The 500,000-Hour Grind
Rumble!
With a colossal roar, the ground collapsed, and countless bolts of lightning rained down from the heavens.
"How dare you! To me, the great Mamon!"
As the giant Demon God Mamon roared in fury, a crimson flash erupted in all directions from his massive body.
"Whoops."
But the player standing alone against the Demon God, clad in the Goddess's Sacred Armor—"Slender Forearms"—showed no reaction. Even though an all-encompassing attack of devastating power had just unfolded, he simply stood at a point just out of reach, completely evading all damage.
Cooldown of Goddess's Wrath: 0
"Goddess's Wrath."
With an indifferent face, he cast the ultimate attack spell toward Mamon.
Rumble!
At that moment, the sky split open, and the Goddess appeared with a face full of rage. As she pointed at Mamon, a holy blue light poured down upon him.
"Graaaagh!"
No matter how powerful the Demon God was, he couldn't withstand the attack of a Goddess twice his size. The blue light pouring from the sky spread in all directions, kicking up a massive cloud of dust.
"Ragna Buster. Flare Blast. Ice Prominence."
Simultaneously, three of the strongest elemental spells exploded against Mamon.
"Raaaargh! Such immense power!"
"Can we please just end this already?"
With his cloak fluttering in the wind, Slender Forearms dashed toward Mamon.
"Goddess's Slash."
Amidst the downpour of the Goddess's Wrath, he unleashed Goddess's Slash, a skill he had optimized after discovering a damage-stacking bug.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
With a deafening roar, a blinding barrage of flashes erupted from the Holy Sword Gae Bolg in his hands.
"Aaaaaargh!"
Under that overwhelming might, not only the Demon God Mamon but the entire surrounding area was utterly obliterated.
Cooldown of Goddess's Wrath: 0
Once again, the cooldown of his strongest skill ended.
"Goddess's Wrath."
Intending to finally put an end to this, Slender Forearms summoned the Goddess once more with a blank expression.
Rumble!
"Aaaaargh!"
As the Goddess revealed herself in the sky and unleashed her holy wrath once more, even the Demon God Mamon could no longer endure and collapsed.
"I will never vanish...! Aaaaargh...!"
Along with that final scream...
"...Yeah, yeah. I lost count of how many times you've said that."
Slender Forearms let out a heavy, weary sigh.
Defeat Mamon (Ultra Hard)
📍 Progress: 1,000 / 1,000 (Completed)
🎁 Reward: Mamon's Grace
All experience points and rewards are now multiplied by 300%.
At the sound of the voice, he let out another empty sigh.
At those words, Slender Forearms dropped the Holy Sword Gae Bolg to the ground.
"Dammit!"
1. The Ill-Fated Player
The legendary player who had saved the world from the Demon God Mamon a thousand times—Slender Forearms!
"I can't take this anymore! I'm done! I'm quitting!"
Though he had finally reached the maximum level, he didn't look happy at all.
"500,000 hours of continuous play! 500,000 hours!"
Instead, he clutched his head in agony, looking completely broken.
"I should have just sold it! I never should have played this!"
He rolled around on the ground, throwing a temper tantrum like a spoiled child. It was a sight hard to associate with the legendary hero who had saved the world a thousand times.
"...Well, there's nothing left to do anyway."
But seeing the tears streaming down his face, it was clear this wasn't just a simple tantrum.
"I should have just sold it! I hate games...!"
Letting out a blood-curdling cry, Slender Forearms shut his mouth tight, as if about to burst from sheer frustration.
His real name was Lim Yunjae.
He was a timid, introverted twenty-year-old youth who had never cared about games.
But now, after being "forced" to play continuously for 500,000 hours, he was chronologically seventy-seven years old!
"Sigh..."
He had spent the vast majority of his life trapped inside a game.
If there was one thing he regretted to the point of madness, it was not selling the state-of-the-art console he had won in a raffle on a secondhand market.
