The Crimson Truth

To the viewers, Bulldog was not a particularly lucky player.

A 5-star class for eighteen billion won. You could already guess from that alone, but his misfortune didn't end there. The 1-star SS had cost him 140 million won. At a thousand won a roll, that came out to 140,000 spins. The expected rate for an SS was 0.01 percent, so by expected value that was nearly enough money to land fourteen of them. Of course, that didn't mean he'd burned the whole sum just to see a single SS. He'd hit SS six times in all, and every one of them had been an option he didn't want, so in the end he'd spent 140 million to pull the one he was after.

People laughed. Nothing in the world is prettier to watch than someone else's money pouring down the drain. And even the option itself was a little off.

"Huh? Why's the number like this?"

The first to feel that something was wrong could only be Bulldog himself. It was an option he'd turned over in his head countless times while he rolled; he was supposed to catch the wrongness the instant he saw it.

"Wasn't special-condition damage supposed to be 105 percent?"

Differences in the numbers exist according to grade. If a 4-star class rolled the same option, the value could come out lower than a 5-star's; a 3-star would sit lower than that, and a 2-star lower still. So that, in itself, wasn't strange.

From the start—ever since the Dragon Words Mage appeared and every scrap of information went public—players had been saying the same thing with one voice. The gap between 5-star and 4-star was heaven and earth. Looking at values that differed by nearly one and a half times, and as much as double, you couldn't help concluding the game was built so that you had to pull a 5-star. Wasn't that why so many users were throwing away everything they'd raised and gambling on a 5-star pull?

Bulldog was no different. Rankers at the very top are sensitive to even a one percent difference in damage. They'll burn hundreds of millions swapping gear just to squeeze out one percent more DPS, and if it's for growth, there's no sum they won't spend. And the gap between 4-star and 5-star ran into the tens of percent? Even out of pure spite, you either dumped your entire fortune into pulling a 5-star, or you quit. Those were the only two choices left.

Bulldog had broken through that wall and succeeded. He'd spent his money happily, picturing nothing but a rose-colored future. And now it was 88 percent.

Compared with a 4-star, it was higher, sure. A 4-star's damage increase sat in the sixties, so if you figured it as a gain of twenty-something percent, that alone was worth grinding away two years of your life. But a game is relative. Why had he torn his class down in the first place? Because he didn't want to feel a glass ceiling among the very best. If he pulled a 5-star and was still twenty-something percent behind other 5-stars, what meaning did any of it have? Was he supposed to celebrate that the gap had shrunk from forty percent to twenty? Not a chance.

"It's a bug, right?"

"No, that doesn't even—"

Bulldog's mouth was rough, but he was a Haven veteran. From launch until now he'd spent a considerable fortune, and he hadn't merely thrown money at the game—he'd devoured every kind of information and played with a system of his own. A user like that knew. He knew this game had no bugs. Everything ran exactly as Windy had designed it, and in two actual years there had never once been a patch or a bug fix. He also knew perfectly well that a difference in numbers like this was the same thing as a difference in grade. That was precisely why he couldn't understand it.

"No. Why are the numbers different when they're the same 5-star?"

The viewers' assorted theories failed to convince him. A bug? In the end, that was still the only answer with any real chance of being right. And so Bulldog had to settle the question.

"I'll roll it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠again."

Fortunately, pulling the option didn't take long this time. It was a mana-reduction option.

"Agh, fuck!!! Why is it like this!"

It wasn't a damage option, but it was certainty enough that he didn't need to roll any further. This wasn't a bug. This was design.

Viewers who meant it. Viewers needling him, nice and slow, just to get a rise. Caught between the two, Bulldog couldn't master his feelings. After raging, he barely pulled himself together and steadied his breath.

"Hah. I'll pull the damage one again first. I have to confirm it myself."

As the viewers said, it was possible the innate-option values were low because the base skill coefficients were simply that high. He thought it was more likely they were wrong, but Haven was a game where you knew nothing until you saw it with your own eyes. Even calling them a sample, there were only two 5-star classes, so he couldn't be certain either. And so he spent another 200 million and only just got back to the first option.

"God fucking damn it. The griefing is insane. You bastards."

The anger he'd barely swallowed burst out again the moment he realized nearly 400 million had gone into a single 1-star SS option.

Still seething, Bulldog rolled straight through to the 2-star option.

"The 2-star will be different. I'm going in to snipe the special option."

A single post went up on the community boards and climbed into the popular posts.

A post under that title was translated and circulated through the Haven community of every country, hot enough to climb the ranks wherever it landed. What drew people in even more was that this was one of the four 5-star class holders who had been wrapped in a veil. The welcome was not warm. When so many requests had poured in begging for information on 5-stars, he'd clenched his jaw and ignored every one of them. And now? Now that the information was coming out one piece at a time? Plenty of people clicked the post simply to see what he intended to say.

It wasn't something he particularly needed to apologize for, but perhaps he feared the public's outcry; Berry began with an apology. Of course, the contents didn't especially feel like an apology. They were closer to an excuse. And then came the real point.

What Berry was saying was clear.

A shocking fact was made public through the community.

Berry wrote out the many reasons behind that conclusion. Just a few among those many reasons were enough to give the post credibility.

Berry revealed that he had heard the origin of the name Root Class from an NPC.

The post spread quickly across the entire world.