Chapter 1
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: The One-Shot Mage
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Medieval fantasy.
A world filled with stereotypes, like dwarves with hammers, elves with bows, and shirtless barbarians.
I love games overflowing with such clichés.
Because it’s in these games, brimming with prejudice, that my hipster instincts truly shine.
A wandering orc strength mage, a heavily armored tank archer who was once a bard, a non-violent vegan barbarian…!
I enjoy crafting builds that, at a glance, make you wonder, “Why the hell would anyone play a build like that?” and then watching them demonstrate their own unique strengths.
The thrill when my strength mage swings his long staff to brutally smash down a castle wall. The exhilaration when my archer takes a barbarian’s axe head-on while drawing his bowstring. The emotional moment when my non-violent vegan barbarian prevents a war with nothing but a grand speech…!
I don’t know how I ended up this way, but when I play games, I just can’t get immersed unless I’m accompanied by these kinds of disastrous concepts and shenanigans.
Perhaps it’s because in real life, I’m the kind of guy who went for a disastrous build myself, dropping out of high school to pursue music.
…Let’s not talk about that. It just sours the mood.
*Click.*
[Fist]
Orc / Mage.
LV 99.
[Zombie]
Dwarf / Archer.
LV 99.
[President]
Dwarf / Barbarian.
LV 99.
My precious children, raised with my love, affection, and relentless research, greet me from the character selection screen.
In Fist’s hand was this game’s end-game item for mages, which tripled the power of his spells. But that child had never once attacked anyone with magic.
Because I had dumped all his stats into Strength, he didn’t have enough Mana to learn any spells.
Fist may have the drawback of being a mage who can't use magic, but he possessed an outstanding advantage that made such a minor flaw seem invisible.
He was ridiculously hard to kill.
Acquiring passive magic like [Arcane Shield] that increases a mage's survivability doesn't require any Mana stat.
On top of that, a passive spell called ‘Spirit's Protection,’ while its acquisition is limited to a special in-game event, boasts formidable defensive capabilities without needing a separate Mana value.
Combine that with Fist’s advantage of being unable to learn magic due to his low Mana stat, and it becomes possible to invest all the surplus skill points gained from leveling up exclusively into passive magic that boosts survivability!
Didn't I say not being able to learn magic was a drawback? Well, in this world, a flaw can sometimes also be a strength.
It’s like how a bad boy’s best quality is that he’s a bad boy, and his worst quality is also that he’s a bad boy.
Anyway, whenever I create a character like this, I focus on designing a build that is as original as possible while extracting maximum efficiency from its unique traits, and then I stick to that build.
And maintaining that fine line of being ‘subtly useful yet retaining a touch of jankiness’ requires incredibly meticulous research.
Didn’t someone once say? The more bitter the struggle, the sweeter the fruit.
Watching my children, born from such research and experimentation, thrive in a world full of prejudice is the greatest joy in my life these days.
It’s a joy that those who simply follow ‘efficient’ builds created by others, raising human mages or orc barbarians, will never know.
“Hoo… let’s do this.”
And today, I plan to recreate the same kind of感動 I felt with Fist, Zombie, and President.
Because the build for my proud fourth son is finally complete.
Its name… the ‘One-Shot Mage.’
This was the result of deleting and creating tens, even hundreds of characters to test over the past four months. Countless builds came and went, but only one struck me as perfect.
[Please distribute your character’s stats.]
I moved the mouse without hesitation, distributing the character’s stats. There was no uncertainty in my hand movements.
Strength: 1
Agility: 1
Vitality: 1
Mana: 20
Luck: 1
Looking at this stat sheet, most gamers would have something to say.
Something like, ‘Hey, is this build even viable?’
You needed to put a minimum into Vitality for the character’s survival, and a little bit into Luck was also necessary to avoid getting the short end of the stick in various in-game choices or character dialogues.
So, the standard mage build was to lower the Mana stat by about 7 from here and distribute the remaining points into Luck and Vitality according to taste, but…
My One-Shot Mage needed no such thing.
Vitality and Luck? No style.
I’ve tested it hundreds of times; it works just fine without them.
[Select Class]
After distributing the stats, I chose Mage on the class selection screen without delay.
Putting 20 points into Mana and then picking Barbarian isn’t a fun build; it’s just trolling.
The 4,000 hours I’ve poured into this game won't forgive such a shallow and foolish act.
[You have selected Mage. Please select the type of magic you will use.]
In this game, mages can limit the types of magic they use during character creation.
If you set it to learn all five representative types—Fire, Wind, Water, Earth, and Lightning—you gain versatility in various situations, but at the cost of weaker individual spells.
Conversely, if you restrict yourself to learning only one type of magic, like Fire or Wind, you could erect a pillar of fire or summon a storm of incomparable power compared to a mage who can learn all five.
Thus, balancing the versatility and power of magic is another charm of creating a mage character, but… for me, who had finished all my research, there was nothing left to see on this screen.
I quickly set it so that I couldn’t learn any type of magic except Lightning.
I’ll say it again: this character’s concept is the ‘One-Shot Mage.’
To bring to life the concept of turning everything to ash in a single blow, I needed to push the power of one type of magic to its absolute limit.
There was no hesitation in the subsequent race selection either.
[Please select a race.]
‣ [Human]
Humans have a harder time getting through the early game than other races, but their late-game potential is outstanding.
I did experiment with choosing Orc as the character's race to compensate for the pitifully low Vitality, but… the late-game progression felt a bit more stifling compared to humans.
