“Hoo.”

The 15th in the official power rankings of the virtual reality game Athens, the black wizard Ali, has reached the summit of the Berest [1] Mountains.

‘It took me two months just to find this thousand-year-old ginseng.’

The thousand-year-old ginseng is a rare medicinal item that increases your magical power by 1.5 times permanently upon consumption and is considered to be worth 200 million won in cash.

It is well-known that the higher the level of the player, the harder it is to raise the mana [2] reserve. Hence, the thousand-year-old ginseng is considered to be the best item for this drawback in the game.

‘I can go and exceed the limits of the game.’

Ali can’t help but hook up the corners of his mouth. [3]

He reached his destination shortly but Ali’s face distorted.

“Huh, it’s not here…?!”

He has no other choice but to be shocked. There are obvious traces that someone has taken the thousand-year-old ginseng.

‘Who the hell took it…?!’

Did someone receive a duplicate quest?

No, completing this quest is impossible if you’re not a high ranker.

Ali scratched the thought from his mind and approached it objectively.

‘Perhaps he’s still in the vicinity’

I’ve spent 2 months just to get it.

A blue light came out of Ali’s hands.

[Tracking Magic Activated]

Once this tracking magic is used you can easily find the item if it is within 1km from its origin.

Ding! 

[Target is within 300m radius] 

[Commencing tracking]

An arrow slowly floated in front of him.

‘Even if I have to PK, I have to get it at all costs!’

Ali chased the arrow quickly. After following the arrow for 100m, a small cave appeared in front of him.

Whoosh! 

[Hellfire]

[A huge fire from hell has been created.]

As expected from an 8th class magician, he summoned a huge fireball in front of him in case of an emergency since he doesn’t know anything about the situation ahead.

He slowly walked inside the cave. As he went further inside, Ali smelt something enticing.

This smells familiar. 

‘This…’

Since he is a Korean user, he can tell what it smells like, it smells like samgyetang [4].

As he went further inside, Ali was shocked with what he saw. In front of him was a man, a fire and a big cauldron.

“Samgyetang should really have actual ginseng in it.”

“H-hey…”

Ali’s voice trembled as the man with a neat, black hairstyle turned around.

Ali didn’t want to believe.

“T-that’s not the thousand-year-old ginseng, right?”

The thousand-year-old ginseng… Gone.

Special items lose their effectiveness the moment they get split or cut, and the system even prevents others from sharing.

If you’re not an idiot and you’re a user of Athens, you should definitely know that.

“Yeah?”

The man spoke slowly while cramming the food in his mouth as if someone would take it away from him.

“A th… thousand-year-old ginseng, which bastard will cook a thousand-year-old ginseng and put it in a samgyetang?!”

“Here.”

The man answered calmly.

***

[1] 베레스트 : This is the name of the mountain. It can either be Verest or Berest. Back

[2] Mana : or magic, is the energy used to cast spells in games. Back

[3] Hook up the corners of his mouth : smile a bit, smirk Back

[4] samgyetang : a soup with chicken stuffed with ginseng, garlic and jujube. Read more here: https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/samgyetang Back

Bulimia nervosa [1].

This is a rare disease which affects two types of people. If you are afflicted with this disease, no matter how much you eat, you would not be satisfied.

Whether it be Korean, Chinese, Japanese or Western cuisine a person with bulimia will eat it up. They would not care about the type of food.

The average calorie intake [2] of someone with bulimia is approximately 15,000 to 20,000 calories.

Kang Minhyuk is a bulimic patient. He’s 185 cm tall and weighs approximately 170kg.

And the man in front of Minhyuk is… Lee Jinhwan, a professor of psychiatry at Seoul Hospital. He is a renowned doctor of psychiatry in the country. Minhyuk visits him once every week.

His knee pains have been getting worse by the day and it has been getting difficult to walk. His throat has started to get strained and he’s having difficulties with breathing. Severe symptoms of hyper-obesity [3] have started to show in Minhyuk.

“You’ve been eating cherry tomatoes these days, right?”

“Yes.”

Minhyuk smiled wryly as he opened the bag he brought. The bag contained an air-tight container filled with cherry tomatoes.

“It seems that you can still get fat while eating cherry tomatoes.”

Cherry tomatoes are widely known as a representative diet food. It’s about 2kcal [4] per piece.

“You’ll still gain weight even if you eat diet food if you eat lots of it. How much do you eat per day?”

“About 5 thousand?”

“……So you’re a vegetarian piggy.”

“Prof, don’t you think that’s too much for a fact bomb [5]?”

Lee Jinhwan smiled wryly. They can talk like this because they have been consulting for 5 years already.

