Return of the Frozen Player

s.
She had experienced it many times before she became the Queen of Niflheim.
For example, the victory of her corps had become the victory of the kingdom.
Even when she was seriously injured and groaning on a sickbed, a festival had taken place along with a band's performance on the street.

‘Every world is the same.’

The person who had sacrificed themselves was different from those enjoying the victory.
Feeling uncomfortable for no reason, the Frost Queen exited the news bulletin board.
She wanted to play like a child, but as if cold water had been poured on her heart, she didn’t want to play anymore.

“…”

The Frost Queen closed her eyes for a moment.

‘I have been acting too much like a child these days.’ 

She strongly felt that she shouldn’t be like this.
Her contractor was silently moving forward, but she felt like she was regressing.

“Okay, let's practice.” She nodded.
The main goal was to regain the strong charisma she had when she first met her contractor.

‘Well, first of all, I need to practice acting with my facial expressions…’

Looking for a mirror, she was in tears.
There wasn't a single clear pond around, let alone a mirror.

“Ah.”

However, beggars couldn’t be choosers.
She quickly found a way.

‘Filming…’

Wasn't it simple if she just used a video as a mirror?

“Hmm, press this…”

 

[Do you want to start filming? Yes/No.]

 

“Yes.”

[Do you want to use the default filter? Yes/No.]

 

“Yes.”

 

[Do you want to save to the gallery right after filming the video? Yes/No.]

 

“What, why are there so many? Yesyesyesyesyesyes!”

The Frost Queen skipped all the questions that stood in her way.
A proud look filled her face.
However, she had no idea that—

 

[Live broadcast has started.]

 

—She had made a mistake.

***

Silence.

Nowadays, the Player community was in a decline.
It felt like a storm had ravaged the place and no repairs had been made ever since.

 

[Oh, I'm bored.]

[Is there any fun news these days?]

[Rather than looking for fun news here, it’d be more helpful to go out and complete another quest, you know?]

[Yea~ Even if I play like this all day, my level and salary are higher than yours~]

[He's a cosu, but he’s talking about salary, lol.]

 

Cosu was short for ‘community and jobless.’ These people roamed the Community boards from the moment they opened their eyes to the moment they closed them to sleep.
This was obvious, but there were only a few decent Players among them.
However, there was a certain percentage of them who belonged to the 'press.’

“Oh, hell, my performance is rock bottom these days.
Is there really nothing?”

This was the case for Himal, the reporter who wrote the comment, ‘Is there any fun news these days?’.
About a month ago, Specter’s great performance resulted in the opening of the 3rd floor.
As a result, mankind had the busiest month of the past few decades.
At first, it was an anonymous bulletin board that was explosively popular, as it was used to find information about the 3rd floor…

‘The bulletin boards are all dead.
They're all dead.'

Unless they were a nobody, everyone had already gone up to the 3rd floor with a goal.
Some had started to speed up their hunting and Quests on the 2nd floor to get to the 3rd floor.
Since all these people had been working hard to find a way to leave the 2nd floor, the bulletin boards had become really desolate these days.

“Should I just ask to be transferred to the 1st floor…”

Drooped like laundry on his office chair, he listlessly refreshed the Community window.

“Hmm?”

It was then when a strange notification appeared in his Community window.

 

[Sonny-nim has started a live broadcast.]

 

“Sonny? Who had this nickname again?”

Himal began to search his notebook.
The Players he was following were only those who usually became headlines.

“Oh, what?”

His eyes opened wide when he discovered the owner of the ID, Sonny.

‘This, it’s Seo Jun-Ho's ID?’

However, his mind quickly spun.

‘Strange.
It was confirmed that Seo Jun-Ho needs more than twenty weeks of treatment.’

Not even four weeks had passed since then, let alone twenty weeks.
Of course, there was no way that such a person would do a live broadcast.

‘Ah, maybe he’s trying to do a talk show from the hospital?’

There were people like that sometimes.
Those who would do live broadcasts just to enjoy the company of other Players.

‘I didn't think he had that kind of personality.
How unexpected.’

Smirking, Himal entered Sonny's broadcast without thinking.
And after a while, he grabbed at his chest.

“Ugghhhhh…!”

The cutest girl in the world, he swore, was there.

* * *

“Hmm… Was it this?”

‘Hmph!’ 

The Frost Queen looked sulky.

“No, no.
That's definitely the look of a sulky kid.”

She was working very hard with her mask off.
It was because of her determination to regain her charismatic old self again and to be respected by her contractor once more.

“In the end, you have even come to the grave…”

After practicing hard for about thirty minutes, the Frost Queen eventually succeeded in restoring her old expression.
Now, she had an expression and eyes that exuded frostiness.
But then dust entered her eyes.

“Ah, it tickles.”

Rubbing her eyes with a slightly uncomfortable look, she noticed something by chance.

“Hmm?”

At the bottom right of the video, heart-shaped emoticons were popping up like crazy.

Anxiety began to climb up her spine.

‘I don't know why, but I feel like I shouldn't press it…’

She felt like she would be happy for the rest of her life if she remained ignorant about the meaning of those hearts.
However, it felt uncomfortable to just ignore those like this.
Eventually, she gulped her saliva and slowly reached out.
Finally, her finger touched the heart-covered button called ‘comment window.’

1.
UI is user interface. ☜

Castor & Sangwoo's Thoughts

Yojj: I’m dead from how cute she is 

Veela: Agreed…

penguin: Frost-chan