A Convict with No Rights (1)
There was a game called Dungeon Core.
I stumbled across it when a bout of gamer burnout had left me thoroughly sick of everything else. The genre was a roguelike single-player RPG. The objective was straightforward: take solo command of a four-man party and descend step-by-step through a treacherous labyrinth spanning ten floors. Being an indie title and completely free to play, it was remarkably accessible, so I started with a light heart.
"Wait, if you die, your character just gets deleted?!"
What I hadn't realized was that the game was an unforgiving newbie-meat-grinder boasting extreme hardcore difficulty. A character you had poured months of sweat, blood, and affection into raising would vanish into oblivion the moment you made a single mistake. Actually, scratch that—you would die even if you didn't make any mistakes at all. The developer's tastes were so sadistically refined that every floor was crammed with trial-and-error ambushes and traps designed purely around the principle of 'sucks to be you if you didn't know.'
"Ha... Damn, this is good."
I loved it.
Life had been dragging on without any decent games to play, so finding this gem felt like a stroke of genuine fortune. Punishing difficulty, an insane degree of freedom, countless progression builds that varied wildly depending on the pilot, and rich tactical simulation where you could bring any crazy strategy you dreamed up into reality—it was tailored precisely to my tastes. Slowly but surely, I fell completely down the rabbit hole.
"I finally beat it!!!"
It took six months to see my first ending. It had taken a disgustingly long time, scouring community boards to memorize every monster attack rotation and trap coordinate until I scraped through by the skin of my teeth. And then, a notification flared across the screen.
[ The Phase System has been unlocked. ]
"What the hell is this?"
Put simply, it was a difficulty scaling mechanic ranging from Phase 1 all the way to Phase 20. With every Phase you raised, enemies grew sturdier while your party became squishier than wet tissue paper. New random events and attack patterns surfaced, and the overarching lore began to unravel.
"Fucking awesome."
My obsession went into overdrive.
⚡ Phase 5 Cleared! ⚡
From that point on, I began posting walkthroughs on the community boards.
My guides became sacred scripture. Before long, my playstyle solidified into the gospel meta, copied by countless players across the forums. Hordes of posts and comments sang my praises, and hooked on that sweet rush of dopamine, I cleared Phase after Phase like a madman possessed.
Phase 5, Phase 6, Phase 7... all the way to Phase 12.
Beyond that threshold, the dropouts multiplied exponentially. Even as thousands threw in the towel against the suffocating barrier to entry, I kept playing. I continued to write and post detailed guides even when there was no one left reading. Whenever I hit a brick wall, I ironed out the flaws in my builds, mobilizing every outlandish, unhinged tactic in the book to conquer the game.
Until one day.
[ All Labyrinth floors have been conquered! ]
[ A new difficulty has been unlocked. ]
⟨ Despair Difficulty ⟩
"Wait, there was another difficulty?"
I distinctly remembered starting on Normal. There had been no Easy or Hard settings—just a solitary, mandatory 'Normal.'
"Indie game jank at its finest..."
[ Would you like to challenge it? ]
Naturally, there was only one answer. I clicked without hesitation.
[ Please create your character. ]
The familiar character creation screen materialized before me, an interface I must have viewed hundreds of times. Because the game leaned heavily into tactical simulation, there was an absurd number of levers and dials to tweak right from creation.
First was the name. Same as always. I used the exact same name for every character simply because thinking of new ones was a pain in the ass.
Next was the class selection. True to its medieval fantasy setting, four standard archetypes were lined up from left to right: Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Priest... and Abyssal Wizard.
"Wait, five?"
Ding!
A brand-new class I had never laid eyes on had appeared out of nowhere. Was this fresh content tied to the unlocking of Despair Difficulty?
Curious, I clicked on it. The model on screen instantly donned the class-exclusive attire: a sleek, polished leather longcoat, a matching belt slung low around the hips, and a thick black tome inscribed with indecipherable glyphs gripped in the left hand.
"This guy is playing a completely different genre."
Dungeon Core was unapologetically medieval fantasy. It was a world of clattering wooden carriages and knights clad head-to-toe in gleaming full plate armor. Whether out of artistic philosophy or sheer stubbornness, the developer had strictly adhered to historical flavor across every asset.
Yet here was a longcoat? A modern leather belt?
"He even has anti-slip rubber treads on his boots."
Who on earth tied their shoelaces into neat butterfly knots in medieval fantasy? Dismissing it as mere video game logic felt like a stretch; it was far too glaringly anachronistic. He looked like someone who had tumbled straight out of the modern era. What was the concept here? Had the developer tossed out genre conventions entirely?
I grumbled under my breath, but my intrigue only sharpened. What kind of class was this to warrant such an aesthetic?
I rotated the model, scrolling down to inspect its details. Two things stood out immediately: appearance customization was completely disabled, and because it came with a designated 'Exclusive Weapon,' I couldn't choose my starting armament either. That exclusive weapon was the black book held in his left hand. Given the name 'Wizard,' it was presumably a grimoire of some sort.
Swallowing my questions, I moved over to the stat allocation window.
In this game, your build was dictated entirely by your starting stat distribution. You could dump everything into Wisdom for a glass-cannon nuker, or balance Strength and Wisdom to pilot a frontline battlemage. An Abyssal Wizard was still a wizard, so he would need some baseline Wisdom. Let's put just 15 points into Wisdom first...
Beep!
