Chapter 62.1

Translated by boilpoil Edited by boilpoil

Author’s pre-notes: [Chinese New Year extra]

TL’s pre-notes: Not canon . While it’s published after Chapter 61, read this after at least Chapter 63 . Also, it’s another pun in the title in case anyone can’t tell.

This is treated as Chapter 62, by the way.

Today is the 33 ^rd day after the Rebellion of the Light.

The seventh season Killing Gauntlet Reality Show contestant number 199 Bright, nicknamed ‘2Hr,’ ‘Mr. N Times A Night,’ ‘Big Tiger,’ ‘The Yearly Most Wanted Gigolo On The Internet,’ codename Light, has worked with anti-government factions in the City and rebelled against the City with the contestants, instigating countless violent incidents as they did. The City has deployed armed forces both from the Inner and Outer parts, resulting in a fierce fight. The City has managed to eliminate all rebelling personnel, and number 199 was surrounded by the military. Seeing how he has no hope of escape, he has blown himself up with a bomb. His body was irrecoverable.

This event was massively influential and affected all levels of society and class. It even triggered a response from Citadel which has long stopped caring about the affairs of the City. Under its guidance, the Inner and Outer City worked quickly together in rebuilding. The blood-stained ruins and other effects left behind by the bombs and guns and cannons, all these traces of battle have disappeared overnight. The cleaning operation has been completed in one week’s time. The City has now designated number 199 as a negative example in education, to warn the descendants what happens to traitors.

The officials seem to be working hard to eliminate the effects of the Rebellion in the real world. The effects caused by Bright and his Rebellion Army is still here, and has even entrenched themselves. Before his death, he has already been seen as a hero by the audience. After his death he has been martyred and directly deified online, managing to even attract faithful believers, who do not believe the Light has disappeared. They assert that he has successfully left the City already, and that the official records are a lie, to mask their own failure.

People are naturally doubtful, and when asked for proof, believers of Light say, “Dead or alive, there must be a body. Without his bones, it means he’s alive.”

They’re confused, “what kind of reason is that? The reports say he blew himself up in desperation!”

“Do you even believe that? It must have been to deceive the ignorant sheep!”

“Yeah, how could Big Tiger have died so easily?! There will be a day he will come back riding on rainbow-coloured clouds to take me as his wife.”

“Stop it upper floor! This is a serious topic. Even if my hubby returns he will never consider you.”

The person who initially initiated the conversation is speechless, and says in resignation, “… number 199 is toxic!”

The show, to recover the massive damages caused by the rebellion of the contestants, has developed an RPG based on this event. It is an immersive gaming experience with life-or-death duels and love-and-hate relationships. Whether players are into fighting or into more casual styles of play, they can all find entertainment in it.

The game’s biggest feature is in character nurturing. The players can collect all the characters from the seventh season, and interact with them to raise their favourability. If you put enough real-life currency in it, you can even applaud for love in it. All the characters in it are popular contestants, from Beauty, to Ginger, to Piers, to Wolfie. Even the Wolves and Grizzlybear have many fans. And there is even a deified Bright in it.

Wouldn’t everyone want to defeat this man? Or at least have a one-night stand with him?

The game is a hit the moment it went on sale, exploding in popularity online. Despite faithful believers of Light joining together in protest against this perceived blasphemous treatment of their deity, and that the show is merely using Bright, but many more people, many more fans, have chosen to buy it.

And then they all cried.

“The nth Bad Ending screenshot. Is there any gaming gods who have managed to HE with Bright? I’m kneeling for a walkthrough here!”

“ Sofa~ ”

“+1! I have collected all characters already, and managed to HE with them all except Bright. I even HE’d with his lover Piers, furious_headshaking.jpg. Now I only needed Bright, furrowing my brows .”

“Sigh, I’ve fought together with Bright, bought medicine for him, carried his bags, even blocking bullets for him, and the favourability isn’t climbing up after a bit over 60. Why this heartless emotionless man! table_smashing.jpg”

“Floor 4 your approach is wrong. To become his companion and friend means it is over at 70 and you can’t develop more because he merely sees you as a pure bro. At most he can wash up alongside you in the lake, only seeing without touching. If you dare to touch, your favourability might crash to 0 at any moment. There’s already been an analysis of this by a gaming god. Here’s linky.”

“Thanks upper floor.”

