The Worst Starting Point

I possessed a trash character. Knowledge flooded into my head. Everything Lee Seokhyun had lived through, the basic information about Final Destiny, etiquette, society, and all the other essential elements needed to survive in this world were forcibly injected into my mind.

Lee Seokhyun. That was the name of the character I had possessed. We shared the same name, and just as I had explained before, he was a completely randomized trash character. But the problem wasn’t simply that he was weak.

The worst early-game growth route.

Final Destiny had countless characters, and each one had to resolve their personal story before entering the academy. People usually called the part before the academy the prologue and everything after it the main story. Some characters received massive benefits and rapid growth during that prologue phase. Lee Seokhyun was not one of them.

It’s exactly like the game.

When I opened my eyes and looked around, I had no choice but to accept the truth, no matter how much I wanted to deny it. The rundown space that reminded me of an ant nest had children lying in rows on the bare floor.

“Get up right now, you worthless bastards!”

The same old routine. I guess I’ll never escape this hell in my lifetime.

Those were the first lines that appeared when you selected Lee Seokhyun and started the game. A brutal forced labor environment that began at the tender age of seven. A rough-looking man entered the room packed with orphans.

“You damn mutts! If you don’t meet your quota, I’ll kill every last one of you!”

A vicious overseer and merciless whippings that treated us like livestock. Lee Seokhyun was a character with a staggering 63% chance of dying in the early game—the highest death rate in the entire prologue. Compared to most other characters who had virtually zero chance of dying, it was an utterly hopeless figure.

Ant Cave. That was the name of the children’s dormitory.

“Hey, you bastard! Still lying in bed? Are you out of your mind?!”

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Manis didn’t like the fact that I was still lying down. He snorted angrily as he stomped over. In the game, Lee Seokhyun’s playthrough began with a scene where he provoked the overseer’s temper. If this were still a game, choice options would have popped up. But this wasn’t a game. This was reality.

So I gave the most ideal response possible in this situation.

“I’m sorry. I was confused for a moment. It won’t happen again, so please, just this once—”

I curled up, ready to be hit, and apologized like a madman. That was the safest choice. When Manis first entered the room, he had casually said he would kill us. That wasn’t just a threat. It was a hint the game gave players.

If you mess with Manis’s mood, you really will die.

Lee Seokhyun was the kind of character who could die as easily as a goldfish in this prologue. Especially in the very beginning, the chance of dying to Manis exceeded 50%. So the only option was to apologize.

“This bastard…! Hmm… Wait, isn’t this Seokhyun? Since you’re our model prisoner, I’ll let it slide just this once!”

“Thank you. I’ll work hard.”

“Good, good… Hmm? What the hell are you bastards looking at?! Hurry up and change, then get to work!”

The one thing you could call an advantage for Lee Seokhyun compared to other characters was this: he had extremely high favorability with Manis and the other guards. He was known as the model prisoner.

What a load of crap.

The reward came the instant I got out of the situation. It was exactly like Final Destiny.

…So I’m not dreaming.

I had no choice but to accept it. I had entered Final Destiny. And I was possessing the trash character Lee Seokhyun, of all people.

…Haa.

Then my goal was already set in stone. Survive and escape this game.

I will definitely get out of here.

After the morning shift ended, it was lunchtime. I finished ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my meal quickly and returned to the room ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to organize my thoughts.

Even if you enter a tiger’s den, you can survive if you keep your wits about you.

Right now it wasn’t a tiger’s den but an ant cave. Still, the meaning was the same.

Maybe this isn’t the absolute worst situation.

The worst part was that I had possessed Lee Seokhyun. The silver lining was that I was the one who had studied this character until I knew him like the back of my hand.

My top priority is escaping this place.

The place where Lee Seokhyun lived was called the Ant Cave. It was a garbage facility that gathered orphans with nowhere to go and forced them into labor. Every facility was rundown and lacking in supplies, so most children didn’t live past the age of ten.

If the Ant Cave is exactly like the game, that’s at least something.

The real question was how to escape. The Ant Cave ran on a schedule of waking at six in the morning, meals between noon and one, afternoon labor, dinner between six and seven, and night labor until midnight. Naturally, there were no days off.

