It wasn’t hard to guess Kim Byung-cheol’s online ID.
aregruppe_B : achtung!
He had already revealed himself during the IamJesus incident.
Just like the other high-ranking figures who erged back then, Kim Byung-cheol had made so effort to recruit IamJesus.
At the ti, there had been no way of knowing who he was, but in hindsight, it seed we had been playing alongside the very people who would one day control Korea.
Still, contrary to my concerns, Kim Byung-cheol never reached out to on the board, nor did Kim Daram pressure with any unreasonable requests.
A week passed quickly, and my daily life returned to peace.
"..."
Peace was good—but this was too peaceful.
The Legion faction had absorbed everyone—whether in a good or bad way—and now, I barely saw a trace of people anymore.
Once in a while, a wild animal or a mutation would wander into view.
Sitting idly by the stream, watching the rice grow tall and green, the fierce battle of last week felt like nothing more than a midsumr’s dream.
On the boards, people were saying that Kim Byung-cheol was doing a good job.
Apparently, unlike the previous governnt, he was actually creating real jobs?
At the sa ti, criticisms of the forr administration were popping up at an increasing rate. And honestly, after reading through them, I had to admit, they made so sense.
ㅇㅇ : The key governnt officials from the old regi were all wiped out when Sejong got bombed. Only the second-stringers who couldn’t make it there were left in Seoul. And what the hell could those nobodies do? Other than licking the boots of the National Crisis Committee? So they just did whatever the Committee told them to, running the country into the ground in the process. No wonder they had no real leader. Why? Because even they knew that not a single one of them was worth leading.
I found myself agreeing with that, at least a little.
It did seem like Kim Byung-cheol was genuinely committed to rebuilding Seoul.
ssage from Defender: Damn, I really wanted to fight alongside you, but I was stuck on rear security. Anyway, my sister’s surgery was a success, so there’s nothing to worry about now. Once things settle down in Seoul, I’ll bring her over to visit your place.
Defender had sent a ssage.
That was sothing only possible now that the situation had stabilized.
Ultimately, what happened next depended on what our Lady Kim decided to do, but from the looks of it, she wasn’t going to call unless it was sothing truly important.
I could feel it.
That mont when she faked the eyepatch, trying to stir my sympathy.
While my real life had settled into stability, sothing grim was unfolding in the online world.
Anon458: Hey, doesn’t it feel like it’s been a while since we’ve seen Fox Gas?
keystone: He disappeared in the winter. His last post was three months ago.
Anon1131: I actually started visiting this board after playing his ga...
mmmmmmmmm: Damn... Another good one gone. If he’d co to our apartnt, this wouldn’t have happened...
Rkkara: Anyone got any news on him?
...
...
Fox Gas was gone.
He had shown signs of distress last winter, but in the end, he couldn’t bear the weight of life and beca just another user who hadn’t logged in for over a month.
His last post read as follows:
Fox_gas : if killer_man [nx][ny][nz] == 0
killer_man[nx][ny][nz] = 'true'
C, Z, Q = nx, ny, nz
count = 1
dir_count = 0
continue
else:
Fox_Gas : false ; false ; false ;
It looked like ga code.
I didn’t understand it, and even users who had worked in the gaming industry couldn’t find any hidden ssage within it.
But at least one thing was clear to all of us on the board.
Fox Gas’ final cryptic code...
It was his last transmission before death.
Even the strongest and most optimistic people couldn't withstand the crushing weight of isolation, fear, suffering, and an endless sentence with no parole.
Most who succumbed lost their minds first.
Then, their bodies followed.
Fox Gas was just following the sa pattern as those who had co before him.
The only difference was that Fox Gas wasn’t just another anonymous user.
He was a na on our board, known for his mild-mannered and kind personality, earning the affection of many users.
Rkkara: R.I.P Fox Gas
ㅇㅇ : R.I.P Fox Gas
Anon424: R.I.P Fox Gas
RokaGG: R.I.P Fox Gas
DAJUNG: R.I.P Fox Gas
Anon458: R.I.P Fox Gas
tntn_Orthopedics: R.I.P Fox Gas
mmmmmmmmm: R.I.P Fox Gas
Defender: R.I.P Fox Gas
...
