Absolute Obedience

A dark room. A gaze fixed on the collapsed character inside the monitor. At the same time, a hand frantically clicked the mouse in rapid succession.

But it was all in vain. Soon, the cold, unfeeling results window materialized before my eyes.

"Aaargh!"

I let go of the mouse with a violent shudder.

It was hopeless. This guy could never become a Hero.

This was my hundredth run. I had spent days on each attempt, trying a hundred times, and the result was always the same.

The reasons varied. Usually, he died. Or, well, he died. Come to think of it, it was just the way he died that varied.

But what if he somehow survived? I shook my head. He had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠actually managed to survive this run. The problem was his complete lack of talent. He didn't have any talent, nor did he ever stumble upon any of those common, cliché miraculous encounters. No matter how I looked at it, the guy couldn't even manage a farm, let alone become a Hero.

At this rate, he's a character designed to be impossible to clear.

That was my conclusion. And it was the exact same conclusion reached by almost everyone in the community.

Exactly. "Basically, no matter what you do, he can never become a Hero." That single sentence summed up everything.

Besides, usually, if a character is this weak, they at least gain some popularity for their unique, pathetic charm. But not Alan. To most players, Alan was just thoroughly unlikable—not just because of his in-game performance, but also from a meta, operational perspective.

The game was called Hundred Braves. It belonged to the character-raising simulation genre, where you made choices to develop your characters.

But the real catch lay in the game's title and its tagline. The title literally translated to "One Hundred Heroes," and the tagline was: "Raise 100 unique characters and turn them into Heroes!" True to their word, the developers had steadily added new characters over time.

Up to this point, it sounded like any ordinary mobile game. However, its difficulty was on an entirely different level compared to other casual mobile titles.

Turning a single character into a Hero took at least a few days if you rushed, and up to a week if you took your time. On top of that, it featured a brutal roguelike system: if a character died, you had to start raising them all over again from scratch.

Because of this, players once complained that they couldn't keep up with the pace of new character releases. It was an incredibly heavy, demanding game for a mobile title, but loyal players like me still managed to keep up, turning every newly added character into a Hero one by one.

As we kept pace with the updates, the community's focus eventually narrowed to a single question: What will happen once the 100th Hero is added?

When the 100th Hero was finally released, most players anticipated new content. A raid against the final boss that had only been teased in the lore, or perhaps a brand-new story set in a different world. Everyone waited for the next update with bated breath.

But what actually arrived... was something no one could have foreseen. Even the self-proclaimed "prophets" who had confidently predicted a 101st Hero shut their mouths the moment they tried raising him. That was the 101st Hero, Alan Flake, who debuted with utterly abysmal stats.

He was a character so painfully ordinary he was practically trash, lacking any symbolic value whatsoever. The difficulty of raising him was so absurdly high it felt like a personal insult from the developers, designed to ensure he could never become a Hero. When all of this combined, the player base unanimously agreed: this character was a bridge too far. An absolute joke.

Even as protests flooded the forums and players abandoned the game in droves, I kept playing. After all, I had already successfully raised all of the other 100 Heroes. My brain was thoroughly broken by this game, so I cut back on sleep and threw myself entirely into raising Alan Flake.

But the difficulty of raising Alan Flake truly transcended imagination.

Please, just move! Please!

The moment a battle started, he would freeze up, completely paralyzed by fear.

Why the hell are you going over there?!

He was incredibly disobedient, often wandering off to die some absurd, meaningless death.

Was this guy seriously supposed to be a Hero? Fine, I could overlook everything else. I had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠raised countless characters before; even without talent, there were always ways to make it work. But he could have at least listened to my commands. Because he refused to obey, there was absolutely nothing I could do. If he had just done what I told him, making his debut as a Hero would have been...

It was then. As I clicked past the failed run screen, a notification popped up on the monitor. Huh?

I frowned. It was strange. I hadn't completed any missions or achievements during this run that would warrant a reward. In fact, I had already cleared almost every single achievement in the game.

Was there a patch today?

Come to think of it, I had been so obsessed with raising this guy lately that I hadn't checked the official community forums. Seeing other players constantly whining tended to drain my motivation anyway. Still, a small part of me felt relieved, thinking this meant the developers hadn't completely abandoned the game yet.

But what kind of blessing is it? Blessings were single-use consumable items that could be bestowed upon a character before starting a run, up to a maximum of three. In other games, they would be called booster items. I clicked "Confirm" on the notification window to check the details. The newly acquired blessing appeared on the screen.

It was as if the game had read my mind. Of course, that was impossible, but still... I knew it. They had been hiding something.

