Customization

An offline meetup can't help but be fun. I spent ours talking with Pink Berry—no, with Hayan—about everything that waited past max level.

Once today's gathering ended, I could start on max-level content tomorrow, so I asked her how I was supposed to begin. The first step was obvious: get max-level gear. Everything I had on was quest reward trash or the basic sets they sold in shops, and in Legacy of Raid your item level matters more than your character level. Past the cap, raising your item level is how you get stronger.

So the very first piece of max-level content is a dungeon. A dungeon! You recruit a party of four—usually one tank, two damage dealers, and one healer—and the first max-level dungeon you're meant to run is the Underground Cave. The name alone promised monsters I did not want to look at.

Ghosts used to be the thing that scared me. Offer me a ticket to a horror movie and I still wouldn't go. Gore I can watch just fine; it's the jump scares I can't handle. But after I became Arang, I started hating bugs too. Queen Spider had been bearable—a human body with spider legs stuck onto it, I could live with that. The problem was the Underground Cave. Spiders, rats, and great fat insects, she said. Ugh. I already hated it.

"Come to think of it, Hayan unnie, you don't look any different from your character. Oh—your eyes are a different color."

In Legacy she wore gear that made her look like a holy maiden, and the first time I saw her I'd thought she was beautiful. The real Pink Berry, Hayan, was the spitting image of that pretty avatar. Eyes and clothes, that was about the only difference, and you can hardly walk around in real life dressed the way you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠are in Legacy.

"Ah, yeah. Customizing was a pain, so I just started."

"Character creation really is a pain."

When I play games I usually borrow someone else's preset, or stick close enough to the defaults that I don't have to think. But Legacy was different. By the time I opened my eyes as Arang, it was already finished—from the name all the way down to the character.

"My Legacy character isn't any different from me either."

Wait.

"No. Now that I think about it, I don't have arms or legs in real life, so the character and reality are pretty different, aren't they?"

Fair enough. Limbs that hadn't been there had appeared, so you could say reality and the character were about half different.

"..."

We kept talking Legacy, and the time shot past. Before I knew it, a call came up from downstairs: the bossam we'd ordered was here.

"Hayan unnie. Hayan unnie."

"H-huh? What?"

"I've got that shut-in thing. I talk fine in the virtual world, but I can't really do it in real life. So don't be too surprised."

"Uh? Uh, okay."

Anna came back, and once the bossam was laid out on the table beside my bed she stepped over and peeled the connector off me. Black swallowed everything in front of my eyes. When I opened them again, it wasn't Pink Berry on a screen. It was Hayan, standing there in the flesh.

And just like always, my mind sank into the swamp and locked itself in the deep. Even so, I could feel it getting a little better, bit by bit. I looked at Hayan and nodded hello. She flinched hard at the sight of me—startled by my face.

It's a little embarrassing to say it myself, but Arang's looks could send your average child actor home. I'd been just as shocked the first time I came to and saw her. Hayan's reaction was exactly that.

Anna cleared every line and tube off my body and gathered me up in her arms. A doll again, I rested the back of my head against her chest and stared at the bossam, boiled pork and all, set out and waiting.

"Shall we eat?"

Anna said it for me.

"Ah... y-yes."

I ate the bossam as she fed it to me. A real older sister: the moment I wanted something, she put exactly that into my mouth. Mmm. Bossam is so good. Salted shrimp and kimchi are what make it.

I was eating, and I could excuse myself—I still wasn't used to feeling things out here, a doll who couldn't talk—but why weren't Anna and Hayan saying anything? Then again, they'd only just met. Acting like old friends out of nowhere would be strange too. Hayan must be the shy type. Was the bossam really that delicious? Tears were gathering in her eyes. Don't tell me she'd bitten into a raw clove of garlic wrong.

"Arang, want some makguksu too?"

"...Yeah."

