- 01. Opened My Eyes -
Surname: Jang.
Given name: Gunshin.
Jang Gunshin.
Sex: Male.
Completed his mandatory military service in the Republic of Korea.
After discharge, he diligently graduated from university, then was enthusiastically "taking a break." A typical young man of this era, scraping by on part-time work for living expenses.
Never imagined something like this would happen to me... Gunshin thought.
A <Heuksu> charging at him from right in front of his eyes.
Its appearance was unmistakably that of the main enemies from the weeb gacha game Gunshin used to enjoy.
Why am I standing here, and why is my life being threatened by that thing?
So confusing. So very confusing.
But one corner of Gunshin's mind was calmly assessing the situation.
It was a "fell into a shitty game world" situation that wouldn't even show up in dreams anymore, not for a middle schooler—
but whatever else you could say, not panicking easily was a strength Gunshin had possessed since childhood.
Of course, that didn't mean the current situation wasn't fucked, or that he wasn't pissed off.
'No, I never sent a 5,700-character punch of pure rage.'
Seriously.
Getting so pissed at a shitty novel or game development that you send a 5,700-character rage message or email to the author or game company, and then falling into that shitty world afterward—that's a completely worn-out cliché by now.
But he swore, he had never thrown such a 200% sincere punch at an author or game company.
Of course!
He had spewed plenty of posts on the community boards, starting with "Hey, you fucking Sandglass sons of bitches! Do you even have brains? Don't you want to make money? Are you praying for no sequel, you morons?"
but wasn't that just the legitimate right of a user?
Honestly, even after being dropped into this situation, he still didn't think he'd done anything wrong by spewing those posts on the board back then.
And with good reason—
The game that had updated just yesterday... the latest 2nd-anniversary story of <Abyss Flood> deserved to be cursed at a hundred times, a thousand times.
Any user who played the game would admit it, and even a Steam console gamer who didn't play weeb gacha games would say, "Uh... the game company bastards have lost their minds," if they heard the situation.
<Abyss Flood>
A weeb gacha game that realized a dark, despairing dark fantasy world with sleek weeb graphics, plus top-tier squad-based combat lifted perfectly from the FF7 Remake.
Its basic story: humanity, defeated by the black monsters... the <Heuksu>, driven into the sky, strives to somehow reclaim the surface.
The key word to note here is "strives."
The game's introduction only ever said "strives." It never said "wins" or "overcomes."
Why does that matter? Isn't it just an ordinary phrase?
Surprisingly, no.
This trash game!
This goddamn game had been open for two years, and despite the protagonist—the player's—efforts, the world never changed.
The in-game world only collapsed endlessly.
Defeat, defeat, and more defeat.
Thanks to the player, there were occasional sweet victories.
But those "tactical" victories quickly lost their shine under catastrophic defeats elsewhere, plus the same old human-on-human fuckery that kept surfacing even with extinction staring them in the face.
When we won, it was a goddamn clown-fiesta 50-minute game just to barely scrape out a win, but when we lost, it was mid open, smooth 15-minute surrender.
It was an endless feast of suffocating frustration, the kind that left your throat clogged.
If not for the moving celebrations of humanity that brought tears to people's eyes now and then, even Gunshin—somewhat hardened by all manner of weeb content and grimdark—wouldn't have endured it and would have dropped the game.
But even that has its limits, and users' patience has limits too.
At last, the 2nd-anniversary update arrived.
Not just Gunshin, but every user still playing cried out for an ice-cold shot of catharsis that would finally clear the frustration clogging them up.
The in-game world was literally hopeless. It was a grim situation with no visible sign of a turnaround, but unless the developers had gone insane, surely they'd come up with something.
If it came down to it, they'd look the other way, so just pull a "deus ex machina," you story-team sons of bitches!!!
Users waited for the update with that very generous mindset.
Catharsis only hit harder after you'd been force-fed enough frustration, so everyone expected the ultimate payoff after two years.
The stage was set.
At this point, unless they wanted to shut the game down, they had to deliver.
Surely they wouldn't go even more deep-dark from here... Don't they want to make money?
Unless they truly wanted to wreck their own image, destroy the game, and ruin the sequel too, this was where it had to finally pay off.
Then, after two years, the reviews would finally turn around and the game would leap into fucking-masterpiece territory.
Past the long era of humiliation, oppressed by Bungbungi, Myeongbungi, Jenbungi, cheek-squish and assorted others, our time will finally come...!
With such hopes, the long-awaited <Abyss Flood> 2nd anniversary finally arrived.
Reality was cold.
No!
It wasn't just cold—it was scorching.
Cider?
Bullshit!
What hit Gunshin and the players wasn't even ordinary frustration—it was a Crocodile-level sandstorm straight out of the Alabasta Desert.
The game's developer, <Sandglass Studio>, must have truly gone insane, because what they shat out as the 2nd-anniversary story was really...
To summarize in one line: "Humanity has been completely defeated—The End—"
Of course, the process leading up to that "The End" was hype on the level of the Firstborn Protoss's final stand, but no matter what, the result was still a humanity-extinction ending.
The weeb gacha game he'd played with love for two years ended with a humanity-extinction ending—for real—?
There was no way this wouldn't blow up into a huge controversy. They'd broken the fundamentals of a weeb gacha game.
Are they insane?
How could he not swear?!
The developers were begging users to curse them, so what could a powerless user like Gunshin do?
He cursed them as they wished.
But he didn't even send an email directly to the game company—he just cursed a bit on the community, and they dropped him into this dogshit world.
