Chapter 48 : This world truck that does not stop (4)

WooSeok was fed up.
With his passive self, constantly being dragged around.

Around the stopped truck, the personnel who had set up the checkpoint came running.
Did they think he’d stopped for them?

Jumping with both hands in the air, they looked like girls visiting an amusement park for the first time.
Speaking of girls, the thought of that child from earlier crossed his mind, but he decided to let it go.

He hadn’t gotten a good look earlier since they’d passed by so quickly, but most of them seemed to be from Southeast Asia.
Their skin tones were different from the participants in the game he’d played with Yena.

Every time he pressed the ignition button, the engine would roar and then die.
It always started on the last try, so would it be the same this time?

As a warning to the women waddling closer and closer, he slammed on the horn, but they just started jumping up and down excitedly.

‘Master! Please give me your command!’

Yulia was staring at him, eyes sparkling, clearly thinking exactly that.
If only she’d keep her mouth shut and stay put. Her hand fidgeting around her sword showed she was at least trying to restrain herself.

They were only a few meters away now.
Just a little further until they reached him.

[BestDriver donated $1]
– Explanation incoming!

[TaxiDriver donated $1]
– The meaning of Single/Multi in this game: the number assigned in the truck.
The map is actually one big map lol, it’s an online game.

[– Why are you explaining when he’s the one playing?]
[– Change the perspective, I don’t want to see Tom Yum Goong]
[– The chat’s dead, why even bother? The viewer count’s still going up though.]
[– I’m installing the game and joining him after reading that.]

No kidding, as soon as that chat ended, the engine started up again.
True to the truck game genre, the only advantage was unlimited fuel.

And the unnecessarily realistic physics.

So he ran them over.
Slamming on the accelerator harder than he had all day.

“Open your eyes and you’ll be in a fantasy world, b*tch! ”

“Huh? Whaaat!!”

Getting their hopes up on their own.
The kind of people who spoke without thinking.

He pressed down even harder on the accelerator.
Healing simulation my ass.

His truck would pierce the heavens!

On Yena’s stream, he’d used polite language, trying to respect his viewers.
Yena, though a big streamer, didn’t have ten thousand viewers.

He believed he could handle ten thousand viewers on his own, so he’d only dropped the formalities on his stream.
He’d relaxed his attitude towards them a little.
And in return, he got mindless sexual harassment.

The first day of confession, along with Gaia’s mass banning spree, had happened.
He thought things had calmed down, but it hadn’t been long before the influx of new viewers brought another wave of sexual harassment.

As he’d said before, it didn’t really affect him.
Even before the world changed, he’d been holed up in his room, playing games and surfing the web.

So he’d seen countless instances of sexual harassment towards women in various online galleries and forums.
It was easy to understand if you thought of it as all that dispersed negativity now directed at him, the only man in this world.

He understood their feelings and actions.
He wasn’t hurt by the harassment, nor did he want to kill himself. Suing them all and dealing with the police would just be annoying.

So he usually let it slide.

But after enduring it for so long, it got to the point where it interfered with his stream, preventing him from doing what he wanted. The managers and admins even sided with the harassers.

What he wanted, what he’d originally envisioned, was a stream where he could interact and joke around like with Yena.

“Hey, if you come here, I’m seriously going to run you all over.”

Since Yulia would likely continue to follow him, he told her to cut down anyone who came near.
Why she had a sword in a truck simulator was a mystery.

[– In our industry, that’s a reward.]
[– In our industry, we’ve been striving to hear those words.]
[– Run over? Run over? Run over? Run over?]

They were really funny.
Whether he was nice to them, or panicked and ran, they loved it. Even when he ran them over with a truck, they loved it.

Something he’d been deeply troubled by seemed to vanish.
Strangely, it felt like something that had been suffocating him had cleared up.

Was it simply because he’d run over the annoying people with a truck?
Anyway, he felt good.

On the speeding truck, Yulia continued to slash the tires of approaching vehicles.
She was single-handedly changing the genre of the game.

Why did she follow him so faithfully?
They’d only met for a day.

“Why are you even watching this stream?”

He’d just run over a woman who had followed him in front of tens of thousands of viewers.
And they were cheering.

Considering most were new viewers from overseas, they had to be psychos.
Or maybe he was the crazy one.

[– I watch because it’s Jung WooSeok’s stream. Because…I’m WooBoong.]
[– What the hell is WooBoong?]
[– WooSeok told us not to call ourselves WooSeokDan, so we call ourselves WooBoong.]
[– Reminds me of Woojoong who made Girls’ Frontline, makes me mad.]
[– Isn’t that the tragic game where the female CEO got sued for making a game with male characters and disappeared?]
[– Too ahead of their time.]