In other words, aside from eating and sleeping, every second was spent working. The main task was mining magic stones. When a dungeon was cleared, magic stones would bloom in its place, and they made the children mine those stones.

People who search for dungeons cleared ten years ago and scrape by mining tiny magic stones to survive another day.

They were called ants, a title they despised. They referred to themselves as “keepers.” They told the children they were paying for their parents’ sins and brainwashed them with those words from a young age. In fact, some of the kids in the Ant Cave genuinely believed they were guilty because of that brainwashing.

That’s not important right now.

This wasn’t the time to get lost in pointless sentiment. Since Final Destiny was a roguelike game, a single mistake led straight to death. Staying sharp was the most important thing.

For now, I decided to start with what I could do immediately. First, my own information.

“Status window.”

If I had said that on Earth, people would have called it chuunibyou. But inside a game?

The starting point really is the worst.

As I mentioned, Lee Seokhyun was a fully randomized character. Every stat was set completely at random. That meant sometimes his early game could be stronger than the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠main character’s. But it looked like that possibility had been thrown to the dogs. I had drawn the absolute worst stats.

…And the skills… huh?

The main skill and sub skills were completely empty, as if that were perfectly normal. Wait, the main skill was sealed?

…? Is this for real?

Something had gone horribly wrong. There wasn’t a single character in Final Destiny whose main skill was sealed. There was a huge difference between having a skill and not using it versus having one but being unable to use it.

The main skill was an absolutely core element that every major character in Final Destiny was supposed to have. So why—?

I can’t figure out why it’s sealed.

In the four years I had raised Lee Seokhyun, I had only used that skill twice. Even if I wasn’t going to use it, whether it could be used or not was a crucial factor in the game.

Could it be because of that moment?

I remembered the message that had appeared right before I entered the game. It said Find it, Ding Dong Dang had given me a hint. What if that skill was a one-time use ability, and using it had caused the seal?

The first time I used it, the activation condition simply wasn’t met… and once it activates, that single use is the end?

This was a serious problem. If things stayed like this, even if I got through the prologue, it would be difficult to shine in the main story.

No, I’m thinking too far ahead.

I hadn’t even cleared the prologue yet, and I was already worrying about the main story. My happy-circuit was spinning way too fast. Anyway, Lee Seokhyun’s prologue didn’t require the main skill, so it didn’t matter for now.

This is definitely going to cause a lot of trouble later.

Since I had a rough grasp of the information, it was time to start dealing with the situation. Many people had suffered greatly while researching Lee Seokhyun. The difficulty of raising him was on a completely different level from other characters. And the rewards weren’t even that great.

Lee Seokhyun has to take extremely practical and realistic steps.

If the current situation had happened to a main character instead of Lee Seokhyun, they probably would have led the orphans in a heroic rebellion against the keepers. They would have conquered the Ant Cave, gained enormous fame at a young age, and built up their reputation.

But Lee Seokhyun couldn’t do that.

This is the key part.

Joining forces with the orphans to do anything was insane. Expecting anything from kids who didn’t even have the strength to mine magic stones and had to dig through dirt with their teeth was suicidal.

So what should I do?

The answer was simple.

“Sir Manis, would you like me to give you a massage?”

“Huh? What’s this all of a sudden?”

“You look very tired, so I thought I’d offer to massage ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠your shoulders. Hehe.”

Kissing the guard’s ass. I didn’t have to do it for long—just a brief moment of kneeling to gain some momentum. The problem was that Manis was extremely suspicious.

He narrowed his eyes at my uncharacteristic behavior.

“You little…”

Gulp.

“Is this because of what happened this morning? As expected, our model prisoner really is different. Fine, give it a try.”

Phew. Thanks to my model prisoner status, I had barely avoided another crisis.

“Yes, sir!”

I massaged Manis’s shoulders while slowly organizing the situation. Since I couldn’t use my skill right now, I needed to obtain a hidden skill, and I also had to escape the Ant Cave.

Once I get a hidden skill, I can beat the crap out of everyone.

Whether they were keepers or whatever, once I had that, I could become an early-game powerhouse. For now, I just had to bend the knee for a little while.