Bastard NPC Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Boom.

From the moment I woke up, I had a gut feeling that something was wrong.

Boom? Why is there a boom?

Although I had never actually heard it, the sound of impact that made the mattress slightly shake was definitely the sound of a bomb exploding. And it was from a place not far away.

Surprised, I opened my eyes wide. Pulling off the blanket over my body, I stretched my feet down to the floor beneath the bed.

“Hm?”

But it was strange. Beyond my dim vision, the shiny marble floor, the distant wall, and the neat, orderly interior were completely different from my messy and disorganized room.

This unfamiliar yet familiar space was Riley’s house from the game I had been engrossed in until last night. The game where you work hard to save money, buy a luxury home, get a yacht, and fill your garage with flashy cars.

The only slight issue was that the way you save money is by robbing NPCs, banks, and completing various illegal missions in a crime-themed MMORPG (Massively multiplayer online game)¹.

So, the explosion I heard outside must have a reason behind it. This city was a city of crime that never had a single day of peace. So why am I here?

“…What is this? Is this a dream?”

Blink, blink.

I have been deprived of sleep for days. Staring blankly at the reality I couldn’t easily accept, I slowly moved my hand and pinched my arm hard.

It was an unfortunate situation. It hurt terribly, but I wasn’t waking up with a laugh, saying, “Ha ha, it was just a dream!”. I didn’t find myself back in the real world as Seo Heewon.

I stared blankly at the wall for a while again. Shaking my head at the unbelievable reality, I tried to clear away the jumbled thoughts and took a step forward. I was planning to check the mirror first, but to my surprise…

“Wow.” 

The reflection in the mirror wasn’t me. Riley, the character I had painstakingly created with every detail using the mouse, was staring at me with a surprised expression.

Her flawless, pale, and smooth skin, delicate features and her long, fluttering eyelashes that moved like bird wings every time she blinked. Alongside, her wavy light brown hair swayed with every move.

She was beautiful. It wasn’t the time to comfortably admire her face and feel proud, but at this moment, I could truly understand the feelings of a creator. 

Well done, my hands. How did I manage to create such a perfect being? 

I had never thought my real face, which I saw in the mirror every morning, was particularly ugly. However, facing Riley’s face made mine feel like a grilled squid, and for some reason, it left a bitter feeling. No, wait. Whether it’s grilled squid or dried octopus, what kind of nonsense is this?

As my sense of reality, which I had lost, slowly came back, I quickly fell down. Sitting huddled against the wall like a little creature, I tried to figure out how everything had turned out like this. A wish I used to scribble down in my childhood suddenly came to mind.

 

Please make mom stop nagging. It hurts my ears. Please make dad stop kissing me after drinking. It smells. Please make my sister be nicer. She’s rude. Please make the twins quiet down. They’re annoying.

Ah, I had so many family members, so it must be hard to grant all these wishes. It’s okay if you just move me somewhere else.

 

The paper where I scribbled my wishes was a letter I had meant to send to Santa Claus in kindergarten, and the letter reached my parents safely. The day the letter arrived, both my innocence and the peace of my home were destroyed. Of course, my wishes were never granted.

I didn’t even need to go that far back into the past. Even just last night, before falling asleep, I had the same experience.

 

‘It’s such a nice day but why don’t you go out and have fun? You just spend all your time with the computer. Does gaming feed you? Does it put you to sleep? Why don’t you have a boyfriend? What’s the point of being pretty if you don’t do anything with it? You’re a homebody. Ugh, what have I given birth to?’

 

While listening to my mom’s nagging about how I was too old for games;

 

‘Hey, Seo Heewon. Stop banging on the keyboard like that, you crazy girl. I can hear everything. Are you trying to break it? I’m so tired, and you’re making it impossible to sleep with all that noise.’

 

Ignoring my sister’s irritation as she acted like she was the only one going to work;

 

‘Sis, I’m screwed. Mom said she’ll disown me if I don’t come home today, and now the subway’s cut off. Can you send me 30,000 won? Please? I swear I’ll pay you back this time. I’m putting everything on the line.’

‘Are you perhaps Ms. Seo Heewon, the most beautiful woman in Dowon-dong? I heard you have a heart as beautiful as your face. If you’re interested in helping the less fortunate through charity work, please send 100,000 won to 100-1-181818 and join us in this beautiful journey.’

 

At twenty, I was being extorted by the unruly, out-of-control twins.

 

‘You know how I got a hole-in-one during golf, right? I told them it’s nothing, and yet he insisted on having a celebration for it. Can you just let it slide like that? I paid for tuna and the second round today. Everyone was so jealous. I mean, they should be! Oh, did I tell you? Your dad, I, got a hole-in-one?’

 

Now, I was just putting up with Dad’s usual drunken ramblings instead of the kisses.

