Chapter 109

“Wow. Why are you handsome even as a toy version? This isn’t right. And sculpture vs shattered pieces? Are you out of your mind, human?”

What was this?

Had something similar been posted in Tae-woo’s stream chat as well?

Seo-jun scanned the chat with a smile.

-The guy who donated must be a crazy bastard ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Shooting donations at both streams simultaneously as if prepared.

-Haha. Watching two streams simultaneously is the basic of basics for a Teusu.

So he had made two donations at the same time.

This was truly an amazing quickness of mind.

As soon as a joke came to mind, he had to enter two donation windows, write the same contents, and click submit, and the time it took to do this was less than 20 seconds.

‘Impressive.’

Seo-jun admired inwardly as he examined his avatar in front of the mirror.

Although the proportions and body remained the same, the joints had become somewhat like a toy, and the most important part, the face, had changed into a doll.

However, when he turned his gaze away from the mirror and looked at Tae-woo, his actual appearance was exactly the same.

In other words.

“Seeing that we can only see that appearance in the mirror, it must be some kind of in-game effect.”

It seemed that the world of the game within this game was a world where toys lived and toys were the protagonists.

In other words.

“It seems the developer who made the game wanted to express that the in-game developer, who entered the game within the game, has entered in the form of a toy.”

-?

-What kind of bullshit are you talking about?

-Lol, I understood ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

He thought that there was a mirror right next to them as soon as they entered for a reason.

By the way, seeing the form changed into the doll version was quite fun.

Regardless.

“Should I just smash this mirror?”

Tae-woo had gone to the dark side.

-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Upvote if you’re the streamer’s proud viewer who went to the other chat room and kept teasing him ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-I only stated facts.

-That guy’s avatar toy version is indeed quite terrible.

Hmm.

He felt it would be more fun to read Tae-woo’s chat window as well.

Although viewers could do split screens on their own on Travel, it was not the broadcast chat window that the streamer directly viewed.

“Hey.”

“No, everyone. Huh?”

“Let’s set up the joint stream properly. So that I can also view your channel’s chat in streamer mode.”

“No, why?”

Instead of opening Travel to watch Tae-woo’s stream, Seo-jun wanted to configure it so he could see the chat directly, just like the chat he watched while streaming.

“Because I think it’ll be fun.”

-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-From the streamer’s perspective, he really can’t hold back.

-Real talk lol

“Hurry up and set it.”

“Got it.”

Seo-jun opened the Travel window and went into the broadcast settings.

And he linked with Tae-woo’s streaming.

Thereupon, his existing viewers’ chat began to appear on the right as usual, and Tae-woo’s chat on the left.

Looking at Tae-woo’s chat, the viewers were still teasing him.

-Hurry up and stand in front of the mirror.

-Honestly I envy my friend, yes or yes.

-How can a doll’s face be squashed like that?

-Shattered pieces itself lol.

To be completely honest, Tae-woo’s appearance was not on the ugly side either.

No, rather, it belonged to the decent side.

There was a term called camera massage.

It referred to the effect where, as one’s face appeared in media, one naturally searched for how to highlight one’s charm better and managed oneself, causing one’s appearance to gradually improve.

Tae-woo was in his seventh year of streaming with his face revealed.

Unless he had completely given up on his appearance and chosen to make people laugh by utilizing that strength instead, he was just an ordinary young man in his twenties.

It was an age where he was highly conscious of his appearance, so naturally the camera massage had to take effect.

Thus, although he was above average.

“No, everyone, it’s only natural to become ugly!”

The problem was Seo-jun, who was annoyingly smiling next to him.

“No, the face turned into a doll, so how can it become more handsome! If you look closely, that bastard Jin Seo-jun’s toy version has also become uglier compared to his real appearance. It’s just that even that uglier version is handsome, so you all are mistaken.”

Seo-jun looked at Tae-woo as if he were foolish.

Tsk, tsk.

Instead of continuing to be teased, he could have just taken a step away from the mirror.

Seo-jun had already stepped aside from the mirror after inspecting his own toy version early on.

“Argh! No, I’m telling you it’s only that guy! Wow. You guys should also quickly install this game and verify it. Hurry!”

-Why should we?

-I’m disappointed that you advertise like this.

-Looks like I shouldn’t buy it. It’s because of you ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-Anyway they say you become more handsome in the toy version ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ My face can’t get any uglier anyway…

-That is a bit ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

“Cut it out and hurry up and come here. It looks like they want us to go over there.”

“……Right. Everyone, please make sure to verify. If you don’t want to buy the game, find some app on your phone or whatever, just do it.”

Seo-jun ignored Tae-woo and headed toward the spot with a green circular mark.

There was another destroyed mirror.

Upon arriving near the mark, the mark disappeared and a narration was heard.

[Damn, is this real? We’re toys?]

[Unbelievable.]

[What did you do! What did you do, you damn bastard.]

[I don’t know either!]

While listening to the dialogue between the characters, Seo-jun inspected the next mark.

A pile of garbage? A hill?

Seeing the green mark at the very top of that place, Seo-jun gestured to Tae-woo.

Meanwhile, the narration continued to flow out.

[Wait! Doesn’t this place look like somewhere we’ve seen?]

It was spoken by Seo-jun’s character.

[What?]

[This trash heap is somehow familiar. Not to mention that all the garbage is related to toys, and there’s a discharge chute up there.]

[What kind of nonsense… Eh? Here?]

[This is the place where the protagonist in our game declared what he wanted to be, got judged as a defect, and was discarded. Damn it. This isn’t even a crazy dream.]

Seo-jun climbed up the pile of garbage.

There were large chunks like the box that had contained him, as well as small scattered fragments.

