Chapter 2: That’s not how you do it

Edelin thought she must have seen wrong.

But as the screen continued to flip through various scenes.
She realized that the world inside the game and the world she had lived in were one and the same.

A virtual reality game, they said?

Then did that mean she had been living inside a game world all this time?
All sorts of hypotheses floated in her mind.
Just as her head began to ache from the complex thoughts, a voice cut through, instantly organizing her thoughts.

“What are you talking about, Oppa?”

“That game only came out two years ago.”

“Did you say two years?”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a really famous game, so I even remember the release date.”

Her mind fell into chaos.

The time she had lived in the other world was roughly over 10 years.

If only two years had passed since the game’s release date, did time flow differently?

‘My brother really did come back with a head injury.’

Yeeun looked at Edelin with pity.

Although she believed her brother’s words to some extent, Yeeun couldn’t fully trust her brother who only talked about it.

The doctor’s words were absolute.

“Why, Oppa?”

“Are you interested in the game?”

“Mmm… No.”

“I must have been mistaken.”

Edelin’s thoughts, as she watched the screen, changed.

As the broadcast progressed, the locations kept changing, showing places she had never seen before.

The buildings and facilities in places where they shouldn’t be marked it as a different world from her memories.

‘Perhaps someone else who was dragged to the same continent as me created the game.’

After much contemplation, Edelin reached a conclusion.

“Watching that reminded me of the old days.”

“It’s nothing special, so don’t worry about it.”

“What old memories made you say that?”

“You look like you want to hear this body’s story.”

“Alright.”

“While we wait, I shall tell you this body’s grand epic.”

Instantly brightening up, Edelin puffed out her non-existent chest and began to tell her story.

To explain to her only remaining blood relative just how amazing her older brother was.

“Wow.”

“Really?”

To Yeeun’s eyes, it merely felt like her cute younger sister bragging, ‘I got 100 points at school today~’.

But Edelin had no idea.

“Ughhhhh…”

A month passed.

During that time, which could feel short or long, Edelin tried hard to adapt to her original world.

She decided to live quietly, careful not to burden her sister as much as possible.

“Uuuugh… Still, I can’t help being bored.”

She was once a brilliant Archmage.

When bored, she would fill the void by conducting research in her lab.

On the continent, she had lived a relentlessly busy and dangerous life, subjugating hordes of monsters and participating in wars between nations.

In contrast, the life of a modern person was exceedingly dull and boring.

“If only I had mana, I could have done anything…”

The quality and quantity of mana in the air were low.

Focusing on recovering her mana as her primary goal, she searched using the computer and found out.
It seemed mana in this era was mostly generated inside pillars called ‘Gates’.

• The inside of a Gate is dangerous due to many monsters, but it allows us Hunters to become stronger.

Unlike the ‘Break Out’ phenomenon where monsters came outside, there were subjugation teams that entered the Gates.

According to them, the inside of the Gate was rich in mana, making it a good training ground for Hunters, or something like that.

Thinking she could recover her mana, Edelin immediately ran to Yeeun.

“Sister!”

“This body has decided it wants to become a Hunter!”

As soon as she said that, she remembered getting smacked on the back, and Edelin shuddered.

“It’s been 12 years since I lost my brother.”

“And now you want to become a Hunter and fight monsters?”

Faced with Yeeun’s fiery anger, Edelin gave up on becoming a Hunter.

Recovering mana was important, but her only remaining family was more important to her.

“Uuugh… Mana treatments.”

“Foods good for mana…”

“Things good for mana…”

Other information wasn’t particularly useful.

Starting from mana supplements that reeked of scams.

To massages and treatments claiming to increase mana.

“Sigh…”

The information she wanted couldn’t be found no matter how much she searched.

Disheartened, Adela slumped over the desk, meaninglessly fiddling with the mouse.
Then, a peculiar advertisement image caught her eye.

“Write a new history in the land of opportunity, Kairos…?”

It was a picture of a female character striking a pose with a magic staff.

As if possessed, Edelin moved the mouse and clicked the advertisement image.

“This is…”

A grand advertisement image filled the screen.

A man with a sword and shield blocked a monster’s attack, followed by an archer drawing a bow and embedding an arrow into the monster’s arm.

Following that, a mage launched a burning fireball.

Finally, a simple scene of someone beheading the monster with a sword.

“No matter how I look at it, it looks exactly like the place I used to live…”

She closed the advertisement window and navigated to the main homepage.

“Game Information… I should be able to tell by looking at the world setting.”

Click.

