Auto-Battle Is God!

"Auto-Battle is god!"

"I am invincible!"

"Don't you dare mess with me!"

Huh?

Auto-Battle was god, and I, its user, was invincible — right?

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Only then did it sink in: the elite mob that had just popped out was wearing a Tier-1 prefix — Wrathful — and that running Auto-Battle could lose you a fight you ought to win. I learned that the hard way. With my own body.

A spite-choked evil spirit screeched and tried to possess me while I sat there as its prisoner, only to get bounced off again and again by slaughter energy denser than anything it could handle. It finally gave up in tears and released me — a full week later.

Even for an elite with a Tier-1 Wrathful prefix, beating me in Auto-Battle meant punching through a 0.9% chance. Less than one percent!

Tch. Still too high, honestly.

After a week as a prisoner, the tension that had been rocketing skyward — high enough to punch through the atmosphere and kiss outer space — crashed straight into the floor. The gap was so violent it made my head hurt.

And Cheon Nan-cho, who was already a prisoner herself, just got locked out of my inventory the moment I was captured and claimed she barely felt a thing. Meanwhile I got tormented by a vengeful spirit for an entire week!

"Ptoo. Son of a bitch."

I took the debuff as raw damage, spat the blood flooding my mouth, and ignored the grass that drank it, twisted into something grotesque, shuddered, turned gray, and keeled over. I wiped my lips clean with the back of my hand.

Emptying my brain and just running Auto-Battle — stacking the Wheel of Slaughter Energy, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠converting it into free stat points or levels — had been comfortable and fast. Now that the flow had been interrupted once, everything felt like a monumental pain in the ass.

"Ugh."

I dropped the transformation. The Wheel of Slaughter Energy, spinning on surplus slaughter energy, lifted me into the air. From up there I yanked Chopsticks free and hurled them indiscriminately at every red dot inside the minimap's range — again and again.

Level 89? No — 89 stars. Among every skill I owned, Chopsticks was in a league of its own for sheer deranged star rank. A single pair landing put same-level normal monsters into a near-death state; a critical hit was a one-shot. Overwhelming performance. Slaughter energy cost was negligible, and with built-in long-range auto-tracking it was basically a basic attack.

Normal monsters, sure — but even most elites could be cooked with Chopsticks alone and fed into the Wheel of Slaughter Energy.

The only problem was that throwing them one by one got tedious. Or maybe it was the lack of satisfaction. Something like that.

"This is boring."

"Finally lost it, Hee-ah?"

Who the hell lost it? Seriously.

It wasn't burnout. It was just—

"I'm scared, that's what."

"Of what?"

"No Eok-kka event has fired."

Experience said one was due any time now. How did I know? The daily event frequency had dropped. That was a big tell — a signal. In a piece-of-shit game engineered so players could never get bored, the random Eok-kka events always cranked the anxiety to maximum right before a guaranteed one dropped.

I hadn't even used Rest, and the event rate had suddenly gone quiet? I wasn't sitting still either — I was happily hack-and-slashing my way across the map.

I was sinking into a swamp of dread so deep I could feel it closing over my throat. And this feeling wasn't a day or two old. It had been months. Somewhere in the middle I'd snapped, forced my tension back up, ran nothing but Auto-Battle, got locked as a prisoner for a week — and the dread came flooding right back.

What the hell was it? What, damn it?

Even so, I cleared two more maps without incident. Levels rose. Slaughter energy accumulated. I was getting stronger, slowly — and the unease only tightened around my neck. Event frequency kept falling.

Down to about one event a day.

Terrifying. What kind of Eok-kka was winding up to hit me this hard?

A fifty-percent-chance permanent injury or character death Eok-kka? A meaningless rare meteor shower that overloads the graphics and crashes the game? An Abyss overflow that makes max-level-zone elites dogpile the player in a coordinated Abyss Defense Eok-kka? Terrain Recon locked at zero percent so you can't escape a map with no field boss and the whole game stalls?

Just thinking for a second spat out that many candidates. I was past terrified and into morbidly curious about what colorful Eok-kka was about to drop.

"Finally! You absolute bastard, you've been bleeding me dry...! Fine — I don't know what kind of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Eok-kka needed this much stalling, but—!"

Endure it or run. I would survive somehow. Absolutely!

"...Huh."

A familiar raid boss nickname. Right. For someone stuck at a mere level 260, a level 350 raid boss monster was pure catastrophe — and unlike before, this map had no field boss I could drag into a three-way brawl.

Those wings weren't decorative either. No running. And as an inorganic construct, it was basically a hard counter to my slaughter energy.

But this was a misfortune event — not an Eok-kka event.

People throw around "Eok-kka event" a lot. What it actually means is an event where one wrong move nukes the entire game. Simple example: a level 350 raid boss dropping on a level 150 player is an Eok-kka event. A level 350 raid boss dropping on a level 260 player is a misfortune event.

The first one ends the run the second you slip. The second one, you can still thrash and claw your way through if you go completely feral.

And what I had right now was a misfortune event.

The Eok-kka event comes after. The second that fact clicked, a whole cascade of raid-boss-related Eok-kka events auto-loaded into my head.

"Oh, you have got to be shitting me—?!"

I cut off the curse that had started itself, dumped every scrap of slaughter energy I had into the Wheel, and ran. I even burned a Unique-grade consumable — one of the few items that could drop combat state against a raid-class monster for ten seconds.

I only had four Unique smoke bombs left. If I stretched them right, I could still escape this map. The penalty for unfinished Terrain Recon would have to be ignored. Fail to get out now and I was genuinely finished!

A raid boss spawned by a misfortune event. A map with no field boss. And an event that only triggers when the player's stats are at abnormal values!

I hadn't even cleared the map edge yet and every hair on my body was standing on end, a full-body chill racing through me. I'd put too much distance between myself and that raid boss—

"No— no no no—!"

An event that was supposed to carve an exit out of a hopeless misfortune — except when the player's stats crossed a certain threshold, it stopped being an exit and started being a one-way ticket to hell. A complete bastard of an Eok-kka event, wearing the name of fortune.

I slammed into the enormous violet portal at full flight speed, dumped straight in.

"Son of a biiitch..."

"You absolute piece of shiiit...!"

The minimap went dead. That was the Abyss's concept. This place was basically an infinite map to begin with.

"This... this is Eok-kka...!"

Forcibly dumping a level 260 player into the Abyss? I had the Never Abyss mode active — the one that stops the Abyss from spawning out of misfortune events!

This was the Abyss: vanilla's max-level map and field. Passing monsters started above level 450, every single spawn was elite-minimum at the lowest, a completely deranged zone that counted as dungeon and field at the same time.

Just entering triggered an auto-save.

Die, and you revived somewhere random in the Abyss with a permanent random debuff.

Escape, and it plastered you with random misfortune events on the way out.

Get taken prisoner here and you could even class-change into an Abyss thrall monster!

"Escape. I have to escape..."

At my level, I wouldn't last long here. The early-game cheese — dropping in as a lowbie and speedrunning with bug exploits for free progress — was impossible at my current level...?

Wait. I could drop my own level whenever I wanted, couldn't I...?

Huh?