The Patron of the Ruined World
“Oh, now this is the stuff.”
I let out a satisfied groan and sank deep into the back of my chair. The only light illuminating the dark room came from the bright glow of my dual monitors.
On the right screen, the ending credits of the settlement survival game I’d been obsessing over all night were rolling.
Congratulations! Your community has successfully survived the invasion of the Outer Gods!
It was the true ending, achieved after over 100 hours of attempts. And it wasn’t just this game. To forget the pain of reality, I had been digging into every genre of game like a madman.
In 4v1 asymmetrical survival games where you run generators to escape a killer, I didn’t feel fear—I reigned as a "Survivor-Killer," a veteran who toyed with the murderer and teabagged them at every turn. In large-scale modern warfare games with up to 64 players, I became "Unknown Infantryman #1," sprinting through battlefields riddled with tanks and fighter jets, firing every weapon I could get my hands on. After pouring thousands of hours into virtual worlds, I had finally conquered the true ending of this settlement survival game today.
Savoring the thrill of achievement that tingled in my brain, I immediately turned my gaze to the left monitor.
On the left screen was a web novel serialization platform. It was a "bottom-tier" novel from the deep sea of the internet that I’d been reading, scrolling with my mouse wheel whenever I was idling in my games. The writing was crude, but it had a strange, addictive quality that drew people in.
Having finished binge-reading up to the latest chapter, I clicked the "Recommend" button without hesitation and then clicked the "Donate" menu at the bottom of the screen.
Would you like to donate 100 Gold to the author?
As soon as I hit confirm, a cheerful sound effect rang out. Not even a minute later, the notification window for the web novel platform started flashing like crazy.
It was a desperate message from the author, sent at the speed of light. I curled my lips into a smirk, feeling a rush of pleasure as if dopamine were being injected directly into my veins.
“It’s already morning, did this author stay up all night too? Well, 100 Gold is about 10,000 won in cash, and since the donation alert rings so loudly on the app, they probably jumped out of bed to reply even if they were sleeping.”
Becoming a savior to someone with overwhelming wealth and receiving their blind gratitude. It was the only moment in this cramped room where I felt truly alive.
But the sweet effects of the dopamine didn't last long.
I stood up, twisting my stiff body to stretch. Turning my head, I saw the darkness fading outside the window as the morning sun began to rise.
“Ha... I shouldn’t stay up all night. If I keep living like this, I’m really going to be screwed.”
Out of habit, I walked over to the mini-fridge in the corner and pulled out a cold can of beer.
*Crack-hiss.*
I popped the tab with a crisp sound. I drank the cold beer straight on an empty stomach. The carbonation and alcohol tingling down my esophagus numbed this shitty reality for just a moment.
Holding the beer can, I walked out to the balcony. As I pulled back the blinds, the busy morning scenery outside came into view.
Office workers walking toward the bus stop with tired faces. Children heading to school with heavy bags. It might be a hellish commute for them, but to my eyes, it was just a life I desperately envied.
There was a grim reason why I couldn't blend into that ordinary crowd and lived a life as a nocturnal shut-in. It wasn't just because I was a lazy, unemployed bum.
To be precise, I was currently on indefinite leave from my job and was a half-baked criminal under a court-ordered travel restriction.
The beginning of all this tragedy was a horrific, false accusation from my ex-girlfriend.
She had suddenly appeared, claiming I had committed a sex crime against her in the past, and filed a lawsuit along with a #MeToo exposure. It was a forced accusation with nothing but her consistent testimony as evidence, but the world wasn't on my side.
My workplace cut me off with an indefinite leave of absence the moment the case was forwarded to the prosecution, and the police and courts treated me like a shameless potential flight risk—they didn't make me wear an electronic anklet, but they effectively placed me under house arrest.
It was an obvious scheme. A dirty act to extort a huge settlement by threatening to ruin me socially.
The problem was that I didn't even have the luxury to pay that kind of settlement. My only asset was this 30-pyeong apartment I’d bought by scraping together every penny, and half of that was a bank loan I still had to pay off. Even if one wanted to squeeze blood from a stone, there was a limit—I was already struggling just to cover the monthly loan interest.
“Crazy bitch. There’s nothing left to take, so you’re going to tear my whole life apart?”
I muttered hollowly, leaning my forehead against the balcony window.
At first, I shed tears of blood out of frustration. I ran around everywhere to prove my innocence, but the endless legal battle only slowly gnawed away at my bank balance and my sanity.
Anger soon turned into helplessness, and the hollowness left my soul empty. A total isolation where I couldn't leave the house and couldn't earn money.
In those hellish times, the only thing I could do was sit in front of the monitor and escape reality.
Like a starving stray dog, I wandered the sea of the internet, greedily devouring games and web novels of all genres. From harems to dark fantasy, settlement-building to misunderstandings—I chewed, tore, and tasted them all.
The time spent firing guns in games and feeling vicarious satisfaction by possessing the protagonists in text was the only drug that helped me endure this shitty reality.
