Chapter 28: Helena

“Don’t you ever think about streaming?”

Before going to school, while having breakfast, Harang suddenly asked me that question.

Streaming?

It was something I had never considered before, so I blankly opened my mouth.

“Streaming?”

“Yeah.”

“Why all of a sudden?”

“Well… you’re pretty famous, aren’t you?”

I frowned. My perception of streamers wasn’t very good.

If there was a streamer in our guild, things would get complicated.

Whether they were famous or not, that was the case for all streamers.

Just because they shared the same guild name, it felt like everyone was forced to adopt the same mindset as the streamer.

Why did they try to make the things that happened with that person into an issue for the whole guild?

A vague memory surfaced, and my face scrunched up.

Noticing my reaction, Harang quickly added, “No, it’s not like I’m forcing you to do it…”

“I’m not interested. I’m not fond of streamers.”

It’s not that I hated them, I just felt uneasy about it.

What was I doing at that time?

I probably remember wasting time on the Deron gallery.

I recalled that memory and asked Harang, “You’re not posting weird stuff on the Deron gallery, are you?”

“Huh? Huh? No…”

“Why’s your voice trailing off?”

“No, I’m really not. Seriously.”

“Hmm…”

Just because you deny it, does that make it go away?

I gave a subtle smile and looked at Harang.

He, noticing my gaze, quickly shoved his phone deep into his pocket.

I knew he wouldn’t show it to me anyway.

I could just look it up myself.

“I’m going ahead.”

“Huh? Aren’t you eating more?”

“I’m full.”

Leaving Harang behind, who was dragging his feet, I headed outside.

The walk to school alone was no longer awkward.

The skirt that slightly covered my legs had also become familiar.

I tugged on my stockings, which had slightly rolled down, and walked slowly.

It was the start of the last week of June.

The rain that had fallen early in the morning made everything damp.

The subtle heat rising from the ground and the humid air made me feel stuffy.

Harang, still growing, ate a lot.

So, he needed more time to get ready to leave the house.

I immediately accessed the Deron gallery on my phone.

I quickly glanced at the gallery’s topic and skimmed through the pinned posts.

Sure enough, most of the posts were about my guild and the “씽씽” guild.

Even the first page of the pinned posts was full of content about 씽씽 and 말랑쫀득카우.

As I was skimming through the pinned posts, one title caught my attention.

[Sniping MT?] [121]

(GIFs of sniping an enemy from a high hill, barely visible)

(GIF of sniping an enemy while hiding in a snowstorm)

(GIF of pushing away an assassin trying to approach and turning them into a porcupine)

Never underestimate archers.

[Comment]

[Dog sh*t;;;]

[Isn’t this staged?]

[Those idiots who use arrows sometimes post lucky shots, right?]

[The enemy is 씽씽. It seems like this person was the one bursting their heads until morning, lol]

[Oh no; does that mean this is the Malangjjeondeuk middle schooler?]

[A middle school girl doesn’t raise such a trash character]

The person who uploaded the post was using a temporary nickname, not a fixed one.

But I knew. I couldn’t help but know. It was Harang.

I wondered what he was doing, and it turned out he was showing off his impressive play by uploading it.

I was so taken aback that I almost burst out laughing.

Looking at the comments, he was even engaging in an argument.

I quickly copied the link and sent it to Harang.

Me-[Hey https://gall.dciOOOOe.com/board/lists?id=DeronOnline…. You wrote this, right?]

He would be messing with his phone while eating.

The reply came quickly.

Harang-[No, I didn’t.]

Me-[What do you mean no? Are you posting weird stuff? Should I tell mom?]

Harang took a long time to reply.

About two minutes later, his message arrived.

Harang-[I haven’t posted anything weird, so don’t tell mom.]

After checking Harang’s message, I went back to the gallery.

His post that had been pinned on the concept post section was now gone.

It seemed like he had hurriedly deleted it.

Although the post wasn’t a problem, it seemed like he was embarrassed that his younger sibling saw it.

I gently smiled, touching my lips.

When I arrived at school and blankly attended class, before I knew it, the time for dismissal had come.

In the past, this time felt so long and boring, but now, it didn’t feel that way.

If I worked hard to catch up with the studies I had started again, the time passed quickly.

“Ugh….!”

Stretching to loosen my stiff body from sitting for too long, I started to stretch.

As I stretched my short limbs, Sohee, who had been sitting next to me, approached with shining eyes.

“Want me to help with stretching?”

“Ugh… No, I’m fine.”

The distance felt strangely close. It was only Sohee who did this.

Other friends only ever grabbed my arm or hand at most, but Sohee enjoyed sneaking up and hugging my body.

I was startled by her sudden closeness, but I had gotten somewhat used to this kind of physical contact.

“But, have you decided?”

“Huh… Decided? What do you mean?”

I got up from the chair and started twisting my waist when Sohee spoke.

What did she mean by “decided”?

“School trip.”

“School trip?”

“Yeah.”

A school trip? I hadn’t heard about it, but was that day already coming?

“Did you not hear because you were busy with class?”

“Maybe that’s it?”

“Check the school app. You can vote there.”

I hurriedly opened the app and checked the announcements.

In the most recent notice, as Sohee had said, there was a poll to decide the destination for the school trip.

The trip was scheduled for the 26th, 27th, and 28th of this month.