This was exactly the kind of hidden mechanic I expected from the developers of Hundred Braves. I couldn't help but grin. If anyone saw me right now, they would probably click their tongues and say my brain was still thoroughly broken. But I didn't care. There was nothing left to break anyway.

I was about to rush into the preparation screen as if the blessing might disappear, but my finger paused. I had stayed up for several nights straight, convinced that the 100th run would be my last. It wasn't that I was too tired to continue. It was just that I had mentally set the 100th attempt as my absolute limit.

"..." After a brief moment of hesitation, I clicked the preparation button anyway. I can't just let a blessing like this go to waste. Besides, given its nature, it was highly likely a one-time item that would be incredibly difficult to obtain again.

If I was going to use it, I wanted to start the run now, while the muscle memory and instincts from my 100th attempt were still fresh. After all, that 100th run had been the closest I had ever gotten to turning him into a Hero. This run is really the last one.

Entering the preparation screen, I began reviewing my past play records. While I had referenced a few guides posted by other users in the community, ultimately, nothing was more reliable than my own data. Of course, given how this godforsaken game threw a complete curveball and changed the situation by 180 degrees every single run, I couldn't fully rely on past records either.

Considering all the different variables... Having formed a rough plan, my gaze shifted to the top of the screen. There, Alan Flake's Stigma was displayed.

A Stigma was a unique pattern engraved on each character. It granted them special powers ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠while serving as a medium to record their growth, such as stats and skills. Branching out in five directions from his Stigma were empty slots.

Stigma Succession was a system designed to encourage players to raise a diverse roster of characters. It allowed a new character to inherit a portion of a Stigma—skills or traits—from a previously raised character.

Although what was inherited was only a fraction of the original character's full stats and skills, the advantage it gave to a low-level character was immense. If you were lucky enough to inherit a decent piece, you could use it well past their debut as a Hero. Assuming you were lucky, that is.

In the end, it's just a trash RNG game. More often than not, the inherited parts were the most useless sections of the Stigma. There were times when you slotted in five Stigmas and didn't get a single useful piece.

Even so, I carefully selected five Stigmas and slotted them into all five directions. Please, let me inherit something useful. It had to happen. For this guy to even survive, he needed at least one decent piece. To actually turn him into a Hero, I might need all five slots to inherit useful parts.

A versatile Stigma for flexibility, an auxiliary Stigma to aid growth, and... I finished checking the final Stigma. These were five Stigmas I had painstakingly selected from the hundreds of characters I had raised so far. While it wasn't perfect, I couldn't think of a better combination. However...

Maybe I should have pushed a bit harder to get Gwen's swordsmanship rank to SS? Suddenly, an image of Gwen—the owner of the rose-shaped Stigma slotted in the bottom right—came to mind, diligently swinging her sword even as an old woman. No matter how many times I commanded her, she had refused, so I had eventually given up. I probably should have pestered her a bit more.

Well, it didn't matter too much. I had slotted her Stigma aiming for other parts rather than her swordsmanship anyway.

Now, all that's left are the blessings. This time, I looked at the blessing slots below the character. To be honest, I had some regrets regarding these single-use consumables.

Once I realized that raising Alan was impossible without decent blessings, I had recklessly burned through my hoarded stash from the 50th run onward. Right before the 100th run, determined to see this through to the end, I had used up all my top-tier, overpowered blessings.

First, this one is a lock. I slotted the Blessing of the Chain God into the very first slot. Two slots remained.

As for the rest... After agonizing over it for a long time, I placed a blessing in each of the remaining two slots. Finally, all preparations were complete. Alan stood on the preparation screen, surrounded by various Stigmas and blessings. Not that it changed the fact that his base character was absolute trash.

Well, I've done the best I can. I already felt exhausted before the run had even begun, but that was just how this game was.

...Shall we begin? It was just a game, yet a strange tension hung in the air. After checking all my settings one last time, I reached out and clicked the "Start Run" button. You're fucked now, Alan. At that exact moment, my vision went pitch black.

Huh? What happened? Did the monitor suddenly turn off? Strangely, my senses felt entirely different.

What is this...

I opened my eyes.

"..."

It was an unfamiliar ceiling. Sure, maybe I had collapsed from playing games for days without sleep and ended up in a hospital. I would have kept believing that, if not for the voice that echoed a moment later. I probably would have stayed in denial, thinking,

Wow, this hospital ceiling is really filthy.

"Alan! Alaaan!"

Alan? Who are they calling?

"Just how long do you plan on sleeping, Alan?!"

At that moment, only one thought crossed my mind. I'm screwed.