Chapter 115

*** What Suffocates Me ***

He got out of bed and headed to the window. It was morning. Merlin, no, Yongno hadn’t been in reality like this in a long time.

“What should I do…”

That was the first thought he had. Unfortunately, Yongno had nothing to do when it came to the real world. In the past, he had a lot of hobbies, but ever since he had first accessed and started playing DIO, all of those things were now insignificant.

Ring!

Just then, a cell phone ringtone rang out.

“Who could that be? I’m not expecting a call.”

Of course, for any normal student, it could have just been a school friend, but Yongno didn’t have any school friends. His relationship with the people he knew at school was strictly as classmates. If there was ever an occasion to meet, Yongno would dutifully laugh and talk with them, but when they split up, Yongno would forget all about them. There were dozens of these acquaintances’ numbers stored on his phone, but for Yongno, if he didn’t meet someone for a few weeks, he’d completely forget their faces.

“Hello.”

“Hey!! Yoon Yongno!!”

“Oh, hey older sis. It’s been a while.”

Yongno was the youngest of three siblings. Above Yongno was a brother who was six years older, and a sister who was three years older. His older brother, Taewoong, had always dreamed of being a soldier in the army, so he had graduated from a military school and was now on the path to becoming an elite officer. Yongno’s sister, Boram, was currently studying at a prestigious university. Both had found their path and passionately pursued their goals without the urging of their parents; in other words, they were the standard-bearer children that all Korean parents wanted.

“Do you even have time to talk right now? Aren’t you going to enroll in a university?”

“I’m not sure.”

“N-not sure?”

Yongno could hear her voice tremble with anger over the phone. Boram, who had been setting goals for her future since elementary school and had established and implemented specific plans her whole life, could not understand her brother’s seemingly lazy lifestyle and haphazard approach towards his own future.

“So, what’s up? Didn’t you leave for the USA?” Yongo asked.

“Not the USA, Germany! How can you get those two places confused?”

“The USA, Germany, they’re both foreign places.”

“How does that make any sense… wait, no! This is not why I called…”

Yongno could sense Boram’s frustration through the phone. Her tone of voice was harsh, but even an ill-mannered person could not be upset with her after hearing her speak. Anyone could easily tell from her tone that her anger stemmed from a genuine concern.

‘I forgot how much energy she has.’

Yongno smiled, but Boram continued huffing and puffing as she spoke.

“Anyway! Come back home this instant.”

“It’s too far away.”

“Whatever! Just come! I just found out that dad and Taewoong are both on vacation, so I asked them to come over. I want the family to get together since it’s been a while. Mom wants to see you, too.”

Though it was common in most families for a mother to want to see her child, Yongno couldn’t help but let out a sigh.

“Don’t lie.”

“What?”

“No, nothing. Well, I have nothing to do today, so I’ll go.”

“Alright! You better show up!”

Click.

With the sound of her final energetic shout, the phone line disconnected.

“She’s relentless.”

Despite his grumbling, Yongno liked her for her relentlessness. She was always energetic and cheerful, always running boldly toward whatever goal she set. She seemed to always shine brilliantly like the sun, a bright presence without an inkling of darkness. This garnered the love and attention of everyone around her, but she never turned a blind eye to the weak and the underprivileged. The only loner living around her was probably Yongno.

“This works out well, I suppose. If she called me any other day, I probably wouldn’t have picked up, so I guess it’s good she called today.”

While mumbling to himself, Yongno got ready to go out. He washed up and put on appropriate clothes. The place where his parents lived was quite far from Seoul, but it was also a big city, often called the second capital. It wasn’t too difficult to get there, but it was still going to take Yongno a while, so he had to hurry.

Click.

Whoosh.

Yongno felt a strange sense of appreciation when he saw the open scenery of the city and felt a gust of cool wind on his face after opening the front door. It had been a while since he had ventured outside the house. Even though he was only at the front door, Yongno felt as though he was being thrown into an entirely new world.

“I crisscrossed such a vast sea in DIO, but in reality I’m just a loser who’s stepping outside his front door for the first time in ages.”

Though he lived an action-packed life in-game, in real life he had spent almost all of each day laying in his bed.

Crack.

As he was walking and mumbling to himself, Yongno suddenly stopped in his tracks. His eyes focused on his neighbor’s house, which was located directly in front of his. The distance between the two homes was only about three meters.

Ding-dong!

“…?!”

Yongno surprised himself by ringing the doorbell. He had never taken the initiative to ring his neighbor’s doorbell. Moreover, this wasn’t just anyone’s house; this was Eunhye’s house. Yongno couldn’t recall a time when he even thought about ringing Eunhye’s doorbell.

“Should I… run away?”

Yongno shook nervously as he waited. With trembling eyes, Yongno fixed his eyes on the door in front of him. With his heightened senses, Yongno could feel someone from the other side calmly approaching the door.

