Chapter 8.1

The room was cluttered with scattered clothes. On the bed lay Elena, breathing heavily and drenched in sweat, her bare body sprawled out.

Though I had been playing around just enough not to go overboard, I felt like I had pushed her too far since it had been a while.

“Clean.”

With the ‘Clean’ spell, I removed the dirt from her.

Even after becoming clean, Elena’s stamina remained depleted, and she breathed small, ragged breaths. Her chest rose and fell as she cast a languid gaze in my direction.

I grabbed a bottle of wine that was placed beside the bed and brought it directly to my lips without pouring it into a glass.

The sensation of the alcohol sliding down my throat. I craved the pleasure that would numb my brain, but the abnormal resistance my body had from my profession prevented me from getting that drunk.

This was the kind of cheap liquor that ordinary citizens preferred. I could feel its intoxicating effects, but it wasn’t enough to make me blackout. That kind of drink.

To get someone with a profession to blackout, I would need much stronger alcohol.

With a burp, the stench of liquor escaped my mouth.

“Haa… I’ll just complain a little.”

The truth was, I was in despair about this world.

It wasn’t about something being taken from me, like cotton; it was a fundamental despair I felt about this world.

That’s why I decided to express such weaknesses periodically; otherwise, I’d lose my mind. So, I chose to vent whenever I could.

Elena looked at me in surprise, but when I told her, “Just listen quietly,” she buried her face into the pillow, still breathing heavily, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye. I gazed at her absently while pouring out the turmoil in my heart.

“The truth is, I didn’t really care.”

Yes, I didn’t care. From the very beginning.

When I realized this world was a game, I lost the desire to do anything.

Why would I want to play a game I had already cleared once?

It was fun. A masterpiece. I had completed all the extra elements.

So? Just because it was enjoyable, did I want to play it again? If I went on a fun trip, would I want to enjoy the same trip again? After going to the mountains, wouldn’t I want to go to the sea next? Wouldn’t I want to sink the previous trip into memory and try something different?

It was like eating too much porridge. I’d get a stomach ache and no longer want to eat. That’s what being a ‘Professional Hero’ was like for me.

—I had cleared this world to the point of boredom.

“I… I could’ve ended my life in that empty little village. So…”

At most, the ultimate thing I could do in this world was to kill the divine avatar device waiting in the most challenging dungeon and receive my reward. Since the ‘Professional Hero’ had high freedom, it was possible to gain royal authority, build a luxurious mansion, or even obtain immortality, and I could reincarnate into a different race or change my gender—but ultimately, the final goal of this world was to kill the divine avatar waiting in the depths of the high-difficulty dungeon and have my strength recognized by the gods.

But I had already done all of that long ago. I played the game. I became immortal and exhausted the world through a hundred playthroughs, defeating all unique named calamity monsters and becoming the strongest human.

I recorded RTA videos. I cleared all the DLCs. I even became a member of a strategy site. I streamed my gameplay, and because of that, I sometimes participated as a member of the official RTA project live broadcasts.

And then, at the very end, I killed every unique NPC, obtained all weapons, armor, and treasures, and collected all achievements, titles, and skills—until I got bored of being a ‘Professional Hero’ and uninstalled the game.

“This world was nothing but stuff I already knew, and it was boring. I was despairing about being born. Why was it a game I already knew?”

If it had been a game I didn’t know, a new game, I could have enjoyed my one and only life to the fullest. Even if I wasn’t the strongest or if I failed at my status build, just discovering, “Ah, so that’s how you do it,” would surely have been fun.

But because I knew this world, I couldn’t choose anything other than a build for ‘Bounty Hunter’ or ‘Hacker’ that allowed for the most stable—killing the ‘God’s Avatar.’ That’s why I inadvertently gave Cotton a reason to distance herself from me.

“But I… When I first used magic, the girl who lived next to my house was happy. She cheered me on every time I did something.”

My childhood friend Cotton said I was amazing.

Well, maybe it could have been anyone. But Cotton was clumsy, hopelessly stupid, too rustic, and didn’t match me either personally or character-wise. Even though I had to endure a lot, I chose Cotton simply because her smiling face was cute. I thought that was enough, and I was sufficiently satisfied with just her cute smile, even if there were uncomfortable parts.

“So I just wanted to show her everything I thought was amazing.”

I had always thought that, being somewhat broken myself, our relationship would eventually fall apart, but I never expected it would happen in this first city.

Honestly, I didn’t understand what I did wrong.

I don’t think being a ‘Hero’ was the reason. Something about me must have been fatally flawed, causing Cotton to drift away from me.

—I just couldn’t figure it out.

“I should have given her love and everything else.”

After we started dating as a couple, I stopped sleeping with other women, despite not committing any infidelity.

I let out a sigh that smelled of alcohol and brought the wine bottle to my lips. Although it wasn’t enough to get a professional drunk, it was supposed to be a wine known for its decent taste.

But I couldn’t really tell the flavor.

(Ha, I can’t even tell if the wine tastes good or not.)

Because Cotton said it was amazing, I studied how to discern the taste of wine to play the role of a cool man.

So I understood that this wine was said to be good by the public, but in reality, I had never found wine to be delicious.

TN: MY BRO’S IN LOVE BUT A BAD ONE IN THAT.