Chapter 7: Cinderella(3)

I leave my room and head straight to the living room.

Sweat drips from my forehead, but despite needing a shower, my hunger takes precedence.

I just want to calm my rumbling stomach.

As I open the door and step into the living room, my eyes meet those of a boy who’s shoving pizza into his mouth with both hands.

Harang, Hayeon’s one and only brother.

That brat was eating pizza by himself without even telling me.

Suddenly, a surge of anger bubbles up from deep within me.

“Hey.”

“Mmph…”

“Why are you eating by yourself?”

Does he think he’s the only one with a mouth?

Harang, who had a mouthful of pizza, just rolled his eyes in panic.

Casually, I walk over and sit beside him.

The pizza, now half cold, still has plenty left for me.

He wouldn’t dare complain about me taking my share.

As I reach for a slice, Harang flinches.

Although this world is different, it’s the same Harang.

Both versions of him love the same food.

The pizza he ordered is even my favorite — potato pizza.

Its simple yet delicious taste is perfect.

As I munch on the pizza, a thought suddenly comes to me.

Harang is 18 years old now.

He should easily be able to solve middle school textbook problems.

“Hey.”

“Huh?”

“Teach me how to study.”

Harang, who had just picked up a cup of cola, froze, his mouth hanging open.

My request seemed to shock him to the core.

“Study. Teach me.”

I wasn’t embarrassed.

I was asking myself, after all.

There’s no reason to feel ashamed.

If I don’t improve my grades, Mom will be disappointed.

I needed to keep up my act as the perfect daughter.

“Study? Are you seriously out of your mind?”

“Are you going to teach me or not?”

I glare at him, and he weakly nods in defeat.

After all, I had something on him.

He had no choice but to comply.

“Fine.”

“Ah… but I wanted to play a game…”

“If I can’t play, neither can you.”

After glaring at him to make sure he didn’t sneak into his game capsule, I hurriedly fetched my textbooks from the room.

The biggest issue was math.

I could vaguely keep up with everything else.

“Sigh…”

Was he feeling sorry for himself for having to tutor his sister in math?

I sat close to Harang, who let out a long sigh.

While Harang and I were wrestling with the math textbook, a video was posted in the guild chat of [Singsing].

[Jimin20/Lunaris Priest] Guys, isn’t this a hack?

[Jimin20/Lunaris Priest] [Video file] Take a look at this.

[Jimin20/Lunaris Priest] This is unbelievable.

——

・How can someone kill three people in less than a minute?

Watching the screen on her phone, Yerin let out a deep sigh.

What started as a friendly guild had grown in size, and they began recruiting more members.

The people who joined through acquaintances of acquaintances were all equally irritating.

They flaunted the guild’s reputation despite lacking skill.

Yerin despised behavior like that.

Even though she’d warned them several times, they only listened temporarily.

Did they see her as nothing more than a figurehead master?

With her real-life commitments increasing and her in-game presence decreasing, lines had begun forming within the guild.

Jimin’s behavior wasn’t anything new. It would soon be forgotten, as always.

Yerin irritably brushed her hair back and played the attached video file.

As expected, the trouble started with her guild members.

They were picking a fight with a solo player, a sight she was all too familiar with.

The video was just over a minute long.

Two minutes? What could that possibly mean?

With a small question in mind, Yerin focused on the video.

By the way, the character customization was well done.

The small, cute girl’s appearance seemed more fitting for a mage or priest than a warrior adept at close combat.

But the large Highlander sword on her shoulder strangely suited her.

Her annoyed expression added an odd charm to her look.

A flag drops on the video screen.

A player with the username [Yeon] initiates a duel by imposing penalties.

Then, the player spoke again.

[One minute.]

No other party members are visible.

Definitely a solo player.

Yerin’s guild immediately accepted the duel request.

And then something bizarre happened.

The girl rushed in, decapitating the priest almost instantly.