A 2-night, 3-day trip; for someone like me who was playing games, it was a very inconvenient schedule.

I had only recently created the guild. The engineering club was still in its infancy. If I left for a long time, the consequences of the gap would not be light.

“You’re going, right?”

Suddenly, Sohee grabbed my left hand, which wasn’t holding my phone.

As I looked at her soft, gentle touch, I felt a little dazed, and a small rustling wrapper appeared in my palm.

[Malangjjeondeuk Cow]

“It’s going to be fun, right?”

To have a smooth school life, good relationships with friends were also important.

I forced myself to nod my stiff head.

“Hmm…”

After school, by chance, I ended up crossing the playground with Sohee.

If I had to choose my closest friend at school, it would definitely be Sohee, but this was the first time we were walking home together.

Sohee was smiling brightly beside me.

Her laughter was truly beautiful.

Sohee spoke to me until we reached the end of the playground, but nothing really stayed in my mind.

I was too captivated by the smile she was showing me.

When we passed the school gate, Sohee waved her hand at me.

“I’ll go ahead, okay?”

“Uh? Uh…”

“See you tomorrow, Hayeon~”

Sohee, waving her hand, ran toward a luxurious black sedan waiting nearby.

As she got closer, a man in a black suit quickly got out of the driver’s seat and opened the door for her.

They didn’t seem like family. The man in the suit showed a very respectful attitude toward Sohee.

After getting into the car, Sohee rolled down the window and waved at me.

I stayed still until her figure disappeared from my sight.

Suddenly, I remembered the Malangjjeondeuk Cow candy still in my pocket.

My mind began to race.

Scattered clues started to come together, clicking into place, leading to a single conclusion.

Was Helena Sohee?

But… Helena had never acted like she knew me in the game.

It was the same in real life. Sohee had never mentioned Deron Online even once.

Why was that?

I fidgeted with my phone and turned my body around.

There must be a reason. Maybe, just maybe, it was all just a coincidence.

But…

When I got home, I logged into Deron.

I swiped away the numerous messages that popped up and checked the guild window to see who was online.

But Helena wasn’t logged in.

The guild chat was noisy. Harang, who had gotten home before me, was chatting excitedly with the guild members.

Could it be because of the time when I couldn’t join the guild until I reached the maximum level? Harang was very talkative.

Iyeap-[The guild leader has arrived.]

Yeon-[Hello. I logged in right after school.]

Iyeap-[You’re true to the settings.]

Harang-[Are you going to do that again today?]

Yeon-[Should we? How about the new area? Are those Singsing guys still picking fights?]

Priscilla-[No, they just avoid us when they see us. Hahaha.]

Iyeap-[Looks like they surrendered after Harang bothered them all night.]

I nodded.

If the Singsing guild members had already backed down, there was no need to stir things up further.

At least not at this time.

Last night, before going to bed, I had researched Singsing a bit.

The Singsing guild, which had started as a small casual guild, was probably not used to this kind of situation.

Being beaten up like that would likely cause internal strife.

Since the number of Singsing guild members had been steadily decreasing, my guess was probably correct.

It wasn’t a carnivorous guild. It had started as a herbivorous guild, and it just grew bigger by chance.

Their cohesion couldn’t be strong. On top of that, their guild master couldn’t log in for long periods.

The internal situation probably wasn’t good to begin with.

If you keep beating on them in the field, you develop resistance. It might even strengthen the opponent’s cohesion.

So, what was needed now was a decisive blow.

I recalled a vague memory. After the first new area was released, between July and August, new content like guild raids and guild wars were added.

The Singsing guild’s destruction wasn’t over.

It had only just begun.

Now, I just had to wait for the right moment.

Farming during event periods was very important.

I had to farm as much as I could for [Blessing of the Sun], an item that wouldn’t be available later.

This small buff item would become an important strategy item for future raids.

A tactic that would normally be impossible would become possible with this item.

The speed of strategy would also be overwhelmingly faster. [Blessing of the Sun] was the doping that always appeared in speedruns.

That day, I didn’t leave the dungeon.

I spent the entire day farming event items in a small dungeon.

At 10 PM, the shutdown time started.

Until then, Helena hadn’t logged in.

I got out of the capsule, took a shower, and sat on my bed.

Being the impatient and curious type, I planned to directly ask Sohee.

Me-[Sohee]

It had been about 10 seconds since I sent the message when Sohee’s reply quickly came.

Sohee-[Yes?]

I was about to send a question but hesitated and stopped.

• Was Helena you?

I erased the message I had written up to that point.

Me-[Why didn’t you log in today?]

Sohee-[My dad came home, so I couldn’t log in.]

When I read Sohee’s reply, I let out a sigh of relief.

A cold sweat ran down my back.

So it was true—Helena was Sohee. She even knew that the character Yeon was me.

No, she probably knew even before I created the character Yeon.

I had another character on my account that Hayeon was raising.

Sohee-[Is the game of pretending not to know over now?]

My fingers froze as I read Sohee’s message.

They stiffened and didn’t move.

At that moment, another message from Sohee arrived.

Sohee-[Sorry… I don’t think I can reply now. I have to go eat with my dad.]

Me-[Oh, okay. Enjoy your meal!]

I almost got caught, almost revealing that I wasn’t Hayeon.