If someone were to ask me later if they could copy this build…
Well, Orc, which compensates for weak Vitality and Strength, is a decent choice. If you want an easier early game, I’d tell them that choosing Orc here is one way to go.
Of course, I’m going with Human.
[Please select a background.]
[Royalty]
[Noble]
[Commoner]
[Serf]
[Urchin]
No room for debate here, either. My mouse shot toward the Urchin option without a moment’s thought.
Being born a high-status human lets you start with decent gear, but your innate critical hit chance is relatively low.
Based on my chosen Luck stat of 1, it was a mere 1 percent, which was a significant penalty in situations that required a combat-focused approach.
However, being born a low-status human meant starting with poor gear and in a harsh environment, but your critical hit chance increases. With a Luck of 1, it’s a whopping 20 percent.
On top of that, starting the game as an Urchin grants you the [Composed] trait as a bonus, which allows you to remain calm in any situation. For a physically weak mage vulnerable to various status effects, this trait is an absolute must-have.
There’s a reason the standard start for rogue classes is [Urchin].
They need critical hit chance more than anything else since they rely on crits for damage, and they absolutely must have the [Composed] trait to prevent their stealth skill from breaking when hit by a monster’s area-of-effect fear.
[Please choose the spells you will use.]
“…Lock Bolt, lock Lightning Strike, lock Charging Light… lock Arcane Shield too…”
My mouse began to lock the various spells in the Lightning tree at an unprecedented speed.
The act of locking a spell worked on the same mechanism as reducing the types of magic you could use.
Within the Lightning school, reducing the number of usable Lightning spells increases the power of the remaining ones.
I ended up locking every single skill in the Lightning skill tree except for one.
[Blooming]
[Exhausts all mana stored in the body to enter a transcendent state for 5 minutes. Immediately after using this skill, the character becomes incapacitated by a status effect for a set period. Use is limited to once per day.]
The crown jewel of lightning mages! Blooming!
It’s a spell where a mage compresses and unleashes all the mana in their body over a short period of five minutes.
Depending on the amount of mana stored in the character’s body, this spell has the potential to obliterate even the final boss of the game with a single gesture—it’s the most broken spell in the game.
Of course, this skill doesn’t only have advantages.
Given its nature of expending all mana and inflicting a status effect after the duration ends, you had to be very careful about when you used it.
If you timed it wrong, you could end up watching your character take a nice nap on the battlefield while the fighting is still raging.
And since its use is limited to once a day, it’s awkward to use against trash mobs.
…No, actually, it’s easier to just think of it as unusable against trash mobs.
That’s why most standard mages either don’t take this skill or just put a single point into it as a last resort.
Standard mages, that is.
[Blooming LV 40]
I locked away all types of magic except for Lightning. As if that wasn’t enough, I also locked every single spell in the Lightning magic tree.
All except for one spell, [Blooming].
As a result of shouldering so many demerits, a staggering 120 skill points appeared in my skill window.
I dumped this massive amount of skill points into Blooming without a shred of hesitation, and the result was the birth of a grotesque anomaly: a level 1 character with a level 40 spell.
‘…Perfect!’
The ‘One-Shot Mage’ may have the drawback of only being able to use one spell, but in return, he has the advantage of being able to use one incredible spell.
Most mages pick and choose from various spells to deal with trash mobs. But for my ‘One-Shot Mage,’ such an option doesn’t exist! Because all those versatile, minor spells are ‘locked’!
This is all thanks to limiting the usable spells to just [Blooming].
Since he can’t use magic against trash mobs, his body will, like it or not, steadily accumulate mana without a single drop being wasted.
The [Blooming] used by a ‘One-Shot Mage’ who has meticulously stored mana in his body will exhibit an output incomparable to the [Blooming] used by ordinary mages.
This is because the power of the [Blooming] spell is proportional to the mana stored in the mage’s body.
It would be an insult to even compare him to mages who waste their mana on trivial things like clearing trash mobs.
You could see it as another example of a drawback also being an advantage.
At this point, some might ask, ‘Then how do you deal with the trash mobs coming for your neck? You can’t use normal spells.’
Trash mobs are certainly a major obstacle for the One-Shot Mage.
With both Vitality and Strength stats close to rock bottom, I can’t use the method of just swinging a staff to pulp them like Fist. On top of that, since I chose the humble [Urchin] background, I can’t completely rely on high-level mercenaries that characters with the [Noble] background start with.
…Well, I intend to present the solution to such obstacles through my gameplay. Just watch closely as I overcome these numerous flaws and give birth to a great archmage.
[Please set your character’s name.]
[Han Bang]
My surname is Han, and my given name is Bang.
A name so upright and pure, imbued with the strong will to obliterate whatever stands before me in a single blow…!
It ended up being a very Eastern-sounding name, not quite fitting for a medieval fantasy setting, but I didn’t care.
Character nicknames weren’t that important anyway. The proof is that my first son’s name is ‘Fist,’ my second is ‘Zombie,’ and my third is ‘President.’
I smiled happily as I looked at my proud fourth son’s face and pressed the game start button.
[Welcome, Han Bang.
This world is suffering under demons that have crawled up from hell, the Mazoku born from them, and the creatures that have been turned into monsters by the Mazoku.
Your mission is to save those who suffer…]
As soon as I hit the start button, the bland and cliché story explanation typical of medieval fantasy games began.
[The dwarves, humans, orcs, and elves have all temporarily ceased their conflicts to form a united army to stand against the demons…]
As the background stories, so cliché they were now almost impressive, flashed by one by one.
[We need your help.]
*Thud.*
My consciousness faded.