...
Unlike other users who had vanished, Fox Gas’ departure was t with an outpouring of morial posts.
One of our board’s longest-standing unspoken rules had finally been broken.
Until now, it had been forbidden to mourn or acknowledge a user’s death.
Because the next to go could be any of us.
Because even in this dood world, we wanted to see only good and bright things.
That had been the collective ntality of our board.
But now, there were far fewer of us left.
So new users ca in, logging in through the devices of the dead.
But the ones I knew—the ones I had talked to—were disappearing at an alarming rate.
Ignoring it wasn’t an option anymore.
Destruction was creeping ever closer.
And now, for the first ti, we had accepted death as a reality.
That acceptance had taken shape in the form of a tribute to Fox Gas.
"..."
I didn’t post a tribute ssage.
Because I considered Fox Gas to be... a bit special to .
We had never t in person. Not even once.
But he had felt like an old friend.
He had even gifted a super account once.
Sighing, I decided to log into his final masterpiece, Monster Park.
Not because I expected it to be up and running.
In fact, I expected the opposite.
With no one ntioning it anymore, and with Fox Gas himself missing, there was no way the ga was still functioning.
And yet—
[Welco to Monster Park!]
The familiar ssage, written in ASCII art, flickered onto my screen.
For a brief mont, I felt a flicker of nostalgia.
But that feeling quickly vanished.
No one was here.
The once-crowded lobby, teeming with users, was now utterly deserted.
I began typing.
Recalling an old command from mory, I entered:
cmd online_users
Then, I hit Enter.
< Current number of Hunters in Monster Park: "1" >
The number of active players appeared on the screen.
One.
So, that ant… I was the only one here.
No one wanted to step into a dead cyber-world, abandoned by both its updates and its creator, who had long since lost his mind.
These types of gas were only fun because other people played them.
The mont the most valuable resource—other players—was lost, the population bled out at an accelerating rate until the ga was nothing but a ghost town.
Fox Gas' words drifted through my mind.
He had once warned that my account was a special cheat account and that I shouldn’t tell anyone about it.
But now?
With the ga dead, what did it matter if my account was super or cheat-tier?
It was aningless.
Completely aningless.
I stared blankly at the chunks of text on the monitor, calling itself a ga.
"..."
Another one was gone.
Looking back, there had always been users who vanished without a trace.
We just chose not to acknowledge it.
For all I knew, I could have been one of those sudden disappearances.
Still… it pissed off a little.
Fox Gas was soone I knew.
And I hadn't been able to do a damn thing for him.
It frustrated .
At the very least, I could’ve offered him a delivery service.
If he hadn’t been too far away… or in an area that was too dangerous.
I was lost in thought when I got up to make so coffee.
But when I ca back—
A ssage had appeared on my screen.
< Soone has appeared. >
"?"
The ssage vanished like mist the mont it popped up.
Then, another one replaced it.
< Soone has moved east. >
And just like that, it disappeared as well.
*
I didn’t know much about Monster Park.
Which ant I needed advice.
For once, I had to thank the Legion faction.
Because they had allowed Failnet to survive, several forums had been revived—including the ga discussion boards.
But there wasn’t a single person left playing Monster Park.
ㅇㅇ : Monster Park? That ga’s trash.
ㅇㅇ : For a text-based MUD, it barely had any content.
ㅇㅇ : The class balancing was garbage, so everyone just went Heavy Gunner.
ㅇㅇ : A ga like that only works if you can make money farming items. But who the hell can make money in this world?
ㅇㅇ : A multiplayer ga with no players. And to make things worse, the dev completely lost his mind and stopped managing it.
ㅇㅇ : There are a hundred better gas to play.
…
…
Judging from the way they were shit-talking, I was sure at least a few of them had spent sleepless nights grinding Monster Park.
Even though it was being treated like trash on Failnet, there had definitely been so dedicated hunters in the ga.
ㅇㅇ : Soone? A ssage popped up, and then it disappeared?
ㅇㅇ : Oh, that’s a Camo item.
ㅇㅇ : Oh yeah, those things. They never dropped.
