The God of Controls' One-Coin Clear
The virtual reality game Dantalion.
It was a long-running title that had been out for eight years.
The genre was fantasy labyrinth-escape roguelike.
It supported online services that allowed interaction with other users.
From the moment of its release, Dantalion caused a seismic shift in the VR gaming world.
A synchronization rate of 99%. No matter how many millions of times you challenged it, the patterns never repeated.
The astonishing technology Dantalion showcased was more than enough to send the world’s VR gamers into a frenzy of excitement.
The fighting game King of Fist, which had held the top spot until then, couldn’t even put up a proper fight before plummeting to the bottom.
After claiming the number one position, Dantalion soon reached two hundred million concurrent players.
And even then, the upward curve showed no signs of slowing.
It was clearly an abnormal trend.
What was even more abnormal was the fact that despite so many users playing the game for five full years, not a single person had cleared it.
Experts had been unable to theoretically explain why Dantalion enjoyed such astronomical popularity despite its absurd difficulty.
The only speculation that circulated was that the transcendent sensory experience granted by the near-SF-level 99% synchronization rate was causing an unnatural level of addiction.
Thud.
Taeyang’s fist shattered the jawbone of the last skeleton.
“I’m finally starting to get the feel for it.”
Taeyang swung his arms around, checking his body’s condition.
Behind him lay countless piles of shattered skeleton remains.
It was an impossible sight.
Taeyang grinned.
A man in a suit sat with his legs crossed, staring at a colorful graph.
Current concurrent users: 299,999,995
The graph containing that astronomical number showed a very slight upward trend.
Current concurrent users: 299,999,998
The man’s long eyelashes lowered elegantly, then rose again.
Current concurrent users: 300,000,005
“Three hundred million.”
His red lips drew a graceful arc.
The man raised a pale, slender finger and tapped his lips. Tap. Tap.
“At this rate…”
A blue light flickered in the man’s eyes.
It was something that could not be explained by any common sense belonging to the humans living on Earth.
Soon, a magic circle densely packed with geometric shapes enveloped the monitor.
The shapes devoured the monitor, invaded the cables, and reached the main body of the supercomputer responsible for running the virtual reality game Dantalion.
Thump.
Before long, internet news outlets around the world began spitting out breaking reports.
Transcendental Jin-gak – Whirling Fist.
Crack.
The half-human, half-demon’s fist wrapped itself in transcendent electromagnetic force.
If it connected, it would deal painful damage. If it landed a full combo, it would be devastating.
And if it was blocked?
It would inflict the status ailment Shock.
Shock was a painful debuff that amplified damage taken and reduced reaction speed.
Boom.
Transcendental Jin-gak.
It only activated if you maintained a 70% synchronization rate and executed the motion with zero error even down to 0.1mm.
A difficult technique with equally massive rewards.
Of course, there were ways to deal with it.
Don’t get hit. Don’t block. Just dodge.
The best option was to dodge and land your own skill in the process.
Just like now.
Whoosh.
He bent at the waist and advanced.
It was the movement boxers commonly called “the duck.”
The lightning-wrapped fist grazed right past Taeyang’s forehead.
Crack!
It was electrifying.
If he had moved even a single sheet of paper’s thickness less, it would have been a clean hit.
At the same time, he stepped forward with his lead foot.
Following the exact same footwork path the half-human, half-demon had just used.
Transcendental Jin-gak – Rising Dragon Fist.
Crrrrack.
An unknown power surged into his right arm.
The half-human, half-demon—Isaac—twisted his face in agony as he swung his fist in front of Taeyang.
Snort.
Taeyang couldn’t hold back his laughter.
What can you do? I’m just better than you.
Thud.
Taeyang’s fist slammed into Isaac’s jaw.
Since the Whirling Fist motion hadn’t even finished yet, Isaac couldn’t react at all.
Clean Hit.
After that, it was easy.
