Ranked #1
Origin Fantasia.
The colossal MMORPG that had, for all practical purposes, seized complete dominion over Korea's mobile gaming market. It hadn't even been a year since launch, and already the download count had blown past ten million. Community boards, streaming platforms, gaming broadcasts — every last one of them was wallpapered with talk of this single game.
Real-time raids. Pattern-based bosses of truly vicious difficulty. Wide-open PvP. Massive guild wars where dozens of players collided at once.
And above all else — a combat system that mirrored a player's raw physical skill and decision-making with ruthless, unforgiving honesty.
This was not a game you could swipe your way to the top of.
The eye to read a pattern. Split-second reaction speed. Synchronicity with your party. Cooldown calculations. Damage-timing control. All of it mattered.
Which was why the high-level rankers were treated almost like professional gamers, and why streams from famous rankers always detonated with live viewers.
And then — sitting above every last one of those rankers — there was a single name.
"Shopsop."
Origin Fantasia's overall server ranking: number one. Currently the only Max Level player in existence. Holder of the vast majority of first-clear records. Monopolizer of every highest-tier raid first-kill. A monster of a player that even fellow rankers wouldn't dare casually measure themselves against.
Whenever a new raid dropped, the community reaction was always the same.
And sure enough — a few hours later, the first-clear record would go up.
Which was how a particular saying had started making the rounds among players.
The problem was that it wasn't just her skill that was famous.
Shopsop's personality was legendary in its own right. More precisely — her party-play style.
"Why are you just standing there."
"You should've moved before the pattern hit."
"Don't hoard your skills. Cycle them now."
"Greed for damage doesn't mean anything if you die."
The tone was ice-cold. The criticism was surgically precise. And the truly terrifying part — every word of it was correct. The person who'd messed up couldn't even argue.
Eventually, a meme took on a life of its own among the player base.
And just last night, Kang Tae-jun had run a raid in the same party as that legendary ranker.
The next morning.
The classroom before homeroom was noisy as ever. Footsteps thundered down the hallway; inside, the scrape of chairs and a tangle of chatter spilled in every direction. Someone was frantically copying homework. Someone else was watching a video on their phone. A few had given up entirely and were face-down on their desks, already asleep.
Click.
The classroom door swung open.
"...God, I'm so tired..."
Kang Tae-jun drifted in on a voice that had already given up. Half-lidded eyes. Hair that had lost a fight with a pillow. The expression of a man whose soul had clocked out several hours ago. Anyone looking at him could tell he'd pulled an all-nighter.
Lee Hyun-woo, parked by the window, took one look and burst out laughing.
"What's with you?"
Tae-jun didn't bother answering. He tossed his bag beside the chair and dropped into his seat like a sack of wet laundry, then planted his face on the desk.
"I'm dying..."
Hyun-woo snorted.
"Did you stay up gaming again?"
"...A little."
"Nobody's buying 'a little' with a face like that."
Tae-jun lifted a sluggish hand and scrubbed it over his face.
"There was a raid last night..."
"Origin Fantasia again?"
"...Yeah."
Hyun-woo let out a disbelieving huff.
"You're actually built different. I play for an hour and I'm so wiped I just close the app."
"Yesterday I didn't have a choice..."
Tae-jun hesitated, then muttered it under his breath.
"...I was in Shopsop's party."
Hyun-woo's eyes went wide.
"What?"
"The actual Shopsop?"
"Yeah..."
"You got into that party?"
Tae-jun exhaled a long, heavy sigh first.
"We killed the boss."
"But?"
"...It was terrifying, I'm telling you."
Hyun-woo finally lost it and cracked up.
"What'd they keep saying to you?"
Tae-jun shuddered, last night replaying behind his eyes.
"Why are you just standing there. You should've moved before the pattern. Your skill order's a mess. Your damage greed is making the healer's life hell."
Hyun-woo clutched his stomach, laughing.
"But that's all true, though, right?"
"...It is true."
"Then you're fine."
"No, the problem is the tone. It's ice-cold."
Tae-jun looked genuinely aggrieved.
"Every single sentence is terrifying. I felt like the worst player in the lobby."
Hyun-woo shook his head.
"Still. Ranked number one. Max Level. You've gotta give them that."
Shopsop. Among anyone who took the game even halfway seriously, there was almost no one who didn't know that name. The kind of player who made even other rankers tense up the moment they landed in the same party. No streams. No interviews. No social media. And somehow, that only made the legend grow.
Hyun-woo propped his chin on his hand, interested now.
"They still haven't been identified, right?"
"Nope."
"Don't even know if it's a guy or a girl."
"That's what they say."
"Man..."
