March 31st (End)

Suddenly, one game caught my eye.

Ah… this game. I remembered it.

Back when I was a kid, the gaming magazines had hyped it with taglines like "a true classic RPG masterpiece." Leveling was brutal, and the combat system, dialogue, and quest resolution were all supposedly built on a famous TRPG rulebook — famous everywhere except Korea, that is.

The first time I tried it, the complexity nearly broke my brain. But once it hooked me, nothing else came close. The storyline was gripping, the freedom of choice absurdly high; more than once it left me genuinely awestruck. More than anything, the quests shifted depending on your values, your class, and the choices you made — no other game had ever made clearing quests feel that rewarding.

Back then, picking different dialogue options and watching completely different outcomes unfold had blown my mind. Looking back, you could call it a game ahead of its time. The only catch was having to swap between five or six CDs, which had been an absolute nightmare…

Hold on. How had I even played this one again? I think the remastered version dropped on Team X, and the last time I touched it was maybe eight years ago…

Huuuh—! Only thirty seconds left!

There was no room left to choose. In a panic, pure instinct took over — I jerked the mouse, clicked Dragon Gate RPG, and dragged it straight into the list on the right.

The instant I did… the screen snapped back to the original desktop.

That same blood-boiling tone of text materialized beside the computer again. I didn't even have time to get mad about it — because suddenly, right there on the desktop, a graphic of a lottery machine appeared. An insanely familiar one.

"This is… identical to the Mega Lotto drawing machine."

Yeah. The machine they used for the Mega Lotto draws — match six numbers, hit first place, walk away with at least a few hundred million (after the taxman carved out his generous share, of course) — had been copied almost one-to-one onto my desktop. The balls inside didn't have numbers, though. They had writing. And off to the right of the graphic sat a round button, practically begging to be clicked.

This thing was genuinely pissing me off. I had to do this myself too!?

A surge of spite hit me. I slammed the click so hard I nearly murdered my cheap mouse.

Click!

Wheeeeeeeeee—!

Complete with sound effects, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the lottery machine on the desktop spun up in a full animation sequence.

Thump. Thump…!

Something was wrong with my heart. Hang in there, buddy!

No — it wasn't that. Some strange, uninvited anticipation was yanking my heartbeat around on its own. Why? That last game I'd picked kept snagging on my thoughts. That classic RPG wouldn't leave me alone.

Why did I have this gut feeling that the game I'd chosen last was the one that would come up?

I'd been in such a rush I couldn't even remember exactly which game it was. Still — it was a proper classic RPG. If I just reviewed the rulebook and the system again, the rest would come flooding back. It had left that deep an impression when I was a kid…

Ah — it dropped!

Clunk!

That pounding in my chest had a way of becoming reality.

"Wha…"

As if it were fate itself.

Eleven-ten at night — roughly fifty minutes before the end of the world.

I had been promised a set of stats and a system different from everyone else's.

Clackclackclackclackclack!

I hammered the keyboard like a madman. The chat window, as if its business with me were finished, left one last farewell and vanished from in front of my eyes.

The clock on the computer was telling me how little time remained until the end.

First things first — I searched for information on Dragon Gate RPG.

I remembered it was a game more than twenty years old. The last time I'd played it had been ages ago; I'd need to look over the systems again before any of it came back.

Let's see… ah, someone had even built a Dragon Gate RPG wiki! Wait — I'd used this site for guides years ago. It was still running?

Buoyed by anticipation, I clicked the link. And immediately regretted it.

"Holy shit, there's so much of it!"

It was obsessively, meticulously ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠detailed. Main entries and sub-entries beyond counting on my fingers. Dozens of main classes and subclasses, hundreds of NPCs, monsters and enemies broken down with microscopic precision. And dungeons on top of that!

Goddammit! My eyes were going to spin out of my head!

Okay — cut everything I don't need. Dungeons, quests — no reason to look at those. Same for NPCs. What I'd be receiving were the stats of a character I built.

So… classes. I needed the classes!

Fortunately, Dragon Gate RPG wasn't wildly different from other RPGs.

Whew. True to its TRPG rulebook roots, the basics were clean and simple. Good. The subclasses were annoyingly complicated, but as long as I had the fundamental framework down, I'd be fine!

…Wait. Something just hit me.

When the end came… ninety percent of humanity was supposed to die. So… water, electricity — those wouldn't keep running smoothly, would they!? Don't tell me everything cuts out the second it starts?