“You also know that I exercise. About four hours a day?”

“A healthy vegetarian piggy.”

“…You also know that I got first place in my CSAT [6] before, right?”

“Then you’re a smart, healthy, vegetarian piggy.”

“My father owns this hospital.”

Minhyuk smiled while wondering how this will turn out.

“Ahhhh…”

Jinhwan scratched his head. That was dangerous. But then he laughed.

“You’re a rich man’s son, you study really well and it seems that there’s nothing wrong with the other aspects of your life. Then… You’re really a very healthy piggy.”

“Fine. I don’t even understand what you’re talking about Doc?”

The two of them laughed. The mood between the two people did not seem like they were talking about Minhyuk’s rare disease.

Suddenly, it felt dreary. What’s wrong with himself, what treatments should he undergo. Minhyuk’s condition was too difficult to speak of.

And when he needs to talk about something serious, Jinhwan always felt a need to ease the mood a little bit. He opened his mouth carefully.

“Mr. Minhyuk.”

“Yes.”

“It would be really dangerous if you go on like this.”

“……..”

Minhyuk knows this too. At least, he understands the reason why he endured this much. Working out for four hours each and every day and even trying to control his appetite as much as possible.

Even if he doesn’t eat something all the time, it’s still a miracle that an anxious bulimic patient can maintain the weight of 170kg.

But…

It’s a fact that he has reached his limits.

“I know.”

“Is it hard?”

Minhyuk nodded his head.

“What’s the hardest part?”

“When you want to eat but you can’t eat what you want.”

So Minhyuk gestured.

“Prof, think about it.”

He smacked his lips.

“My alarm will ring at one in the morning, then I will turn on the gas and put on a pot of water on the fire. And then I will split the ramyeon and add it in.”

“Oh.”

At Jinhwan’s exclamation, Minhyuk made a gesture as if he’s holding chopsticks.

“I’ll stir the noodles to cook them well. And when it’s done, tak! an egg! I’ll crack one and add it in. At this point…”

He looked so serious, as if what he said was very crucial.

“I’ll hurry up and set it in front of the TV while watching reruns of Infinite Challenge [7]. And that’s when I’ll eat my ramyeon…!”

Guulp! 

The nurse behind Jinhwan gulped down her saliva.

“S-sorry. I unconsciously did it while imagining the scenario.”

Minhyuk laughed heartily.

“It’s the best right? [8]“

Jinhwan gave a low laugh. It was a relief for him to see that Minhyuk did not lose this laugh.

“So eating well is still the hardest part?”

“As you can see, I’ve been eating 5000 cherry tomatoes everyday, of course it’s hard.”

“But you’re still doing very well.”

It’s clear that Minhyuk is doing well. In fact, there were three bulimic patients before. But one died. He was a fourteen year-old boy, he was 160cm high and 200kg in weight, he couldn’t control his diet because he couldn’t overcome his appetite that’s why he died [9]. He died during the spring.

“I hope that there will come a moment where I can eat what I want to…”

Jinhwan couldn’t talk back.

At that time, he might really die.

Clenching his hands together, Jinhwan started their main topic for the day.

“Right now, I will suggest to you a new type of therapy.”

“A therapy?”

A new treatment.

So far, he has tried countless treatments and therapies and all of it has failed.

“Yes, the virtual-reality game Athenae.”

“…Didn’t we try that before?”

Athenae has aimed to be the most popular game among all of the existing virtual-reality games. They have more than 9 million active users right now. It has been gaining massive popularity all over the world.

However, Minhyuk has already tried virtual-reality games as a treatment for his bulimia.

“There was Versal [10] before.”

Jinhwan clarified.

Versal. It was a game released before Athenae.

“There was no sense of taste even though it felt real in the game, and it just resulted in a more severe yo-yo effect [11].”

That’s right. Versal is a virtual game that has an uncanny resemblance with reality. But no matter how close it resembles reality the food you eat is still tasteless.

He smiled at him.

“You can actually taste the food in Athenae.”

“Eh?”

“I tried it.”

“……”

At that moment, Minhyuk felt like his heart was thumping like crazy.

Jinhwan is a responsible doctor.

Athenae was launched about 6 months ago.

Jinhwan, together with other doctors who researched bulimia, thinks that bulimia is a disease highly related with your mind.

That’s why they aimed to lose weight by trying to repeatedly eat inside Versal [12]. But being satiated without tasting the food was like poison to the patient.

However, this time it’s different. Jinhwan opened an account, tried it, tasted the food and even enjoyed himself.

“You won’t gain any weight inside that game even if you eat 100 ramyeon at one in the morning.”

