How to Create a God (4)
Even in a world where nothing was left, ti still passed quickly.
Every day, I woke up, ate the breakfast that was distributed to , and went outside with a shovel in my hand.
The obligations and rules that oppressed were long gone, but the only thing that kept going was the prosperity of the past that had already disappeared.
Everyone was busy looking for their own roles, hoping that the glorious days would return.
It was a paradoxical scene of leisure and bustle.
This was the camp scenery that I liked.
“Yuseong, you’ve been going for walks a lot lately, haven’t you?”
As I stood by the window, sipping my coffee and looking outside, Donghyun approached and started a conversation.
He also had a paper cup with mixed coffee in his hand, reflected on the glass window.
I took another sip of my coffee and turned to him.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You didn’t go out this often before… Do you have any worries?”
I smiled faintly at his question.
It had been almost two weeks since I t the mysterious girl.
During that ti, I had taken so ti to visit her with the food that was given to .
Most of what we did when I went to see her was playing gas.
We played board gas that I brought from the comic cafe and had trivial conversations.
Sotis we shared simple snacks that I found sowhere.
As our etings beca more frequent, Donghyun seed to sense sothing suspicious.
“I’ve been thinking a lot lately.”
I couldn’t tell Donghyun the truth, not yet.
It was clear that this was not the right ti.
I tried to brush him off with a vague answer and a sheepish smile.
He looked at with a complicated expression as I shook my coffee and laughed.
“If you have any worries, you can always talk to .”
“You know I always co to you first when I have any worries.”
“Lately, you seem to be keeping things to yourself, like you used to.”
“It’s not that kind of worry, it’s just… I miss the days when I was happy even though I was busy at work. You know, those silly thoughts.”
At first, I went to see her to persuade her, but now I didn’t mind playing gas with her quietly.
I even enjoyed it.
Soday, I would have to tell everyone the truth and bring her to the camp, but for now, it was better to keep our secret and have our strange conversations.
I didn’t care about her nonsense about the truth of the world and how to create a god.
It felt like I was going back to the past when we played gas and chatted in my room.
“You’re not hiding a pack of cigarettes sowhere and smoking them by yourself, are you?”
“I don’t smoke that often, do I? Do you want to sll ?”
“Get away from . What do I care about your sll?”
He backed away a few steps, hitting his hand as I tried to dispel his suspicion with a witty attitude.
One of the group mbers behind him chuckled and laughed.
Donghyun glared at him for a mont, then sighed and rummaged through his pocket.
“You’re more likely to take more chocolate than cigarettes. Let know if you find any cigarettes.”
“Oh… chocolate?”
“Eat it secretly when you go for a walk.”
I held the chocolate that ca out of his pocket in my hand.
It was not as big as before, but a small piece of chocolate fit in my palm.
I nodded and put it in my pocket.
It was a good thing to give to the guy who was waiting for to play gas in my room.
As I tapped the chocolate in my pocket with satisfaction, one of the group mbers who was watching teased .
“Hey, boss. Why are you only giving presents to Yuseong? That’s unfair.”
“Co on. You’re not kids. Why are you acting like that? I’ll give you a cigarette if you follow .”
“Oh, you’re the best, boss.”
Donghyun winked and left with the group mber.
I sighed with relief as I watched him leave the building.
I knew it was all for the sake of the group, but I couldn’t help feeling a pressure in my chest.
It was the weight of the secret.
It felt heavy just to keep words in my heart.
“I need to find a cigarette.”
Through the blurry window, I saw his broad back.
He was always devoted to the group mbers.
I owed him a lot too.
I didn’t know when I would be able to repay him.
***
It had been three weeks since I t the girl with the strange personality.
By now, even my walks were accepted as part of my routine by the group mbers.
As usual, I went to my room under the pretext of a walk and found sothing that made gasp.
The girl was sitting on the bed, leaning against it, with a familiar object in her hand.
It was a familiar but special object that shouldn’t work normally in this world.
“What is that…?”
Blink. Blink.
I opened and closed my eyes several tis, not believing what I saw.
No matter how many tis I closed and opened my eyes, the scene before remained unchanged.
A girl was holding a smartphone in front of .
A smartphone with its screen on.
“An important item.”
“What? The smartphone still has battery left?”
I widened my eyes as I looked at the smartphone in her hand.
Even though the power had been cut off for a long ti, the girl’s smartphone was still working perfectly.
A smartphone with its screen on. It was sothing I hadn’t seen in a long ti.
The relics of the old era had all fallen asleep without any battery left.
I couldn’t even rember the last ti I used a smartphone.
“Do you find it amazing?”
“What else would be amazing if not this?”
There was a ti when using a smartphone was normal.
But now, a smartphone with battery was not a common thing at all.