I just… wanted to live on my own.

“…Maybe it’s not so bad to live alone quietly for a while. After all, I don’t even know how to solve their problems.”

Mom used to scold me every day, asking if gaming would feed me or put me to sleep. However, in this world, thanks to all the stealing I did, I had accumulated money I could never earn in real life. 

If I were living better than the Seo Heewon in reality, I wouldn’t have to worry about starving. Nevertheless, I couldn’t abandon my family just to live well on my own, so I decided to make one last attempt.

Gasp.

I prepared myself mentally and banged my head against the blank wall. I thought that something would change if I gave this body a huge shock instead of a minor injury like pinching my flesh. But as expected, I failed.

“Ugh.”

The bump on my forehead hurt so much that it almost made me tear up. There was no change, just pain. The wide dressing room was the same, and the pretty face in the mirror was still there. The only change was a red bump on my once-beautiful forehead.

“If nothing’s changing after all this, then it can’t be helped, right? Let’s just live.”

Even after going through the five stages of denial, accepting it was inevitable. It’s better to face the truth quickly—it’ll be better for me in the long run. 

Sorry, Mom. It’s just the way it is. The curse of being a homebody is broken. I’ll be back after playing for a bit. Please beat up the twins on my behalf.

As I rubbed my aching forehead, thinking about my mom lingering in my mind, I suddenly felt a vibration nearby. It was coming from the pajama pocket I didn’t even know existed.

“Huh?”

A phone call rang right in the middle of this confusing situation.

For some reason, I had a strong feeling that I had to answer it. Swallowing a dry gulp, I took out my phone.

The photo displayed in the center of the screen and the name written beneath it were both familiar. It was Adam, the NPC who claimed to be a hacking genius.

Adam had the same round head with no hair. Because of this, I often referred to him as “Egg Cut” instead of his actual name, and that still hasn’t changed. 

I looked down at the glossy picture of Adam, who looked like a roasted egg, with a skeptical expression. Though he was an NPC who spouted a lot of nonsense, I briefly hesitated on whether I really needed to take the call. However, I decided to listen to him for now.

“Hello?”

– “Hey, hey! Buddy, how’s it going? I can’t even remember the last time we teamed up to mess with those Fixford guys!”

It had been a while. Fixford was a military company that appeared in every story mission. Despite its tough and difficult challenges, the rewards weren’t generous. So, we often just targeted their bank instead of doing the main tasks.

In last week’s update, a quest to infiltrate the Fixford laboratory was added, and since then, Adam had been persistently calling me every time he logged in, introducing new missions. So, up until now, Adam was no different from the spam messages that repeated like a mantra.

“Ah, yes.”

– “So, have you heard the news? The Fixford guys are secretly developing new weapons in their laboratory…!”

“I’m not buying it, old man.”

Furrowing my brow, I immediately hung up. It wasn’t like I was expecting some iconic line like “Now, the game begins,” or anything dramatic, but I at least hoped for a brief explanation of the situation. But of course, the situation was just more of the same as in the game.

And what’s with him being so persistent? The phone rang twice more after that, but I didn’t pick up. Then, a message arrived.

Naturally, I expected the message to be from Adam, but it was from the bank. One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand, hundred thousand, million, ten million, billion. Three hundred million dollars. 

As I checked the numbers, my head spun, and my eyes quickly darted across the screen. If I remembered correctly, this penthouse was bought for around a million dollars, and I had several other properties scattered around the city. The personal garage was full of supercars, and there was a yacht docked along the west coast.

In reality, such wealth was something that could only be attained if I started working since the time of King Gwanggaeto². In other words, it was a life that, unless I were reborn, was impossible to live.

As the message arrived at the perfect time, erasing my petty sense of filial duty, the explosion that had woken me from my sleep echoed again. The floor rumbled as if an earthquake had struck. For some reason, it felt even louder than the sound I had heard while half-asleep.

“Ah, that scared me. Where is all this noise coming from?”

I tapped my startled chest and got up. I thought about looking out the window. However, upon second thought, the direction of the sound seemed to come from somewhere much closer, not from deep layers of the earth.

Creeeak, I carefully opened the bedroom door and stepped into the hallway, where the sharp smell of gunpowder and the thick smoke filled the air. It was as if a bomb had gone off somewhere in the house.

Sure enough, the living room was in even worse condition. Sprinklers installed all over the ceiling were busy spraying water, and one side of the spacious living room had caved in as if a meteor had fallen. In other words, the explosion had really happened right in my house.

“Are you coming out now?”

However, the surprises weren’t over yet.

“Hey, beautiful. I’ve been busting my ass trying to find you.”

Following the voice that clung to my ear, I turned my head and saw a man sitting on the sofa. His legs were crossed as if it were his own home, as he was casually rolling a grenade around like it was a toy.