Chapter 133 – LV.? GM – [Two]

This time, she didn’t ask how he knew about the troll, and Seo Yun didn’t boast about her surprisingly brilliant deduction either.

There had been far too many foreshadowings for this to be considered a shocking revelation now. Just the fact that the troll had sent Arnold away from his own village to Happy Village, rather than protecting him there, was clearly because he feared being exposed as the GM if he stayed with that barbarian warrior who remembered him.

“How can a GM have their own character? A GMPC? An NPC controlled by the GM?”

The troll answered Seo Yun’s question.

“No.”

“Then what?”

“After the teammates who were enjoying the session went off to roll, and eventually even Arnold left, I continued playing alone. In the same world setting I had played with my teammates… I created my own character and continued the sessions.”

Seo Yun thought. Is he insane?

“You mean you leveled up all the way to Epic Level, narrating and reciting character lines by yourself?”

“Only the character dialogue was spoken aloud, but yes, something like that. Is there a problem?”

By this point, she was convinced. He really was insane.

“It’s not that there’s a problem… If you’re the GM… Arnold said the GM was Korean, right?”

“Correct. That’s why I paid more attention to Korea.”

“Then there’s no need to pretend to be a foreigner who stumbles over Korean anymore, right? You can drop the act now.”

“Acting… no. My speech is naturally awkward.”

“Oh… is that so…”

As Seo Yun felt awkward, the troll spoke.

“Let’s go back to what I said earlier. This world needs a better GM. A GM who will side with the people of this world when making judgments, or at least act fairly and reasonably. Since the current Meteorite isn’t fulfilling that role properly… I suppose I must do it.”

Seo Yun held back the urge to ask if he really thought he could do it well, given that he wasn’t exactly a great GM either. Well, he’d probably be better than Meteorite.

“So, how are you going to take over as GM?”

In response to Seo Yun’s question, the troll began a lengthy explanation. By the end of an unnecessarily long and detailed explanation—enough to understand why his teammates had deserted when he was GM—Seo Yun agreed that the plan sounded plausible.

After hearing the explanation, Seo Yun asked.

“Certainly, if things go as planned, you won’t be able to remain active in the Mortal Realm anymore.”

“Probably not.”

“But wouldn’t it be better to stay in the world and continue being active instead?”

“Stay in the world? Why?”

“An Epic Level Mage is a more reliable asset than anything else, right? Just look at Happy Village—they were nearly doomed and only survived thanks to you. Wouldn’t it be better to stay in the Mortal Realm, help people, and only carry out your current plan later, once you feel you’ve done enough?”

“So, use my abilities to the fullest, then leave. That might indeed be better. But… I intend to execute my plan as much as possible this time.”

“Why?”

“Because if I don’t do it now, I might never do it.”

The troll removed the Golden Mask.

His face appeared in Seo Yun’s Soul Sight. Where the magnificent and imposing mask had been, there was an utterly exhausted, pockmarked face.

“To confess, bearing the misery…”

The troll spoke in a voice so weary it pained the listener, stumbling and awkward.

“I won’t deny that the incident of that day… greatly influenced this decision. The depression and shame of not wanting to live in this world anymore led me to make this decision, which borders on self-sacrifice.”

He must be referring to the Gaeulbi exposé incident. Unsure whether to agree or offer comfort, Seo Yun remained silent, and the troll continued.

“And also, I judge that proceeding with my plan might actually help more people. Perhaps this way is even better as a means to help Happy Village.”

Seo Yun let out a deep sigh.

“That chimpanzee Gaeulbi really made a huge mistake, didn’t she?”

“I didn’t do anything right either.”

“Still. It seems that incident caused you too much pain. You certainly didn’t do the right thing, but it’s too much…”

The troll shook his head at Seo Yun’s attempt to console him.

“Don’t blame that child. She’s a good kid. Even when I was a teacher, she was the only one who cared about me. It’s funny that a student ended up looking after and caring for her teacher…”

Seo Yun’s eyes widened at the mention of the troll being a teacher. A friend came to mind. The most unattractive person Seo Yun had ever seen in her life, who hated school more than anyone yet declared she would become a teacher…

“To confess to such a child out of the blue, then explode in anger because she didn’t accept it? Thinking about it, I was truly an ungrateful bastard.”

“Hmm.””Actually, it’s been like that from the start. Do you know why I, the very person who brought the world to this state, stepped forward pretending to help people?”

“Wasn’t it to make up for the mistakes you committed, even a little?”

“That’s correct, but I didn’t think that way at first. After making a childish wish and confirming that it truly came true, I was certainly shocked.”

“It was probably guilt. Even if you wished upon a shooting star for the world to be ruined, you likely didn’t believe it would actually come true…”

“Well, I don’t know if it was guilt or just shock from realizing I’d made some kind of mistake. Either way, that shock didn’t last long.”

“Why not?”