The water utility might keep flowing for a while even if the system went down, structurally speaking… but electricity? No way. Especially this computer — this desktop! The second ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the power went, it was dead!

I tore through the drawers in a frenzy. Please, please… yes!

A small notebook and a single ballpoint pen. Freebies I'd gotten years ago in front of the university and then stuffed away and forgotten. These days, when did anyone even need writing tools? Almost everything got handled on a phone or a computer.

Copying the entire wiki was absolutely impossible on this timeline. Maybe if I'd had some kind of speed-writing skill — but even in college I'd taken notes on a laptop (which I no longer had). At minimum, I had to get character stats, classes, and the abilities for each class down in the notebook, even if only in rough form.

Alright — classes first…

Oho. Looking at the class entries, the memories were starting to come back. Twenty-nine years of living as a gaming shut-in hadn't been a total waste after all.

Dragon Gate RPG was a game that followed classical TRPG rules with almost religious fidelity. Which meant that if you picked something without knowing the rules, you could be in for a world of pain.

Take an example. The classes listed right now were Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Cleric, and Musician. Most people would go for the simple-looking melee options — Warrior or Rogue. Next most popular would be Mage, since it was an RPG and people wanted flashy magic.

Warrior and Rogue weren't all that different from other games. No skills early on, but generous weapon and armor restrictions. In classic RPGs, though, Mages carried so many constraints precisely because of how versatile and late-game dominant they became.

An early-game Mage in particular — if you rolled one without thinking — came with stats weak enough to make your jaw drop. You got one or two pitiful spells, weapons limited to daggers and staves, nothing beyond basic thrown weapons at range, paper-thin HP, and a hard ban on armor.

Those early restrictions made plenty of clueless beginners who picked Mage weep tears of blood. Younger me had been one of them.

Of course, a veteran could take a single Mage character and clear the whole game from start to finish — the pure, undiluted majesty of a true endgame player.

Ah, shit! I'd gotten so lost in nostalgia I'd burned more time!

Okay — I'd copied all the classes, so… now I needed to write down what unique traits each class started with, and what skills or abilities you gained on level-up!

Where is it… ah, here! First — Warrior and Rogue, hurry…!

Thankfully, Warrior and Rogue skills and descriptions weren't that complicated. I ignored all the subclass specifics and just copied the basic traits for Warrior and Rogue.

Rogue skills looked solid. These were basically the perfect toolkit for surviving an apocalypse. If I got assigned anything, I hoped it'd be a Rogue subclass…

Next up was the Mage section.

Goddammit! How is it already this late when I barely did anything!

I abandoned the rest of the Mage section and just skimmed the magic entries. Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, Level 4… was this like the circle system in fantasy novels? Ah — right, this was the original, wasn't it?

But hitting Level 2 didn't mean you learned Level 2 spells? Wait, what the hell, I've never seen this before!

Let's see — Level 2 spells you learned at Level 3… this is confusing as shit. If you're going to do it this way, just call them 2nd Circle and 3rd Circle — why unify everything under levels!?

Fuck! I still haven't even finished copying magic up through Level 4…!

No, no! This isn't the time. I need to copy the traits for the other classes too, just in case…!

No — wait. In a situation like this… right! I need to figure out what kind of game Brave Saga even is. What classes it has, what skills — I have to check!

Click-click!

I scrambled to open a website, any fan café, anything. But nothing would load. Why the hell was it suddenly this slow! Goddamn piece-of-shit computer!

Ah, fuck… did the site's traffic just explode or something…

Screw it. I give up. Giving up. Why do I care about someone else's system? I need to focus on mine.

Tick. Tick. Tick…

There wasn't even an analog clock in the house, but a countdown toward annihilation started ticking in my ears on its own.

Thump. Thump. Thump…!

I realized it then — that was the sound of my own heart hammering in my chest.

Survival might have been guaranteed, but the idea that doom was descending on Earth and humanity still made a racing pulse the only sane response.

Ten seconds. Ten seconds left. No — eight… seven… six…

After five…

Four… three… two…

The Earth…

One… zero…

Whump!

The computer died without warning.

No — every light in the house went out at once.

Outside, the bright glow of the city vanished completely.

And just like that, the first anomalous phenomenon announcing the end of the world arrived…

And I—

Thud!

—passed out cold.