***

Footnotes

[1] Bulimia nervosa : a disease where you consume excessive amount of food followed by a behavior to compensate the binge-eating (either through vomiting or excessive exercise) Read more here. Back

[2] Average calorie intake : According to NHS women should have at least an average intake of 2,000 calories while men should have 2,500. Read more here Back.

[3] Hyper-obesity : Probably is considered as extreme obesity classification or Class 3 obesity. For more information about obesity read hereBack

[4] kcal : a unit of calorie. This is the amount of energy needed to heat or raise the temperature one kilogram of water by 1°C. 1kcal \= 1000cal Back

[5] 팩력배 : According to what I have searched, it means fact bomb. It’s a slang or abbreviation for fact bomb in hangul. Back

[6] CSAT : College Scholastic Assessment Test, basically an entrance exam for college. Back

[7] Infinite Challenge : A Korean reality variety show. It’s a variety show where the casts tries to do almost impossible challenges in a comedic way. Back

[8] 개꿀이죠 : Apparently this is a slang, used by teenagers meaning good, very good, so fortunate. They use 개 which means dog before a verb as a replacement to very or really. Back

[9] For clarifications. As said before bulimic patients keeps on binge-eating then try to lose weight either through vomiting, extreme exercise or extreme fasting. They do this in a continuous cycle. They can’t stop. Once they eat and eat they will gain weight which will make them obese. Once they get obese they will suffer from severe symptoms ranging from difficulties in moving amd breathing to heart attacks which are extremely life threathening. That’s why the boy died. His BMI exceeded the normal range (around 78.1 where the normal is from 47 to 63)  and was considered to be extremely obese. Back

[10] 베르사르 : The manhwa translations I’ve seen translated this as Versailles. However, when I translated Versailles to hangul it showed 베르사유. So I used Versal which means whole, this is a word short for universal. This may also be correct and I will be using this. If you know the correct translation, do help me and point it out. Ty. ^^ Back

[11] Yo-yo Effect : or yo-yo diet refers to the cyclic loss and gain of weight which resembles the motions of a yo-yo. Back

[12] TL Opinion : I think they were trying to lose weight by controlling the appetite of the patient via eating in-game. It makes sense in a way, since you’ve already eaten a lot and tasted a lot of food in-game then you won’t probably feel the need to eat once you’re out of the game. Back

A celebrity professional health trainer, an A class dietitian [1], and a national athletes and representatives’ rehabilitation trainer. These three people were watching Minhyuk and his big build exercise in the pool. Minhyuk’s father was the head of Ilhwa group that was the reason why he was able to live a very rich and extravagant life. This was also the reason why these people were hired to take care of his daily needs and life.

Minhyuk moved frantically in the water, it was as if he was trying to smack the water away with how vigorous his strokes were. There was only one reason why this was the only exercise that he could do…

‘My knees will break if I run.’

Minhyuk had already exceeded the range of high obesity and if he ever ran then his body would definitely break down. For him who was suffering such a terrible and rare disease, even if he exercised extremely hard, sweated like crazy and burned lots of calories, his body would still remain fat.

“Ha… Ha… Ha…”

Oh Changwook, Minhyuk’s health trainer talked to him when he saw him breathing hard.

“Minhyuk-ah [3] shall we take a break?”

“No. ha… ha… I’ll do… ha… ha… a bit more.”

None of the three people laughed at Minhyuk’s disheveled and big figure because they have watched him grow and have seen how desperate he was and how hard he tried just to lose some weight.

Splash!

Whenever he tried to move, his belly would shake and his breath would always turn ragged. This was how difficult it was for him to move with how big he was currently.

While the three people were looking at him, Minhyuk shared what he and Jinhwan talked about in the hospital.

*flashback*

‘When Minhyuk tried to play the game Versal, you ended up gaining 20kg of weight and suffered from a yo-yo effect.’

He felt full in the game but he was not able to taste the food which ended up triggering a more terrible yo-yo effect.

What should I eat? Ah! I really want to taste it.

The game triggered in him a much larger desire to eat food in reality instead of suppressing it. This was the reason why Minhyuk ended up gaining 20kg instead of losing weight. This effect had endangered his life more than what he was already in effect.

‘So even if you could try the food in there, you might experience a different yo-yo effect. You might want to taste what you ate in the game in real life.’

Minhyuk knew that fact. And right now, the only thing that he needed to do was to choose.

‘You can choose whatever you want. But I just want to tell you…’

Jinhwan looked extremely bitter.

‘I don’t think we have any other choice, right?’