“I’d rather get sucked into that monitor. At least there, there wouldn't be any bitch backstabbing me for no reason.”
I downed the rest of the beer in one gulp, smacked my lips with a bitter taste, and walked back into the room. Since there was no court date today anyway, I planned to sleep soundly until the sun went down.
Just as I was about to head to the bed, my footsteps stopped dead. My eyes caught a strange phenomenon as I reached for the mouse to turn off the computer.
Right in the center of the right monitor, where the ending screen of the settlement survival game should have been. At the exact moment it should have transitioned to the main screen after the ending credits, a new notification window suddenly popped up. As if infected by a malicious virus, red text was flickering against a pitch-black background.
To the Great Patron and Savior.
You have safely guided the lambs who follow you and proven your skill.
Will you truly prove your power as an Outer God, a Patron, and a Player?
I set the empty beer can on the desk and leaned my face close to the monitor. “Huh? What is this? Wasn’t this a perfect single-player package game?”
It was a classic survival game with zero online multiplayer elements. Did I unlock some hidden achievement? Or maybe it was a hardcore "Ironman" mode that could be enjoyed after the ending, even though it wasn't an online game. My "stray dog" instincts stirred.
“Well, nothing to lose.”
Without much thought, I clicked the mouse and pressed the [Accept] button at the bottom of the notification window.
That was the moment. Zap! With the sound of sharp sparks flying, both monitors turned pitch black simultaneously. Even the sound of the cooling fans spinning loudly in the tower stopped dead.
“Ah, fuck! You scared the shit out of me!”
The tipsy alcohol buzz vanished instantly. “What the? Did the computer die? Did the motherboard go?”
It was a custom-built PC I’d spent two million won on three years ago. Thinking that the computer had broken down when I didn't even have money to pay the loan interest made my head spin. Just as I was about to frantically mash the power button on the tower—
Whirrr- The right monitor, which had been off, turned back on, and a cinematic video began to play across the screen.
“Huh? What is this? This isn’t the boot screen.”
A bewildered mutter escaped my lips.
Fire and ash. The screen was showing a horrific scene of destruction. Between the charred furrows of the fields, the corpses of people and livestock were strewn about like mountains, and everything from peaceful farming villages to cities surrounded by giant spires had been thoroughly destroyed, leaving only eerie, skeletal ruins. The texture of the ash powder fluttering like gray snow was vivid enough to give me goosebumps.
“Crazy graphics. But I’ve never seen a cutscene like this in any overseas webzine review videos?”
I frequented gaming communities like it was my job, but I had never read a single line of information about the existence of such a hidden video. It smelled too much of high-budget production to be a mod or a user patch.
The cinematic camera cut across the gray sky and flew over a massive river. And in the middle of that river, something that looked like a castle appeared. No defensive troops or signs of life stirred on the outer walls of the castle.
The moment the camera zoomed in to show the river water beneath the castle walls, I let out a dry laugh in disbelief.
“What is that? Is that a Kappa?”
Monsters lurking in the murky river water, surrounding the castle in layers. Bizarre forms with bald heads topped with plates, covered in green scales and carrying shells on their backs. It was a Japanese Kappa, plain and simple.
“The background is authentic Western dark fantasy, but the monsters are Eastern Kappa? The world-building is a total mess.”
Just as I was clicking my tongue, the screen’s perspective crossed the castle walls and dove straight into a chapel among the buildings inside. In front of the altar of the chapel, where the stained glass had been shattered, a nun with long, flowing silver hair was kneeling with her hands tightly clasped. The detail of her white nun’s habit, messed up with dirt and dust, and the way her shoulders trembled, made it look as if they had filmed a real, living human.
Before long, a mournful voice flowed through the monitor’s speakers.
"Oh, Great God of Light! Why do you not answer our prayers!"
"We have prayed every day, shedding tears of blood, yet why do you not grant us even a single miracle!"
"Do you truly wish for us all to become food for those horrific monsters!"
“Oh, so that’s the setting. The last saintess of a ruined castle, something like that.”
I leaned back in my chair, chin in my hand, and enjoyed her lament-filled prayer. It was a cliché, but the voice actor’s performance was no joke, so it was strangely immersive. I thought the intro sequence was pulled off quite nicely.
As the nun slammed her forehead against the floor and continued to sob, I instinctively grabbed the mouse. It was a cutscene screen without any UI, but I moved the mouse pointer, wondering if there was any interaction. I brought the pointer toward the top of the nun’s silver-haired head and lightly clicked the left button.
That moment.
“Eek—!”
The nun on the screen screamed as if bitten by a snake and tumbled across the floor. She clutched the very top of her head—the spot I had just clicked with the mouse—with both hands, and began to look around the chapel ceiling and surroundings with terrified eyes. As if she had been struck on the head by something invisible.
“Huh?”
I straightened up in my chair before I knew it. It was too vivid and raw a reaction to be a simple scripted response. A strange sensation, as if my light hand gesture of a mouse click had exerted direct physical force on the world beyond the screen, crawled up my fingertips, sending shivers down my spine.