Chapter 19

[Please tell us your name.]

“Name?”

To twenty-first-century gamers, this kind of setup was extremely familiar. But Taeho, who was more used to arcade games than PC games and had never even seen an RPG on his cousin’s computer, had no idea what this meant.

Then, after suddenly thinking of something, he simply entered his own name.

Maybe it’s for recording scores later?

The moment he pressed Enter, the screen shifted, revealing a man slowly walking into a village.

[Shin Taeho: I’m not sure where this is. But it seems like I came west.]

As soon as something appeared on-screen, Taeho instinctively pressed the keyboard and mouse. But there was no response.

Then, when the character continued moving on his own while even speaking in monologue, Taeho, despite not knowing the term “cutscene,” roughly understood what was happening and quietly focused on the screen instead.

The cutscene was not very long.

Once the character stopped moving, Taeho cautiously pressed the directional keys and confirmed that the character bearing his own name moved accordingly.

Now it’s really starting.

[Tip!: Talk to the villagers to obtain events and quests.]

Something suddenly flashed at the corner of the screen, and when he looked, it turned out to be a help message.

Taeho was unfamiliar with terms like “event” and “quest,” but he at least understood that he needed to talk to the villagers.

To twenty-first-century gamers, this process would feel so familiar it became boring. But since this was Taeho’s very first RPG, simply talking to characters inside the game instead of just smashing things apart felt fresh and fascinating.

As he continued speaking to different villagers, one elderly character eventually asked him to defeat some monsters.

It was the sort of common early-game RPG quest seen everywhere.

Actually, Insu had not wanted to include such clichéd and artificial quests.

But because many people in this era were experiencing RPGs for the first time, and because the game’s systems themselves were revolutionary for the time, players needed some amount of guided learning.

Even in the twenty-first century, brand-new mobile games still opened with painfully obvious tutorials explaining how to play. So in the twentieth century, completely skipping such guidance would have been unreasonable.

Oh, you attack by clicking with the mouse. That’s unusual.

This was an era when using a mouse itself was still uncommon.

Rather than thinking about whether it was better or worse, Taeho simply found the control scheme refreshing.

And the position-based turn-based combat system was not especially difficult.

So after progressing through the tutorial quests for a while, he quickly grasped the rough rules.

There’s a lot going on though. Critical hits, attributes...

The game did explain everything, but since he was unfamiliar with RPG-specific rules, naturally it took some time to fully understand them.

Even so, he could vaguely tell how things worked.

And despite not fully understanding everything, the combat itself was incredibly fun.

First of all, the character movements and effects looked flashy and exciting.

Actually, the character movements were extremely simple 2D animations, and by twenty-first-century standards, the effects would have seemed almost minimalistic.

But by the standards of this era, they were dazzling.

On top of that, Taeho quickly understood concepts like distance and attack range, and those alone gave him many things to think about, drawing him deeper into combat.

Level up?

Then, after several battles, the moment he experienced leveling up, an entirely new world opened before him.

To twenty-first-century gamers, it was an utterly normal concept. But in this era, where most games remained very simple, the idea that the player character could continuously grow stronger felt astonishing to many people.

[Press ‘S’ to open the Status Window and check your character’s attributes.]

Insu had intentionally structured things so that leveling up would spark curiosity about stats, naturally leading players into learning the system.

And RPG-style stats were the kind of thing that felt confusing at first, but once players became familiar with the terminology, the concepts themselves were relatively intuitive.

Then if this Strength stat doubles, does that mean I become twice as strong?

And if I keep getting stronger, I’ll eventually be able to kill those goblin things from earlier in one hit?

As Taeho gradually learned what the stats meant, he began imagining his character growing stronger and naturally started setting goals for himself, slowly discovering the fundamental gameplay loop of RPGs.

And before long, he became completely immersed.

That was how The Land Of Fantasy captivated even players experiencing RPGs for the first time.

But the truly explosive reactions came from players who already understood RPGs to some extent.

“Wow. This combat system is absolutely insane.”

Jin Wooseong was a university student and a hardcore RPG fanatic.

He had hunted down and played every Western RPG he could find, and had even played the recently released JRPG Legend of the Hero.

Because of that, he considered himself highly knowledgeable about RPG combat systems.

Which made the position-based turn-based system in this game feel genuinely revolutionary.

Among all the RPGs he played before, the most unusual systems had probably been grid-based turn combat where characters moved around ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on tiled maps.

Beyond that, most RPGs gave little more than the impression of allies and enemies with stats simply hitting each other in very simplistic battles.

Even so, Wooseong still enjoyed those games because seeing his character grow stronger and watching the effects of stats appear in battle was satisfying.

But this game’s combat existed on another level entirely.

Even while remaining turn-based, it implemented concepts like distance, attack range, and speed within a tiny 3x4 tile battlefield, giving battles remarkable strategic depth.

Not only that, but systems such as piercing attacks, flying, breakthroughs, arc shots, guards, and many other combat traits were implemented meaningfully.

And things became even more interesting once he started recruiting companions.

This game’s companion characters did not really have set narratives.

Instead, everything was generated conditionally and randomly.

Early Western RPGs had once been similar, with companion characters lacking personal stories. Later, those games added narrative elements to flesh out their personalities and enrich the plot, while JRPGs often treated companions as direct parts of the main story itself.

Compared to those approaches, this system felt unusual.

