Level 80

I hit the gacha button.

The smartphone screen blazed with brilliant light. With a single pull, I claimed the character I wanted.

A character you could get for a few hundred thousand won with real money. …Hmm. Looking at it that way, I took a loss spending ten points on this.

I smiled contentedly at the character, then opened a different game.

WarBlood.

The most notoriously predatory cash-grab game in all of Korea — and simultaneously the game most beloved by middle-aged Korean men. Not my kind of game, but I was playing it because of the Amusement Life app. You never knew. I might end up entering this game's world someday.

My in-game character headed straight for the blacksmith. Of all the systems in this game, the two that mattered most were the gacha and enhancement. I intended to enhance.

Time to enhance the Knight King's Sword (+6) I bought for six million won.

WarBlood was so absurd that starting from enhancement level three, a failed enhancement destroyed the item. To protect it, you had to buy a separate Enhancement Destruction Prevention Ticket for 9,900 won. WarBlood was a game that got absolutely roasted for its outrageous monetization.

A notification window popped up above the chat. In this game, enhancement was a form of entertainment content in its own right.

Nearly three thousand spectators had gathered. I pulled up one corner of my mouth. With the crowd reacting like this, enhancing actually felt good.

"Let's go!"

With Heaven's Luck on my side, the only outcome was success.

"Wait — three points? Not one?"

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I was briefly thrown by the unexpected cost, but it wasn't that strange. Even at the same probability, a pretty-girl gacha game and this game's enhancement system were different beasts. WarBlood was also a more mainstream title.

Same odds, different value.

I hesitated over the triple point cost, then spent them anyway — partly as an experiment. Three points was manageable. That was three random summons' worth, sure, but I could handle it.

Eight more times should do it.

Correct. From +7 onward, destruction prevention tickets no longer worked. And according to the official notice, the enhancement success rate was three percent. Three percent might sound doable — but this wasn't a gacha. A ten-million-won item could evaporate in an instant.

While I'm at it, pushing all the way to the final stage — +9 — and writing a legend wouldn't be half bad.

I prepared the item for enhancement.

…What the hell?

I activated Heaven's Luck again.

"……."

My face twisted. I hadn't done anything wrong. And yet it kept saying the activation conditions weren't met…

There's no probability to begin with?

I dug through the internet, searching for recent cases of successful +8 enhancements. Roughly two weeks ago. The person who succeeded was the master of a famous guild.

Something's off.

I dug up the guild master's personal information and confirmed it: a relative of his was one of the WarBlood operators. And the game's enhancement probability was locked starting from +8. You could attempt +8, but the success rate was zero percent. It was rigged so that failure was the only outcome.

…These sons of bitches.

Even without any affection for this game, as a gamer my blood boiled.

This garbage can burn for all I care.

As of today, I was quitting this game.

As a farewell gift, I hacked the game and locked the enhancement probability at one hundred percent. I also stripped every operator of their privileges. To stop the game, they'd have to physically shut down the servers.

In the meantime, players who notice the bug will start enhancing like crazy.

+9 items would sprout up like weeds, and the game would be utterly wrecked. Server rollback? I'd already tampered with the data. There was no stopping this game's demise.

Hah. Just like that, another long-running game bites the dust.

When the conditions were right, Hacking was an absurdly terrifying skill.

Next up was the Acceleration skill.

The stack cap had been five before; now it was seven. It felt minor on paper, but experiencing it firsthand would make a considerable difference. Charna was a skill I used frequently, after all.

Next: stats.

Damn. Clean as hell.

Every single stat at one hundred. Intelligence — previously the lowest — had risen by eight to hit the century mark. I'd half expected some special event to trigger, but nothing happened.

I left the points unspent. For probability skills, Random Summon, and the like, it was better to keep a certain reserve of points on hand.

There might come a time when I need to buy something from the shop in a hurry.

After this whole affair, stockpiling emergency points didn't seem like a bad idea either.

Next up is Pygmalion's Love. This one…

Pygmalion… that's the guy from Greek mythology. The one who fell in love with a sculpture he made, right?

The statue was brought to life by divine power, and Pygmalion lived happily ever after with it.

So this is the power to turn a figure into a human.

I glanced around. There were no figures in my house. Even if there had been, I had no intention of using it right away, so I moved on.

This is a new feature. Penalties already existed, but… so the harsher the penalty, the greater the advantage you receive?

