NPC Fell onto My Bed C18

Chapter 18

Late at night, both men returned home with signs of exhaustion on their faces. Their exertions at the dojo had left them both drenched in sweat. Normally, Gu Taeheon wouldn’t have sweated so much from mere judo training, but half a year away from the sport had left his stamina depleted.

“It’s the first time I’ve sweated like this since I was a training priest,” Noah said as he sank, exhausted, onto the sofa. Even so, his posture remained straight, his back unbowed.

Catching a glimpse, Taeheon peeled off his hat and mask, setting them on the kitchen table. He uncapped a bottle of water he’d bought on the way home and said, almost nonchalantly,
“Go wash up first, Noah.”
“May I?”

Noah’s face brightened at the suggestion. Since Taeheon had taught him how to adjust the temperature, he had become very fond of bathing here. Sinking into a tub of warm water reminded him of Eir’s serene embrace from his own world.

With Taeheon’s easy permission, Noah eagerly made his way to the bathroom, holding the pajamas they had bought earlier in one hand. Even his footsteps carried a spring.

From behind, Taeheon watched Noah disappear and then brought the water bottle to his lips. The 500ml bottle looked tiny in his large hand. He drained it all in one go, not taking his eyes off the bathroom door until it finally swung shut with a faint thud.

“Take your time, Noah,” Taeheon murmured, though his words didn’t reach the other man.

As the sound of the closing door echoed, his own gaze finally turned away. He crushed the empty bottle absently and tossed it onto the table. Then, with hurried steps, he entered his computer room instead of the bedroom and locked the door behind him. Sitting at his brand-new computer, he pressed the power button, waiting for the screen to come alive.

Those few seconds of loading filled him with an odd anxiety. Taeheon worried his heart might thud loud enough to be heard as he grasped the mouse and clicked nervously.
Click, click. The quiet sounds of repeated taps echoed.

And then, at last, the monitor filled with the grand fantasy world.

“Hold on, which server was mine…”

He fumbled with the mouse, as awkward with his computer as Noah was with a judo uniform. Before Last Chronicle, Taeheon hadn’t even visited an internet cafe, let alone played a game. If it hadn’t been for his accident and for An Jeonghyeok barging in and giving him the machine, he would never have touched PC games at all.

So “Limp1219,” the novice gamer, finally located his old server. His character, only level 10 and dressed in pitiful starter gear, waited for him. A couple more clicks brought him to the loading screen. Although it took less than a minute, the wait made him restless.

“Damn, I wish I could just get rid of this stupid game.”

Yet there was only one reason he was logging in now—because of the text he’d received after the judo session. The phrase “See High Priest Hildegart at the Healer’s Cathedral” had caught his eye at once. Taeheon felt instinctively that he needed to log in, at least once.

He no longer doubted Noah, not after the healing he had experienced today. Whatever lingering skepticism he’d had was gone. He wasn’t logging in to verify Noah’s identity—he simply needed to see for himself.

“If what Noah said is true, does that mean… if everything is real, he might return to the world of Last Chronicle someday?”

He couldn’t tolerate even that remote possibility. He was terrified that Noah might disappear, returned to that other world, so he logged in, hiding it from him. Why not just say so out loud? Because…

“…He wouldn’t want to go back yet—not when he made that promise with me.”

Noah had said with his own mouth that he was here to help Taeheon, to let him live again as a judoka. Taeheon’s leg wasn’t fully healed. So Noah could not return yet. Anxiety gnawed at him as he moved his in-game character.

“To reach Hildegart, I need to…”

Despite being a total beginner, there was one thing Taeheon could do well: search for High Priest Hildegart, the healer’s class master.

Before meeting Noah, when he had started Last Chronicle, he hadn’t even known what to do after logging in. The game’s wide open world and steep learning curve only made things worse. Finally, after some aimless wandering, he’d set himself a small task—visiting that legendary healer he’d met during the tutorial, Hildegart.

At the time, “Limp1219” hadn’t been expecting anything. He thought he’d soon quit, so just wanted to see a memorable NPC before logging off for good.

“Tyrel Forest.”

Skillfully, his character navigated to the Temple of Eir. After using the portal, he still had to walk through sunlit corridors on foot, since no mounts or transit skills were allowed inside.

When Taeheon arrived, he gazed blankly at the screen. There, just as he remembered, stood a character who was both familiar and somehow strange.

<Healer Class Master: Hildegart>

That was the name floating above a figure whose face resembled Noah’s precisely. The character didn’t turn to look at the player, simply revealing serene golden eyes, unmoving as if time itself had stopped.

Hildegart remained, just as before, right where he was supposed to be. A strange relief swept Taeheon. If the healer had been missing, for any reason, would that have meant Noah had to return immediately to his world…? Taeheon clenched his jaw and forced away the thought.

As he studied Hildegart’s face onscreen, another player entered the temple. Last Chronicle, being an MMORPG, fostered much player interaction. Since Hildegart was the only class master healer in the server, many came to visit. Taeheon found nothing strange about seeing another user enter—

Until the new arrival immediately began typing in chat in front of Hildegart.

[Global] IronWarrior1234: Noah
Taeheon’s eyes narrowed.
[Global] IronWarrior1234: Hey, Noah
[Global] IronWarrior1234: Are you here now?

Absolutely nuts.

To be fair, Taeheon himself, in a half-mad state, had once spoken to Noah believing him just an NPC. But IronWarrior1234 seemed even crazier.

[Global] IronWarrior1234: If you’re reading this, please help me
[Global] IronWarrior1234: We’re friends, aren’t we?

Insane.
What else would you call someone who talked to an unresponsive NPC as if it were an old friend?

As Taeheon shook his head, arms folded and posture slouched, a sudden rap drew his head up sharply. His eyes snapped wide as he turned.
It was, naturally, Noah’s voice from outside the door.
“Are you in there, Mr. Taeheon?”

At the sound of Noah’s voice, Taeheon acted before he could think. He reached for the PC’s power button and pressed it for a full five seconds—the monitor flickered and died as the computer force-shut down.

Breathless, he jumped up and hurried to the door. Because he had locked it earlier, it clicked when he undid the latch, finally swinging open.

There, steam still rising from his skin, stood Noah, freshly bathed and wearing a puzzled, curious expression as he peeked in for the first time.

“What were you doing?”

Footnotes:

1. Limp1219 (절름발이1219) – Taeheon’s gamer name, meaning “Limp” in Korean, referencing his injury. 
2. High Priest Hildegart – The “healer class master” in Last Chronicle, modeled exactly after Noah for meta-narrative effect. 
3. Tyrel Forest (티렐 숲, Tirel Sup) – A sacred place within both the game and Noah’s backstory, a symbolic cross-world anchor. 

MMORPG – Massively multiplayer online role-playing game; in this context, Last Chronicle connects real and game worlds.