Chapter 1
Harsh LED lights.
The office, bright enough to make one's eyes ache, was utterly silent.
Everyone hammered at their keyboards and moved their mice with sunken eyes.
They received work, processed work, came up with ideas, held meetings. Created documents.
Silent, yet more intense than anywhere else—
it was the 모습 of an ordinary small-to-medium-sized company.
Baek Yihyeon, the head of Overseas Business Team 2, was no different.
Well, aside from being a little busier, he was about the same.
Tatadadak— tadak—
"Wow, Manager Baek. The project only just ended, and you're already back in hardcore work mode?"
A coworker who had come in late after using a half-day off asked with a stunned expression.
"Please don't say things like that. Manager, really."
"Why not? Today's the CEO's approval day, isn't it? It's obvious."
"That's right!"
Seizing the opportunity, the team members chimed in one after another.
"The Indonesia export deal you secured this time is huge, Team Leader."
"Honestly, this project—who knows what would've happened without you, Team Leader. How do you manage to pinpoint exactly what the buyers want every time… I seriously want to learn that."
"Hey, hey, that's basically a superpower. I've been following him around trying to learn for years, and I still can't."
At this point, it felt like more than just flattering someone.
In reality, Baek Yihyeon had achieved tremendous results.
He had secured a contract to export the company's pharmaceuticals to a corporation in Indonesia—a country with the fourth-largest population in the world.
Strictly speaking, the contract was just short of being finalized, with only the recognition of the achievement remaining.
Before drafting the contract, confirmation was needed that Baek Yihyeon had been in charge of the project.
"It's thanks to everyone helping out."
"Oh come on, there you go downplaying it again. All we did was pull materials from KOTRA and local sources. You handled everything else. The buyer really liked you, too."
"Exactly. No matter how much the CEO likes to pit people against each other, this time he'll have to side with you. Do you know how hard you've worked? You were going home, like, once every three days."
As they were chatting it up with the team, an HR staff member cautiously called out to Baek Yihyeon from one side.
"Um, Team Leader Baek? Executive Director Park is asking if you're available for a meeting right now."
"Executive Director?"
Baek Yihyeon tilted his head.
'Not the managing director? That's strange.'
Executive Director Park.
A parachute hire who came in as a relative of the CEO, commonly known as a carrier pigeon.
He was famous for delivering things the CEO found difficult to say himself.
'Calling me at a time like this?'
He had a bad feeling.
Perhaps the other team members sensed the unease as well—the once cheerful atmosphere instantly cooled.
"…This isn't what I think it is, right?"
When one team member spoke up, the mood sank even further.
As soon as Baek Yihyeon got home, he threw himself onto the bed.
"Damn it all to hell…"
They say bad premonitions are never wrong.
—About this contract… could you let it go?
—You know the head of Overseas Business Team 1 is the CEO's youngest son, right? He's the CEO's son, after all—shouldn't he have at least one presentable achievement?
—Of course, I know how sincerely you approached this work. I'll make sure the next project is credited to you, so just give this one up, just this once.
It was an utterly ridiculous "suggestion."
'They call it a suggestion.'
That atmosphere. That attitude.
They had already decided everything, yet pretended to ask for consent, pretended to be sorry.
Refusing would obviously be refused.
The next project?
'This will clearly just repeat itself in the future.'
Working like an ox while the CEO's son snatched all the credit—it was easy to imagine.
There was no future.
Not for the company, and not for me.
But he also didn't want to accept this situation and live like a dead mouse.
So in the end, he went and did it.
—Ha… I can't stand this filth anymore.
—W-What?!
He revealed the personality he'd kept hidden for years, turned the company upside down in one go, threw down the resignation letter he'd kept on hand, and came home.
It felt refreshing.
It was done in the heat of the moment, but there were no regrets.
He'd done enough, and he was confident he could stand back up again.
"Yeah, now that it's come to this…"
Maybe I'll live a life for myself for a while.
Springing up!
Baek Yihyeon got up and went to sit in front of the computer.
Back when he was still working at the company, he used to vaguely imagine what he'd do if he ever quit.
If he didn't do even that, it was hard to endure the overwhelming reality.
The very first thing he wanted to do wasn't to rest comfortably, sleep in until noon, or go out to eat good food.
It was a game.
"How long has it been?"
A game he'd had to put aside to throw himself into the job market.
In the World.
It was just one ordinary MMORPG, but with PVP and raids—and gathering and crafting.
In other words, carnivorous and herbivorous playstyles were perfectly divided, letting players enjoy it however they liked.
Updates were fairly frequent, so clearing new content was satisfying.
Above all, it was a game full of memories he'd shared with since childhood, so his attachment to it was special.
At one point, he'd really played it like a madman.
"Has it been about ten years?"
Adding together the job-hunting period and the time he'd rotted away at the company, that sounded about right.