He felt a little, just a little, closer to them.
Not that he was crazy, and certainly not that he understood them.

“Listen up. Go wild during the Monday, Wednesday, Friday streams. Let’s keep it quiet on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Just casual chatting.”

If he couldn’t stop them, finding a compromise was the best option.
The little girl he’d initially mistaken for a ghost was now in the truck’s trunk, nodding vigorously in agreement.

She wasn’t normal either.

A slight over-the-top fantasy about men, and the fanaticism of women who got too close. If he could manage these two things, he figured he could somehow get by in this world.

As for the stream, frankly, if he quit, they would be the ones losing out.
He could just take a break for at least one of the Monday-Wednesday-Friday streams each week.

He continued talking while running over the still-swarming women with his truck.
This damn truck seemed to have infinite durability, as it remained perfectly fine despite all the scratches and dents, continuing to hit people.

He was starting to understand the plight of the truck drivers who transported ordinary, below-average Japanese boys to another world. It was so much fun; how could he not hit and run?

A woman flew over the horizon, giggling.
A woman spun around multiple times after hitting the ground with a loud thud.
A woman jumped from her own truck, aiming for him, only to be cut down by Yulia.

Even without pain, it must have been terrifyingly realistic, yet they were enjoying it. The number of viewers kept increasing, as if word had spread.

[– The viewer count didn’t decrease by 20%, it increased by 200%? So it’s a 220% increase?]
[– The way you talk like that Chicoㅇta makes me want to kill you.]
[– Honestly, it’s a bit much.]
[– Acting all noble now is disgusting.]

The issue with these online folks was resolved. Right, it was resolved?
Anyway, now all that remained were his real-life friends, who he’d been avoiding out of fear.

“So, 3-day break from streaming.”

[– ?]
[– We said we were sorry.]
[– You abandoning your team?]

“There was never a team, so shut up. Anyway, stream’s on break.”

[– Do you think I’m Dooly because my kindness continues?]
[– Isn’t that what WooSeok should be saying?]
[– Wah, I’m still a baby WooBoong who needs WooSeok.]

“Gaia, if you’ve reflected, manage things again. Yena, you too, apologize like before.”

[Sorry…]

[– Manager) Sorry…]

“Let’s go on a trip, the four of us. This time, without any interruptions.”

Gaia and Yena’s apologies cut off mid-sentence. They probably didn’t know how to respond. Since their answer would be yes anyway, he turned to Yulia.

“Yulia, what do you think? Huh? Yulia, where are you?”

The woman, who hadn’t been able to tear herself away from him, was lying behind the moving truck. As she fell, she must have hit something, as she was sprawled out in a famous pose inside a large hole.

[– The Chad’s spiritual pressure…has disappeared?]
[– Lol the Demon Lord is descending himself for the returning Four Heavenly Kings!]

It had been an eventful day. Memento Mori and Truck Simulator, which had felt like they would last forever, or at least two months.

Finally, it felt like he could start his stream properly. He’d belatedly established a direction, too.

A large sun was rising beyond the desert. The road he’d left behind reappeared in front of the truck, along with a vast canyon.

[Destination, Grand Canyon reached. Ending navigation.]

You never navigated in the first place.

Recalling the cry of the white silver-horned animal he’d come to love-hate, he ended the stream.

“That’s all for today.”

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

“Ugh…my head…”

I, Nguyen Xantipho, found a ray of light in my hopeless life of endlessly surfing the internet, reading useless articles. It began with a link to a male cam stream, posted anonymously.

A man doing an internet broadcast? Preposterous.
And one who weighed less than 100kg and looked like a pretty boy? It had to be a troll or a jumpscare.

Men singing or acting only happened when agency CEOs knocked their heads together to make it happen. And even then, we had to pay to see it.

But for free? A man communicating with us with no strings attached? It was like an urban legend.

That’s how I met Jung WooSeok.

First, through his streams. And now, in the middle of the road to the Grand Canyon. In person.

Seeing him in the flesh was a fresh shock. Literally. He ran me over.

A man taking action for me. And that contemptuous look…it was the best.

He said if I opened my eyes I’d be in a fantasy world, and when I met his eyes, it really felt like another world. The shock knocked me unconscious and logged me out of the capsule.

“Are you alright? Are you conscious?”

“Wh, who…”

Someone’s voice called to me as I lay there. Probably the capsule room owner checking on me.

Holding my throbbing head, I looked up.

And saw pearly white teeth framing white rice noodles. The smell of nasi goreng wafted from his mouth.

“My name is Nguyen Zhaolong. You were brought to the ER. Can you explain what happened? You were found on the side of the road.”

A man. A doctor? A man. A patient?

“A, a, a man?!”

I really might have come to another world.