Chapter 3
Chapter 3: Tutorial (1)
Baek Jin-woo stopped after walking for a long while.
A deserted clearing in the middle of a hiking trail.
Goosebumps rose on his skin from the creeping chill.
"Ha."
He still couldn't believe it.
The world has become the game I used to know.
The original game he'd played had completely disappeared. The app itself was gone, as if it had never existed in the first place.
"Hoo."
What on earth was this?
It seemed like clearing the 100th floor of the Tower of Trials had acted as some kind of trigger.
Damn it.
The world felt like a hidden-camera prank, and he half-wondered if he was still experiencing hallucinations from the accident's aftereffects.
But the wind pressing against his skin told him otherwise.
That the world he was seeing was undeniably real.
Gulp.
Baek Jin-woo swallowed and pulled out the 2 Low-grade Summoning Scrolls he'd kept in his pocket.
The very thing he'd used thousands, tens of thousands of times over the past 10 years.
Right.
If anything, this is a good thing.
Honestly, Dad was right about everything.
A future with no prospects to begin with.
Isn't it possible that a world meant for me could come along at least once?
Of course.
He needed a decent Summoner Beast to come out of this.
The grade appearance rates for Low-grade Summoning Scrolls were as follows:
[F-Rank: 94%]
[E-Rank: 5%]
[D-Rank: 1%]
That was one of the main reasons ‘Battle of Summoners’ had been called a brutal, hard-difficulty, luck-cursed game.
The summoning rates were absolutely terrible.
Please, E-Rank or above.
Here goes!
Rrip!
He tore the scroll without hesitation.
Wuuuung!
Lightning effects crashed and slammed down over the torn paper.
"Eugh!"
He stumbled back in surprise, and at the same moment—
['Low-grade Summoning Scroll' is being used!]
[Player 'Baek Jin-woo' has obtained Summoner Beast 'Wind Fairy' (EX-Rank)!]
Huh?
"……"
Wind Fairy?
The Wind Fairy he knew?
No, before any of that.
……What did it say the rank was?
Baek Jin-woo furrowed his brow.
His narrowed gaze caught the dazzling, platinum-colored rank gleaming before him.
EX-Rank?
Wh—, what the hell.
What was that?
***
The Summoner Beast tier system in ‘Battle of Summoners’ ran from F-Rank to S-Rank.
F, E, D, C, B, A, S.
Divided into 7 total grades.
Naturally, the closer to S, the more absurdly overpowered the performance—and the more brutal the summoning odds.
S-Rank?
Practically lottery odds.
It was the rank Baek Jin-woo himself had only managed to pull once in 10 years—and among the Five Emperors, it was Rachel who'd drawn an S-Rank.
A-Rank?
The kind of thing a 10-year Veteran Player would have a few of by now.
It hadn't even appeared until 3 years into the game's launch.
It had become somewhat more available later on, but still.
B-Rank was probably the best grade of Summoner Beast you could pull at the current point in time.
A 1% chance from a 'High-grade Summoning Scroll', wasn't it?
B-Rank was the kind of grade you'd bow and say ‘thank you’ for just to receive.
But EX-Rank?
A rank he'd never seen before.
And on top of that, a Low-grade Summoning Scroll should only produce F through D-Rank…
—Hwaaaaaam, what the?
It was at that moment.
A girl, no bigger than a forearm, suddenly appeared, stretching and rubbing her eyes.
And then, her eyes went wide as saucers.
— Whoa, whoooooa? What's going on! Was I just summoned? For real?
A small staff and a pale green one-piece dress.
The Summoner Beast with a pair of tiny wings attached to her back was named 'Wind Fairy'.
Baek Jin-woo knew that figure very well.
How could he not.
At the very start of the game—back in his middle school days.
She was an E-Rank Summoner Beast he'd raised with genuine fondness.
He had no idea why she was carrying an EX tag now, but—
"……Are you Lamba?"
— I'm, I'm Wind Fairy, okay? W—, wait, you……!
Wind Fairy.
No—Lamba froze in shock.
— Only one person ever used that nickname, and that's our God of Jinu……! Y—, you, you, you! Who are you!
‘…..’
That's what I want to ask.
Just how did any of this happen?
And since when did Lamba talk?
As far as he knew, Summoner Beasts couldn't speak.
To begin with—that nickname had come about because the game, befitting its AI-integrated design, had a chat-based command function.
"You said it yourself."
— Said what!
"That only 1 person ever used that nickname."
