Welcome to Final Destiny

Would you believe there are people out there who actively seek out and devour the shit of the trash game known as Final Destiny?

They live perfectly normal lives on Earth. At a glance, they seem no different from ordinary people.

"Goddamn it! Does this even make sense?"

Their most defining trait is that they live by eating the aforementioned shit. Of course, it's not literal feces.

"What kind of dogshit game judgment is this?!" These are the people who willingly suffer through games that make you question whether they were ever meant to be played in the first place. We call them dung-eaters for short.

And among those dung-eaters, I confidently declared myself the absolute best.

From games with rock-bottom ratings to titles the developers themselves considered dark history and tried to bury, I'd played them all. I thought my mentality had been thoroughly tempered by countless shit games, but this time I simply couldn't endure it.

"No, this is straight-up malicious bullshit, isn't it?!"

Final Destiny. An RPG that mixed together academy life, fantasy, hunter elements, status windows, and even dating sim mechanics. As the title suggested, it was a story about the protagonist stopping the world's destruction—preventing the final, doomed fate.

Its one advantage was that you could play as various characters besides the protagonist. The disadvantage was everything else.

"I absolutely can't give up..."

I wasn't usually the type to mutter to myself this much, but it was the only way to soothe the raging fire in my chest.

Eight years had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠passed since I'd started enduring this mishmash world-building, bug-riddled mess, and incomprehensible storyline. No matter how much I wanted to quit, the thought of all that wasted time kept me chained to it.

"Seokhyun, you can do this! Please, just hang in there!"

On screen, my character—Lee Seokhyun—was locked in combat against a colossal darkness. Even among the shit games, Final Destiny had a character considered the absolute worst: Lee Seokhyun. I'd sworn to reach the ending with this character purely because we shared the same name.

Was this game actually designed to be cleared?

Lee Seokhyun had even fewer merits than Final Destiny itself. Every single stat was completely randomized at character creation. Talent, fame, everything related to the status window except the main skill—it was all left to pure luck. An insane difficulty.

Obviously, I hadn't known that at the start.

If I'd known, I never would've done it.

I only learned the truth four years after playing exclusively as Lee Seokhyun. While searching for information because the game was impossibly hard, I stumbled across the truth on a community forum. The emptiness and rage I felt then were indescribable.

But that wasn't important right now. The key point was that after enduring all of it, I had finally reached the final chapter, right before the ending.

Just as the pixelated Lee Seokhyun was about to act, a selection window appeared.

This was already the sixth selection window. Using the main skill is the worst possible choice.

Lee Seokhyun's main skill was incredibly difficult to see any value in. Actually, Lee Seokhyun as a whole was a character with no value whatsoever. In this mishmash world, he was the only one set up as an intelligence-type character. The problem was that the game developer's intelligence wasn't particularly high.

A character with higher intelligence than the creator can never exist.

Lee Seokhyun faithfully followed that old unwritten rule and was pure garbage as a result. The pinnacle of that garbage ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was his main skill, Find it, Ding Dong Dang.

Does this even make sense?

There was no time limit on the selection, so I sighed while rereading the main skill's description window. No matter how many times I read it, I couldn't understand the skill at all.

The explanation is vague from the "difficult situation" part all the way to the solution.

That was why, in all my time playing as Lee Seokhyun, I'd only ever used the main skill once. The description was so ambiguous that I'd just tried it on some random person, but nothing happened. After that, I'd never touched it again.

But this time was different.

"What kind of boss ignores all hidden skills, nullifies every item, refuses to talk, and won't even let me run away?"

Every choice except number one had resulted in failure. Each failure took away one-sixth of my HP, so this was essentially my last chance. And I was supposed to spend that final chance on a main skill I'd never once used? It was insane.

It would be no different from throwing away four years of my life.

"Please let me clear this, okay? I've worked so hard. I've really worked so hard. I gave it my all, so please... please... Final Destiny..."

Even though the only remaining choice was Find it, Ding Dong Dang, I really didn't want to select it. A skill that bragged about its pathetic performance by only offering a hint even after presenting a solution. The day had come when I would have to press it with my own hand.

Spending time on a skill with unknown results in an RPG? That was madness.

"..."

But sometimes, you needed to do something crazy. In the end, I closed my eyes tight and clicked option one with the mouse.

The system kindly asked one more time if I was really going to do this insane thing. I was so grateful I nearly cried.

Click.

My leg shook violently as I rattled the desk hard enough to spill all the luck in the world.

"Something... something's happening...!"

The atmosphere suddenly felt promising, and the BGM changed dramatically. The dark music from moments ago shifted into a heartbeat-like rhythm. A beat that stirred people up and filled them with excitement. It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was an implicit sign that the situation was turning positive.

"Here I go... I'm going... Storm Will Lee Seokhyun is going in."

My violently shaking legs had lifted my lower body, and I was now dancing around like a madman. This was the moment of a lifetime. If I cleared this game, there would be no game in the world I couldn't beat.

"You can do it!!!"

On screen, Lee Seokhyun was rummaging through his clothes, searching for something. It looked like he was fixing his clothes before death, but I tried my best to ignore that thought. If I kept thinking ominous things and it actually happened, I might lose my mind.

"Let's go for the Final Destiny ending, hell yeahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Lee Seokhyun pulled out something glowing from his clothes and charged magnificently toward Despair of Destiny.

I died.

"Huh?"

What?

"What the hell is this?"

Don't mess with me.

They say the human brain freezes when someone gets too shocked. That saying fit perfectly. The atmosphere had felt like something was about to happen, then I suddenly died? Why? How?

"..."

My legs, which had been shaking like a mad dog's, stopped. My lower body sank back into the chair.

The reason I'd been desperately hoping Lee Seokhyun would succeed despite being so obsessed with the game's ending was because Final Destiny was a roguelike.

One death and everything ends. That single message had just turned four years of my life into complete waste.

"...You've got to be kidding me."

Stop messing around.

As I shook the innocent monitor and denied reality, the screen slowly began to change.

"Huh?"

The glowing object Lee Seokhyun was holding while dead. Even though Lee Seokhyun had died, it was still emitting light, and that light was growing stronger.

"What... what is this?"

At first it only brightened the game screen, but it gradually intensified until the monitor was radiating so much heat and light that the room became brighter than it ever was at 2 AM. The moment I was stunned by the impossible brightness, a new message window appeared.

"You son of a..."

I tried to run, but the light had already swallowed the entire room. And just like that, I lost consciousness.