“My return scrolls have run out today, and I just happened to meet Big Tiger. Chose to use madman tackle at him and immediately returned to spawn point. I’m a flipping genius y’all.”

“Did you manage to touch him with your tackle?”

“…”

“Life is hard so not closing this thread, hahaha!”

This thread has attracted countless players who had BEs with Bright, becoming a place of happy dissing by everyone.

A while later, someone spills the beans.

“Reply to OP, a friend of mine managed to HE. screenshot.jpg, screenshot.jpg.”

“Fuck!”

“Jesus Christ!”

“Mommy asks me why I’m kneeling to read the screen.”

OP replies, “don’t say it half way, I want walkthrough AAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!”

About a dozen replies later, the one who released the screenshots came back, “this… is kinda a long story. In summary, torture him, torture him like crazy, and live through his retaliation.”

“Se, seriously?”

“But, a normal attack from Bright is enough to break through my defences, three attacks send me straight to the spawn point. So how exactly can I live after angering him? Smiley face.”

“A normal paid player shaking over here.”

“So my male idol is masochistic? Brb, I need a ciggy to calm myself down…”

As one of the only players who have had an HE, Hopkin does not know his friend has misread his walkthrough. He did what he should have but not have done in the game.

Bright’s existence, to the City’s citizens, is lethally attractive, for both Inner and Outer City ones.

For the Outer City citizens, they adore the power, charisma and physique of this man that is beyond human.

For the Inner City residents, it is much more complex. While they’re attracted by his unique characteristics, they want to torture this person on the one hand, to own him, to enjoy the pleasure of making him succumb, breaking down his mental defences.

The show owns all the contestants, including their life and their genes. After the Rebellion, there have been proposals from Inner City aristocrats to make similar products using Bright’s genes. The plan is attractive, but has been met with strong opposition.

The contradictory part is that, they want the resistance and fearlessness of the man, but these qualities are factors that would affect the City’s safety and stability in negative ways. The man has already shown to everyone with his actions that even if he were in an extremely disadvantaged position, he can still resist them, resist the whole world with his mere identity as a slave, and escape from them and acquire freedom.

Yes, he has successfully fled from the City, fled from him, forever.

This thought has made Hopkin feel a pain that is suffocating his chest. He thought he should have become used to it, become numb to it.

Hopkin laughs bitterly, and can’t help but log on to the game again.

In any case, making Bright again is dangerous, but if those unique things in his personality and worldview were erased, then it wouldn’t be interesting to torture him anymore, and the clone would have lost its purpose. So everyone came up with a compromise. Since it won’t do to make him in real life, then let’s go with virtual world. Make him forever stay inside a game.

The game is undeniably successful. The designer has almost perfectly recreated Bright’s appearance and personality.

Hopkin is the one most qualified to make this judgement. He is certifiably the person who understands Bright the most in this world. He understands his concepts, his thoughts, his hopes, his hate, his lust. Therefore, the aristocrat has been invited onto the game design and its undisclosed beta testing. When he saw the person again with his eyes, he thought he was experiencing déjà vu, back into the past, and back to the moment they first met.

The man is standing helplessly alone. He is watching everybody’s crazed celebration in an alert and restrained manner.

The air is filled with the scent of grilled starmeat.

The aristocrat walks towards him, and even his breath has been slowed in his anxious yet excited mind.

“You were correct in not eating.” As if controlled by fate, he says so. Completely the same as in the past.

The man’s brown pair of eyes are looking at him. The heart of the aristocrat is beating wildly. His boiling emotions are flooding out, breaking through his emotional valve, it is both sour and bitter. He can assume how most Inner City aristocrats would be interested in hunting and deceiving him the moment they see the man, like he was, eager to challenge. Right now, though, he only feels happiness and a bit of unconcealable sadness.

“Bright.” The man says.

“Hopkin.” He restricts the shakiness in his voice, trying to suppress his emotion as much as possible.

They nod in greeting, cordially and not overly familiar.

When Hopkin thinks the first meeting is over like that, Bright suddenly asks, “do I know you?”

This is different from what actually occurred. Hopkin is somewhat surprised, but also a bit dissatisfied. The designer’s unnecessary meddling and addition has made him act unrealistically.

“I thought I should know you, but I have forgotten.”

You’re just a virtual character. You will say that to all the players who greet you like that.

Hopkin’s gaze has cooled down in temperature.