— Th—, then.
Lamba's expression said she couldn't believe it.
— Don't tell me you're actually God of Jinu?
Yeah, I'm God of Jinu.
It's me, Baek Jin-woo.
***
Wind Fairy, Lamba.
She was an E-Rank Summoner Beast of the Wind element, Fairy tribe—specialized in buffs.
The one who'd handled Baek Jin-woo's early farming.
But.
She was also an ill-fated Summoner Beast who had vanished with a bug patch around the 1-year anniversary of launch.
Baek Jin-woo recalled that time.
How furious he'd been.
What had they said?
Something about detecting excessive overpowered imbalance, so usage would be restricted?
A Summoner Beast he'd spent a full year raising disappeared overnight.
Compensation?
Nothing of the sort.
Even when he contacted customer support, they said there was nothing they could do since it had been removed by the game's internal AI judgment.
They'd sent him documentation saying it was all in the terms of service—he'd been ready to lose his mind.
Well, he'd been angry and fuming at first, but his rage cooled quickly enough.
The truth is, it was borderline broken how good she was.
Lamba.
E-Rank on paper, but once you properly understood her hidden mechanics and slotted in the right Runes to match them?
She became a completely bug-tier Summoner Beast.
— Hwaaaaa, God of Jinuuuu! Do you have any idea how much I missed you? Hweeeong……!
Wind Fairy was pressing her tiny head against Baek Jin-woo's chest, whimpering.
Whether she was actually crying or not, his clothes were slowly growing damp.
— Hic, I got dragged off to some weird place all of a sudden, and I couldn't get out, I was just trapped in thereee.
Sniffle, sniffle!
Watching Lamba cry her eyes out was something he just couldn't get used to.
It couldn't be helped.
Setting aside the fact that today was the first time he'd seen her in three dimensions rather than on a mobile screen—
It's been 9 years.
It was also the first time he'd ever heard her speak.
Summoner Beasts in Battle of Summoners didn't talk, after all.
Hmm.
Baek Jin-woo was curious.
Why had she appeared from a 'Low-grade Summoning Scroll'.
For now.
"Status Window."
Let's check her information first.
[Summoner Beast: Wind Fairy]
[Tribe: Fairy Tribe]
[Grade: EX-Rank (Quarantine Designation)]
- Detected as a balance-breaking element under specific conditions. Quarantined.
[Level: 1]
[Stats]
Strength: 1, Intelligence: 1, Stamina: 1, Agility: 1
HP: 1,000, MP: 0
Critical Hit Rate: 20%
Critical Hit Damage: 20%
[Skills]
- Wind Pressure: Each time the staff is swung, increases a single target Summoner Beast's attack speed by 3%.
As expected.
Same as before.
1 pathetic-looking skill.
But that 1 pathetic-looking skill?
Would later bring about a complete breakdown of balance.
The higher Lamba leveled, the faster her attack speed grew, and if you then pushed attack speed to its absolute limit by slotting in Swift Runes—
It just broke the game.
She'd massively inflate the attack speed of the Summoner Beast beside her.
Because every swing stacked 3% multiplicatively, continuously compounding.
If that Summoner Beast beside her was A-Rank?
It would skyrocket to S-Rank tier or higher.
That's what I used for all that sweet farming.
— Anyway! Now that we're back together! Let's never be separated again! Got it? Yeah?
"Hold on."
Baek Jin-woo peeled Lamba off where she'd been clinging to him.
— Huh?
"I have something to ask."
— Ask away! You're God of Jinu who summoned me back after all that quarantine! What could I possibly not do for you!
"What's the quarantine? Who quarantined you, and how exactly does summoning here work?"
— Uh…
Lamba was thrown off by Baek Jin-woo's rapid-fire questions.
And then—
— Ow, owwww! It hurts!
"Huh? What's wrong?"
— My head hurts so much! It feels like some bastard put a suppression seal on me!
……A suppression seal, suddenly?
The way she was clutching her head seemed a little off—
— Sorry, but there isn't much I can tell you. We were quarantined, and originally, no matter how many times a player summoned, we couldn't come out.
"We? There are others who got quarantined besides you?"
— Yeah, we weren't in the same room so I don't know who they are, but…… They were definitely there. About 10 of them, I think?
More quarantined ones.
10 of them.
Hell.
It was certain.
The Summoner Beasts I'd lost to bug designations while playing.
Including Lamba, 10 of them.
