Yeung-Sung paced about his apartment, filled with energy. He imagined Wil, Martin, Shirley and the rest looking up at each other in the Wick as they read his message. He imagined Darnes behind the bar struggling to comprehend his actions. But at the same time, knowing exactly what his regulars will do for a fellow member.

Yeung-Sung held the phone behind his back as he circled the floorboards, planning. They know what happened, yet nobody has come to comfort me. No one has even apologised on Jordan’s behalf. Especially Darnes, who has seen me in this state. He’s seen me, knows my agony, but brushes over my battered body. What? Too offensive for your worldview? the colony worldview; the inevitable world-worldview. He gritted his teeth and stopped, bringing Airgead back up on the screen. Have they fallen for it? Does their guilt make them malleable?

You must be joking, you’re not nearly ready.

He has to experience it eventually, let’s just get this over with

That’s ballsy of you

F

I have an idea. Will you help me?

There was a long pause where no one typed. Yeung-Sung fiddled with one hand, tapping the screen every so often to stop it from going to sleep. Shit! I need this to work. After what seemed like a long, cold minute of standing with bated breath some action beat onto the screen. [Shane is typing…]

He’s hardly going to convince them! Why isn’t anyone else responding? He pictured the congregation in the Wick shrugging their shoulders in lost unison. It was only a single night, I’ve only just met them, why would they help me? But he needed some assistance in beating a Gauntlet that hundreds of other people have not been able to conquer -and others had the edge of time, past experience, numbers. Yeung-Sung slumped against the side of his bed. I can’t just give in. Considering calling MEDB back, ignoring whether she was associated with GLI or not, the first syllable caught in his throat as Shane’s message was posted:

Waste our time and resources so you can learn the value of medals? Ha

Fuck it. Sounds like a great night! I’m in

And immediately, so was everyone else.

Gimme a sec, gonna buy a round and we’ll start to plan.

I’m very curious about your idea, little one!

Yeung-Sung thought that having the Wick’s help with the gauntlet would’ve helped him to relax, but it only turned his faraway, anxious dream into an obligatory reality. They’re expecting me to lose. They see me as the insolent brat I was acting like before -Oh wow I was bad- but I have to change that, I have to make them trust me. He leapt into bed and crawled under the covers, hiding away. The projection of Airgead’s landscape filled the blanket-tent. He tabbed to the home screen. The dangling entryway for the Gauntlet hung at the bottom. It seemed to part open slightly like a loose gate, inviting him for a trial run. Before I can even attempt this strategy, I need to see what the Gauntlet is actually like. But how long does it take, and what happens if I lose -do I need to redo the tutorial? Yeung-Sung sucked in his lips, regretting being so rash in his decision. I need to take advantage of guilt so fresh, he tried to convince himself, later might be too late.

Still, I need extra information. He looked through the Wick chat, reading again through each member’s skillset. To an extent, everyone could be useful in the trial. He ran his finger through a line that caught him before.

Wil, what are you up to now? Don’t tell me your still doing “research”?

Wilhelm. In a panic, ignoring the first cries about “how the hell are you going to pull this off?”, he pressed hard on the American’s icon, and initiated a direct message. Yeung-Sung tapped a few words, then cleared them out. His blankets slipping down around his head, he re-adjusted them, shoving everything -including himself- to a corner of the bed and tucking the sheets under his hip. When he was satisfied, he looked back at the chat to discover Wil was typing to him;

I can see you typing, ya know?

Anyway, I don’t know what weird ass Korean strategy you’ve been grinding up in your recuperation time, but I know for a fact that you don’t have near enough info on combat to carry you

Yeung-Sung was so thankful that he bowed out of habit.

Ehh, also I don’t have any crafting masteries to speak of, so I can’t really supply you with anything else except information.

Yeung-Sung rolled his eyes under the covers, inhaling the confined air. Regardless, he thought and typed out, {Thank you}

What is your research exactly?

My “research”? Lmao, that’s an interesting way to put it

You’re trying to figure out the game, right? Did you learn anything?

I hate this game, you know. Honestly it doesn’t even deserve that title. I hate Airgead.

What? But you know everything about games

Yeung-Sung was starting to think he had made a mistake and looked for an alternative person to ask, privately, for info. As uncomfortable as the organised factions made him feel, he even went back through different invites: A group of the colony’s shopkeepers told him urged him to follow his philanthropic interests and throttle the prices of the market; A coloner typing in “ye olde English” cordially invited him to a group called the RolePlayers, with entirely too suggestive font typing; Player’s Market, true to the warnings, urged him to join their post-capitalist revolution and claimed to have over a third of the colony under their thumb.

One of the letters was particularly aggressive, sent by a coloner that went by HerbertP.

Pak,

It’s wearing on you, isn’t it?

You’re broken, so let’s do something about it.

Let’s break the colony, burn it to the ground.

Herb

Tabbing quickly away from that, he noticed that the DM conversation with Wilhelm had a dozen updates. Maybe he has something.

The colony used to be like a dream come true, Yeung-Sung. Can you imagine? Shut in with games all day, the world breaks and suddenly the saviour of humanity advocates an economy based on the only thing I knew.

But real life is always disappointing. I should’ve known.

I was brought into the colony late into the cycle, two resets ago. Even though I was so far behind the rest, it was amazing! Just like almost every JRPG; skills; stats; levels; classes. Before it closed, I even got to advise the Champions on strategy. The Fucking Champs, man!

Oh yeah, they’re consistently the top guild. Elite and small. Anyway, the next version of the experiment -the one we had before this- took a different approach. It was like a personal attack on me-

Yeung-Sung stiffened. He gripped at his arms, gasping, and cuddled in further into his blankets before continuing.

-as if it was a personal attack on me, individual skill became obsolete. You couldn’t do anything by yourself! It was a grand RTS-style game, every coloner built up regiments that fed into larger armies controlled by factions. But the numbers were super inflated; it became insanity to render the entire thing on mobile. Millions of units! Sure, each person could customise, breed and grow theirs, outmanoeuvre the enemy -But it was useless! What did it matter that I could outplay armies 3 or 4 times my size? They’d just send one 5 times on their next attempt. I got pissed

Oh man, I just gave up.

I just did my dailies and left to go to the Wick, hoping I had enough to blackout that night. Usually I would.

Yeung-Sung pulled the covers of his head, feeling nauseous. Why are you telling me this? You were just a dumb kid, you kinda deserved this in a way. His throat scratching, he rose and shuffled towards his table again, continuing to read;

Then, this reset happened. When I saw it man; one character to control, the focus of the game, it got me so excited! It was my time! I was ready to give it everything, but GLI’s new baby spit the face of game logic- all my experience amounted to nothing! It’s like I’m trying to learn a language that I don’t have the sensory organs for

But man, I met you at my lowest point and -I know that’s it weird but you’re, you know, Korean. Your people have always been the Spartans of e-sports. It triggered something in me, I guess, to keep going.

So, my research? Its me bashing my head against the DEFEAT screen over and over, desperately trying to figure out what the fuck is going on.

It probably sounds ridiculous, but I always suspected you’d beat the Gauntlet. I wanna say

Weird. It keeps deleting my messages

WTF

Yeung-Sung was crying into his superfood. The torchlight of his phone clicked off and left him in cranberry night. With jittering breath, he brushed crumbs of the bandages on his hands and tucked them in under his armpits, pressing down like a bellows. He let out a scream of spittle, anguishing swirling through his throat like the year lines of a tree.

It’s okay. I understand what you’re trying to say.

So tell me, what have you learned?