The video was shot from the priest’s perspective, but even though the priest had died, the camera kept recording.

The camera view shifts from first-person to looking down from above.

The girl didn’t stop.

She counterattacked an incoming blow and swung her sword again.

The duel had been going on for only four seconds at this point.

It took two seconds to close the gap, one second to kill the priest with a charge, and one second to kill the attacking swordsman.

Her reaction speed was absurdly fast.

A small whisper escaped Yerin’s lips.

“Impossible.”

It really was impossible.

Her speed was incomprehensible.

This game had ventured into the realm of pure reflexes, but this player’s reaction time bordered on foresight.

The video continued playing.

Yerin recognized the player wielding the large shield.

He was skilled but had the temperament of a bull, someone who had always annoyed her by hitting on female players.

Even though she never revealed her gender, he somehow sniffed it out like a hound.

There wasn’t much time left in the video, which meant the duel was about to be over.

The girl moved.

She spun her body and twisted the path of her sword as she swung.

Clang!

With a crisp effect, her sword collided with the shield, shooting upward toward the sky.

It looked just like a horn.

A bull’s horn.

The girl didn’t panic.

She seemed to have anticipated that move and brought her sword down in a sharp strike.

The tip of the sword pierced the tank player’s helmet.

And that was the end.

The girl swung her sword in the air and rested it on her shoulder, as if shaking off dirt from the blade.

Apparently, Yerin wasn’t the only one who had watched the video, because the guild chat was heating up.

Many people had downloaded the video.

With 300 members in [Singsing], someone had already posted it on the Deron gallery.

[Deron Online Gallery]

[Does this look like a hack?] [56]
(Video)

Someone posted in the guild chat that the video was suspicious and asked for others’ thoughts. The reaction speed doesn’t make sense, right?

[Comments]

[Is it Singsing again?]

ᄂ[Singsing sucks.]

[Those damn Singsing guys got wrecked, lol.]

[If you look at the reaction speed, it seems like a hack.]

[There are no hacks in Deron, dude.]

[Singsing gets an upvote.]

[Singsing deserves a downvote.]

[Singsing viral marketing again? Have you already forgotten what happened last time????]

[These guys forget the moment they turn around.]

[Where did they get that character customization? I want it too.]

[That customization is nice.]

[Lol, Singsing gets wrecked, and now they’re accusing people of hacking. That’s classic.]

[Wow, but they are really good.]

[This is staged. No one can normally do this.]

[If you look at the reaction speed, they’re not a regular player.]

[That’s why they can’t do it, idiot.]

[No, I mean they’re probably a pro player, you moron.]

[I blocked all the Singsing idiots, so I can’t see their trending posts. Big upvote, lol.]

ᄂ[Upvote, lol.]

ᄂ[This isn’t fake. I upvoted it 10 times.]

ᄂ[That’s what’s fake.]

ᄂ[This isn’t fake. I downvoted and upvoted both.]

ᄂ[Upvote, lol.]

If, just if, the person who uploaded that video wasn’t a regular from the Singsing guild, the gallery’s reaction would have been different.

But it’s Singsing.

Their infamous reputation, both in the game and on the gallery, meant that the post didn’t get much attention.

Their repeated bad behavior had built up an image that made many users choose to block them.

And so, slowly, interest in the player [Yeon] started to fade.

As usual, the gallery’s focus shifted to something else.

But one thing remained.

A screenshot of [Yeon] using a [Charge] skill on the priest player stuck around and started being used as a profile picture by some users.

As life continued on, it was time for P.E. class.

Inside the large gym, the P.E. teacher, who didn’t seem interested in the class, tossed a ball to the boys and went to sit on a sofa in the corner.

The students didn’t seem bothered by this; it was a familiar situation for them.

As usual, the boys gathered to play soccer, dodgeball, or basketball, while those uninterested in physical activity grouped together to pass the time.

I, too, was just sitting quietly, having been dragged over by Sohee.

