Trip to Korea (2)
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As I got off the bus that stopped at the Dong Seoul Bus Terminal, I checked my status window and saw that my Willpower had increased by 4 and my Concentration by 1.
Maybe it was because my stats had gone up, or maybe because I had just woken up, but the shock of having killed someone had faded to some extent.
Right, they had a gun.
I had no choice if I wanted to live.
I kept repeating the words "I had no choice" to myself as I walked around the terminal to find a motel first.
Since it was around the terminal, there were a lot of motels, when suddenly a woman's sharp scream echoed from an alley.
What is it?
I peeked into the alley and saw two men threatening a woman with a knife.
In the Seoul of this universe, it wasn't that rare of a sight.
Should I just walk past…?
"!"
I was about to walk past, but the angle changed and I saw the woman's face.
It was Han Yu-gyeong, the protagonist of [Megacorp's Youngest Son].
What was she doing here?
Shouldn't you still be in Incheon, the starting point...?
I don't know what brought her all the way here, but as a veteran player of this game, I couldn't let Han Yu-gyeong get hurt in a place like this.
I slowly approached and chopped the back of one of the thugs' necks with the edge of my hand.
In movies and anime, they usually pass out when you hit them here.
However, perhaps because I had hit him gently so as not to kill him, the thug turned around, saying, "The fuck was that?"
"More than a few guys have died playing hero."
"You think a knife can't pierce you just 'cause you're built?"
The two thugs threatened me with knives that were about a handspan long.
In times like these, the first strike wins!
Surprisingly, the thugs seemed to have had the same thought as me and rushed at me at the same time.
I pushed away the knife of one who was dangerously aiming for a vital spot, and at the same time, I grabbed his wrist and twisted it.
It wasn't a technical twist like a martial arts master disarming someone, but I simply twisted the wrist itself with my overwhelming physical ability.
The thug grabbed his dangling wrist and let out a scream.
"Kuaaack!"
The other one swung his knife at me, and I intentionally let it graze me slightly.
Han Yu-gyeong saw the blood splatter and let out a small shriek.
The moment the thug raised his hand to slash again, I ducked my head, circled to his side, and hit his ribs.
With a crunch! I felt his ribs break under my fist.
I spun back the other way and hit his ribs again!
"Keok!"
"If you repeat this, it becomes a Dempsey Roll."
The thug who had been holding his broken wrist abandoned his colleague who was clutching his side and ran away.
What a disloyal bastard.
I approached the trembling Han Yu-gyeong, who looked startled, and held out my hand as I asked.
"Are you okay?"
Han Yu-gyeong, who took my hand and got up, opened her mouth with an expression that seemed more worried about me.
"Ah…. Yes. But isn't your arm in more danger than I am?"
I glanced at my arm.
My left arm was cut, and the white shirt I had taken from the guard was stained red.
"Something like this is fine."
"What do you mean it's fine? You're bleeding like this!"
In truth, it only bled when I was cut and stained the shirt, it had already healed a long time ago thanks to the effects of Regeneration.
But from the looks of it, with the shirt soaked in blood, it would seem like a serious injury.
In fact, without the damage reduction from the Yeouiju and Regeneration, it could have been a major wound.
But I trusted in those two abilities and intentionally took the injury.
"First, I'll go buy some medicine from the convenience store! Just wait a moment."
In fact, I had intentionally let the knife graze me in order to put Han Yu-gyeong, the protagonist of this world, in my debt.
And there was also the fact that I felt a little sorry for Han Yu-gyeong.
[Megacorp's Youngest Son] was a massive global hit game and a sequel to its predecessor, [The Mega Corporation] (called TMC).
It depicted the past of TMC, the era just before the advent of cyberpunk when megacorps were just beginning to emerge.
The protagonist was the youngest child of the Shingang Group, one of Korea's top 10 conglomerates, and it was a game about raising the value of the company through various achievements while simultaneously solidifying one's position within the company to become the chairman.
Contrary to the name [Megacorp's Youngest Son], you could freely choose the protagonist's gender, but gamers called starting as a woman the beginning of Nightmare Mode.
The founder of the Shingang Group, Han Mun-gang, was a man with an old-fashioned mindset that didn't fit the current era, and he only thought of the daughters of the family as tools for political marriages.
So, if you started as a woman, it was incredibly difficult to raise Han Mun-gang's favorability, which was a crucial point, and the support you received from the family in the early stages was only a pittance.
Moreover, when starting as a woman, your physical stats were lower than a man's, so you struggled even against early-game monsters, and if you got caught by thugs like now, you would get the 'Trauma' status effect, and Han Mun-gang's favorability would drop.
Finally, even if you completed the same quest, the rewards were worse than a man's.
