Defeat Addiction (1)

In Souls-like games, level matters more than you'd think.

The base damage of a weapon and its upgrade values never change — it's the character's level that scales that damage upward.

So the moment the new Souls-like title Desperado Reunion 2 hit the shelves, I threw myself into nothing but leveling, and hit the max level of 999 in a single day.

When I posted about it online, people called me a lunatic.

Near the starting zone there was an area called the Fortress of Training, crawling with mobs that poured out absurd amounts of experience — so I'd holed up in there, grinding levels without ever actually playing the game.

I hadn't even played the game properly, but seeing every single stat maxed out felt glorious. No matter what item I equipped, I dealt maximum damage, and there wasn't a single weapon in the game I couldn't wield.

A true munchkin character.

By definition, a Souls-like game is supposed to have that razor-edge tension — you need dozens of hits to bring down a boss, while a player dies from one or two hits taken. That's the whole point.

But having maxed out my level in barely one playthrough, the picture was now completely reversed.

The boss goes down in two hits! But it takes dozens to kill me!

So this game was always this easy? Right up through the final boss fight, I basked in my omnipotence.

And while I was at it, I killed every NPC I came across, too.

It's an unwritten rule of Souls-likes that the best gear in the game sits on the backs of NPCs. The fact that they wield gorgeous weapons is just a bonus.

So I murdered every NPC I met and stripped them of everything they had.

Once I'd robbed them all and completed my full collection of weapons and equipment, though... the fun wore off.

So I left behind a review born of pure spite.

Not long after I posted my little review, a reply appeared from the developer.

It was the first time in my whole life as a gamer that anyone had ever responded to one of my reviews, so I opened it with a fluttering heart.

...The reply was in English, so I immediately ran it through a translator.

It doesn't exist in the game?

Reading through the long message, that was more or less the gist of it.

Dude, how did you even get into that area? We didn't make it.

I assumed the reply was just the usual Souls-style anti-spoiler deflection, but when I dug around for information, it turned out the area genuinely wasn't in the game.

When I checked my community post as well, the early replies were full of abuse, but the recent comments were all just people asking how to get into that area.

A question nagged at me.

The game never created that area — so how had I gotten inside it?

As if to insist it was no lie, my still-running game displayed the character's level loud and clear: 999.

Figuring I should at least grab a screenshot the way the developer had asked, I pulled up the map and traveled back to the starting zone.

I returned to the starting area and moved to enter the Fortress of Training —

"...Huh?"

As if it had never existed in the first place, the entrance itself was simply gone.

It should have been right there — a short walk from the ruins at the edge of the starting zone, the Fortress of Training packed with monsters, bold as brass.

What spread across my monitor now was rubble — collapsed debris choking the path completely shut.

As if it had been like that all along.

"..."

The suspicion I'd been harboring toward the developers only moments before collapsed in an instant.

They had been telling nothing but the truth.

I glanced around, half-wondering if a ghost had slipped into the room, but the cramped studio apartment offered nowhere for even a ghost to hide.

In the end, unable to take a proper screenshot of anything, I decided to at least capture the character's status window and send that instead — and the moment I opened it:

The character who had been level 999 just moments ago now had a negative level.

At the same time, my stats glitched out alongside it, every value plunging into the negatives.

"What the hell!?"

The screen abruptly shattered, and the monitor began to flicker and tear as if something were ripping it apart.

Kill screen.

It was an overflow — the phenomenon that occurs when a value exceeds the maximum constant a game is capable of outputting. I hammered ALT + F4 in a panic, desperate to force the game closed, but it refused to shut down, and the image only warped into something more and more grotesque.

At first the screen displayed nothing but static, like a TV switched on at dawn.

Before long it bled into darkness, flashing intermittent red light.

The flashes came faster and faster, and then, all at once, the screen was swallowed by black tendrils.

"AAAGH, FUCK!!"

I had absolutely no resistance to this kind of horror. I lunged for the power strip under my desk and ripped out everything my hands could find.

At last, a heavy silence settled over the studio apartment.

The monitor and computer were dead, leaving only the dim, ambiguous glow of the LED ceiling light.

"...Haah."

I knew, rationally, that a bug had caused all of it — but my heart wouldn't calm down so easily.

It felt weird to turn the computer back on right away, so I decided to call my mother for the first time in ages and vent a little. I got up from my chair and headed for the bed.

The moment I walked over to grab my five-year-old budget phone lying in the middle of the mattress —

Pzzt—

The monitor flickered back to life.

Every cord was unplugged. There was no way power could be flowing.

Worse, the computer booted up alongside it, the cooling fans screaming to full power.

"......"

My breath caught in my throat.

A ghost really had possessed it, then.

The instant that thought formed, terror swallowed me whole. Like a cornered herbivore lashing out as its final resort, I clenched my fist with every intention of smashing the monitor to pieces.

"DIE, DAMN YOU!!"

The moment I swung that fist, tears in my eyes for the 4K monitor still on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠installment —

A pale blue window blossomed before my eyes, blocking my vision. I froze mid-swing and jolted back in shock.

"Now what the hell is this!?"

I waved my hands every which way, but I couldn't touch or manipulate the window hovering in front of me.

It was like wearing a VR headset — the window followed wherever ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I turned my gaze, and I was still reeling from the confusion when:

Error windows erupted across my vision in overwhelming numbers, blanketing my sight, and I flailed my fists in every direction like I was having a seizure.

What on earth was happening?

Could it be that this whole reality was the Matrix?

Because if so, I had absolutely no intention of swallowing any red pill.

I had no desire to hide out in a labyrinthine underworld slurping down some creepy gruel, thank you very much.

"The blue pill!! Give me the blue pill!"

Refusing to become some Neo wannabe, I screamed like a madman, shouting for the blue pill —

My desperate cry was casually ignored, and the window before my eyes began transmuting my studio apartment into raw data.

My treasured model kit collection vanished. The beloved blanket I'd clung to since childhood dissolved into nothing.

Tears streamed down my face in grief — and before I knew it, the data corruption reached me too, and my body's form began to change.

My modest 177-centimeter frame grew a little longer in the legs.

My face grew smaller than before.

At the same time, my proportions shifted — a shorter torso, longer legs.

I'd barely registered that I now had a striking, sharp-featured build when:

A message announcing that I'd gained a perk appeared — followed by a window declaring that someone would be inheriting memories and stats.

Transmigration.

One hundred percent, this was transmigration.

I was headed for that place — the world where I'd rampaged as a max-level munchkin.

And there was even someone inheriting the memories of my first playthrough.

One ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of those names was strangely familiar.

"...Shit."

Carmen — she was the NPC I had murdered for her gear.

Which meant the others who'd inherited those memories and abilities were...

It didn't even wait for me to finish wondering who the others might be. The despairing news that everything I had painstakingly built across my first playthrough — every level, every piece of gear — would not carry over was the final thing I saw.

"AAAAAAAH!!!!"

And so I was forcibly cast into the world of Desperado Reunion.