Whirling Fist, Rising Dragon Fist, mid-level knee strike.
It was simply the process of hammering in the combo without even needing to read the opponent’s mind.
Taeyang glanced up at Isaac’s health gauge.
One jab would be enough to kill him at this point.
Then for the finisher.
Taeyang Strike.
Taeyang Strike.
It was a skill the developers had dedicated to Taeyang back when King of Fist was still at its peak.
A technique with the highest difficulty motion, flashy effects, and disappointingly weak damage that didn’t match either.
The moment he successfully completed the motion, his fist began to blaze with intense heat.
Taeyang looked at Isaac’s face, which hadn’t even finished falling from the air yet.
His completely twisted expression was quite the sight.
Flash!
The match screen flickered.
Hiss.
The capsule opened.
A rush of refreshing air licked at Taeyang’s sweat-drenched face.
Correction. The air in a single man’s studio apartment wasn’t exactly refreshing.
Taeyang walked over to his computer.
The King of Fist World Championship was being broadcast live online.
The commentators were in the middle of an excited frenzy.
Viewers… 4,602.
It was a pitiful number for a game serviced worldwide.
There had been a time when it easily surpassed a hundred thousand.
The fact that it had even reached this many viewers was only because it was the World Championship finals, which made it even sadder.
Isaac Akinfeev.
Poor guy.
Among other players he was known as Untouchable, but because he happened to be in the same era as Taeyang, he was forever stuck as the eternal second place.
This was already the fourth time he had faced Taeyang in the finals.
While Taeyang was lost in thought, the interview reached its final stretch.
Oh, he even learned Korean.
At least he hadn’t lost his true identity when it came to swearing.
If he’d learned “son of a bitch” too, it would’ve been perfect.
Even though it was a world championship, the scale was basically just an internet broadcast, so cursing like that was fine.
The interview.
Interviews as a King of Fist player were so familiar they were boring.
The questions were always the same.
Weren’t you nervous going for five consecutive titles? How on earth did you come up with the idea of countering Transcendental Jin-gak with another Transcendental Jin-gak? How does it feel to be writing a new page in history?
Naturally, the answers were no different from usual.
I was nervous but I got through it. I just did it. It feels good.
Ah, there was one different answer.
“Ah, ‘Fuck’?”
“Hahaha. Yes, that one.”
Taeyang looked into the camera and let out a small laugh.
“Don’t take it too hard. Your opponent was me, after all.”
King of Fist was a motion-based fighting game. It was a hardcore title where the player had to physically perform the actions for the skills to activate.
There was a version with heavy aim-assist for casual players, but professional play obviously had none of that.
King of Fist pro gamers practiced the techniques in real life.
Some might say it was ridiculous to go that far for a mere game, but once annual salaries crossed into the millions, the game could no longer be treated as simple entertainment.
The training was fierce.
There were even research results claiming that in terms of technical form and completion, King of Fist pro gamers moved more than active martial artists.
Well, that was in the past.
At this point, when King of Fist had become a relic of its former glory, the only ones who still trained that hard were Taeyang, Isaac, and Julia.
The competitions had become stagnant. The same people kept rising to the top. The fun had disappeared.
It was a vicious cycle.
Thump.
“Nice!”
Taeyang collapsed onto the soft sofa.
He picked up his smartphone with an arm sculpted like a Greek statue.
Today, he planned to forget everything and just enjoy himself.
Taeyang called his younger sister, Byeolim.
“Pick up. Pick up.”
People often said siblings were worse than strangers, but Taeyang and Byeolim were quite close.
It was largely because they had lost their parents at a young age and had grown up relying on each other.
"The person you are trying to reach is unavailable. Please leave a message after the tone…"
Taeyang pouted.
“She must be streaming.”
It wasn’t hard to understand.
Byeolim’s job was game streamer.
Having given up on the call, Taeyang tapped on his smartphone.
Of course, there was no reply.