“I’ll go up for now. This is how you do it, right?”

Wasn’t this also his first time playing this kind of game?

Dawn of the Assassins was an open-world game so he could do as he pleased, and For Chivalry was an online game, so Two Heads are Better was in effect the first game of this genre that Seo-jun was playing.

-Yes.

-Doing well.

-Seriously, every time he asks about basic things like this, the sense of mismatch is crazy ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-He is indeed a cute newbie who doesn’t know much about games.

-I wonder if he’ll still be a cute newbie even if a sword is placed in his hand?

-Physical-only bastard tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk, will you be able to play games well like that?

-He plays fucking well?

Seo-jun continued the climb with a smile.

[What, really?]

[Yeah. Since you drew it, you should know better.]

[Damn. I think you’re right. We’re really inside a game? Does this make sense?]

[Sigh. What should we do?]

[What do you mean, what? We just have to wake up from the dream!]

Seo-jun arrived at the top while listening to the two’s dialogue with excitement.

Seeing that the green mark did not disappear, it seemed Tae-woo had to come as well, so he decided to wait for a moment.

“By the way, I think I made a good choice with this character?”

[Do you still not get it? This isn’t a dream.]

[Whatever. I need to wake up from this dream quickly. Even in a dream, and even if I look like a toy. Looking at your face is torture.]

[Sure, try waking up all you want. Hmm… First, we need to climb to the highest place. You follow me too.]

[What? Why? Do you think I’d follow your words? …Hey! Wait for me!]

Based on the dialogue heard so far, the character chosen by Seo-jun was quite rational, whereas the character chosen by Tae-woo was.

Well.

Good at denying reality.

“The narration ended here.”

Seo-jun spoke, and Tae-woo complained from way down below.

“Damn. But why is my character so emotional?”

-Agree ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-But why can’t I imagine the streamer being emotional?

-Both suit them well.

From the top, Seo-jun looked down at Tae-woo who was climbing up.

“When on earth are you arriving?”

“I don’t know either?”

Tae-woo lifted his back foot submerged in the garbage.

And stepped upward.

Slide.

Clang.

Clang.

And whenever Tae-woo moved, the small trash slipped down like sand, and Tae-woo’s body was also pushed backward by it.

The small fragments like cans fell with clanging sounds.

“Ah.”

In the end, Tae-woo, who was lifting his feet with difficulty, lost his balance and fell.

So Tae-woo began to crawl up on all fours.

“Lowering the center of gravity, huh. A good choice.”

“Would you shut up if you’re not going to help? But how did you climb up so fast? It was almost without any blockage.”

“Is this hard?”

Seo-jun tilted his head.

-Tae-woo, just ㅋㅋㅋ don’t ask anything.

-Why does everything look so easy for the streamer over there? ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-He used footwork.

Footwork, my foot.

Turning his head to check Tae-woo’s chat window, Seo-jun spoke.

“Maybe the path I climbed was different. Let me try going down toward you and climbing up.”

Crawling up, Tae-woo raised his head and looked at Seo-jun.

“Sure. Try it.”

Step.

Step.

Seo-jun strode down while paying moderate attention to his body’s center of gravity.

Although the ground below slipped slightly, he did not fall.

And Seo-jun passed by Tae-woo, then climbed back up.

Tae-woo looked up blankly at the back of Seo-jun climbing up again like that.

“Isn’t he really a bug?”

-Truly fascinating ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-No, but even though there are tightrope walkers in the world, the streamer over there does everything well.

-Tae-woo, hurry up and just climb.

-A bug, my foot ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ You will now directly feel the feelings of the FC and Dawn of the Assassins users.

He did not know it at the time, but this was only the beginning.

***

Tae-woo arrived.

And opened his mouth.

Naturally, a cutscene began.

[Damn. Why did we climb up here.]

[Because high places have a good view. And because this is closest to the discharge chute. Above all, because the protagonist of our game climbed up here too.]

[True… Makes sense. But still, the discharge chute looks pretty high?]

He looked around.

And Seo-jun’s character discovered a hook in the trash tower, gripped it in his hand, and pulled it hard.

Rustle.

A corner slid down, and Seo-jun’s character was able to pull out a long rope.

[That is?]

[Grappling hook. Protagonist’s item.]

[Ah. That? But why are there two? There was only one in the game.]

[Probably. It means our coming here wasn’t a coincidence.]

It was indeed meaningful.

After handing a grappling hook to Tae-woo, Seo-jun’s character began to swing the hook.

The target was the discharge chute.

Whoosh!

However, the length was insufficient, and without reaching, the hook wound back to Seo-jun like a wire with a snap.

[That… how did you do that? It’s kind of awesome?]

[It just worked?]

[Really? Let me try… What, it works well for me too? Ha. You’re saying this really isn’t a dream?]

[Shall we stop talking about that dream now? This isn’t a dream. You know it.]

[Okay. I get it. I get it. Then what do we do now?]

[I don’t know either… However.]

[However?]

[To get some kind of clue… we should probably meet the protagonist of this game. Seeing as this rope is still here, it means the game hasn’t even started.]

[That seems to make sense. We didn’t complete the game either.]

[…….]

[…….]

Assuredly, if Seo-jun were in the same situation, he would have looked for the protagonist first.

Or, the final boss.

But wasn’t it obvious that the final boss would be too far away?

[By the way, why did the lights suddenly turn on in this treatment plant earlier?]

[That is…]

It was then.

A main gate the size of a water gate opened.

And a large toy resembling a garbage compactor (?) entered while emitting shining headlights and engine sounds.

“It seems the tutorial is starting.”

Simultaneously, Seo-jun’s vision, which was watching the cutscene, also returned to normal.