Vol 3 Chapter 64

As he said, the additional descriptions in the list were all lined with statements about possessing top-tier or high-tier skills.

It was estimated that even among all current users combined, the number of users with top-tier trained skills was at most around 0.2 percent. There were more users with high-tier skills, but even then, cases of reaching level 3 were similarly rare. For magic, it was even more extreme, with only a few 4th circle users barely maintaining a presence below the L-10 user.

'To think all such people are here...'

What kind of project was ReL after all? This was almost unbelievably close to a miracle. As Mugeon's mouth hung open stupidly, unable to close, Yoon Seok-ho sat down and casually crossed his legs.

"Moreover, these users are also famous."

"...That's... right. It was easy to find information about them."

Surprisingly, these users were figures who had gained solid fame in various communities. There were several guild masters of large guilds, and some who attracted attention from numerous people like fan clubs even while traveling alone. The user at the very end was even the '5th circle master mage FM' who had given the management team headaches.

"How is this possible? Could there have been a bug in game recognition due to capsule issues..."

As Mugeon stumbled over his words, still amazed even after looking again, Yoon Seok-ho cut him off.

"There's absolutely no possibility of that. If anything, the unfamiliarity with body control in the game would have been a disadvantage."

"Then how..."

"Haha..."

Yoon Seok-ho laughed as if pleased, gently narrowing his eyes as he looked at the photos on the list.

"I'll give you a hint. They had no choice but to become like this. And THE MIST responded to that perfectly."

***

After returning home, Kapros sank into thought, unaware of the passing time.

The shock of suddenly facing everything he had been avoiding was great. He tried to be as objective as possible in looking back at himself, enduring and enduring until he could think more calmly, but even that was difficult.

Kapros had already run away from the world once before. After the accident, his withdrawal into his home was partly due to his physical issues and the shock from the incident with Seung-jo, but the sudden change in his surroundings was also one of the reasons. Adapting to people's changed attitudes and his altered circumstances was too difficult, and it ultimately became the main reason for his decision to drop out of school. If Jeong Seung-jo had remained by his side then, how might the situation have changed?

However, Seung-jo had left for a foreign country, and Kapros, whose communication with him had stopped at the point of the accident, was overcome with an immense sense of emptiness. He chose to study to immerse himself in something else and even entered university, but because of those memories, he refused to go outside. It was possible because even living alone at home, his basic needs were met.

As time passed like that, the sense of conversing with others and exchanging emotions began to fade away. It was surprising. Previously, Kapros had taken it for granted that most of his daily life involved being with others like friends or family, but from then on, he felt out of place when with others. It was because the laughter and sadness of others no longer made him laugh or feel sad.

The attending physician said it was related to the phenomenon of becoming emotionally numb to other things after experiencing a major event and recommended treatment, but Kapros declined. Should he have received treatment then?

There was no change in his solitary life. It must have been like living in a picture hung in the same place forever. It was always dark and gloomy, and pain from various parts of his body tormented him from time to time. Amidst all this, what troubled him most was the fact that he could never again engage with all the things he had liked throughout his life.

He wasn't sure if he had wanted to escape that life then. Because he knew well that the moment he thought about it, he would become utterly miserable, he defended himself by trying not to recall anything. Thinking about it now, it was rather more miserable, but he had given up on even finding a way to escape the pain.

He treated the occasional others he met aggressively and cynically, hoping that no one would come to see him again and that no one would see him in this state.

It was THE MIST that changed that life in an instant. There, he became a normal human being who could walk straight again like before, and he was elated by the thought that no one would point fingers at him or glance at him sideways. But was his choice of magic perhaps the most representative action of trying not to look back at the past? Although he had never regretted becoming a mage, it seemed ridiculous when he thought about it that way.

It was also in THE MIST that he met the people who were truly precious to him now. As a result, the blocked emotional exchange with others was liberated, and he came to think that he might have escaped from the past. So he picked up the sword again and sought out his Master Instructor and his wife. Considering these efforts, it might be true that he had actually escaped from the past to some extent.

However, Kapros didn't realize that the most important thing was still missing. What would change by altering only the present when none of the problems from the past had been resolved?

Thinking about it now, the tremendous shock he received when encountering Jeong Seung-jo in THE MIST was probably due to this. If he had truly overcome it, it might have been a meeting he should have wished for. But instead, Kapros chose to avoid Seung-jo. Moreover, even though he had known long before that Seung-jo had returned to Korea, he didn't even think about continuing the conversation that had stopped four years ago. This was his second escape. He chose to run away from the past again because he disliked facing Seung-jo head-on once more.