The Rotten Water Possesses
Comments flooded in the moment I uploaded the video. The view count was nothing special, but these were still my precious viewers. I went through and dropped a heart on every single one.
Karnadan. A game famous for its insane degree of freedom, irresistible characters, and genuinely fun hunting and combat systems. I was the kind of person who had sunk years of my life into raising Asbel, one of its playable characters. I was so deep into it that these days there probably wasn’t a single person alive who understood Asbel’s strategies and training better than I did. I was what the community called a rotten water—a veteran gamer who knew every trick in the book.
Today, just like every other day, the usual annoying comments rolled in. I let out a sigh and typed out a reply.
Unfortunately, Asbel was a character with a deeply rooted reputation as the ultimate heroine-conquest pick. He was practically optimized from the ground up for 19+ harem play, so these kinds of comments were inevitable.
Asbel was one of only three characters in Karnadan capable of unlocking an SSS-grade skill. Out of those three, he was the only one who could obtain a skill so ridiculously overpowered it stood in a league of its own. The problem was how insanely difficult it was to acquire that skill. The topic I had researched most obsessively for the longest time was how to obtain that SSS-grade skill as quickly and efficiently as possible in the ultra-early game.
Thanks to the blood, sweat, and collective research of many players—including myself—the process had become somewhat easier, but it was still long and tedious. That was why most people didn’t bother building Asbel for combat. They simply took his handsome face and Peach Blossom trait and raised him as a pure harem character. I had worked hard to break that stale stereotype, but it looked like public perception wasn’t going to change overnight.
“That’s right. They did announce a big update next month. Realistic difficulty—supposedly even harder than Hardcore.”
I stretched my arms overhead and muttered to myself. As expected of the god-tier game Karnadan. They always dropped an update right when things started getting stale, never giving you time to get bored.
“Time to sleep.”
It had gotten way too late between playing and editing the video. I rubbed my heavy eyes and collapsed into bed. I wondered what the new difficulty would be like. I fell asleep full of anticipation.
When I opened my eyes the next day, I was able to experience Realistic difficulty a whole month ahead of schedule.
Except… it wasn’t what I expected.
“W-wait, is this actually happening right now?”
This wasn’t a game. I had been possessed by Asbel.