“Eh? Uh, wait. You’re not Eunhye…”

Creak.

“What do you want?”

“Eh… hello, Mrs. Oh…”

“What is it? You’re still in touch with Eunhye?”

Opening the front door was a middle-aged woman. She stood at an average height, with permed hair, and a slightly thin figure. She looked like an ordinary woman, but her sharp eyes always made it seem as though she was in a bad mood.

“No. I was just walking by… since I live so close…”

Yongno received a glare in response.

“Ah, but Mrs. Oh, you’re living here now? Eunhye…”

“It doesn’t concern you.”

Bam!

Yongno looked blankly at the front door. Mrs. Oh had slammed it with such force that it seemed like it might break. He had asked Eunhye if her parents had returned. As far as Yongno knew, Eunhye didn’t get along very well with her parents. If Eunhye was home, her parents would never have visited.

“I guess Eunhye’s gone.”

Yongno recalled the short-haired girl with clear eyes who had visited him on a snowy day.

“Merry Christmas.”

In hindsight, that interaction was probably her farewell.

“Dang. She could have at least told me when she was planning to leave.”

He grumbled, but he knew it was his fault. Eunhye, who was reluctant to interact with others, must have mustered all her courage to even bid Yongno a merry Christmas. On that day, she had chatted about things that she never spoke about before. She had even waited for Yongno to wake up, even though she never stayed in anyone else’s house for an extended period of time.

“She… really left.”

Of course, it was currently an era that was often referred to as the global village. No matter how far away a country was, one could reach it in a day by plane, and one could easily hear the voice of another whenever one wanted. It didn’t make sense to feel as though you would never see someone again. It wasn’t like Eunhye was going to the moon or a remote place untouched by modern society. Yongno smiled.

“I barely contacted her when she lived right in front of me, so I guess it wouldn’t make sense that we’d start contacting each other more frequently all of a sudden.”

Eunhye and Yongno both didn’t have that kind of personality. Both disliked contact with others and enjoyed their own private space. In a way, they both had tendencies closely associated with autism. However, no problems ever arose because they were both able to control or hide their emotions using their advanced intellectual ability and willpower. However, the truth was that their condition was so serious that psychotherapy probably wouldn’t even work on them.

Beep!

/[Thank you.]/

Yongno got on a bus, scanned his public transportation card, and sat in an empty seat. He shook his head to clear all the thoughts that were swirling around.

“Anyway, I hope I can make it by lunchtime.”

Yongno soon got off the bus, entered a train station, and boarded an express train. Luckily, there weren’t many people aboard, so he was able to easily find a seat.

“There’s nothing to do. Should I have brought a book to read?”

With a slightly annoyed expression, Yongno closed his eyes and laid his head back on the headrest.

Flash!

Yongno recalled the Sword of Light that had flowed out like a tidal wave. The purity of the attack’s internal energy had reached such a high level that even Yongno, who possessed an extreme interpretation ability, couldn’t understand how it was done. The attack had easily and overwhelmingly defeated the seemingly all-powerful orc hero. It was a true cut-type attack. Arthur’s cut move, which seemed near perfection, had reached speeds beyond supersonic and epitomized what a true cut was.

‘Among my hand skills, the fastest skill is… Plum Blossom Hand.’

Though the Plum Blossom Hand was fast, it paled in comparison to Bian Lian Hand and Fantasy Hand, which were more popular and regarded as the top hand skills. Yongno’s Great Strength Vajra Hand was powerful but relatively slow, and his Great Tantra Hand required two processing steps before it could unleash its power. Though a Great Tantra Hand strike could shoot out as fast as a bullet, it couldn’t be considered a top-echelon hand skill in terms of speed. Finally, Yongno’s Divine Tai Chi Hand was optimized for opponents in a defensive position, so it couldn’t even be considered.

‘If I can learn the hand skill that mirrors the Bursting Sword Light’s Sword skill…’

However, Yongno quickly shook his head. It was impossible. Even though he was able to understand the peak Plum Blossom Sword technique at first glance, Yongno couldn’t do the same with the Bursting Sword Light technique. He couldn’t even understand the principle of how Arthur was able to convert internal energy into light photons in the first place. Yongno could understand how the heat, the cold, and the burst of lightning had been utilized, but what kind of trick had Arthur done to the light? Internal energy could freely change its form, but it was still limited to the basic forms of solid, liquid, or gas. Even if something else was applied, such as directional movement with the energy of yin and yang, this would only result in something like the sparks of lightning that were formed through the Lightning Divine Technique, which was already a difficult achievement in and of itself. However, Arthur’s Bursting Sword Light meant that he had taken the conversion of internal energy to a whole new level.

“Dang it.”

Yongno sighed. His head was starting to hurt, so he thought it best to stop thinking about it.

“Whatever. I should get some sleep.”

Yongno felt that he shouldn’t bother thinking about it if he couldn’t reach the answer. As he thought this, he closed his eyes.