“Seats here are always gone whether we go early or late, so take it easy.”
Was it that popular?
Indeed.
Seo-jun agreed while thinking of seven years ago.
Even back then, securing a seat in a capsule room was no different from hell.
‘But since the popularity of capsules is rising every year… No.’
Seo-jun dismissed his interest and headed home.
When he opened the door and entered the house, his roommate and practically only friend was sitting on the sofa watching TV.
“Hey, you’re back? This is the All-Star game, want to watch it together?”
His name was Kim Tae-woo.
He was Seo-jun’s high school classmate and a seven-year veteran streamer who maintained an average of over 10,000 viewers.
Since high school, Tae-woo had lived a life of sleeping at school and going home to broadcast.
Thanks to that, he was kicked out of his house whenever it was exam period, and after using that as an opportunity to stay at Seo-jun’s room, they ended up living together once they graduated and Seo-jun also became independent.
“Forget it. Watch it by yourself. That’s no fun.”
Seo-jun replied bluntly.
“Fun? Do you even know what fun is?”
“Isn’t it just obvious?”
“Sure. It’s predictable. If you try it, you might feel that virtual reality is actually all the same. I think so too. But you see, Seo-jun.”
Tae-woo let out a sigh.
“Yeah.”
“You’ve never even tried a capsule, you jerk. Even when I told you to do it together, or to just log in even once, you’re the one who kept dodging it!”
Virtual reality was a device in which the entire body could be immersed into another world.
The capsule.
It was no exaggeration to say that the world had been swept by this capsule craze for several years.
The capsule fulfilled the travel desires of busy modern people who could not afford the time by recreating real-world attractions.
It was changing the world by integrating virtual reality into numerous industrial fields, including shopping, education, medicine, and automobiles.
However, there was a separate field that was the most popular, which was, as expected, entertainment—namely, games.
As games with spectacular skills added on top of overwhelming realism poured out like bamboo shoots after rain, the popularity of capsule games was rising day by day.
The All-Star game that Tae-woo was watching now was also an event match of the famous virtual reality game, ‘The League’.
“I told you, I played capsule games in the past.”
“Then why don’t you play now?”
“Virtual reality is dangerous.”
“What’s dangerous about it? They say only one person has collapsed in a capsule so far. Only one person in the entire world!”
Hearing those words, Seo-jun made an indifferent face and changed the subject.
“Is that so? Anyway, let’s go eat dinner later. My mom said she made braised short ribs.”
“I can’t resist braised short ribs.”
Tae-woo grinned widely.
He was a simple friend.
Seo-jun shook his head and entered his room.
* * *
After organizing his things and changing his clothes, Seo-jun sat in front of his desk, turned on the computer, and clicked the search bar.
It was because he had become curious about whether Tae-woo’s words were true.
Capsule, virtual reality, accident.
Seo-jun combined the three words and searched the internet, and
‘It really was just one.’
he was able to find an article about a 16-year-old student who collapsed while using a capsule seven years ago.
There was no need to go out of his way to click and check the contents.
‘No one would know it better than I do.’
Sigh.
Letting out a sigh, Seo-jun leaned back in his chair.
‘Why did I play games again?’
Indeed.
Remembering one’s past life was not a particularly good thing.
It would have been different if his past life had been a farmer born in a peaceful era, harvesting rice.
For he had been at what could be called the center of a place where savages lived—savages who would immediately perform a fiery sword dance the moment their eyes met on the street, like a man and a woman in a ballroom.
‘It was certainly savage.’
In the life of his past, death was closer than his shadow.
Loss was more common than pebbles rolling on the roadside.
Above all, when he was young, he had no choice but to doubt the authenticity of his memories.
After all, there was no proof that he was not crazy.
Then, when he turned sixteen.
He accidentally took his first step into virtual reality, and held a sword inside it.
Even now, he vividly remembered that very moment.
An awkward, yet so familiar feeling in his hands.
The movements.
The sword paths.
He swung the sword according to the movements that kept lingering in his mind, and
on that day, he could be certain that his memories were not a fiction.
‘Is that why?’
Virtual reality games were quite enjoyable and free.
However.
Before even a year had passed, Seo-jun, who was enjoying virtual reality, lost consciousness and collapsed with blood flowing from his nose and mouth.
Inside the capsule, that was.
The cause was a congenitally low assimilation rate.
The assimilation rate was a metric of how much one perceived the virtual reality world as reality; it was said that the higher this value, the better one adapted to virtual reality, and the lower the fatigue.
‘Regrettably, because Mr. Seo-jun’s assimilation rate is too low, the link is unstable.’
Those were the words Seo-jun heard after receiving a detailed examination at the research center.
‘How low is it?’
‘It is 10. I think it is the lowest in the entire world. You must have been very dizzy all this time, how you managed to play the game in this state…’
An assimilation rate of 10.
Considering that the average was 60 and the lowest value excluding him was 42, Seo-jun’s assimilation rate was an extremely low figure.
‘If you enter virtual reality any further in the future, perhaps… your brain will be in danger. Just as the circuitry of a device is damaged if the voltage of the charger and the electronic device do not match, severe damage can occur because Mr. Seo-jun’s brain does not align well with virtual reality…’
Was it because he uniquely remembered his past life?
Or was it just that his constitution was peculiar?
Thus, Seo-jun became the only person in the entire world to have collapsed in a capsule.
‘We are sorry. For Mr. Seo-jun’s safety, we have no choice but to stop providing the virtual reality service. We are truly sorry.’