Even after clearing an incredibly difficult quest, you would only receive the reward for clearing a mid-tier quest by male standards, so all the gamers unanimously called the female button in the gender selection screen the Nightmare Difficulty button.
So usually, if you played as the female protagonist, you wouldn't go the route of raising your grandfather's favorability to get promoted internally, but instead, you'd focus on nurturing external forces to take over the company.
Of course, the latter route was twice as difficult.
As I was lost in thought about the game for a few minutes, Han Yu-gyeong soon returned, carrying a bag full of things.
It was probably medicine and such.
"Here, I bought bandages and medicine."
"Ah, thank you."
"Don't thank me. You got hurt trying to save me…."
I couldn't wrap the bandage in the middle of the street.
Besides, I would have to take off my shirt to wrap it, so it was even more impossible.
"I don't mean anything else by this…."
Han Yu-gyeong said, looking at the ground, her ears turning red.
"Yes?"
"You have to wrap the bandage…. Would you like to go over there?"
The place the blushing Han Yu-gyeong pointed to was a motel.
I could see a neon sign that read 'Motel Rose.'
Finding Han Yu-gyeong's embarrassment quite amusing, I gave a slight smile and nodded my head.
"A room for the night."
I had to get a room anyway, so I said I was staying the night, paid, and got into the elevator.
"Um…. For the night?"
"Ah, I came to Seoul for sightseeing. It's late today, so I was planning on sleeping here anyway since I'm already here."
"Ah…"
An awkward atmosphere swirled inside the elevator.
Ding!
The elevator stopped with a sound and the doors opened.
Han Yu-gyeong and I walked down the hallway, keeping a good distance from each other, and entered the room.
"First, please take off your shirt."
At Han Yu-gyeong's words, I took off my shirt.
I glanced at my arm and saw a small, thin scar, as if it hadn't completely healed because my Regeneration level was still low.
Han Yu-gyeong brought a motel towel, wet it with water, and wiped my arm.
She seemed a little surprised that the wound wasn't very big and her eyes widened slightly.
"The wound isn't that big?"
"I told you, didn't I? That I was fine."
An awkward silence followed again, but Han Yu-gyeong opened her mouth as if to break it.
"Come to think of it, I don't think I've properly introduced myself. I'm Han Yu-gyeong. Thank you for saving me."
"I'm Jin Yong-tae. Um... just a passing tourist."
At my answer, Han Yu-gyeong made a face that said, 'Why would a Korean be sightseeing in Seoul?'
"A tourist…?"
"Ah, I'm a Zainichi Korean. I'm scheduled to start at a company in a little over ten days, so I came to Korea for a trip before that."
I smiled and showed her my employee ID.
When Han Yu-gyeong saw my ID, her expression became a little strange.
It was a look of suspicion.
"You said you were Jin Yong-tae, but this says Taira Ryuta. Did the Taira family send you to find me?"
At Han Yu-gyeong's slightly interrogative question, I answered with a troubled expression.
"Ah…. I'm... an illegitimate child. I originally grew up as Jin Yong-tae without even knowing my father, but I was recently acknowledged by the family, so I'll be joining the company under that name."
"Oh! I'm so sorry."
In fact, the protagonist and her parents also weren't acknowledged by the family in the early stages, so Han Yu-gyeong was startled when she heard I was an illegitimate child.
She felt a sense of kinship due to our similar stories.
"It's okay. It's not like I was mistreated for being an illegitimate child or anything. I just found out a little while ago that I had a father whose face I didn't even know."
"Still, for suspecting you for no reason…."
"May I ask why you were so suspicious?"
This time, Han Yu-gyeong looked troubled.
Of course, I wasn't actually troubled, I was just pretending to be, but Han Yu-gyeong seemed reluctant to reveal that she was from the Shingang Group.
"I'm in a similar situation. I'm not an illegitimate child, but I'm also the child of a family that was cast out from a corporation."
"Ah…. So you suspected that I had approached you on purpose."
It's true that I approached her after seeing her by chance.
But I hadn't approached her as part of a deliberate plan.
"No matter how great the Taira Group is, there's no way they would have known that you would be attacked by thugs today, Ms. Han Yu-gyeong."
"Yes…. That's true. I guess I was being too paranoid. And what use would I be anyway."
I patted Han Yu-gyeong's suddenly slumped shoulders.
If we were a little closer, I would have hugged her.
"Don't you have to go home, Ms. Yu-gyeong? Do you live nearby?"
It was 12:40 AM on a Saturday, a time when the subways would stop running.
"Ah!"
Han Yu-gyeong was startled when she saw the time.
In the early stages, she doesn't have much money, so she probably wouldn't have enough to call a taxi all the way to Incheon.
"Um…. I'm sorry, but…. would it be okay if I slept here tonight?"
Here? Hell yeah.
***
Han Yu-gyeong: