Chapter 163

After finishing the broadcast, I returned to the private room.

To respect Adella’s privacy, I knocked on the door two or three times.

Then Adella, who looked like she was frowning as much as possible, rushed over and lifted me up.

“What are you doing? Can you put me down? My armpits are ticklish!”

“Hey! NoNaMe! Why did you take so long to come?”

“Hey?”

“Let’s go to the amusement park together!”

“What? You want to go to the amusement park? Now? At this hour?”

“Yeah!”

Adella gently set me back on the floor and activated the projector.

Wearing glasses that I didn’t know where she got from and holding a thin stick, she started presenting a grand presentation.

[Reasons Why We Must Go to Tokyo Desireland VR World Right Now!]

“Go. I’m not stopping you.”

“No! Just listen to me till the end!”

“Fine.”

Using a rainbow-colored background with a Bonobono template for the PPT would definitely make anyone want to deny permission.

So I hurriedly gave her my consent.

Anyway, I quietly watched Adella passionately explain and came to a conclusion.

“So what you’re saying is you want to go out to see the fireworks tonight?”

“It’s a special show that only happens once a year! They say it’s synchronized with reality! Don’t you really want to go?”

“What’s the difference between synchronization and something created in virtual reality?”

“There isn’t really much of a difference, but… Ugh, you have no romance, sister!”

Adella took off her glasses and placed them on the desk. Upon closer inspection, they were fake glasses.

“So, you’re going to take me, right?”

“Huh?”

“You weren’t thinking of not coming after listening to all this, were you?”

“Got it. You can’t go to the foreign server because of the national firewall?”

I was wondering why she, who usually enjoyed playing alone, was suddenly clinging to me today.

“Tch! This is why sharp little ones…!”

“Is that the attitude of someone who’s asking for a favor?”

“Please, Omnesama! I really want to go to Japan!”

For now, I had a reliable backing as my family, certified by a nation called Cheon-Professor, so going to the Japanese server was not a problem protocols-wise.

However, to take Adella with me, I needed to have at least two guardians, and was there anyone besides me who had the authority to access the Japanese server?

I glanced over my limited friend list.

I had never heard of SiA ever playing LoL on any other server.

The same probably went for other clan members.

Suddenly, Kariri, who was offline, changed to online.

This person, who suspiciously had many Japanese viewers, might be able to help.

* * *

Yoonseul was shocked to hear that they were leaving for the Japanese server right away.

“I have time, but… Wait a minute! If that’s the case, I’ll quickly change my avatar!”

“No! The world is about to reach 50,000 people! We need to hurry!”

Adella kept urging her on.

However, Yoonseul was in a state of extreme anxiety.

Her body was not currently Kariri’s.

She had a small, thin body, with no special charm whatsoever.

“So what?”

NaeMe asked, as if she couldn’t understand.

“It’s not like we’re broadcasting; we’re just going to have fun, right? Isn’t it uncomfortable to stay in another body for too long?”

A virtual reality avatar isn’t the be-all and end-all.

The human brain tends to maintain homeostasis at all times.

In the VR world, users could create a variety of avatars, but the dissonance that arises from prolonged access to the body would inevitably affect the user in one way or another.

NaeMe tugged on Yoonseul’s sleeve, pointing this out.

“If you don’t take Adella today, she’s definitely going to sulk all day. Let’s go quickly. Plus, you’re beautiful like an idol!”

“Quickly! There are 49,500 people right now!”

Adella, unable to contain her excitement, directly led both of them out to the VR SPACE.

[VR – Tokyo Desireland 20:00 ~ 22:00 (49,819/50,000)]

[IEEE 903.18: Approved.]

[Waiting…]

“Wow, why is the line so long?”

Even in the VR world, the entry line was stretched long, just as Adella lamented.

In other servers, you would typically fall into the center of the world right after entering.

But not here.

If you’re wondering why identity verification isn’t done digitally in the VR world and security personnel are manually checking each person, the answer is quite simple.

Because it’s Japan. No questions asked, it’s just Japan.

NaeMe thought it was fortunate to be among the 50,000.

Otherwise, I would have had to deal with Adella, who would complain for hours about not being shown around the outside on the day we went to Korea University.

On the other hand, Yoonseul, unable to hide her anxious demeanor, kept biting her thumbnail.

As the clicking sound reached Adella’s ears, she asked angrily.

“Why are you acting like this? What’s so worrisome about it!”

“Ah… that…”

“What’s wrong, are you sick?”

NaeMe was also curious about Yoonseul’s completely different demeanor from usual.

Wasn’t she practically unrecognizable?

“I might get recognized… I can’t be seen with this face…”

Her gaze was nervously trembling.

Adella and NaeMe exchanged confused looks, tilting their heads in bewilderment.

“Everyone thinks I’m the one who killed Chae Na, so…”

“Chae Na?”

Adella was completely unfamiliar with the name, but NaeMe had heard it before.

It was the South Korean singer who ended her life last year due to depression; after racking my brain, I remembered it was posted on the Kariri Tree Wiki.

[Idol Chae Na Death Incident Related]

“It seems like no one knows you?”

“No, they will! They definitely will…”

News outlets around the world covering Chae Na’s death always displayed Yoonseul’s own photo prominently.

The video that Yoonseul and Chae Na briefly sent out before entering the capsule was still being circulated illegally.

Above all, there were too many people.

Without the physical presence of Kariri to protect her, Yoonseul was suffocating in this air.

What if someone recognized her? There were many people here not only from Japan but from all around the world.

If there were hundreds of millions who knew Chae Na, then half of the people here might have seen her face at least once through the news…

If among them was even one of Chae Na’s fans, how could she face them?

Yoonseul couldn’t find an answer.

It was Adella’s sharp voice that pulled her out of her thoughts.

“Hey, look. Look!”

Suddenly, Adella lifted Yoonseul, who was crouching down.

“Is your name Seol Yoonseul?”

In front of Adella was a blue screen.

She entered ‘Adella’ and ‘Seol Yoonseul’ into the search bar.

[Extracting Search Volume Data]

“Ah…”

“You’re overly self-conscious, aren’t you?”

Adella swiped her hand across the screen interface and handed it over to her.

Yoonseul blankly stared at the screen.

[Search Volume: Adella (83,103,380)

Seol Yoonseul (20,494)]

“Eight million? No, eight hundred million? They searched for me 80 million times, but you only have 20,000?”

Adella wagged her tail, looking all pleased.

“I don’t know what you believe, but nobody here knows you. Are you a star or something?”

“Ah…”

Yoonseul felt like she had been hit on the head with a hammer from her words.

“In contrast, I’m quite the star, huh, huh.”

Adella lightly wiped her nose.

“Going strong, yet boasting about yourself?”

“Can’t you just say that’s how it is during times like this?”

“Hurry and apologize to Kariri unni.”

“Seriously, you call that little one ‘unni’ respectfully, yet want me to call you ‘unnie’… This world is a complete mess!”

While NaeMe and Adella squabbled, passersby approached and asked.

“Um… Excuse me…”

“Yeah?”

“Are you really Adella? Wow, it really is you! Amazing!”

“Hehe. Want an autograph?”

“Really? Wow! I have to buy Lotto Seven today!”

“Me too, Adella!”

With the request of two men wearing white ribbons on their heads, a crowd quickly began to gather around the trio of girls.

“Seriously? The Monthly NPC has appeared!”

“They look just like people!”

“Adella, you’re so pretty! So I just want one autograph!”

“Wait! You guys need to line up properly!”

The line quickly split into two.

One was for the entry into Desireland, and the other was a long line waiting to receive an autograph from Adella.

“Hey, see? This is how I live! NaeMe unni should acknowledge this. Hey, you won’t get an autograph once you go inside the land, so you all better figure out how to split the line!”

While continuously moving her hands, Adella couldn’t hide her pride.

Yoonseul looked somewhat dazed at this comical scene that seemed like something out of a sketch comedy show.

“Our Adella is a bit willful, isn’t she?”

NaeMe tightly grasped her hand.

It was a hand too small to feel any comfort.

“I don’t know exactly what experience Kariri unni has had. Even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to empathize with all of her feelings.”

Humans are fundamentally indifferent to others.

This can be easily illustrated by looking at Yuna’s case.

In the elementary division of the Academy, most of the students were bound to be wealthy.

The influence of early education outweighed innate talent.

Even so, none of the students knew that Yuna was a recipient of basic living support.

If every student had shown even a little bit of interest, occurrences like Yuna’s straying off course might not have happened.

Above all, NaeMe had to have forcibly recognized this fact through her seven years of experience.

Could you blame those people for saying they should know after playing LoL for 50,000 hours over seven years?

NaeMe herself didn’t know who was the person currently playing MoA and Resonance the most, so she didn’t have the right to blame them.

“People are surprisingly indifferent to others, but there will still be people around you who understand your situation well. Isn’t that right? I think that’s enough. It’s not like you did anything wrong.”

In NaeMe’s case, it was Cheon Semin; for Kariri, it was her younger brother, SoolTaeyang.

“They say even celebrities who were quite famous go unnoticed when they go out on the street. So I wish you wouldn’t worry too much about what others think of you.”

NaeMe skimmed through Kariri’s controversy section and found that she couldn’t find anything particularly wrong with her.

In fact, she even considered the possibility that the overwhelming reports surrounding Kariri might be further stigmatizing her.

[The Desireland 7Wish Festival is about to start in a moment. Please enter in an orderly manner as directed by the staff at Main Street.]

“Shall we go watch the fireworks? Adella, are we there yet?”

“Hold on a minute, unni! Hey! You all! Don’t forget to sign the agreement here! ‘Adella is not an AI.’ Don’t you see that phrase? What kind of people just grab signatures without proper context, you idiots!”

“Let’s just leave.”

“Ah… *sigh* fine…!”

“Shouldn’t you really, you guys! Hey!”