Prologue: That One Game
Doesn't every gamer have at least one game they poured their entire life into?
For me, that game was this one.
Tales of Sword & Magic.
Shortened to "SwordMai." The only real downside was that the abbreviation sounded a little lame.
It was an open-world, multi-ending masterpiece packed with the kind of freedom and countless branching stories you'd usually only find in web novels. When it first launched, it was so popular it practically flipped the entire gaming world on its head.
Countless builds to raise your character exactly how you wanted. Hidden pieces tucked away in every corner of the map. Distinctive, unforgettable heroines. And more hidden endings than anyone could reasonably count.
Just listing the positives was enough to make any gamer's heart race. It was the undisputed god-tier masterpiece of the universe. And I was one of the players completely enchanted by it.
Of course, ten years had passed since then. Plenty of newer games had come along that surpassed it in many ways. Even so, this was still the one I loved most.
“So what now?”
Everything in the world eventually reaches its end. After ten years with a single game, there simply wasn't anything left to discover. All that remained was the endless repetition of the same routines, like some kind of mundane daily chore.
Today, as always, I launched the game purely out of habit.
“Whoa… five thousand cumulative runs. I really am insane.”
The moment I pressed the create button for that monumental five-thousandth character, a blinding light exploded out of my computer.
I thought I was finally getting possessed into the game.
Honestly, I’d been a little excited. When a blinding flash bursts from your monitor right after you create your five-thousandth character, what else is there to expect? But sadly, this rotten world wasn’t nearly that generous with me.
When I looked around, all I saw was a skeletal forest stripped of every leaf and an old, weathered cabin standing inexplicably in the middle of it. The structure looked familiar. I knew exactly what it was.
“This is… the Guide’s Cabin, isn’t it?”
A hidden piece among hidden pieces. A sanctuary that offered guidance to players who had lost their way during the main story. Its official name was the Guide’s Room.
“No way. You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I rushed over to the cabin window and peered at my own reflection. Just as I feared, a familiar face stared back.
Dull golden-blond hair and a pair of narrow, squinty eyes—one of the rarest character types in the entire game. The entity who explained the main storyline to lost players inside the Guide’s Room.
Hint.
It wasn’t a joke. The name really was Hint.
A character so obscure that even most dedicated players barely knew about him. An extra so insignificant the developers had clearly thrown him together as an afterthought.
“Sigh… and after five thousand playthroughs, too.”
Only then did I notice how strangely polite and detached my own speech sounded.
“This is… Hint’s speech pattern, isn’t it?”
God damn it.
It seemed I had entered the game world possessing the body of the Guide—Hint.
“Still, since I’ve come to another world, there should be something here for me, right?”
I quickly stepped inside the cabin. A small desk sat in the center of the room. On top of it rested a single note.
“A note?”
I picked it up and read the words written there.
May your story be a beautiful one.
“Hmm, what does this even mea— AAAAAAAGH?!”
An excruciating pain tore through my skull as if my brain were being split in two. Then, everything went dark.