Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost
55. Stalemateless (4)
The will had two pages.
Everything on the two pages were a few very concisely written lines.
The first page described the state of Jo Uisin’s body and the number of the funeral company he had contacted beforehand.
‘What on earth does it mean….?’
Cheon Seong-heon couldn’t accept this situation.
It wasn’t that he thought that the will was fake.
He noticed Jo Uisin particular neat handwriting, and he knew that he wasn’t a person to lie about his life.
Even so, he couldn’t think properly right away.
The strange phenomena of Jo Uisin suddenly disappearing and the content of the will made Cheon Seong-heon’s head a mess.
‘Where did Uisin hyung go? And does it mean that hyung’s body state was so bad He contacted the funeral service company instead of the hospital?’
The hand, holding the will, dropped.
Cheon Seong-heon suppressed the trembling of his hands and checked the next page.
[To Seongheon-yi]
On the second page was Cheon Seong-heon’s name and a small envelope attached.
The small envelope was densely packed with cash, more than enough money for the expenses necessary for the funeral service and enshrinement in the enshrinement hall, and the management bills.
Cheon Seong-heon felt his insides sunk.
‘You prepared all of this, but didn’t say a word to me?’
Cheon Seong-heon read the will with bloodshot eyes.
As if answering to his thoughts about the first page of the will, written words conveyed brief goodbyes and sorriness.
‘Why is Uisin hyung apologizing to me? I still didn’t get to say I’m sorry, but…!’
The target and goal of the people dreaming of becoming pro chess players was Jo Uisin.
Cheon Seong-heon was the same.
When he lived at the children’s home, he looked at Jo Uisin’s game records until they worn down and nobody had any idea how happy he was when he heard that he won a big game.
Jo Uisin was Cheon Seong-heon’s most revered idol, star and the pillar of his heart.
It was the same even after Jo Uisin quit chess.
The fact that the same Jo Uisin was apologizing to him, when the reason why he went through miserable things was solely because he got involved with him, seemed to drive him crazy.
The bloodstains scattered in the small room, the funeral company number, the money for funeral costs prepared beforehand all made Cheon Seong-heon suffer, but the words ‘I’m sorry’ were the most painful for him.
‘If He didn’t get involved with me, He wouldn’t be at gosiwon, and wouldn’t have any problems finding a job. If so, He would be able to get the check-up and treatment earlier and there would be no reason for Uisin hyung to leave such a will…’
He endlessly came up with ‘what ifs’.
Cheon Seong-heon couldn’t read the next line and stuffed it into the envelope, which contained the will.
‘Let’s think of finding Uisin hyung. We have to talk in person and convey the facts!’
Cheon Seong-heon looked around the small room, whose owner had disappeared, while working hard to try to maintain calm.
Because of the noise he made when opening the door to Jo Uisin’s room and entering, the residents came out on the corridor and were looking around.
Cheon Seong-heon closed the door and thought rationally.
‘Where did Uisin hyung go?’
There were no windows in the small gosiwon room.
There was no place to hide[1] in there and no way there were any secret passages, etc.
The sole entrance was the door Cheon Seong-heon was around.
‘I heard Uisin hyung coughing. Hyung was clearly here until a moment ago.’
Seeing the soaked in blood sheet, Cheon Seong-heon tightly closed his eyes and then opened them.
Cheon Seong-heon tried to coldly think of the move he could play.
‘Should I call the police? No, it would be useless.’
First thing he came up with was reporting the missing person case to the police and ask for help, but he soon gave up that idea.
It didn’t seem like the police would dedicate much of manpower to finding a terminally ill patient, who left a will and disappeared.
More than that, if Cheon Seong-heon would have his feet tied for no reason, because he was suspected of helping in Jo Uisin’s disappearance, there was a chance he would miss the golden timing to find Jo Uisin.
‘Something had happened here which I can’t understand rationally. If I try to respond rationally, it will only steal time and I might not be able to turn it back.’
Cheon Seong-heon instinctively sensed it wasn’t an ordinary affair.
Assuming that Jo Uisin’s disappearance wasn’t a commonsense occurrence, Cheon Seong-heon made an action plan.
‘First, I have to figure out the circumstances for certain.’
There was a CCTV in the corridor and at the entrance, and Jo Uisin remained inside.
Cheon Seong-heon visited the gosiwon management room and looked through the CCTV, but Jo Uisin never left the room after entering it.
Jo Uisin’s last whereabouts were in the room.
If so, the clue clearly had to be in the room.
‘What were Uisin hyung doing just before He disappeared?’
Cheon Seong-heon briefly organized Jo Uisin’s objective actions, before he disappeared, into keywords.
Stuck inside.
Coughing.
Game.
Cheon Seong-heon concentrated on the third keyword, ‘game’.
‘Uisin hyung would be playing PMH. As evidence, the setting book and the folder organizing the conquest method are spread out. Considering Uisin hyung’s personality, He would clean it up after finishing the game.’
Cheon Seong-heon checked Jo Uisin’s smartphone.
As he wiped the blood splatter on the LCD and looked at the screen, he saw that PMH game app was opened.
Beyond the LCD, the gift box, with the game main screen in the background, opened, and the floating system guide message.
[Last Chapter Clear Compensation acquire completed.]
Usually, when opening a gift-box and checking the content, a notice what kind of item was obtained would come up, but just a notice that the acquire was completed came up.
He couldn’t figure out why and how Jo Uisin disappeared just like before, but he became certain with this.
‘Uisin hyung cleared the last chapter and obtained the compensation just before disappearing. This was His last action.’
There were no clues besides that.
As he recalled PMH, corner of Cheon Seong-heon’s chest became icky.
The national game wreck Player Meister Highschool went down in the Korea’s mobile game history.
