1. Return
1. Return
***
'Defeat the Desert Drake'
(4859/5000)
Step.
I stopped walking and stared blankly at the hologram floating at the edge of my vision.
Out of five thousand, only about a hundred and fifty remained. There clearly wasn't much farther to go before completing the quest.
The woman looking at the blue hologram window let out a small sigh.
"Ha..."
Clank.
I swung my right arm, and the weighty lump of metal swayed slightly, flaunting its presence.
The lump of metal was connected to a long red cord, and at the end of that cord was a bladed weight of unusual shape—a type of weapon called a Crescent-Moon Weight.
Setting aside swords, spears, axes, bows, crossbows, and other familiar names, it was a weapon whose very name would feel unfamiliar to an ordinary person.
And it was currently her primary weapon.
......
Before I even realized it, I had become a character inside a game.
And not just any game—it was one I used to enjoy... no, one I had quite enjoyed years ago. That was right.
Now even those memories were hazy. It was just one of those games.
No, to be precise, it wasn't just some ordinary game to me.
I'd spent roughly three years on it, sacrificing my grades and cutting into my sleep to devote most of my time to the game. In a sense, it had been the “game of my life.”
Just not in the usual positive sense of “game of my life.”
I meant it literally: I'd devoted several years of my life to the game... which made the phrase mean something very different.
The game I'd played back then had a lot of problems.
The brutal grind it demanded from players, the unbridgeable gap between veteran players and new players.
The divide it created just kept widening.
The game I played had no fatigue system like those in other games, nor anything else to restrain its players.
A game that honestly rewarded you for however much time you poured in.
At first glance it seemed like that kind of game, but thinking about it now, it wasn't a game you could describe that way.
All the dirty, petty ways the game was run, bugs cropping up every day, and an enhancement system brutally dependent on luck.
The more I thought about it, the more it was nothing but disgusting memories I didn't want to recall.
"Kwieeek!"
While I was lost in thought, a drake must have spotted me nearby, because it let out a shriek and hurled its massive body at me.
*
————
Desert Drake.
A glorious being that once existed as a dragon in the ancient, now-faded past. It declined greatly due to the curse of an absolute being, and only the clear marks of its species' degradation remain.
————
*
As I stared blankly at the drake, something like a small hologram appeared over it and began displaying various details about the monster.
"There definitely... wasn't anything like this before."
When I parted my lips slightly, a woman's voice spilled out—beautiful enough that even I could tell it was lovely.
My character.
A beautiful Eastern-styled female character who wielded a Crescent-Moon Weight as her main weapon, and my former favorite character. The one I'd raised with the most affection.
'Rin.'
I clearly remembered raising her to a level that counted as "high-level" within the game's world setting.
'Was it level 65?'
I swung my hand lightly toward the drake that had already closed in on me. The familiar weight of the corded metal being pulled taut registered at the same moment it shot toward the drake.
Thunk!
The sharp-tipped weight pierced precisely through the drake's forehead.
Whirr.
With a light flick of my hand, as if reeling the Crescent-Moon Weight back in, the weight pulled free from the drake's forehead and returned to my side.
—Splat!
A beat later, bright red blood burst from the pierced forehead, and the drake staggered, its massive body collapsing.
Boom!
'Defeat the Desert Drake'
(4860/5000)
Immediately after, with a light notification sound, the number on the hologram at the edge of my vision updated.
The world inside the game. No—at this point, I doubted whether this was even inside a game anymore, given the existence of people who were all so full of individuality.
To them, this act would be incomprehensible.
Drakes were clearly upper-tier monsters and fairly difficult opponents.
Even fairly skilled people could only manage around ten a day at most.
But hunting five thousand of such upper-tier monsters.
This was one of the few elements that made this world recognizable as that brutal game I knew.
Even just tapping keys, if you had to hunt five thousand of the same monster, most people would drop out from the sheer grind.
Any person with common sense would ask who could possibly find this kind of repetitive grind fun. That was the kind of game it was... but ironically, I had enjoyed it.
Because at the end of the repetitive grind, I watched my character gradually grow, and I poured my very life into it.
The game I played wasn't some flat 2D-quality game. It was 3D, with graphics so far ahead of its era that nothing could compare, and a wide-open view. Even simple grinding felt several times more exhausting than in other games.
But doing it now not by tapping keys, but physically performing each action with my own body, felt completely different.
Swish!
Rather than wiping the monster blood off the Crescent-Moon Weight, I gave it a light shake, as if flicking it off.
Gulp.
I lifted the canteen hanging from my gear, wet my throat, and quickened my pace.
Deep, crushing fatigue had been weighing on my whole body for some time, but I still had to keep moving.
If I had my way, I'd slump down right here and rest for a while, but...
'Defeat the Desert Drake'
(4860/5000)
As I stared hard at the hologram at the edge of my vision, a hidden section appeared.
(Time remaining: 2 days, 1 hour, 35 minutes)
Time was running short to complete the quest.
This quest could only be accepted once per year, and true to that yearly division, it offered rewards that were hard to refuse.
The fact that it didn't tell you in advance what the reward was differed from the game I knew. But having completed the quest several times before, I knew the reward would be beyond imagination.
Because I'd invested not days, weeks, a month, or even several months, but a full year of time.
In a way, it was like harvesting a year's crop.
So I absolutely had to complete the quest before time ran out.
Step.
Step.
One step.
Two steps.
The woman's footsteps fell with familiarity.
Soon they quickened, and she began running faster and faster toward terrain like a high cliff.
From the outside, it would look like a reckless act—as if throwing herself off the cliff to her death.
Tap!
The moment her foot touched the edge of the cliff, she kicked off the ground hard and launched into the air.
Her body spun round and round, as if riding the fierce wind blowing through the gorge.
Then her body began to tint red, and as if stopping the rotation, she spread both arms wide.
A red energy settled over her arms, glowing softly.
And then, a phenomenon beyond the understanding of ordinary eyes began to unfold.
Like a proud bird soaring through the sky, the woman began to fly with remarkable grace.
Rin flew through the sky like that, taking in the terrain where the drakes gathered and choosing her destination.
As her flying body gradually descended toward the ground, she kicked off the empty air and leaped again, flying onward.
Then, suddenly, she approached a spot where about six drakes were gathered.
In midair, Rin swung her right arm—the one connected to the Crescent-Moon Weight—hard, extending it toward the ground.
The cord, which should never have reached the ground, stretched taut to its limit.
Skreeee!!
The weight, extended in a crescent arc, turned bright red and let out an eerie sound as it radiated energy and began plummeting downward at terrifying speed.
BOOOOM!!!
"Kwieeek!"
"Kwi—eek!"
The drakes cried out, startled by the earth-shaking roar. Rin appeared there like a single small meteor crashing down.
——!
Thunk.
Splat.
Thwip.
She wove through the panicked drakes like a single red line, so naturally, so beautifully—like a dancer fluttering through the air.
Before even a minute had passed, not a single drake remained standing on the ground.
'Defeat the Desert Drake'
(4866/5000)
Rin wiped the drake blood thickly coating the end of her Crescent-Moon Weight with a tough cloth, then began walking again.