His gear might’ve been pretty bare-bones, but inside a dungeon, the bastard never missed a beat. Whenever Heejae dragged me around, we’d clear ten dungeons at nearly thirty minutes each, and I had to stay so focused I barely even had time to drink water.

　　Considering most people took an hour to clear a single dungeon with a four-person party, it was a brutal pace. And whenever I looked even a little tired or whiffed a few skills, he’d use our measly three-year age gap to treat me like some old man on his deathbed.

　　I already felt insecure about how much better his mechanics were than mine, so I couldn’t bring myself to say I wanted a break or call it quits. I threw every curse I knew at him, but still kept up with his pace.

　　Somehow, within a week, I got used to a grind that had seemed impossible at first. Naturally, my level shot up like crazy too. I hated to admit it, but following Heejae’s plan really was the fastest way to hit max level.

　　“This bastard… He’s so fucking good at this game… God, I hate him so much.”

　　He had a knack for stringing together little in-game tricks and optimizing our routes like he’d developed Arcadia himself.

　　He was especially good at using the terrain. Other players would have to run up and down the same route two or three times, but he’d pull aggro with a few jumps and wipe out all the monsters at once. Even watching it happen in real time, my jaw dropped.

　　Finding shortcuts through tangled, maze-like dungeons by piecing together a few clues was basic stuff for him. And in the entire week we spent running dungeons, he never once got hit by a boss’s one-shot mechanic. Maybe that was why Heejae started giving me shit the second I got hit by the same pattern twice.

　　[Heejae]: jumping again? lol

　　[Heejae]: r u a flea Noona o_o??

　　[Sesam]: lag

　　[Heejae]: lmaooooo

　　[Heejae]: u know thats kinda pathetic right o_o lol

　　[Sesam]: Shut up for a sec ur chat makes it harder to focus

　　[Heejae]: lololololololol

　　[Sesam]: Ah f**k

　　[Heejae]: LMAOOOOOOOO

　　[Heejae]: three times is crazy lol

　　[Sesam]: Stfu I’m already smashing my fingers with a hammer so get off my ass, say one more word and I’m smashing ur head next

　　[Heejae]: LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

　　Whenever I logged off after Heejae had thoroughly run me ragged, I’d collapse into bed and sleep like a baby. I was that exhausted.

　　Then I’d wake up half-dead the next morning to Shin Heejae asking what time I was getting on that day. I’d give him some half-assed answer, and around lunchtime, the bastard would brief me on what dungeons we were running that day.

　　Morning, noon, and night, Heejae was taking over my life, and my old gaming-addict routine was gradually settling back into place.

* * *

　　A month passed.

　　I finally hit Level 200. Considering it had taken me six months to reach max level before, I was secretly blown away by how fast I’d done it. I couldn’t help feeling a little proud too.

　　But that day…

　　As usual, I logged into Arcadia when Shin Heejae told me to get on, only to find a message from him waiting in my inbox. No subject. Just an item attached.

　　[High Elf’s Sacred Pendant +9]

　　It was the most expensive accessory for a max-level heal Ele.

　　“What… the hell?”

　　Dazed, I hit [Receive] and carefully inspected the pendant in my inventory. I couldn’t believe it even after seeing the item name, so I opened the detailed item description and even equipped it.

　　It really was a High Elf’s Sacred Pendant +9. My MP nearly doubled the second I put it on, so it definitely wasn’t fake.

　　“No, wait… Why would he send me this…?”

　　But I couldn’t just be happy about it. Something felt off. Especially when the sender was Shin Heejae of all people. I started running through possible reasons he’d sent it.

　　“Maybe he sent it by mistake?”

　　That seemed most likely. Maybe he’d clicked the wrong recipient username during a trade and accidentally sent it to me.

　　“But what if it wasn’t a mistake?”

　　Then it was a gift for me. Could it be… a present for hitting max level?

　　But was Shin Heejae really the kind of person who’d prepare a gift just because I’d hit max level? He’d spent yesterday asking me what my IQ was and testing the absolute limits of my patience, so honestly, I couldn’t believe he’d sent it as some genuine gift with no strings attached.

　　“Let’s see… What’s the going rate…?”

　　Scratching my head, I searched [High Elf] in the Auction House, then selected the [Pendant] category.

　　Around ten copies of the same item came up. And the cheapest High Elf’s Sacred Pendant among them was listed for 39,999,999,999 gold.

　　“What…?”

　　For a second, I thought I’d misread the number of digits.

　　I rubbed my eyes and carefully counted again.