Being naturally introverted and timid, he hadn't wanted to deal with online transactions, nor did he particularly care for games.
But since he had it, he figured he might as well try it out, and bought a game called Mamon Saga.
"I only planned to play for thirty minutes a day..."
That was his plan before starting.
Even when his friends constantly talked and sang about games, he had never shown any interest.
The problem was...
"It turned into 500,000 hours."
The moment he logged into the game, some bizarre anomaly must have occurred in the real world. A massive shockwave swept over him, and when he opened his eyes, he was no longer in reality. He was inside the world of Mamon Saga.
Since then, his playtime had surpassed 500,000 hours.
He had been playing this game for approximately fifty-seven years.
"There's literally nothing left to do."
There was no way out, and he couldn't even interact with other people.
There were humans in this world, but they were all NPCs who only moved according to their programming and repeated the same pre-set lines.
So, when he realized there was no escape, he poured all his focus into quests and leveling up just to keep from losing his mind.
Fortunately—or unfortunately—leveling up in Mamon Saga was the ultimate, mind-numbing grind. Especially right before the final level, the experience bar barely budged, enough to make anyone swear.
Defeating Mamon, the final boss and a forty-player raid monster, granted a measly 0.1% experience!
To level up, Yunjae had to defeat Mamon a thousand times. To accomplish that alone, he had to master every single bug in the game, collect every rare item, and perfect his skill trees and classes.
"Ugh!"
It took him three days just to defeat Mamon once by himself.
In other words, he had spent nearly ten years solely on hunting Mamon.
If you factored in the travel time, he had invested even more than that just on the final boss.
Of course, as a result, he became a specialist in hunting Mamon and completed the absurdly difficult quest to defeat him a thousand times.
But even while doing so, a deep anxiety had been gnawing at him...
"What am I supposed to do now?! Seriously!"
Once he reached the maximum level, there would be absolutely nothing left for him to do in Mamon Saga.
He was the sole player and the strongest entity in this world.
He was the legendary hero, Slender Forearms, praised by every NPC...
"I want to do something else! I hate this game!"
And if there was one thing he truly despised...
"I only named it that for fun!"
It was the username floating above his head: "Slender Forearms".
Of course, he was the one who had created it. Like most people, he had just made a joke name to be funny since it was just a game character. But who could have guessed he would be called by that name for fifty-seven years?
He had reached a point where he occasionally forgot his real name was Lim Yunjae!
"Aaaaargh!"
He had only wanted to play for thirty minutes a day as a hobby. Who could have known he would end up playing for fifty-seven years?
"I can't take this anymore! I'm going to destroy everything! All of it!"
Being trapped in a world with nothing left to do was too much to bear, even for someone as famously gentle as him.
Reaching the max level seemed to have snapped his last thread of sanity.
"Aaaaargh!"
Throwing a tantrum, Yunjae stood up and gripped the Holy Sword Gae Bolg.
"Let's all disappear together! Everyone!"
He began to spam his skills.
"Goddess's Wrath!"
Intending to blow up the entire world, he unleashed his ultimate skill.
Rumble!
A Goddess reflecting his fury appeared in the sky and began to lay waste to the fields of Mamon Saga.
"Everything! Disappear! Just be gone!"
Looking half-mad, Yunjae swung Gae Bolg, unleashing every skill he had mastered over the decades.
Boom!
The world is falling into chaos, Slender Forearms!
"Ah! Who are you calling Slender Forearms?! My name is Lim Yunjae!"
His thin forearms had always been his biggest complex in real life, and now it was being used as his permanent name!
"Goddess's Slash!"
Even though he was the one who had chosen it, he couldn't stand it anymore. Fuelled by rage, he unleashed his damage-stacking skill.
Rumble!
At that moment, the entire world began to shake.
Slender Forearms, do you intend to destroy the world?
"Ah?!"
This was the first time such a thing had happened in his 500,000 hours of playtime.
Yunjae was momentarily taken aback.