She explained that this was the first time someone had collapsed in this manner, and also the first time a service had been suspended.
It was a natural decision, and Seo-jun accepted it calmly.
It was not like he would die just because he could not play games.
Nevertheless, this feeling he felt now was…
Was it lingering regret?
Or.
“…I don’t know.”
The moment Seo-jun muttered that and turned off the computer,
*Ding.*
a notification on his phone rang, and upon checking it, Seo-jun’s eyes widened.
“Huh?”
[Hello, Mr. Seo-jun. This is Oh Ji-hye, Director of the Surface Korea R&D Center. If you have some free time, would you mind visiting our research center after all this time?]
* * *
The next day.
*Whirrrr.*
The cover of the capsule rose, and Seo-jun opened his eyes.
“How did it feel to stretch your limbs in virtual reality after such a long time?”
A woman who appeared to be in her late thirties approached Seo-jun, who was slightly dizzy from having just come out of virtual reality.
Oh Ji-hye.
She was the research center director who had built a connection with Seo-jun while examining him in the past.
After clenching and unclenching his hands for a moment, Seo-jun told her his thoughts.
“It’s fine. It feels like I’m definitely less dizzy than when I did it in the past.”
The reason she had invited Seo-jun to the research center was simple.
It was because a way had arisen for Seo-jun to dive into virtual reality without any damage to his brain.
After a whopping seven years!
“Fufu. Right? The new capsule you just entered is a model designed to make those with low assimilation rates feel as little foreignness as possible, and to allow those with high assimilation rates to produce maximum performance!”
“I see.”
“Yes. Would you mind coming this way?”
She led Seo-jun toward her desk.
Then, she had Seo-jun sit in the seat next to her.
“If you look at this graph here…”
Although he could not understand the graph even by looking at it, her explanation was as follows.
That he was allowed to use the capsule as long as he did not exceed a set amount of time per day.
However, there was one more condition besides the time limit.
Namely.
“Unfortunately, only the new capsule coming out this time will be safe. It’s an item where they didn’t even consider the price and focused solely on driving up the performance like crazy.”
Was it that he could barely use it only if it was an item made like that?
Seo-jun smiled bitterly and asked for the price.
“How much is it?”
Her words that they had not even considered the price bothered him.
Sure enough, the price of the capsule that popped out of her mouth surpassed imagination.
“Well… it’s 100 million won. Haha, the price is a bit high, isn’t it?”
It was high.
They said a low-end model could be bought for a few million won, and even a high-end model did not exceed 30 million won.
‘But 100 million won.’
It would have been worth such an investment for a professional item, for example, for pro players whose victory or defeat was decided in 0.1 seconds, but
“What would you like to do?”
Seo-jun thought it was too expensive to pay merely for a hobby.
Indeed.
Just as he was about to say that it probably would not work out, Oh Ji-hye spoke up cautiously.
“100 million won is definitely a burdensome amount. That’s why I’m asking, by any chance, do you know about The League tournament hosted by Travel?”
League of Streaming.
Shortened to LoS.
It was a tournament where streamers competed in the game called The League, and was practically the largest scale tournament held outside of the professional leagues.
Because he knew of it superficially thanks to Tae-woo, Seo-jun nodded.
“Surface happens to be sponsoring it this time. That’s why this new capsule was added to the championship prizes.”
“Ah…”
“If you say you will participate in the tournament, Mr. Seo-jun, we will specially rent you the capsule for free until the tournament ends.”
Seo-jun’s mind began to grow complicated.
In short, she was telling him to win the prize to pay it back, right?
Streamer.
Even though there was someone close to him who had this job right now, it was a profession he had never once thought about.
“Instead, don’t even think about becoming a professional gamer. Pros practically live in the capsule, only eating meals, and even receive regular examinations every month. If you were to take up such a profession, Mr. Seo-jun, your brain would not be able to withstand it. Even if a capsule with better performance than this one is released.”
Was that so.
Seo-jun was lost in thought for a moment, then smiled and chose the safest response.
“Thank you. I’ll think about it.”
* * *
“Director, why did you do that?”
The laboratory that remained after Seo-jun left.
A regular researcher, who had been eavesdropping on the conversation between Seo-jun and Oh Ji-hye from behind, approached and asked.
“What?”
Oh Ji-hye feigned ignorance for now, but
“The free rental. On top of that, a streamer tournament? Why did you say such things? Who is that student anyway? I know he’s a unique case, but there’s no need to go that far.”
“Hey, kid. We at Surface don’t let a single customer go.”
“What are you talking about, coming from someone who defiantly threatens to suspend services under the pretext of danger even if a pro player coming for an exam acts just a little annoying.”
The researcher spoke in an exasperated tone, and Oh Ji-hye brushed it off as if it were nothing.
“Well, it’s just that I hate to see talent go to waste.”
“Huh? No, but even if you give him such benefits, would that student be able to win, no, even participate in the League of Streaming?”
At the researcher’s words, Oh Ji-hye recalled seven years ago, when she first saw Seo-jun.
How surprised she had been by the fact that the assimilation rate of such an amazing user was at most only 10.
And even now.
‘His skills haven’t rusted. No, rather…’
Oh Ji-hye’s eyes shifted to the side.
There, the data of Seo-jun measured today was displayed.
Not only Seo-jun’s physical reactions, but also the results of the simple—no, simple, but therefore all the more clear—tests conducted in virtual reality.
“Honestly, participating might be difficult.”
Since he would need to establish himself as a streamer and gain some recognition.
But if he just participates,
“winning, I think it’s possible.”