Everyone wanted it, but it was hard to find one.
I took off my shoes and walked towards the girl who was holding the smartphone.
I sat next to her and stared intently at the smartphone in her hand.
“Where did you get it? Did you pick it up from outside?”
“I made it.”
“What?”
“I made it myself because I needed it.”
The girl answered calmly to my question about the origin of the smartphone.
She always gave strange answers.
And today’s answer was more annoying than any of her previous ones.
I grabbed the back of my neck and looked at her.
“You made this? You did?”
“Yes. Do you like it?”
“Oh, sure…”
It was nonsense.
How could she make a smartphone by hand?
Maybe she could assemble one, but she couldn’t produce a normal one without a factory.
But she gave such a brazen answer that I had no choice but to accept it.
I nodded quietly and looked at the smartphone in her hand.
I saw pixelated characters moving busily on the screen.
“You were playing a ga, huh? Well, I guess you can’t watch videos or anything since there’s no internet.”
“Do you like gas?”
The girl who was holding a smartphone in her hand asked as she shook it slightly.
Do I like gas?
Not many people would say they hate gas when asked such a question.
Unless they say they don’t enjoy them much.
And I was the sa in that regard.
“Gas… I don’t hate them. But I wasn’t so passionate that I would put everything else aside to play them.”
I was also one of those who liked gas, if I had to be honest.
Even after work, I would sotis play so mobile gas.
Well, that was a long ti ago, though.
Now, it had been so long since the battery died that I couldn’t rember the last ti I played.
As I followed the ga screen in her hand with fascination, she opened her mouth with a faint smile.
“Do you want to try playing this?”
She offered the smartphone she was holding.
As she held out the smartphone to , I reflexively took it.
My eyes moved along with the smartphone and examined the ga she was playing.
I saw dots densely filling the smartphone she handed .
The characters expressed in dots were moving busily and interacting with each other.
“A pixel ga, huh? This kind of nostalgia is nice.”
I liked both pixels and 3D graphics.
It might depend on personal taste, but I felt like I could enjoy any ga right now.
As I fiddled with the smartphone she gave and looked at it, she made a light comnt on the pixel graphics.
“It’s because it hasn’t grown properly yet.”
“What hasn’t grown? Is your character level too low?”
“That thing you’re holding.”
She said, pointing at the smartphone in my hand, not the ga.
I looked at her again, sitting next to .
What did she an by the smartphone growing? It wasn’t a Tamagotchi or anything.
Even the famous Tamagotchi couldn’t evolve the device itself.
I was puzzled by her absurd remark and tried to ss up her hair.
“Hey, how can a smartphone grow, logically… huh…?”
But my hand that was reaching for her stopped in mid-air and stayed still.
Sothing I couldn’t identify was holding back.
It felt like my hand was trapped in space and couldn’t move forward.
I opened my mouth wide as I looked at my hand hanging in the air.
-“Forget it.”
“…”
And I quickly forgot.
Why did I raise my hand?
I couldn’t rember it well.
I lowered my hand awkwardly and focused on the screen of the smartphone in my hand.
The small characters were still moving on the smartphone screen.
“They’re cute. But I can’t understand a word they’re saying.”
They were having so incomprehensible interactions with speech bubbles above their heads.
I watched the characters in the ga more closely.
It looked like the characters had so roles assigned to them as I watched them quietly.
They seed to have their own society.
“Is it fun?”
“This ga is not bad.”
The characters moved diligently and did their tasks, as if the AI was finely crafted.
Sotis, they would deviate from the rules that governed them and show so peculiar behaviors.
It felt like I was raising ants in a transparent gel.
I also rembered the tiny sea monkeys I used to keep in a fish tank when I was young.
It was soothing to just watch them without any thoughts.
“You might feel healed if you just stare at them.”
I knew this feeling wouldn’t last long, but it wasn’t too bad for now.
As I gazed at the screen with the smartphone in my hand, the girl pointed at a character on the screen and said,
“Sothing will change if you tap it.”
“Really?”
She said I could interact with the characters.
I followed her advice and moved my finger towards a character on the screen.
Tap.
A number -1 appeared above the character’s head as I touched it.
It seed like the character took damage.
The gauge at the top of the screen also decreased significantly.
“Hmm… I guess I can hit the characters by touching them.”
“Don’t you find it fun? Why don’t you keep doing it?”
She asked if I enjoyed hitting the characters, but I shook my head after so thought.
I didn’t feel like doing it right now.
I didn’t know how their society worked, or even what the purpose of the ga was.
I didn’t like to cause trouble without any reason.
“Well, I’m having fun just watching them for now.”
I gave her a vague answer and continued to look at the smartphone blankly.
The ga I played after a long ti was enjoyable without any complicated controls.
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