“…It’s the World Championship finals, though. Couldn’t you at least watch?”
Byeolim hated revealing that she was Taeyang’s sister.
She said that if she did, her image would definitely be buried under the label of “Taeyang’s little sister.”
She wasn’t wrong.
Even though it was past glory, Taeyang’s name recognition was on par with that of a top celebrity.
Taeyang accessed a game-specialized website.
King of Fist World Championship Five-Peat.
Even he thought it was a legendary achievement.
“What the hell is this?”
Taeyang’s lips pursed in annoyance as he scrolled through his phone.
The entire site was flooded with stories about the virtual reality game Dantalion.
“Who cares about Dantalion!”
It was impressive that it was on track to hit three hundred million concurrent users… but this was a Korean website! A Korean player had just won the King of Fist World Championship!
How could there not be a single article about it?!
With a sulky expression, Taeyang clicked on one of the articles.
Then his eyes widened dramatically.
Taeyang shot up from his seat.
Dantalion.
It was the game Byeolim played the most.
A fatal error? One that could cost lives?
Just then, the smartphone in Taeyang’s hand began to vibrate.
The caller was Hyeonhye.
His childhood friend whom he had known since they were young, and a game streamer like Byeolim.
Her main game was also Dantalion.
“Hello?”
His lips were dry from tension.
"Can you reach Byeolim?"
“I just finished the tournament.”
A brief silence followed.
Taeyang asked urgently.
“I saw the Dantalion article. Is Byeolim logged in right now?”
"I don't know."
Taeyang felt the blood drain from his head in an instant.
Byeolim was his only remaining blood relative.
The last family he had managed to save from the fire that had taken his entire family in his childhood.
In his memory, his father smiled brightly.
Taeyang swept his hair back nervously and spoke.
“I’m heading straight to Sangam-dong right now. Sorry, but I need to ask you a favor.”
"I'll head to Byeolim's place first and check on her. That's what you want, right?"
She understood perfectly without him even having to say it.
In times like these, Hyeonhye’s quick wits were a blessing.
“Please. Call me as soon as you confirm anything.”
After hanging up, Taeyang—his face now as white as a sheet—burst out of his studio apartment.
Taeyang and Hyeonhye sat in Byeolim’s room, both of them grim.
In the short time since then, they had managed to grasp most of the situation.
People had discovered that dying inside the game meant dying in real life.
Their hearts simply stopped. It was horrifying.
All the bereaved families could do was pull the users—who had become corpses—out of their capsules.
The streams of streamers who had been broadcasting never cut off, and through them they learned it was possible to communicate with the players still inside the game.
Currently, no progress had been made toward solving the problem.
Governments around the world had frantically blocked downloads of Dantalion, but it was meaningless.
Three hundred million people were already logged in.
Some shouted that all VR capsules should be recalled to prevent additional logins, but since VR capsules now functioned like 21st-century computers, such regulations were realistically impossible.
The world belatedly began searching for Dantalion staff to hold them accountable.
The situation on that side was even more shocking.
The chairman had gone missing. The CEO had hanged himself at home without leaving a will. A team leader who had been on vacation in Hawaii was shot by robbers. Another executive on a business trip to Brazil was lynched by the mafia and killed.
On top of that, every high-ranking executive of Dantalion Corporation—whether current or former—had either vanished or turned up dead.
Not a single person above the rank of team leader was spared.
It was an utterly unrealistic story to be happening in modern 21st-century society.
Hyeonhye spoke carefully.
“The streamers have been relaying outside news to the people inside. Since Byeolim is likely with those people, don’t worry too much. Her bio-signals are still active, so she hasn’t died…”
“Byeolim’s a streamer too. Then why isn’t she broadcasting?”
“It looks like she was just playing the game without turning on her stream. The broadcast that was already running is still transmitting, but they say you can’t operate a new streaming program from inside the game.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean…”
Taeyang clutched his messy bedhead with both hands.