⚠ [ No stat points available for allocation! ] ⚠
".........?"
What the fuck?
Looking closely, the stat window was unusually long. When I scrolled all the way to the bottom, an entirely unfamiliar parameter came into view.
Due to the trait of the Abyssal Wizard, Madness is permanently locked at maximum.
"...Are they out of their fucking minds?"
Madness. It was one of the game's many status ailments.
Freezing, binding, petrification, burn, electrocution—there were plenty of infuriating debuffs in this game, but as a hardcore veteran, I could state this with absolute certainty: Madness was the undisputed king of utter bullshit. The undisputed industry leader in ruining runs.
Once afflicted, you were slapped with a permanent debuff:
And whenever bad luck struck, it flared into an uncontrollable seizure. And what happened during a seizure? Your character literally went insane, indiscriminately firing off skills at friend and foe alike. Text bubbles would pop up over their head with lines like, 'Aaargh, this can't be real!' or 'Ehehehe, ahahaha!' as they drooled all over the floor.
I still remembered my Fighter, 'Ian,' dying in sheer futility the very first time I encountered it. God damn it... My national-calamity-tier Fighter, whom I had poured two months of blood, sweat, and all my party's resources into, went completely mad and committed suicide.
It was a status effect introduced from Phase 10 onward. Because of its devastating lethality, trash mobs never used it; it was reserved exclusively for bosses or specific random events—like running into a True Ancestor, or getting locked in a suspicious archive and peeking at forbidden lore. In short, it was an RNG fuck-you event that only struck when your luck hit absolute rock bottom.
And this self-flagellating class started with Madness maxed out at 20 right from level one?
Was this even playable? Wouldn't he just trash everything in the tutorial zone before shanking himself? Furthermore, 'Madness' was classified as an actual stat. Did raising it provide any kind of upside? I clicked on it to bring up the tooltip.
A crystal-clear penalty brought an equally potent reward. 'Hooray! Contract severe mental illness and gain access to terrifying abyssal knowledge!' Are you kidding me? It was a class tailor-made for Despair Difficulty. Picking something like this was practically begging for an aneurysm, but...
"Looks fun as hell. Let's do it right now."
My brain was already pickled in hardcore gaming sludge. Turning down a dopamine jackpot like this? Disqualified as a veteran gamer.
Besides, it wasn't as if I were completely defenseless. When creating a character in this game, you were allowed to bring along one starting relic. Some boosted max health, others were explosive pots you could toss at enemies, but what I needed right now was an item unlocked after conquering Phase 15.
A petal harboring the secrets of the abyss.
Its unique fragrance temporarily shields the mind.
A cooldown-based relic rather than a consumable. As the description brazenly hinted, this was engineered specifically for Madness. It was practically screaming at the player: If you're playing Abyssal Wizard, use this! Until now, it had been a complete white elephant since catching Madness usually meant your save file was doomed anyway. Turns out it had all been setup for this moment.
I selected the relic, finally bringing character creation to an end.
Ding!
System alerts flooded the screen in rapid succession.
• Exclusive Weapon: Abyssal Grimoire acquired.
⟨ TIP: Wield abyssal knowledge. You are granted the right to glimpse secrets forbidden to mortals. ⟩
• Ignores all mental status ailments.
⟨ TIP: You are already severely insane. While this carries many drawbacks, there is one upside: you cannot go mad twice. ⟩
• Madness is excessively high.
• The probability of encountering Anomalies has increased.
• Standing with Special-grade Anomalies is set to 'Favorable.'
⟨ TIP: Favor does not always manifest in positive ways. ⟩
• Madness is excessively high.
• You perceive things that cannot normally be seen.
• Trait acquired: Eyes of the Abyss.
⟨ TIP: When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back at you. Beware their attention. ⟩
• The tutorial zone has been altered.
• The Labyrinth has vanished.
• The timeline has advanced by 100 years.
Before I could even process the avalanche of warnings—
Click.
The monitor died.
In the pitch-black reflection of the screen, my face was nowhere to be seen. It reflected only an empty chair sitting desolate in the dark room.
"........."
Words failed me. What met my eyes was a sight that defied all reason.
Squirm. Squirm.
The monitor was writhing. It convulsed, twitching and bulging until—
Schluck.
The maw of something tore wide open across the glass.
"Ah."
Gulp.
It swallowed me whole.
My consciousness was snuffed out.
...A crisp sea breeze and the roar of crashing waves washed over my senses.
"Move it, you piece of shit! Pick up the damn pace!"
"F-Fuck off! I'm innocent! How many times do I have to tell you it was that pig's son who murdered Emily, not me?!"
When my eyes snapped open, I was greeted by a miserable column of people shuffling forward in single file. Suddenly, a figure bolted from the line, desperate to break away.
"Huh? Boss! That bastard's making a run for it!"
"Haa... Put him down."
"Yes, sir!"
Splat.
A hot shower of crimson blood splashed across my face.
The metallic tang of iron. The sticky, suffocating reek of fresh gore.
Crash.
The tide broke against the shore once more. Far off across the black water, a sprawling metropolis blazed with brilliant neon signs, gleaming faintly against the distant horizon.
"What the fuck are you bastards staring at?! Move your asses if you don't want to end up like him!!"
High above, the moonlight seemed to smile faintly.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
A colossal, unblinking eye hung suspended in the night sky.
"What kind of..."
Clutching a heavy black book against my chest,
I had become a convict stripped of all human rights.