My body itched with anticipation. I wanted to use this feature right now.

To do that, I'd need to pick an Amusement first… and I still haven't decided. The next Amusement… I'll need to think on it.

An Amusement was an Amusement. I would choose the next world solely for my own entertainment.

The following afternoon.

After deep deliberation, I selected the Amusement I would begin anew.

Dark Moon.

An open-world game that had been popular in the Vampire Detective world. It ran on future-generation computers, with a base file size of a staggering three terabytes.

Playing as a mage was the most fun I ever had in that game. In this world, I'm going to be a mage.

After reviewing the three avatar configurations, I made my choice immediately.

Yujin Frontier held a noble title, but his ceiling was clear. Thirty-one years old and a 3-Class ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Steel Mage.

The open-world game Dark Moon ranked players by class according to level.

Dark Moon had levels.

1-Class spanned Level 1 through Level 9. 2-Class covered 10 through 19. 3-Class went from 20 to 29.

By the game's own standards, 3-Class is above average… but I can't settle for just that.

Yu Jin possessed Grade 7 physical ability. "Unawakened" meant the talent hadn't fully bloomed yet.

Physical ability is a non-starter. I'm going as a mage this time.

That left option two: Nameless. Being slave-born, having no name wasn't unusual.

Grade 7 is the threshold of the superhuman — and this one has Grade 9 Mana Affinity, an absurd talent. There's only one choice.

Being born a slave didn't sit well with me, but status could be overcome. With Grade 9 Mana Affinity, failing to rise would be the stranger outcome.

I've got one penalty in mind already. Stat non-application.

A penalty that prevented the Amusement Life app's stats from applying! An enormous handicap that stripped away my superhuman physical capabilities.

In exchange, I want magical talent.

That's not what I asked for. Wait — does Intelligence influence magical talent?

The Amusement Life app offered no answer. It wasn't as accommodating as the system in God's Atlantis. But I was one hundred percent certain that Intelligence affected magic. After all, among a mage's stats in the game, Intelligence was the most critical. Spell power, efficiency, casting speed — everything magical was governed by Intelligence.

The problem was…

I have to give up Virility?

I squeezed my eyes shut.

……It's fine. There are plenty of ways to raise Virility in an Amusement world. There'll be magic for that too.

This alone still felt lacking. I typed out another penalty I'd been mulling over.

Grade 13 Mana Affinity. Anything above Grade 10 was beyond transcendence itself.

…As pure mage talent, it's insane — but the penalty is way too severe. This world is more dangerous than reality. Without my memories, I could die the moment I start.

Dropped by one grade. Grade 13 is dangling right in front of me. Hard to let go. What if I add another penalty? Give up every talent except magic in exchange for Grade 13 Mana Affinity.

Shit. The avatar's base is already me.

Meaning the baseline talent was already garbage. Setting that as a penalty was naturally impossible. And I sure as hell didn't want a penalty that turned me into an idiot.

……Can I use Selective Divine Blessing?

True to its nature as a game, Dark Moon had gods.

This was a reward from the "Religious Unification" achievement, earned after witnessing the ending of the Level-Up System.

Looks like I can use it. I'll take the blessing of the ancient god Meltes.

In Dark Moon, the ancient gods were, by lore, forgotten deities that had existed in the past. But in the late game, it was revealed that they actually still existed.

Meltes was the god of magic.

The "maximum blessing" described in Selective Divine Blessing. This was more than enough to earn that title.

Heh. A once-in-a-generation broken character has been born.

Cough.

I opened my eyes with a dry cough and reflexively pushed myself upright. My stomach felt heavy and bloated. It wasn't indigestion. Something else filled my body completely.

But what tormented me more was my head. My memories were a jumbled mess.

"You've finally opened your eyes. Start by gathering your mana, Unit 211."

A man seated beside the bed spoke in a cold tone. Draped in a white coat, he looked like a doctor.

Despite my confusion, I followed his instructions and gathered my mana. How to do it rose naturally in my mind.

…Why are my memories like this? I'm Seong Yujin, an F-Class hunter from Korea… but also Unit 211, a slave from the Freesel Kingdom…?

From among the memories sunk beneath the surface of a dark sea, a single piece of driftwood floated up.

Dark Moon.

This world was the world inside a game called Dark Moon. My current configuration closely resembled a character setup selectable at the start of Dark Moon.

In other words — I had fallen into a game world.