The purpose was to increase player freedom.

In The Land Of Fantasy, if players fulfilled the right conditions, they could recruit characters of any race, status, or profession.

The conditions included things like Charm stats, racial affinity modifiers, fame, specific skills, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and more.

Charm was obvious enough.

Racial affinity implemented the common fantasy concept where certain races naturally liked or disliked one another.

Humans interacting with fellow humans had neither penalties nor bonuses when attempting recruitment.

But races with poor relations, like elves and dwarves, suffered negative modifiers, making recruitment difficult.

Meanwhile, elves and spirits received bonuses toward each other, allowing recruitment more easily even when other scores were lower.

Fame could be gained through quests, combat, and other actions, and in most cases, it acted as a bonus depending on the target’s modifiers.

The reason it was “most cases” rather than all was because some personality traits, such as antisocial tendencies or strong independence, caused fame to become a negative factor instead.

Skills applied in two separate ways.

There were conditional preference skills, where NPCs favored specific skills and gained affection toward the player because ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of them.

Then there were affection-buff skills that directly influenced overall favorability.

(Translator’s Notes: Buff / Buffer — Game terms referring to beneficial effects that strengthen allies and characters specialized in applying those effects.)

These systems existed to recreate fantasy concepts such as monsters who loved music or demons captivated by songs.

Even though such entertainment-oriented skills contributed almost nothing in combat, they still gained meaningful value because they enabled recruitment of powerful companions.

And the stats of these companion characters were randomly generated, though racial traits established both minimum and maximum ranges.

Various additional modifiers layered on top of those values.

The calculations themselves were not actually very complicated.

Traits such as being a hero, an exceptional warrior, having mixed-race heritage, or bonuses tied to specific cities or villages were simply added ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠onto the randomly generated base values.

But since the core racial values remained unchanged, it was more accurate to say that only the lower limits were being raised.

In any case, players could recruit companions with all sorts of different abilities and traits, which naturally enabled an enormous variety of combat combinations.

Jin Wooseong created what twenty-first-century gamers would consider a classic party composition: a warrior, priest, mage, and archer.

Modern gamers would immediately recognize the synergy in such a lineup because of decades of accumulated gaming knowledge.

But those concepts barely existed yet in this era.

Wooseong built this composition entirely through his own calculations.

“Oh! It works!”

Watching the party function exactly as intended in real combat and unleash the power he predicted sent dopamine surging through him.

(Translator’s Note: Dopamine — Neurotransmitter in the human brain associated with reward, pleasure, and motivation. Frequently used colloquially to describe intense excitement or stimulation from entertainment or thrilling experiences.)

Earlier RPGs had such simplistic systems that it was difficult to meaningfully express class identities.

Anyone standing in the front could be hit by monsters, meaning even mages needed durability.

And because methods for representing ranged combat were so limited, every character effectively felt like a melee fighter.

But this game allowed players to place characters in the back row while using escort skills and similar mechanics to protect them.

As a result, fragile but overwhelmingly powerful mages could actually exist and function properly.

Supporters like priests also no longer needed to swing maces in melee combat. They could simply remain in the back casting heals and buffs.

The synergies created by these intricate combinations were enjoyable in themselves, but more importantly, they stimulated players’ imaginations and encouraged experimentation.

Even without a strong story, the combat system alone provided players with a meaningful sense of purpose.

At first, Jin Wooseong struggled even against ordinary field enemies like orcs.

But as he steadily grew stronger, he eventually became capable of defeating increasingly powerful foes.

Still, even after spending huge amounts of time over three days and reaching Level 50, the maximum level, he could not clear the entire map.

If anything, it felt like there were more failed dungeons and unconquered regions remaining.

This game is insanely hard.

[RPGBest’s lifespan has ended.]

“Huh?!”

While grinding and pondering how to conquer a place called the Demon Sword Dungeon, Wooseong suddenly froze after seeing the unexpected message.

He knew his character had grown old, and he had read in the manual that characters could age and die.

But he never expected death to arrive so suddenly.

Then another message appeared before his stunned eyes.

[Would you like to continue through your descendants?]

This was one of The Land Of Fantasy’s defining systems and, in Insu’s own opinion, its most devilishly cruel mechanic.

The Descendant System.

“...”

Almost reflexively, Wooseong selected [Yes].

[Select a spouse.]

Then, alongside the message, a list of options appeared on the side.

These were characters Wooseong had built affection with throughout the game.

“Ah. So that’s how it works?”

It was not difficult to understand intuitively.

At the same time, he finally grasped how mixed-race characters existed in the game, how players could control different races, something he had long wondered about, and how different choices affected the descendants they received.

“As expected, I should go with the elf?”

Compared to the ultra-high-quality illustrations of the twenty-first century, the game’s visuals were limited.

Even so, through events and quests, the elf characters were still portrayed quite attractively.

At this point in time, fantasy conventions such as “elves are beautiful races” were not yet widely established.

But illustrations alone could easily convey that image.

Within the game itself, elves possessed certain advantages, but their physical abilities were comparatively weak and their growth slower, making them difficult to classify as an overpowered race.

Still, beautiful and handsome characters remained an important consideration.

And besides, most of the other options were not especially strong picks either.

[A descendant of you and Eloy has been born.]

[Please choose a name.]

Wooseong hesitated briefly before naming the child “ElfSupreme.”