　　But no. It really was almost forty billion gold. Listings with better rolls were pushing forty-five billion.

　　The problem was, the High Elf’s Sacred Pendant Heejae had sent me had even better stats than the most expensive forty-five-billion-gold listing. Stunned, I opened Item Maniac, the price-check app for Arcadia items.

　　[Arcadia Today’s Rate: 1:$3.30]

　　So one hundred million gold was trading for about three dollars and thirty cents. Forty billion gold came out to roughly $1,320 in real money. In other words, this necklace was worth about a month’s salary for me.

　　“…You’ve gotta be kidding.”

　　Shocked and confused, I stared at the High Elf’s Sacred Pendant I had equipped. Then I took it off and put it back in my inventory. Something about the whole thing gave me a bad feeling. Like it was some kind of trap.

　　I sat there with my mouth shut, anxiously waiting for Heejae to log in. As always, he appeared within ten minutes of me coming online.

　　[Party Invite from Heejae — Accept / Decline]

　　I hit Accept and pulled on my headset with one hand. For the past month, every time I logged into the game, that bastard Heejae had insisted I join Discord. By now, it had become a habit.

　　Ding!

　　Discord chimed as Heejae joined the voice channel the two of us used. I immediately confronted him in the party chat.

　　[Sesam]: Hey

　　[Heejae]: o_o?

　　“What is it?”

　　Heejae typed his usual infuriating emoticon in chat but answered me over Discord.

　　His voice was a little lower than usual. Today especially, he sounded like he’d just woken up. Not that it was any of my business. Still, hearing him like that right before I asked about the pendant felt weird.

　　[Sesam]: Something weird showed up in my mail

　　I asked as calmly as I could. I couldn’t exactly keep something like this when it made me this uncomfortable. Heejae usually answered me right away, but this time he went quiet for several seconds.

　　[Sesam]: Did u send it by mistake?

　　When I pressed him, he finally answered.

　　“No?”

　　[Sesam]: Then why’d u send it?

　　“It was just… sitting around in my inventory, so I gave it to you.”

　　[Heejae]: i hope ur not crying cuz ur so touched o.o

　　There he went talking bullshit again, obviously on purpose.

　　[Sesam]: Touched my ass

　　[Sesam]: Where’d u steal it from?

　　[Heejae]: lmaoooo

　　Snapping back at him came so naturally now. The problem was that I couldn’t bring myself to say something like “thanks” or “I’ll put it to good use.” I mean… We weren’t at that stage where we said embarrassing shit like that to each other.

　　But his present was way too expensive to just brush off. If it had only been two or three billion gold, I would’ve kept my mouth shut and pocketed it. But something worth an entire paycheck was a little…

　　And if I just took it, what would this bastard think of me…?

　　[Sesam]: U dont need to give me anything just take it back

　　It was a damn shame, but it didn’t feel right accepting something this expensive when I had no idea what his intentions were. So I clicked Heejae’s character beside me and selected [Trade Request] to give it back.

　　But he declined.

　　“What the hell? Why’d he decline?”

　　I sent another request, but this time the trade window disappeared even faster. Shin Heejae had no intention of taking it back.

　　[Sesam]: What are u doing??

　　[Heejae]: just use it o_o lol if u got no skill at least ur gear should be good

　　“What’d you just say, asshole?”

　　Scowling, I opened the mailbox and sent the High Elf’s Sacred Pendant back to him.

　　Heejae must’ve seen that I’d returned it, because he let out a deep sigh and said, “Oh… Are you mad? I was kidding.”

　　[Sesam]: Well I’m not kidding take it back

　　My cold response shut down the conversation for a moment. Then Heejae sighed again, sounding tired and irritated.

　　“…God, don’t you know it’s a present for hitting max level? You took everything the clan members gave you yesterday.”

　　[Sesam]: What?

　　“Why can’t you just say thanks and take mine like you did theirs? Why take theirs but not mine? It’s like you’re singling me out…”

　　He wasn’t wrong. The second I’d hit max level yesterday, the usual trio and several other clan members had sent all kinds of stuff to my inbox. And just like when they’d helped me out with beginner gear, I’d replied to every single one of them with a thank-you note.

　　The clan members who’d sent me max-level gifts had spent a while in the clan chat calling my replies cute. I hadn’t realized Shin Heejae was watching any of it. He’d been so quiet that I’d assumed he was AFK…

　　[Sesam]: I’m not singling u out

　　I was about to explain that his gift was way too expensive, but the bastard cut me off.