‘It wasn’t just one or two things that were strange about this gamewreck.’
Player Meister Highschool had the highest development costs and marketing costs in the gaming history at the time.
Even Cheon Seong-heon, who was a highschooler with no interest in games, knew PMH ads.
The web and streets were full of PMH ads.
It even looked as if they were begging you to play at least once.
But PMH was clearly ruined.
Even so, the operation continued.
‘PMH came out in the documentary programs on several topic. Even the famous streamers tried to get in touch with the game company to reveal PMH’s secrets. But no one succeeded.’
There were many programs and famous streamers, which analyzed how ruined PMH was.
PMH’s base development costs, marketing costs, server maintenance costs, new update content development costs.
The pricing base of the priced content and etc, and PMH’s users number.
Everyone analyzed those two things through numerous materials and individual methods, but the result was always the same.
PMH wasn’t able to recover even 10% of the investment costs, and the loss would increase exponentially as long as it operated.
The Players, who were still playing PMH, were crazy, but the developers and the game company was even crazier.
Cheon Seong-heon felt that conclusion would hurt Jo Uisin, but he understood it wasn’t wrong.
‘It’s right, because even now all kinds of dark rumors circulate.’
Although it made no sense, the public made numerous theories to explain the PMH’s operation situation.
There were countless theories ranging from plausible to absurd.
The representative theories were as follows.
‘PMH is an online money laundering app to launder funds of crime syndicates.’
‘PMH is an enormous psychological test, made to do illegal psychological tests.’
‘PMH is a government’s project to stimulate the mentality of the jobless youth playing games to return to reality.’
‘PMH is a work of a ghost to destroy the minds of its users.’
But none of the theories turned out to be true.
When it became a hot topic as a national game wreck, and the people suspicious of its profit structure increased, the national tax service carried out a tax investigation, but no matter how much they dug, nothing but the conclusion that PMH was just simply an extremely ruined game came out.
‘Uh?’
When Cheon Seong-heon updated the PMH on his smartphone after a long time and connected.
A notice floated up in PMH.
[Player Meister Highschool, server shut-down[2] notice.]
No matter how much it was cursed, or how many users left, or how much money was drained on it, PMH didn’t reform on any problem points and didn’t shut down its server.
So it was somewhat strange that just after the last chapter update, it announced the server shut down right away.
Cheon Seong-heon made a theory straight away.
‘PMH had some kind of goal, so until now the server wasn’t shut down, so aren’t they shutting down servers now, because that goal was achieved?’
This game’s last goal might have simply been the last chapter update.
But PMH’s enthusiastic Player Jo Uisin suddenly disappeared after clearing the last chapter.
There were no basis for it, but Cheon Seong-heon sensed the two were related.
‘I have to clear the last chapter like Uisin hyung did, before the server closes!’
The only clue was PMH, and PMH’s servers were closing soon.
Cheon Seong-heon started to play PMH right away.
‘I played it sometimes, but how far did I get in the story mode? It was just after the character with the butterfly motif died by the Dark Mastermind’s hands, but…’
Following Jo Uisin’s actions, Cheon Seong-heon decided to hurriedly conquer PMH.
Cheon Seong-heon unfolded the conquest book and setting book left by Jo Uisin, turned on the smartphone and opened PHM.
As a bonus, he turned on the laptop and checked the blog posts Jo Uisin left in his PMH’s play records.
Jo Uisin faithfully left the record of his replays.
‘Uisin hyung, I’ll borrow Your conquest book and setting book.’
After that, Cheon Seong-heon locked himself up in Jo Uisin’s room and played PMH.
Thanks to the conquest left by Jo Uisin, he was able to see the ending quickly.
When he wanted to give up because of the wretched story, he read a line of the will left by Jo Uisin.
Then played PMH again, surging with enthusiasm to find a clue about Jo Uisin.
With around an hour left until the server shut down, Cheon Seong-heon safely succeeded in clearing PMH’s last chapter.
‘… It really is a bad ending without dreams, hope or mercy, huh? Uisin hyung’s body wasn’t good, so would He be okay after seeing such an ending?’
After seeing the ending, the notification arrived.
[You can obtain the Last Chapter Clear Compensation. Check the gift box to get it.]
Cheon Seong-heon hurriedly opened the gift-box.
‘The Clear Compensation will be the clue to the place Uisin hyung is!’
And the screen stopped, and he heard a strange voice in his head.
⟨Connection with Transcendent Universe completed. Examining the connected Player’s suitability.⟩
⟨Examination completed. Player ‘Cheon Seong-heon’ is selected as Suitable Other Dimension Future Modification Candidate[3].⟩
Cheon Seong-heon doubted if what he was hearing was a hallucination, but thinking this hallucination was also a clue to find Jo Uisin, he leaned in his ears and concentrated.
⟨Suitable Other Dimension Future Modification Candidate ‘Cheon Seong-heon’s’ information modification, dimension synchronization and transfer is in progress.⟩
Dimension synchronization?
Transfer?
He couldn’t understand a word of the hallucination-like voice, but he thought that the word ‘transfer’ was related to Jo Uisin’s sudden disappearance.
When Cheon Seong-heon strengthened his heart, preparing to move.
⟨The information modification was successful, but a serious error occurred in the process of dimension synchronization.⟩
⟨To protect the Suitable Other Dimension Future Modification Candidate, the dimension synchronization and transfer were halted.⟩
*~*~*
[1] place to hide — could also be interpreted as a place to breathe.
[2] shut-down — literally ‘completed’
[3] candidate — or substitute. It could also mean ‘a big reward’, or ‘next news/later news’ or in Buddhism ‘referring to the karma received after three lives based on the good and evil deeds committed in the current life’.
Translator’s note: Okay, but that fourth theory sounds quite convincing.
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