The Sandglass bastards' consciences had clearly rotted so badly they'd burst.
Why did he get so sucked into this trash game?
Fuck! A grown-ass man even bawled his eyes out every story update, and the ending is this shit?!
Die, Sandglass Studio!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[Athena! What are you thinking right now?! Dodge to the side immediately!]
"Whoa!"
His internal muttering and trashing of the Sandglass Studio bastards was brief. Gunshin threw himself to the side, following the warning of the voice ringing in his head.
Screeech—
His reaction was a little late, and the Heuksu's claws shallowly grazed his calf as they passed.
Sparks traced vividly through the darkness-shrouded world.
Fortunately, the wound ended as a shallow scratch.
"..."
[Get a grip, Athena! If you slip up, you'll die.]
This scene had already repeated about three times.
[Athena. Even an Automata body has limits to its durability. Yours isn't particularly tough to begin with!]
"I know that much... And it's not Athena, it's 'Gunshin,' okay?"
[?]
A voice echoing inside his head.
No matter how many times he properly gave it his name, the voice kept calling Gunshin "Athena."
Ugh.
Fine. Athena is Gunshin too, in a sense.
Gunshin decided to set aside the naming issue for now. What did it matter? Staying alive was what mattered right now.
Anyway, what was this voice? It probably wasn't the voice of his conscience suddenly appearing in his mind...
Was it some kind of past-life bonus?
[Pull yourself together, Athena. All Automata fundamentally possess talent for <Materia Magic>. If you can use it properly, a Beast-Type Heuksu is more than manageable.]
"Yeah, because just telling me I can use it makes it all work? Ugh!"
Once again, he rolled sideways to dodge the Heuksu's claws rushing at him.
This time he reacted properly.
But apart from Gunshin dodging well, the tentacle that had been writhing on the Heuksu's back lashed out like a whip and pursued him.
Whoosh! Screeeech!
"Guh!"
Ah—this one... landed properly.
Feeling his midsection literally fold, Gunshin writhed in pain.
'I-I'm really going to die. Really...'
It hurt like hell!
[Calm down, Athena! The wound isn't large. A wound like this will heal naturally with time! It's nothing.]
Nothing? Heal naturally?
"Easy for you to s-say..."
Fuck.
In <Abyss Flood>, Automata were said to be able to autonomously regulate pain perception, but he didn't know how.
Strength drained from his waist and legs. For a while, standing on two feet seemed impossible.
Splat!
He felt the clammy, sticky ground press against his back and the back of his head.
The night sky entered his eyes, just like when he first opened them.
'Goddammit.'
It hurt enough to make tears stream down, but thanks to that, the reality of this world hit him at a full 1000%.
Pain woke Gunshin's mind more vividly than anything else.
Amid the confusion, bewilderment, and the monster attack, it pulled him up from the unreal, naive haziness he had been sunk in into cold reality.
Magic... He needed magic.
<Materia> Magic.
One of the special abilities existing in <Abyss Flood>.
The community jokingly called it a miracle-water 3D printer.
Magic that processes and weaves the <Materia> particles spread throughout the world according to the caster's will, creating armor, swords, spears... and various other necessary objects from thin air.
Depending on the caster's talent, it could—very rarely—even produce miracles beyond the era.
That alone would be the way to overcome this situation.
According to the setting, those who became Automata "instinctively" grasp how to use this magic—
How was he supposed to do it?
What exactly was he supposed to do to use this goddamn magic?
"Grrrr—"
The Heuksu let out a victory growl and a howl—awooo!
In the meantime, the voice in his head spoke, as if it knew Gunshin's dilemma better than anyone.
[I have located the most effective phrase for using magic within Athena's weeb knowledge.]
"Huh?"
[Visualize the strongest version of yourself.]
"What?!"
[Mages have sayings like that too. Self-suggestion? Well, chanting spells to make magic easier to control is perfectly normal, Athena.]
"Uhhh?!"
[So— I am the bone...]
"Aaaagh!"
[Is that not it? Then Trace...]
"Gaaaaah!"
Okay! I get what you mean, so stop! If you go any further, something really terrible will happen!
This was scarier than the pain from his caved-in gut right now!
But thanks to that, he could forget the pain to some extent.
He also gained a clue.
"Grrrrrng—"
Death approached leisurely, as if everything was already over.
It was taking its sweet time with the confidence of a victor.
'The hunt's all done, is that it?'
Gunshin clenched and unclenched his right hand repeatedly.
He visualized it: the best weapon he could hold in his hand.
Cold weapons wouldn't do. Gunshin was a weak modern man, and he hadn't trained with them as a hobby.
Then, as expected...
He clenched his fist, opened it, and focused his mind.
[Operating start.]
"?"
[?]
"..."
[Operating start.]
Stop saying that, it's embarrassing, you bitch...
Gunshin quietly ignored the voice echoing in his head and focused his mind.
White-glowing particles gathered above his palm according to his will.
"GRAAAH!"
As its cornered prey tried to do something, the Heuksu snarled and leaped.
Before the bastard's gaping maw, as if it meant to swallow his head in one bite, Gunshin raised his hand.
At some point, in his hand rested a heavy black-gleaming body imbued with the power of fire that had ended the primitive era of cold weapons.
The cold, heavy sensation in his hand.
Yes—this was one shot for you, one shot for me. Humanity's greatest. The power of equality.
With a smile, Gunshin pulled the cold trigger.
Click-click—
The reliable sound of the cylinder rotating and the hammer drawing back. And then—
BANG—!
The report of this world's first firearm echoed through the world.