Clicking on the world setting revealed detailed game content.

I. Age of Opportunity
II. Attack of Darkness
.
.
V. Your Story

“No way… Is this really…”

Edelin’s expression hardened as she clicked on the world setting without much thought.

The content of the world setting described the story of her past life exactly as she had lived it.

※ After the continental war against the demons, the surviving inhabitants of the continent strove to rebuild civilization.
※ In particular, humans, who suffered greatly in the war, worked to advance civilization once more.
※ In the process, the Masters of the Magic Towers fostered powerful mages and magic in preparation for the future.
※ (Omitted) The leader of the Tower Masters, Celeste, was…

There it was.

Her name written in the world setting, the paths she had walked, all on a mere virtual reality game homepage.

“Truly… Is this world the one I lived in?”

Her extinguished motivation suddenly flared up.

Before the shock could fully register, the mage’s curiosity ignited her heart.

Edelin began frantically gathering information about Kairos.

After all, time was all she had.

“Interesting.”

She learned various facts through the information.

It was safe to consider it a new continent, completely identical yet not identical to the otherworld continent she had lived on.

The virtual reality game’s timeline was set 100 years after Edelin had disappeared.

“No wonder it felt familiar yet strange… So that was why.”

Edelin suddenly felt a surge of interest in the virtual reality game.

Wasn’t this a chance to explore the world 100 years after she vanished?

“Yeeun should allow this without much fuss.”

As she calmly tried to formulate a plan in her head, a payment window appeared before her eyes.

“Huh?”

“Why is the price like this…?”

There was one variable Edelin hadn’t considered.

The fact was that, being a virtual reality gaming device, it required a substantial cost.

A crippling price for a woman living alone to bear.

“Still… I should at least bring it up, shouldn’t I…?”

The clash between practical finances and the curiosity to explore her original world tormented her.

After pacing restlessly in her room, Edelin finally made up her mind.

Tiptoe.

Edelin stood before her younger sister’s room door.

A sudden wave of nervousness washed over her.

Why did it feel as tense as opening her parents’ door?

“Sister.”

“May I come in…?”

“…”

There was no answer from inside the room.

Thinking her sister might be out, Edelin slightly opened the door.

“She must have gone out…”

Yeeun was nowhere to be seen inside the room.

Sighing as the tension dissipated, Edelin decided to wait for her sister in the living room.

“What’s that…?”

But then, a single device caught her eye.

In a corner of Yeeun’s room, an active virtual reality device, a capsule, was installed.

Looking closely inside the capsule, she could vaguely make out Yeeun’s figure.

“She was playing the game.”

If there was already a device, there would be no need to buy one.

Thinking it was fortunate, she briefly pondered what to do while Yeeun finished her game and came out.

“Is there no way to watch her play?”

Adelin squatted in front of the capsule, examining its exterior here and there.

She soon found several buttons on the capsule.

Among them, she pressed the button labeled ‘Watch Game’.

• How can you learn new magic like that? Yeeun. Try again.

Suddenly, a screen lit up on the capsule’s built-in display.

It was a special feature included only in dedicated capsules developed and sold for streamers.

Of course, Edelin didn’t know that.

“Hm…?”

“Is my sister streaming?”

As expected of a broadcasting device, the screen displayed Yeeun’s preset streaming layout, and viewer chats began scrolling up the screen.

“My sister must be a mage.”

“Just like someone I know, she’s smart.”

However, Edelin didn’t pay much attention to that.

The fact that her sister was enjoying the game as a mage was more important than her being a streamer.

It didn’t take long for Edelin’s pleased expression to shatter as she watched the scene unfold.

“No.”

“Why are you chanting the spell there?”

“You can’t even dodge such a simple attack!”

“Are you making soup with your magic incantations!”

“Can’t you cast it with just three syllables?”

Edelin felt like she would burst from frustration just watching silently.

The mage race valued curiosity and efficiency.

Inefficient magic casting and incantations.

From the perspective of an Archmage looking at flames with pathetic power, she couldn’t help but get angry, even if it was her sister.

“Kaaargh.”

“I feel like I’m going to die of frustration at this rate.”

Edelin desperately tried talking to Yeeun from the outside, but there was no way the Yeeun on the screen could hear her.

Edelin decided to find another way.

“Right.”

“Since my sister seems to be a streamer, I can just find her stream, can’t I?”

Thinking it was a brilliant idea herself, she returned to her room and this time began searching streamer sites.

“Wait for me, sister.”

“This body will show you what proper backseat gaming looks like.”