"I'm going to smash everything! I'm not staying here, and this place won't exist either! Let's just all die together!"
But his patience had already reached its absolute limit.
He had survived fifty-seven years alone among doll-like NPCs. It was a miracle he was even semi-sane.
"That is unacceptable, though I do understand your feelings."
Suddenly, an unexpected voice echoed.
"I only wanted to play as a hobby! I would have gotten bored in less than a week! But 500,000 hours have passed!"
Naturally gentle and far from aggressive, he cried out, his voice cracking with tears.
As soon as his shout echoed...
Hum!
"Huh?"
A massive purple portal emitting a soft glow opened right in front of him.
"Consider this your reward for saving the world a thousand times."
The voice spoke coolly, as if telling him to just get lost.
"Ah?!"
Yunjae immediately stopped his onslaught.
"Could it be... a return portal?"
He had assumed it was just another in-game prompt, but apparently, it wasn't.
Realizing that some transcendent being who had been watching him all this time had finally opened a path, he felt a sudden surge of emotion.
"If you had something like this, you should have opened it sooner!"
The voice replied casually.
"You never really said you wanted to go back."
"Ah! How could you!"
If he had known, he would have thrown a tantrum much earlier!
"In any case, you had better go before the portal closes, Slender Forearms!"
At those words, Yunjae nodded with a resolute expression. There was no way he was staying.
"You told me way too late, but... thank you anyway! Goodbye!"
Because he was naturally timid, introverted, and gentle, he quickly switched from throwing a tantrum to offering a polite, sweet farewell.
'Yes, I'm finally going back!'
But fifty-seven years had passed. What if the same amount of time had passed in his original world?
"Wait, does that mean I'm in my seventies now just from playing a game?"
A sudden wave of anger washed over him, and he clutched the back of his neck.
He had only wanted to play as a hobby. He hadn't even enjoyed it, and yet he had thrown his entire life away for a game!
The portal will close in 10 seconds.
"Ah!"
But he didn't have time to dwell on it.
Deciding that dying as an ordinary seventy-year-old was infinitely better than being trapped here forever, Yunjae boldly leaped into the portal.
'Yes! I'd rather die as a lonely old man than live as a game character!'
Desperate to never see another video game again, he surrendered his body to the blinding light of the portal.
Flash!
A brilliant light enveloped him, just like the dimensional travel he had experienced countless times before.
Loading...
He flinched instinctively.
"Ah! Why is there a loading screen for going back to reality?!"
Sensing that something was terribly wrong, Yunjae shouted, but no answer came.
"What in the world..."
But there was nothing he could do now. He could only pray that once the loading finished, the reality he remembered would unfold before him.
Loading complete.
Flash!
The light flared once more.
"Ah!"
Instead of the familiar fields of Mamon Saga, the long-lost, deeply missed modern city revealed itself.
"I'm finally back! Finally!"
A return after fifty-seven years! Yunjae shouted, tears of overwhelming emotion streaming down his face.
Screeech!
At that exact moment...
"Ah!"
A black-tailed monster leaped out from the middle of the city!
"...Why is that here?"
Since it was a monster he knew all too well, Yunjae stared at the Black-Tailed Monster with a deeply bewildered expression.
"You're a mob from the beginner fields!"
Screeech!
Ignoring his words, the Black-Tailed Monster lunged forward to attack him.
MISS! MISS! MISS! MISS!
But there was no way a max-level player like him would ever get hit by a beginner-level monster.
"What is going on? Why? Just why?"
Screeech!
Paying no mind to the monster's futile attacks, Yunjae looked around blankly.
"Why is the world like this? Did things change while I was gone?"
Right at that moment...
"Hey! Who are you!"
A woman holding a pistol equipped with a laser pointer appeared and aimed her weapon at him.
"Huh? Me?"
Seeing Yunjae look back at her with wide, startled eyes, she momentarily froze.
'How can someone look so beautiful? Is that a guy?'
"A monster?"
She noticed the Black-Tailed Monster.