"What kind of person even is that."
Tae-jun huffed a small laugh.
"I figured they were a working adult."
"Why?"
"The login hours are weird. They're on a lot even in the middle of the night. And their game sense is way too high."
Hyun-woo nodded.
"Yeah, definitely doesn't feel like a student."
"Right? For a normal person to be that good, they'd basically have to do nothing but play."
Tae-jun thought for a second, then muttered again.
"But then you look at the chat and they don't really seem that old."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Just a feeling. The way they talk is younger than you'd expect."
Hyun-woo snickered.
"Imagine they turn out to be our age. That'd be hilarious."
"No chance."
Tae-jun laughed and shook his head too.
That was when it happened.
Click.
The classroom door opened again — and the atmosphere shifted, just a fraction, as if the air itself had straightened its posture.
Long golden hair. Clear, vivid golden eyes. A presence that was quiet and composed and, without trying, pulled every gaze in the room toward it.
Seo Ha-yoon.
Ranked first in the school. Top scores in every subject on the mock exams. Excellent athletic records on top of that — and an appearance that was, frankly, overwhelming. Inside these walls, there was almost no one who didn't know her. Even walking down the hallway was enough to collect a trail of stares.
A few of the guys mid-conversation went quiet and looked. The girls offered greetings as naturally as breathing.
"Ha-yoon, morning."
"You're early again today."
Seo Ha-yoon smiled softly and nodded.
"Mm. Morning."
A calm voice, easy on the ears. She exchanged a few brief words with her friends as she made her way toward the window-side seats — and as she did, Kang Tae-jun and Lee Hyun-woo's conversation drifted over by accident.
"...I'm telling you, Shopsop is actually terrifying."
"...Still ranked number one, though."
"...What kind of person even is that."
In that instant, the corner of Seo Ha-yoon's mouth lifted. Just a fraction. So brief that anyone who'd caught it would have written it off as a trick of the light. Then her expression settled back into its usual composure, as if nothing at all had happened.
She stopped in front of her seat and looked at Kang Tae-jun, perfectly natural.
"Kang Tae-jun."
He lifted his head.
"Huh?"
"Good morning."
A short greeting. But a few students nearby startled all the same — Seo Ha-yoon speaking to a guy first was not a common occurrence. Tae-jun, a little flustered himself, managed to return it.
"...Uh. Morning."
"You look really tired today."
"I was up a bit late gaming last night."
"Were you?"
She asked it as if it were the most ordinary follow-up in the world.
"What game do you play?"
"Origin Fantasia."
"Ah."
She gave a light little nod.
"I think I've heard of it."
The reaction of someone with genuinely zero interest. Tae-jun smiled, not a shred of suspicion in him.
"It's insanely popular these days."
"Is it fun?"
"So fun. The raids especially. They're actually the best part."
"Is that why you pulled an all-nighter?"
"It just kind of... happened."
Seo Ha-yoon laughed, small and soft.
"You should still take it easy, though, shouldn't you?"
"I keep meaning to. Doesn't really work out."
"You must really like games."
"I do, yeah."
Tae-jun said it with a grin.
"Watching Shopsop play is especially fun."
"Shopsop?"
"The rank one player."
"Ah..."
Seo Ha-yoon nodded with a carefully assembled look of mild disinterest.
"Must be someone famous."
"Incredibly famous."
Hyun-woo jumped in immediately.
"Pretty much everyone who plays knows them."
"That well-known?"
"Yep. Also terrifying, though."
"Terrifying?"
"The backseat gaming is no joke."
Hyun-woo grinned and pointed at Tae-jun.
"This guy got chewed out last night."
"I did not get chewed out."
"Your face says you got chewed out."
"I'm telling you I didn't..."
Seo Ha-yoon watched the two of them and smiled, just a little. A perfectly natural reaction. Anyone looking would have seen nothing but an honor student who didn't care about games in the slightest.
She sat down at her desk, unhurried. And then — she lowered her hand beneath the desktop, to a place no one else could see, and quietly woke her phone.
Origin Fantasia.
The familiar login screen slid past, and a moment later the character information window bloomed into view.
A long friends list unfurled beneath the window. And right at the very top sat a familiar nickname.
⊳ Arc Saber
Kang Tae-jun's nickname.
Seo Ha-yoon looked at that name for a moment, and smiled — very, very small.
"...I wasn't scolding him, though."
A voice too quiet for anyone else to hear. A faint glint of mischief stirred in her golden eyes.
And Kang Tae-jun still had no idea.
That the legendary ranker Shopsop — the one he'd been running raids with every night — was Seo Ha-yoon. The girl who sat in his class.