The meetup was a success. We finished the bossam, I went back into the connector, and we laughed and talked Legacy until it was time to stop. I told Hayan we should do another offline meetup sometime, and she left the hospital room with Anna.

The moment Lee Hayan stepped out of Arang's room, she sank to the floor.

"You did so well, Hayan. Thank you for treating Arang so kindly."

"I... I'm sorry. I was trying not to let Arang see..."

The instant Arang came out of the connector and was placed in her older sister Anna's arms, Hayan had nearly burst into tears. The light that usually filled Arang's eyes was gone. Those pupils, drained of every spark of life, looked like ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a dead person's. And seeing her without arms or legs, Hayan remembered the limbs from Legacy of Raid. There had always been a faint seam along them. That line was exactly where Arang had been cut.

"Don't apologize. You were wonderful. Arang had so much fun because of you. Thank you."

"Arang... does she have to keep living like that...?"

"...Yes. We never know when the illness might come back."

"Ah..."

Before my first run of the Underground Cave, I bought the max-level gear the shop sold and put it on. The cheapest basic set ate nearly all the gold I'd made from quests and monsters the moment I bought it. Still, owning the whole set felt nice. All those potions I'd saved because Pink Berry was with me, and the snowball rolled away just like that.

She'd gone home, and it would be a while before she logged back into Legacy, so I decided to try out Sword Master's max-level skills. I stepped into the training ground. Unlike the one in the starter town, this hall was full of people, and a few of them stared at me like I was something curious.

Heh. That's right. Solo clear of the Orc Chieftain. Duo clear of the Corrupted Adjudicator and Queen Spider. That would be me.

I went through the skills I'd picked up on the way to max level, one by one. Sticking to the big ones, the passive that suited me best was Revenge.

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

You could mistake it for a skill that simply adds thirty percent damage, but the word final is what matters. In Legacy of Raid, final damage is a multiplier applied only after every other damage calculation is finished, so how much of it you can stack is everything. Other classes don't get a final-damage increase on their skills and have to chase it through gear options. Sword Master is the only one that has it.

The catch is the condition: a successful Parry. Brutally hard. Word was, almost nobody could actually use it. But who was I? A Sword Master who had been killing Field Bosses with parries. Pink Berry had said as much herself—Sword Masters deliberately parried alongside their tanks just to proc this skill. And the reason was none other than this.

Simple, and stupidly hard-hitting. The cooldown was a full 120 seconds, but the coefficient was an enormous 1500%. It was Sword Master's most important skill, and one you absolutely had to land. The base coefficient was so high that if you procced Revenge and then used it, your DPS spiked all at once.

The problem was the three-second cast, even on a swordsman skill. Three seconds in a raid is an eternity. Legacy is a full-dive game, so the moment a Hitstun attack lands, your swings and skills get cut off—constantly, relentlessly. Standing perfectly still to cast for three seconds meant that unless you had the mechanics completely memorized, mistakes were inevitable.

I looked up guide videos. There were two ways to use Annihilation Blow. The first was to cast Pentagon, stack Chain Slash's attack-speed buff to five, and then use Annihilation Blow to shave even a little off the cast. The second was to land a Parry, trigger Revenge, and fire Annihilation Blow off that.

But me...

Against the combat dummy the training hall provided, I used Pentagon, built five stacks of Chain Slash, and the moment I had them I parried the dummy's attack.

Pak! Pak!

The Parry landed, and a red light flashed along my sword. From that state I went straight into Annihilation Blow. The cast was three seconds—but ten stacks of 3% attack speed, Sword Master's base 5%, and the extra 15% attack-speed buff I'd gained at max level added up to a full 50%. My cast time was only—

2.0 seconds.

Pure white light poured off the blade as I swung.

Until I hit max level, my damage had lived in the hundreds. In a single instant a number near twenty thousand floated up over the dummy's head. Hnnn—! This skill high was unreal. The problem was the two-minute cooldown...

I was still messing around with the skill in the training ground when Pink Berry logged on.