“Because I started thinking it wasn’t entirely my fault since I hadn’t truly believed the wish would come true. Moreover, I found it possible to rationalize that since the world had treated me like shit, didn’t I have the right to make the world shitty too? Thinking that way, I even felt a cruel sense of pleasure.

So after the world ended up like this, I, who had become an Epic Level Troll Mage, didn’t go around helping people or cleaning up the mess. Instead, I spent my time practicing Magic to my heart’s content. I tried making Magic Items, writing Spell Scrolls… It was quite enjoyable. Why wouldn’t it be? A guy who lived his whole life as an outcast became a powerful, immortal Mage.”

“Didn’t you go to take care of your family?”

“My family and I weren’t close. I checked later, and they were all dead.”

“What about friends?”

“Do you think I had friends?”

The Troll suddenly engaged in self-deprecation, and Seo Yun asked.

“Even if you didn’t have friends you got along with, you must have had friends you kept in touch with. Someone you’d occasionally call to check in on, that kind of relationship…”

And the Troll sighed.

“There was one guy who’d call to check in on me once every few years.”

He was probably referring to her. Seo Yun pretended not to be interested and asked.

“What kind of person was he?”

“He was a connection from my school days. He stood up for me when I was being bullied for looking like this. He was so big he could subdue anyone, whether they were bullies or not, with just one hand. Certainly, while I was with him, I could escape from being bullied.”

“You must have been very grateful to that friend.”

“Not at all.”

Seo Yun narrowed her eyes. This bastard?

The Troll continued.

“I didn’t like that guy. I actually disliked him.”

“Why?”

“Even though he protected me from bullying, I was still a friendless outcast… Normally, someone being ostracized finds it hard to feel pure gratitude towards a classmate trying to help them. Being protected by someone your own age is a truly miserable feeling.

Also, miserable circumstances only breed miserable thoughts. Every time that guy pretended to be close, saying he’d look out for me, I just thought he was using me to show off his sense of justice. I fantasized dozens of times about coldly putting him in his place, telling him to stop his hypocritical act…”

So he was thinking that back then. Seo Yun, finding it absurd, asked.

“But you still checked in on him afterwards?”

“Yeah. One day he called to brag about getting into a teachers’ college. He even praised me, saying that just like I had done, he planned to look after kids, but it was actually deception.”

“Deception? What do you mean?”

“That guy was from an orphanage, so I thought it would be hard for him to go to college. I wanted to feel superior by bragging about getting into a teachers’ college to someone like that. I didn’t know back then that his entering teachers’ college would be the worst decision of my life…”

Seo Yun started to get angry internally but stopped herself. Instead, she cautiously asked.

“Did teaching not work out well?”

At Seo Yun’s question, the Troll nodded.

“It didn’t work out well. At all. How badly did it go? Let’s just say I had to go to the hospital to get medication afterwards. After quitting teaching, I was a freelancer doing English translation work from home. Even that, due to my poor social skills, I couldn’t get proper work and was practically half-unemployed.”

Hearing that the thing she had worried about in the past had actually happened, Seo Yun tightly closed and opened her eyes.

The Troll continued.

“Buried in depression and misery, I called that friend again. I asked how he was doing… He said he’d become a firefighter. Even though the work was physically tough, the thought that he’d become a stable civil servant made my resentment towards him grow even more…

Still, I didn’t completely forget or ignore him. After the world became like this, I tried to find out how that friend was doing. To help him.”

“You said you resented him, so why?”

“Because I thought that reversing our positions—me helping him instead—would be Healing for the wounds in my heart. It was a similar reason to why I wanted to become a teacher and help bullied students.

So, hiding my identity, I planned to meet him, find him living miserably, help him with great Magic, and show off… But when I went looking for him…”

The next words weren’t hard to predict.

“…he was dead.”

Seo Yun, as a formality, asked about something she already knew.

“How did it happen…?”

“Trying to save people during the chaos that day. As a firefighter, throwing himself into the fire. By the way, the earthquake and fire that day were caused by that Meteorite. The moment I learned that, the Armor of self-rationalization I had used to protect myself—saying all this wasn’t my fault even though I made the world like this—shattered.”

The Troll continued in a voice soaked with fatigue.

“I killed him. And I realized one more thing: that all my speculations and thoughts up until then were nothing but the disgusting thoughts of a loser.

While I was belittling all the goodwill I received from him, that friend died helping people. What better proof could there be that all the pessimistic thoughts that bastard had were completely wrong?”

The Troll concluded, self-deprecating that there was no better event to make that bastard, who thought he could coldly see through everyone’s intentions, come to his senses.“Only after learning that fact did I… finally accept that I had committed a grave sin. I barely mustered the resolve to step forward and try to mend that sin, even a little. So I built the village, looked after the students, and did this and that… Honestly, I don’t think I’ve done well.”

Seo Yun hesitated over how to respond, then finally offered a single remark.

“You’ve done more than enough until now.”

“No, I don’t think I’ve done well at all, not at all…”