TaMa Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Large Update (1)

TL: Haku

Edited: Myoni

“Ha.. Why is my timetable so crappy.”

Jinsung sighed deeply as he looked at his timetable on his phone.

There were two subjects he needed to take today.

One of the subjects, “Understanding Virtual Reality”, he had just finished and came out from. The problem was that he now had three hours before his next class.

He sat in the room, shaking his head when he heard someone retort behind him.

“Your timetable is crappy because your course registration was done poorly.”

It was Jinsung’s closest friend and colleague Han Yoohyun.

If it was any other day, he would have replied back but, today, Jinsung didn’t have the strength.

Yoohyun looked at Jinsung, who reclined on his chair and smirked before he returned to his laptop. To be honest, Yoohyun was in the same situation as Jinsung. He, too, was trying to kill time.

“Hmm..”

As Yoohyun turned his attention back to his laptop and the room, only occupied by the two of them, filled with silence.

However, a moment later, a slightly excited Yoohyun’s voice woke up a drowsy Jinsung, who was slowly falling asleep.

“Hey, Jinsung, wake up! Now is not the time to be lying down!”

“What, man, your big bro is tired. Don’t bother me.”

“You’re going to regret it. There’s a large update notification for Kailran on LB Sports main page. You’re not going to look?”

The moment he was done talking, Jinsung, who was leaning against his chair with his eyes closed, reacted immediately, standing up to go sit next to Yoohyun.

“Really? Was today the day they were uploading the notice?”

“Yeah, bro. Wasn’t that why this big bro has been monitoring this the whole time?”

The two focused on the screen of the laptop as if they were going to be sucked in and began reading the contents.

“Hey, this is crazy! There’s going to be three more new classes.”

“Yeah, no kidding! New areas are going to be opened as well..”

“Doesn’t Assassin look cool? I’m gearing more towards this. Warlock looks like fun too.. Would the Taming Master be able to control and use dragons however they wish, what do you think?”

Jinsung smirked as he responded to the excited Yoohyun’s words.

“Don’t even think about it, man. What’s the point of new classes, it’s only good for players that are just starting. I’m over lv 90 now.. and you’re also over lv 80. Are you planning on restarting?”

For virtual reality game “Kailran”, there was no such thing as sub-accounts. Once you created a character, through iris recognition, the game was set up so that the same person could not make another character.

On top of that, the system was built so that once you selected a class, you could not change it, so if a player wanted to use a new class, the only option was resetting.

However, to reset their characters, the two people had come too far.

“Keu, that’s right, let’s just go to the new areas once the update is done. If we can grab one of the new, valuable items, it could pay off one semester’s worth of tuition.”

Jinsung was the one that smirked at Yoohyun’s words; however, he was just as excited.

The update was exactly one week from now, June 20th.

The date was a little bothersome.

That day was three days away from Jinsung’s final exam.

“Ugh, this Basics of Game Theory. It pisses me off that I already have to waste three hours every Friday for this class and the exam date is the very last, too.”

However, right then, Jinsung’s two eyes lit up.

“Wait..!”

Jinsung slightly turned his head to look at Yoohyun, who was focused on reading the update content.

“Hyun.”

“Hm?”

“Should we drop Basics of Game Theory?”

“What?!”

Yoohyun’s two eyes trembled slightly.

“Why are you acting surprised, this your first or second time dropping a course?”

“You ask me like you don’t know. If we drop the course now, we’ll fail it, man. We’ve already skipped class twice.”

The corners of Jinsung’s mouth turned upwards slightly at those words.

“Hyun, look at that. What does it say there?”

Yoohyun turned to where Jinsung was pointing at.

“What, this? The opening date?”

“That’s right. You see the date, June 20th, right?”

“Yeah, I see it.”

“What day was our Basics of Game Theory exam?”

As if he couldn’t remember clearly, Yoohyun scratched the back of his head.

“What day was it?”

“June 23rd.”

“Damn, was that exam that late? I was happy because I thought that the update day was on the same day as our vacation.”

“Such a frustrating man.. Do you not realize the decision we have to make at this point?”

Yoohyun began to think deeply at Jisung’s words. Once he figured out the answer, his eyes fluttered slightly.

“D..rop?”

Jinsung and Yoohyun’s eyes met as Jinsung lifted his thumb before standing up.

“Exactly! This is why I like you. You understand so quickly.”

Yoohyun shook his head as he watched him.

However, suddenly, he closed his laptop and packed his bag. Then Yoohyun closed his eyes shut as he began to reason with himself.

“You’re right, if you don’t do this during your first year in your first semester, when else will you do this.”

In the midst of his thoughts, Jinsung’s voice, who was already heading out of the room, was heard.

“Oh, and don’t come looking for me today! I’m going to the top of Click Mountain as a solo player.”

@

As if he was running away from the campus, Jinsung hurried home and immediately turned the lights on before he went into the shower.

Although he wanted to just sit in the capsule as soon as possible, game addict Jinsung didn’t even want to sit in a capsule room with no ventilation on a hot summer day drenched in sweat. On top of that, he most definitely wouldn’t be coming out of that room for the next 10 hours once he went in.

“Keu, dropping the course was a great choice. If I had known sooner, I would have dropped the course a week earlier.”

Jinsung was currently living in a one-room near the school gates alone.

The one-room was quite big and luxurious for a university student to be living alone in.

It wasn’t because Jinsung’s family was so rich that he could afford such a luxurious room. In fact, Jisung’s parents lived in the countryside without giving him a penny of allowance.

However, compared to the average university student, Jinsung was able to live much more comfortably. His secret was the game currency he traded for money in the virtual reality game ‘Kailran’.

If Jinsung said he was second, no one could claim they were first.

As soon as his university acceptance letter arrived, Jinsung’s parents stated that they did their job and left Jinsung with 5 million won[1] for his tuition and a shabby room.

However, Jinsung did not use that money towards his tuition. He put the 5 million Won into his bank account, paying his tuition with student loans, and began working in a factory starting January.

He did all of this to buy the 10-million-won capsule for the virtual reality game Kailran.

As soon as the school year started, Jinsung was able to successfully purchase a capsule with the money he strictly saved up for two months, his parents 5 million Won and the entire lumped sum he had managed to save up during that time.

Yoohyun who watched Jinsung’s efforts to obtain a capsule called it a “human success story”.

Though he did start two months later than everybody else, however, Jinsung’s passion and his talent towards gaming were amazing. Even though he was two months late, he was able to catch up to and overcome Yoohyun who started as soon as the game opened and even proved his speedy growth by getting his name in the top 1000 in the South Korean rankings within 4 months.

Kailran monopolized the game markets all over the world and proving its popularity, had over 10 million people online at the same time for a while.

On top of that, getting ranked within the top 1000 in South Korea, known as the strong country in gaming, was quite the feat.

Eventually, Jinsung finished showering and got comfortable in his capsule.

“How about we burn things up until the weekend?”

Iris recognition complete. Player ‘Ian’, welcome to the world of Kailran.

Along with the system message, Jinsung’s eyes slowly began to close.

@

[1] 5, 000, 000 KRW = 4, 4462.80 USD