The man misreads his reaction, “I’m sorry. It sounds like flirting. I’m sure you’ve heard similar things before, but strangely, this is exactly what I think. I’ve forgotten about many things, suddenly appearing here… If I’ve offended you in any way, I’m sorry.”

He is explaining clumsily, anxiety flashing in his brown pair of eyes. Hopkin does not say anything to relieve him of the embarrassment in the situation. He leaves without even a word of parting.

This is a failure of a clone, Hopkin thinks.

Yet, at least it’s better than nothing.

Hopkin logs onto the game a second time. Then a third time, a fourth time…

The real world without Bright is void and empty. Even if there are countless people in the City, he still feels empty. He has lost interest in everything; his life without something interesting has become bland like water. Before Bright’s appearance, he could tolerate it. Yet after experiencing such a lively, active and passionate person and such events, he can no longer endure his lacking, tedious life.

Bright is his light, his life, with the power to make him feel alive.

He approaches his light again, like most creatures that zoom towards light sources.

“Hopkin, I feel as if I don’t belong to this world.”

Hopkin can feel a tightening in his chest. For a long while now, Bright’s favourability has been fixed at a certain level. Hopkin has had a guess for a while now, that some important event might be triggering. There it is, Bright has discovered the problem with his world.

“People would suddenly appear and disappear here. Some for a long time, never to come back. Some have special tools and powers. They will hurt me but also treat me well for no reason, but I can feel their hidden agendas, their unspeakable objectives.”

The man is still sharp, even if he were a string of 1s and 0s. He managed to deduce his identity of an Inner City aristocrat back then when his wariness was down, now he is certainly able to deduce the oddity of this world.

“Are you the same as them?” Bright asks.

Hopkin looks into the brown pair of eyes. For some reason, he seems to be able to see a shred of discomfort and weakness under the calm guise of the man. People always think he is light, he is strong, impregnable. Yet he is still a man. He still has moments when he is weak and exhausted. He just manages to hide it well, or rather, he has nobody he can trust. He has no opportunity to expose his real self.

“I’m from the same place as them. Somewhere you cannot reach.”

Bright’s eyes sparkle momentarily. His eyes curl into a smile, and it is this moment when Hopkin realises how warm the colour brown can be, feeling fuzzy and fluffy.

“Thank you for telling me the truth.” His hand lightly touches that of Hopkin, whose hand shakes a bit, and then Bright put that perfectly crafted hand right into his palm without hesitation. He holds it firmly, not tightly, but resolutely.

Warmth is transmitted from his palm. The game is realistic in that even the simulation of the sweat from his palm, both their palms, in fact, can be felt.

It is probably this realism that makes Hopkin enter the game world again and again. After a while of being together, they have become a couple. They will hold hands, hug, and even exchange a pure kiss every now and again.

“Are you busy over there?” Bright asks as he pours water for him. When he discovers how Hopkin has entered the game with a reduced frequency, he can’t help but ask.

“Mm.” Actually, Hopkin was not entering on purpose, suppressing himself. Recently Bright has been asking about the real world, which gives him an ominous premonition. It is as if Bright is trying to acquire information from the outside through him, how similar it is to the past! The first time is for freedom, and this time is for freedom. Their natures are the same, and the moment they notice they are bound, they will fight for freedom at any cost.

The man will not hold goodwill towards him. Even if he hides his real side perfectly in the game, he only wants to use him for his purpose, like maybe escaping from the game world.

Hopkin does not believe that the man will fall in love with himself. They have never said any sweet or lovely things to each other. Even when they were becoming a couple the event is unmemorable. It was like the man suddenly gave him a hug and he did not refuse it, given he is in the game to kill time, to escape from the cruel reality, to have a better, more intimate experience than in real life, so why not?

If the man’s emotions are real, then the data must have been faulty and the clone is therefore deviating from the original. This is because the real Bright will never fall in love with himself; if the emotions are fake, then all the affection and care the man is giving him are all illusions, all an act.

This is a lose-lose scenario.

Don’t be greedy. This is fine. So thinks Hopkin.

“What can I do that will make you happy?” Bright puts his lover in his embrace with a tinge of sadness. He is trying to unfurl the creases between his brows.

“I want to be quiet for a while.” Hopkin puts his head onto Bright’s shoulders.

So Bright was silent and accompanying him quietly.

When Hopkin is preparing to log off, Bright says, “if coming to see me is hard for you, then you don’t have to come.”

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