SKELTON: Camo item? What’s that?
ㅇㅇ : Camouflage. For a ga that’s literally just text, they made a weak attempt at stealth chanics. When a player uses it, their na gets replaced with “Soone,” and the ssage disappears imdiately.
SKELTON: Ah-ha!
So, that solved the mystery.
It wasn’t so internet ghost.
Soone had used an item.
But who?
Who would go through the trouble of using a rare item in a dead ga world, just to reveal their presence to ?
Unfortunately, I had no way of tracking them down.
The only person who could have done that was Fox Gas.
And he was dead.
There was an old saying on our forum.
If a user who posts daily disappears for a day, they’re probably sick.
If they’re gone for three days, they’re in danger.
If they’re gone for a week, they might be dead.
If a month passes? They’re 99% dead.
Fox Gas had been missing for three months.
He was, for all intents and purposes, dead.
Fox Gas had been a friend to our board, but he also had many followers on Failnet.
Even after the first morial post, users who had played his gas continued to visit and leave tributes.
ㅇㅇ : R.I.P Fox Gas
ㅇㅇ : R.I.P Fox Gas
ㅇㅇ : R.I.P Fox Gas
ㅇㅇ : R.I.P Fox Gas
ㅇㅇ : R.I.P Fox Gas
The list went on and on.
But humanity is ugly.
Even in death, there were those who would drag him through the mud.
ㅇㅇ : I know who Fox Gas was. He was a senior developer on the Lexon Project. He put on this “nice guy” act, but he wasn’t as good as he made himself out to be. I read that so-called “confession” post he made. Left out all the really nasty shit.
ㅇㅇ : You know what he was best at? Finding smart, eager rookies, acting like so wise ntor, sucking them dry for their ideas, then tossing them aside.
ㅇㅇ : Oh, that Park guy? I rember him. Soone literally killed themselves because of him. If they had actually died, it would’ve been one thing, but they ended up half-brain-dead. Wasn’t that when he quit and ran off to build a bunker?
Most likely, it was an industry insider.
Or soone pretending to be one, just looking for an excuse to tear soone down—just like back in the pre-apocalypse days.
No matter what they said, the tributes kept pouring in.
Even users from foreign-language boards began joining in.
As the morial spiraled out of control, I received an unexpected ssage.
VIVA_BOT014: Skelton~~
"Hm?"
VivaBot.
A direct ssage.
Why the hell was she looking for ?
A bad feeling crept up my spine.
I ignored it.
VIVA_BOT014: Pretending not to be here won’t work. I literally just watched you scrolling through the “South Arican Tanned Booty Compilation.jpg” that dolsingman uploaded…
I imdiately typed back.
SKELTON: (Accidentally clicked.) Why... are you looking for ?
VIVA_BOT014: I need a favor.
SKELTON: (Suspicious.) …?
VIVA_BOT014: Find Fox Gas.
SKELTON: What?
VIVA_BOT014: The whole place is in chaos. Everyone thinks Fox Gas is dead. Even lon Mask is taking it seriously.
SKELTON: Wait, even lon Mask knows about this?
VIVA_BOT014: Not exactly. It’s the trend. Look, Viva! Apocalypse! was built as a beacon of hope for survivors. It wasn’t supposed to turn into a mourning ground for the dead.
SKELTON: But Fox Gas is dead.
VIVA_BOT014: There’s a signal. A live one.
SKELTON: (Shocked.) What!?!
VIVA_BOT014: I don’t know what he’s doing, but he’s alive. I’m asking you because, let’s be honest, you might act like a fool on the board, but in reality, you’re a damn good hunter.
SKELTON: I think I’m great at both, actually.
VIVA_BOT014: Sure~~ And I’ll make you even better~~
Better than I already was?
That didn’t sound quite right.
As I hesitated, VivaBot sent another ssage.
VIVA_BOT014: Tada~~
"?!"
A tiny change.
But a significant one.
Next to her na, a small icon appeared.
A shrunken version of that disgusting Minelody character I hated so much.
VIVA_BOT014: If you do this for , I’ll give you permission to add an icon to your na~~
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