"I didn't get hacked in the meantime, did I?"
To be honest, he hadn't even updated his password or set up OTP, so if he had been hacked, he wouldn't have had much room to complain.
And sure enough.
After reactivating the dormant account and slowly checking it…
[There is no main character. Would you like to set one?]
"…What kind of bastard cleanly deleted only the characters?"
The cash items he'd spent money on before were all still there, but only the characters themselves were completely gone.
Archer, Priest, Assassin, Druid…
Even the sub-characters he'd poured almost as much money and affection into as his main—every single one of them.
Yet somehow, the most important thing, the cash, was still plentiful—an absurd situation.
But Baek Yihyeon nodded calmly.
"Yeah, that can happen."
If it had been him ten years ago, he would've gone berserk.
But to Baek Yihyeon now—a worn-down member of society—it was nothing more than a slight regret.
"Well, since it's come to this, I'll just raise a new character without any lingering attachment."
So much time had passed that he no longer clung to the game.
He just wanted to savor some memories and a sense of peace from what used to be his emotional hometown.
"Let's see, did anything change?"
While humming the BGM of In the World and browsing through the homepage, Baek Yihyeon's brow suddenly furrowed deeply.
"What's with this last update?"
Baek Yihyeon rubbed his eyes and looked at In the World's update list again.
Scroll— scroll—
No matter how much he scrolled down, scrolled up, or clicked around...
"You're telling me the last real update was four years ago?"
There had been updates as recently as two weeks ago, but they were close to what gamers called a "no-update update."
Most of them were things like bug fixes, added cosmetic items, or server stabilization.
Now that he looked closely, even the homepage UI and design were exactly like they had been ten years ago, back then.
Some banners even showed blocked icons, as if they were still using an obsolete Flash format.
"The game... died?"
Sure enough.
When he opened his inbox, there was a letter sent by the game company.
Stripping away all the fluff, the content was this:
In other words, the official story was over.
"'Return to your respective lives,' my ass."
A game kept alive on nothing but server maintenance—hooked up to a respirator!
He felt hollow at the cruelty of time, and resentful that the game he had cherished during those years had ended up like this.
The one saving grace was that he'd experienced In the World all the way to the endgame before throwing himself into the job market.
"Yeah. This doesn't really matter to me either."
No matter what state the game was in, the character Baek Yihyeon planned to raise here was fairly far removed from PVP and raids.
"Herbivore."
He didn't want to feel injustice even inside a game.
He just wanted to be self-sufficient through life skills, gaining memories from back then and peace of mind.
"I'll just fish, pluck some grass, and do a bit of healing."
After roughly creating a character and just as he was about to press the login button—
Baek Yihyeon's fingertips hesitated.
"…Still, I should at least use the cash that's left, right?"
Buying talents would be less frustrating than charging in headfirst with nothing.
– You have purchased 5 Lifestyle Talent Random Boxes.
– Would you like to open them?
[Yes / No]
Without hesitation, Baek Yihyeon pressed the "Yes" key five times in a row.
As the box-opening animation was briefly skipped, five talents written in bold font appeared.
[Expert's Eye]
[Mana Allocation]
[Potion Crafting Specialization]
[Artisan's Touch]
[Spirit Communion]
"Oh."
Should he call it a returning player's luck?
They were talents that were practically a jackpot.
If the talent limit per character hadn't been five, he would've even paid extra.
'Especially, [Expert's Eye].'
It provided beneficial information across not only lifestyle content but overall gameplay.
In other words, for a character raised with a herbivore playstyle in mind, it was one of those talents that hurt badly not to have.
On top of that, [Potion Crafting Specialization], which granted all kinds of benefits for potion-making, and [Mana Allocation] and [Spirit Communion], which would be broadly useful for high-level crafting later on, were also solid picks.
'Originally, mindlessly gathering materials and grinding crafting to make money is pretty lucrative.'
And then, when a higher-grade item popped out thanks to a probability-based skill like 'Artisan's Touch,' the dopamine would explode.
"Next up is character appearance..."
He wasn't particularly serious about appearance settings, but still, aiming for at least minimal handsomeness was preferable.
Running around with the default face was a great way to get labeled a bot or macro user.
Baek Yihyeon quickly set the appearance and moved on.
"Alright. Alright. Let's give it a try before it completely goes under."
He said it cynically, but thinking about once again taking in and feeling the world of In the World he'd seen as a child—now as an adult—made his heart inexplicably race.
A feeling he'd never once experienced while working at the company.
Baek Yihyeon smiled broadly like a child who'd just bought a new toy and pressed Start Game...
And so, one day after spending about a month "inside" In the World—
"This isn't the kind of healing I was looking for."
Baek Yihyeon.
No—Lion, the eccentric rejected even by a family of great archmages, was today as well...
Pop!
[You have obtained Blue Basil!]
Plucking grass.