I Became a Genius Engineer the Mega-Corporations Obsess Over

In the game I had been grinding for years, I had finally survived one hundred in-game years.

The title of the game I was playing was Fusion Punk 2333 Apocalypse, or Fu-Punk-Pocalypse for short.

From its very release until today, it had shattered the mental stability of countless gamers.

While everyone else would trash the tutorial, slam their pad down, and delete the game the moment they hit a wall, I had poured the best years of my life into this one.

“Hey bro, that game must be pretty fun, huh? You’re always on it.”

“You’re never replying when I text you again?”

“Is a game event more important than our anniversary?”

“If you’re just gonna keep gaming, I might as well head home.”

“We’re ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠done.”

While I was lost in the game, I had broken up with my girlfriend of three years, but I hadn’t cared. That game was worth more than any woman.

This game was a hardcore roguelike set in a post-apocalyptic world where a mysterious disaster had wiped out a future city, hundreds of years before the real end.

In a bizarre melting pot of ancient martial arts, magic, mutated beings, robots, superpowers, and futuristic tech, I had chosen the production class—engineer.

I hadn’t started out trying to pick the production class.

“Getting better gear for my stats is a nightmare.”

Once I began playing as a combat class and kept going, I realized the game was basically all about gear. Warriors and mages needed high-end cybernetic reinforcements, while anyone with uncontrollable ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠powers needed suppression parts.

But finding gear that actually performed was brutally hard. You needed a connection to a master technician, and that was about as easy as spotting stars in the sky.

“No way, you’re selling gear this good for this price? Some soul’s really screwed up.”

Still, finding a real technician in this world was impossible.

“Screw it. Since it’s all dirty anyway, I’ll just build my own.”

That was how I started with a fresh character, testing the waters of the production class. And the more I played it, the more it hooked me.

The post-apocalypse world was a graveyard of broken equipment. Every piece of gear you saw was half-damaged or ruined.

“Wow. Even fixing this half-destroyed relic gave it insane performance. Imagine what a full restoration would do?”

Future-tech relics still twitched and hummed even when they were half-wrecked, but it was never enough. I wanted to see the machine at its full, intact glory.

The tech tree of this game was massive and ridiculously detailed. It was deep enough that I could barely believe it was just a game. The feeling of crafting pulled me in completely.

And then I realized I could actually restore the lost technology of a dead civilization.

“This was originally meant for this kind of tool?”

It gave me an enormous rush. It felt like ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bringing back the lost arts of a fallen empire.

But there was one huge problem.

The production class had zero combat power.

You could die to a random thug’s bullet. You could be killed on the spot for refusing to pay ridiculous repair fees. Once, a customer even shot me while I was checking a repaired gun, turning my own workshop into a firefight that ended with me dead.

“Don’t shoot guns inside my shop!!! You bastards!!!”

Because of the roguelike nature, death meant starting over from scratch. These small-time thugs were annoying, but I got used to them fast.

The real nightmare came later.

Becoming the exclusive technician of some corporation.

I thought it would be prestigious. It wasn’t.

If you were someone else’s exclusive tech, their enemies became your enemies.

When the corporations went to war, you were the first target on their hit list. Your workshop was basically a prime supply depot.

Even if you worked for the strongest of the strong, the ending was the same.

“You think you can slip poison into my drink without me noticing? What a dumbass.”

“What the hell… they’re burning my entire shop while I’m asleep?”

By my 130th character, I had choked on corporate poison and vomited blood. My 200th character’s entire workshop had vanished in a fire with no trace left.

After three hundred characters, I finally figured out the only way to survive as a technician in this insane game.

Never trust anyone.

Never look weak.

And always watch your back around the corporations.

Only after I learned that lesson could I keep playing this crazy game for decades.

At first I lasted less than a year of game time before dying. Then three years. Five. Ten. And today, in this very moment, I had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠finally survived one hundred full years.

“Finally…”

It was an achievement no veteran high-level player in the Fu-Punk-Pocalypse community had ever reached.

The game had planted plenty of hints about what would happen after one hundred years, but it had never been easy to survive that long.

In real life, living one hundred years was hard enough. In a half-destroyed civilization full of cutthroat corporations, it was insane.

It was a territory no legendary grind-hard player had ever touched.

But I had done it. I had survived the one-hundred-year clock in this post-apocalyptic world all the way to the end.

Everyone was arguing about what would happen at the one-hundred-year mark—rare items, floating cities, hidden underground bunkers, hidden Easter eggs, and the single biggest rumor of all: the ending.

Since Fu-Punk-Pocalypse had no main story and was a free-form roguelike, the ending would probably be the only real conclusion.

And I was watching it happen right now.

I swallowed hard as I pressed ENTER.

On my monitor appeared a system message I had never seen in any community screenshot before.

“What? Hidden scenario? There was more content? Is this real developer-level stuff?”

I pressed ENTER again.

“Holy crap. They’re sending me back three hundred years to stop the apocalypse? This game has another entire game inside it? Why wasn’t this advertised? Or is this the sequel trailer?”

I kept smashing the screenshot button, imagining what the community would scream when they saw these messages.

When I finally pressed ENTER one last time, my world changed.

“What… the hell?”

I blinked, standing in an alley I had never seen before in my life.

***

At first I thought I had just woken up in some back alley I didn’t know in Korea. There was a lot of sticky filth and garbage on the ground, sure, but every Korean neighborhood has one of those shady spots.

“Did I drink too much last night? No, wait. Wait a minute. I was definitely playing the game.”

I checked my pockets out of habit, but they were empty. No phone, no wallet—completely broke.

“Did someone mug me in the middle of Seoul again…?”

I shook off the confusion and started walking to find a main road and figure out where I was.

The longer I walked, the stranger the feeling got. The buildings looked familiar Korean at first, then suddenly looked alien and wrong.

The people on the streets were even weirder. Augmented humans with gleaming metal limbs, mutated humans with scaly skin who drooled everywhere. I wanted to ask them something, but my mouth wouldn’t open.

Finally I stepped out of the maze-like alleys and onto a real street.

“…This is insane.”

I understood I wasn’t in the world I knew anymore. I was in a completely different one.

Neon signs written in English, Korean, Chinese, and some alien geometric script flashed and lit up the dark night.

The pedestrians around me were no less strange. People with chrome limbs strolling freely. Scaly, drooling mutated humans walking like it was normal.

My eyes kept drifting upward to the sky.

The sky over the Korea I had left behind had never looked like this. Bright, colorful smog covered the heavens, looking sickeningly thick.

The moment I saw it, the name of the city hit me.

Gaon. Gaon Mega City.

It matched the description in the game Fusion Punk 2333 Apocalypse—the city that had been destroyed two hundred years before.

Yeah. I had somehow entered the game world.