It was suffocating.

The occasional conversations passing by from the middle school girls were slowly eating away at my mind.

Makeup, clothes, sometimes comments about the boys, favorite celebrities.

Everything they talked about was something I couldn’t relate to.

All I could do was awkwardly smile while fiddling with my phone.

“Ha-yeon!”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Why are your replies so short lately?”

Sohee shot me a sharp question.

I felt the need to reply to my friends’ messages, but I just couldn’t respond like the old Seo Ha-yeon used to.

“Well, it’s just…”

“Just what?”

“Just… trying to change things up a bit.”

“Change things up…?”

After answering, I looked around nervously.

The other girls nearby burst into laughter.

What’s so funny?

“Haha, Ha-yeon said she’s changing things up, hahaha!”

Trying to hold back their laughter, the girls’ shoulders shook.

It didn’t feel great.

If I’m going to keep using this body, I really do need to change things up. It’s true.

“Yeah, I changed things up… so just know that.”

Luckily, Ha-yeon’s friends nodded.

They seemed to take it as a cute joke, but at least they wouldn’t bring it up again.

Then, it happened.

Something started tugging at my heightened senses.

My mind was ignited with a burning sensation.

It was a feeling I always experienced when playing the game.

The sensation of detecting danger and evading it, like a form of future foresight.

Something was flying toward me at high speed.

The body in the game is different from the body in reality.

What seemed possible in the game is impossible in real life.

But I move.

Instinctively, I know.

Even with this body, I can block it.

What’s flying toward me is a ball.

A hard soccer ball.

I glance beyond the ball and see the faces of the male students, mixed with embarrassment.

I can’t catch it with my hand.

My palm is too small, and I might hurt myself instead.

I can’t use both hands either.

My left hand is holding my phone.

So, I use my fist.

The wide-open palm clenches into a solid fist, and the muscles in my arm pull back.

Just like someone standing in front of a punching machine.

I rotate from the ankle, transferring the force to my calf and thigh.

That rotation amplifies greatly at the waist.

My body moves like a spring, sending all that force to my upper body.

Bang!

My fist strikes the ball.

A sharp sensation spreads through my hand.

It looks like my hand has turned red.

Immediately after, I kick the bouncing ball back to the male students.

Everything flowed smoothly.

My friends sitting behind me just gaped with their mouths open.

“Wha-what was that…?”

“Ha-yeon… did you change your settings to ‘Prince’ or something?”

I never imagined I could pull off these movements in reality.

I laughed coolly and stuffed my hand into my pocket.

I’m in front of my friends.

There’s no point in showing that I got hurt.

“Ha-yeon, you were so cool…”

The gazes directed at me grew even more favorable.

I cleared my throat and turned my head.

It felt quite awkward to be receiving the admiration of middle school girls while being over 40 years old.

“Your hand.”

It was Sohee.

She, who had been quietly watching me from the side, suddenly approached, grabbed my arm, and pulled out the hand I had shoved into my pocket.

My reddened hand was now exposed.

Only then did the attention of my friends shift to my hand.

Aside from a slight scrape, there wasn’t any major injury.

“You’re overreacting.”

An uncomfortable feeling swept over me.

When I tried to pull my hand back quickly, Sohee swiftly took out ointment and a band-aid from her pocket.

Do middle school girls usually carry these things?

While I stood there, blankly watching her, she gently applied ointment to the back of my hand.

The soft touch of her fingers mixed with the cool ointment, creating a strange sensation.

“Thanks for protecting me.”

As her fingers left my hand, a cute cat-themed band-aid was placed on top.

I clutched my heart.

Don’t let it race.

She’s a middle schooler.

“Ha-yeon’s face turned red.”

I quickly turned my head.

It’s just because I’m hot, that’s all.

“I-I’m going to the bathroom.”

I hurriedly left the scene.

Small giggles trailed after me as I walked away.

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