It seemed like all those Summoner Beasts had been slapped with EX-Rank designation and quarantined.
— Anyway, God of Jinu, you're clearly different from other players. When you tear a summoning scroll, it feels like we get a chance too. Even I was surprised. It's been a while since a Low-grade Summoning Scroll called out to me.
Ahh.
He thought he understood what that meant.
In this world, only I have the chance to pull EX-Rank.
Since Lamba was originally E-Rank, she'd responded to a Low-grade Scroll.
This was actually incredible.
"Why is that, I wonder?"
— I don't know either.
Hmm.
Could it be a special privilege for clearing the 100th floor of the Tower of Trials?
For now—
Rrip!
Baek Jin-woo tore the remaining 'Low-grade Summoning Scroll'.
And then—
['Low-grade Summoning Scroll' is being used!]
[Player 'Baek Jin-woo' has obtained Summoner Beast 'Shaggy Gorilla' (F-Rank)!]
Ah.
Shaggy Gorilla.
He knew it well.
The kind of beast that ended up as leveling material no matter how you tried to use it.
This confirmed it.
Tearing a scroll doesn't guarantee EX-Rank every time.
Which meant that if he wanted to recover the ones he'd lost back in the game—
He'd need to tear through an enormous number of scrolls.
If he could obtain all of them and field them all at once?
Wouldn't that produce a player incomparably stronger than even One Heaven?
Thud, thud thud!
— Grooooan……
The gorilla lumbered over and knelt, both arms planted on the ground.
What.
Was that a pledge of loyalty?
"Lamba."
— Yeah! God of Jinu!
"Drop the God of Jinu thing, just call me Jin-woo."
— Eeh? Why?
God of Jinu was already a name that had spread across the entire world.
Five Emperors.
Thanks to those former Veteran Players spending the last 3 years actively promoting the name.
It's not time to draw attention yet.
While it was true that Baek Jin-woo held a great deal of information and experience, there was currently a gap of 3 or more years between him and them.
And on top of that—
Looking at the situation, it seems only I in the entire world can utilize EX-Rank……
When you know nothing yet, there's nothing more dangerous than becoming a target of envy and jealousy.
If he were to become that target?
It had to be after he'd already reached the top.
"Just do as I say."
— Hmph, fine. Still as guarded as ever. Heheh! Just thinking about climbing the Tower of Trials again with Jin-woo after so long makes me excited all over again! We got to floor 10 back then, right? It was incredibly hard.
"Tower of Trials?"
— Yeah!
"I already cleared all 100 floors."
— Whaaaaaaat? Really? That tower with the insane difficulty?
"Yeah, I definitely cleared it."
In the game.
It'd probably be a bit different in reality now.
— Well, a lot of time has passed since we were separated……
Still clearly struggling to believe it, Lamba stared at Baek Jin-woo with a sidelong expression.
Her chubby little cheeks were far cuter in person than they'd been on screen.
"And you know, right? With your current stats you'd struggle not just with floor 10—you'd struggle with floor 1."
— True. Hiiiing. Everything got completely reset. No Runes, Level 1.
"So it looks like we need to start with growth……show me to the Fusion Hall."
That Shaggy Gorilla over there.
He wanted to use it as material to level up Lamba.
— Huh, Jin-woo!
"Yeah?"
— How would I know where that is!
"What?"
— I've never been here either! This is your world, so you should be the guide.
Huh?
Just then—
[Player has obtained a Summoner Beast.]
[Proceeding to the next step.]
A tutorial progression message appeared, and—
Kugugugung!
Blue light surged upward from the clearing's floor, accompanied by a rumble.
[A Beginner's Basic Dungeon has appeared.]
[Please enter.]
Dungeon.
Gulp. Baek Jin-woo swallowed hard.
He'd run through them countless times in the game, cleared up to floor 100 of the Tower of Trials—but.
This was the first time he was facing a Dungeon in reality.
Really?
They really wanted him to go in there?
[Please enter.]
Damn.
Of course, he was scared.
The monster that appeared in Tutorial Dungeons was a Gray Wolf (F-Rank), wasn't it?
Weak in the game, sure—but how often does anyone come face to face with a growling wolf in real life?
Then again, thinking about it differently, there was no need to be scared.
The Summoner Beasts would handle all the fighting, right?
An upended reality.
Time to adapt.
Hoo, hoooo!
After about 10 seconds of deep breathing, Baek Jin-woo squeezed his eyes shut and threw himself forward.
His first Dungeon entry.