Jinhwan used ‘we’. This informed Minhyuk that the both of them did their best but they had now run out of confidence on the other treatments and that they did not have any other choices to choose from. In fact, the only thing that they were scared of the most was what would happen if this went wrong and the yo-yo effect turned out to be on a worse scale than before.

*end of flashback*

“Hoo.”

Oh Changwook and the rest of the trainers helped pull out Minhyuk from the pool once he was done exercising. They immediately covered him with a towel as they helped him dry off.

Right now, Minhyuk was feeling extremely hungry. Like an athlete exhausted after his training who wanted to eat a big meal. However, he couldn’t afford to do so.

‘This damned appetite…!’

His stomach felt relatively fine when he was exercising, he did not even feel a shred of hunger even if he exercised so hard. However, the moment he stopped his exercise, his horrendous appetite would rear its ugly head once more. For Minhyuk, it felt like someone was screaming in his head to just eat, eat and eat! It was a terrible disease in a way that it would always tell him to continue to eat even though he ate a lot already.

And as always, food had already been prepared and ready to eat in the gym. He was given a big bowl of salad that was made with cabbages, onions and his staple diet food, cherry tomatoes. It also went without saying that the salad had no sauce at all. Cherry tomatoes and a select few protein supplements were the only food that Minhyuk was allowed to eat.

Crunch, crunch—

Minhyuk kept on putting this tasteless food in his mouth just to satisfy even a bit of his insane hunger but no matter how much he ate he still felt like his stomach was still empty. He keenly felt that stomach was like a bottomless abyss.

He emptied the first plate then grabbed the second.

He emptied the second plate then grabbed the third.

He emptied the third plate then grabbed the fourth.

This act of continuous eating would keep on repeating all the time and would only stop when he fell asleep or when he exercised. If Minhyuk ever stopped eating then he would experience symptoms that were closely related to seizures. He would feel extremely anxious and his heart would start to beat rapidly which in turn would make his breathing difficult.

In the past, Minhyuk had undergone through what he dubbed was one of the worst treatments. They had locked him in a room alone without any food whatsoever. The result was a completely horrible and traumatic experience. Minhyuk was so hungry that he even ate the tissue [4] in the room [5].

After he ate his fifth bowl of salad, he went and picked up a box of cherry tomatoes.

“Hyung [6], is Athenae fun?”

“Athenae?”

He heard that Oh Changwook was a mid to high ranker in Athenae so he believed that he would know something about the game.

“Yeah, it’s fun. There’s nothing more fun than Athenae these days.”

“I’ll give it a try then.”

“Athenae.”

Oh Changwook smiled softly at him. He had been with Minhyuk for years and in his observations Minhyuk’s daily life was spent the same way everyday. Work out, eat then sleep. Work out, eat then sleep. It did not even cross his mind to go out and play. So for Changwook and the rest of the people who had been with Minhyuk throughout his treatments, all they ever wished for was for Minhyuk to live a life like any other ordinary human being.

“What? Are you going to break a new record again?”

“Hehe, as expected of a cool man like me. Maybe this is the touch of a ranker?”

“You’re after all a perfectionist, you will definitely be the best then stop playing it altogether. Is there still anything that you don’t have?”

“A slim and fit body.”

“……”

Changwook laughed his head off.

“Sometimes your jokes are not that funny.”

“Then shouldn’t you cry?”

“No, well…”

Changwook ended up mumbling his words.

“Laughing is really the better choice.”

“Hup!”

Minhyuk stood up smiling.

“Right now, do you know where my fath…”

Suddenly, Minhyuk’s surroundings started to spin. He felt extremely dizzy and his heart was thumping hard. He couldn’t even breathe properly.

Then…

Thud. 

He fell down.

“M… Minhyuk-ah!!!”

“C-call the doctor!”

In just an instant, total chaos had descended in the gym.

***

Footnotes

[1] Raw explicitly says diet manager but I used dietitian instead since it is better. Also, fyi, dietitians alters the patient’s nutrition and diet based on their medical condition and physical needs. Back

[2] There are two more classes exceeding high obesity or class 3 obesity. Back

[3] Koreans often add -ah or -yah after the name to indicate their closeness. Or if they are younger than them. Back

[4] Raw can either mean trash or tissue… But I think tissue paper is more appropriate since they probably won’t have any trash in the room since it’s a treatment room right? Back

[5] This may sound disgusting, but if you look at the patient’s point of view this would make sense. Since they feel extreme hunger if they don’t eat then they would feel that they would die if they don’t eat. So in a room without food, what is the next best thing for you to fill your stomach? Back

[6] Hyung : lit. older brother, used by younger males to call a male friend or a male sibling older than themselves Back