Prologue

It all started with a trivial conversation.

Lost Elder, an open-world dark fantasy RPG.

Commonly known as Loel.

Despite pouring a whopping twelve years of my life into it, I had never once seen the game's true ending.

And it wasn't just me.

Even though it had been out for quite some time, absolutely no one had managed to witness the true ending of this godforsaken game. Everyone only ever reached a bad ending.

That was just how unimaginably difficult Loel was.

Bosses boasting bizarre attack patterns.

An unnecessarily detailed and vast world map.

And a progression system that was utterly hostile to the player.

True to its reputation as an extreme hardcore RPG, Loel boasted a truly atrocious level of difficulty.

Even the world's most famous gaming YouTubers would confidently declare their challenge, only to give up within a few days. That said it all.

Consequently, Loel's brief spark of popularity quickly fizzled out.

In an era where easy games with simple controls dominated the market, the decline of a game like Loel was a natural progression.

Now, there were only about fifty players in the entire country who still took this dead game seriously.

This tiny handful of players gathered in online communities to constantly exchange information, desperate to clear the game by any means necessary.

And I, of course, was one of them.

Then, out of nowhere, a younger gamer friend I used to clear content with offered some advice.

He suggested I stop tryharding all the time and try a meme build for once.

"..."

Normally, I would have ignored him.

After all, I was a tryhard, not a casual player.

Since I played Loel solely to see the true ending, fooling around with meme builds didn't fit my style at all.

...Should I actually give it a try?

But that day was different.

Having failed to clear the game for twelve years, I was stuck in a severe rut.

Exhausted in both mind and body, I needed a new spark.

And so...

Click.

...I decided to try a concept play run for the first time in this playthrough.

They were the same.

At least, they were to me.

Dumping all stats into a single talent was originally considered taboo in Lost Elder.

This was because, under the game's system, a character needed a proper foundation to perform certain actions.

To swing a heavy weapon, one needed the corresponding Strength or Stamina stats. To cast magic, a baseline of Mana or Perception was required.

For that reason, a well-rounded, all-rounder character had become established by high-ranking players as the most stable and efficient way to play.

But well, I'm ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠not aiming for efficiency today...

Since this character was being made purely for fun, efficiency could go out the window.

Therefore, I planned to dump every single stat point into a single talent.

Click.

The sword.

It was one of the options under Hidden Mastery: Weaponry, a trait that could only be unlocked by players who had defeated a mid-boss.

There was no grand reason behind it; I just liked swordsman characters.

"Let's see. I'll add this, and let's try putting this in too..."

I poured in not only the basic starting stats provided by the game but also every single bonus option I had accumulated over hundreds of playthroughs.

Achievement points, bonus points obtained from hunting named monsters, and so on.

"...Whew, I guess this should do it."

Having finished distributing all the points, I looked at the monitor.

True to a game with a high degree of freedom, even this ridiculous setup of dumping everything into a single talent was accepted.

Once customization was complete, the character's model appeared alongside the status window.

Looking at him, I couldn't help but burst into laughter.

"Pfft, what the hell is this?!"

On the screen stood an incredibly frail-looking character.

He was nothing but skin and bones, tottering as if he might collapse at any second.

In his hand was a crude one-handed sword, which he dragged along the floor as if even that was too heavy for him to lift.

Heh.

It was a hilarious sight, and I scoffed at the character on the screen.

What was the point of having overflowing talent in swordsmanship?

He was a weakling who struggled to carry a simple one-handed sword.

As if to speak for this pitiful character's inner thoughts, the game system began displaying a series ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of messages.

"Decline."

I ignored the warning without a second thought.

"Yes."

So what if normal gameplay was impossible?

I had made this character with that exact intention in the first place.

Click.

I clicked the arrow to proceed to the next step.

At that exact moment, a message popped up on the monitor.

"...Huh? What's this?"

I furrowed my brow.

A hidden skill? Was there such a thing in Lost Elder?

"Normally, it should transition straight to the cutscene once customization is done."

This was an event that had never occurred once in my twelve years of playing the game.

Muttering in confusion, I read the skill window that had appeared in the corner of the monitor.

"...What?"

My eyes widened instantly.

"Soul of the Sword Master? No, wait. More importantly, a 12-star skill?"

Goosebumps broke out all over my body.

Twelve stars.

And it was a Mythic grade, no less.

I had never seen a skill of such a high grade in all my time playing Lost Elder.

Until now, the highest known skill grade was only ten stars. What on earth was this?

"Holy crap, I need to take a picture of this."

Snap!

I pulled out my smartphone and took a photo of the screen.

The quality would be worse than taking a direct screenshot on my PC, but at least no one could accuse me of photoshopping it.

I immediately sent the photo to Strawberry Latte.

Not even three seconds later, my phone began to buzz frantically with notifications.

"30 million, huh..."

Glance.

I glanced at the number written in the corner of the screen.

Rounded up, it was a staggering 180 million points.

It was roughly six times the amount of the second-ranked player, Strawberry Latte.

I immediately understood why no one else had ever discovered a 12-star skill.

So you have to dump this many points to trigger a hidden reward.

If I had known, I would have tried a concept play run much sooner.

Once I uploaded the photo of my achievement points, the chat window fell dead silent.

Even after waiting for about three minutes, no reply came.

He must have been utterly shell-shocked.

"Well, anyway..."

I turned my gaze back to the monitor.

Soul of the Sword Master.

Even without knowing its exact effects, it was bound to possess absurd power.

After all, its grade was a whopping twelve stars.

Even Meteor, a spell capable of completely erasing a small city from the map, was only ten stars. That said it all.

"Ah, wait."

But as I examined the description more closely, I couldn't help but frown.

I had spotted a completely unexpected problem.

"Sigh..."

A cost of 100 Mana per second.

This was a disaster of epic proportions.

Sure, 100 Mana wasn't a massive amount in the grand scheme of things.

The average MP pool for a character leaving the starting area was around 2,000.

Considering that, Soul of the Sword Master was a skill that could easily be kept active for about twenty seconds even in the early game.

However...

...My character here was far from 'normal'.

His maximum MP was exactly 1.

My joke of setting every stat except swordsmanship to 1 had come back to bite me.

Did this mean I could only use the skill for 0.01 seconds?

In fact, I doubted if the skill could even be activated at all.

"If I can't even use the 12-star skill I just got, I might as well redistribute my stats..."

I clicked the back button to increase my character's mana pool, even if just by a little.

That way, I could at least test out the 12-star skill.

Click.

"...Huh?"

Right then, the game screen suddenly froze.

"What the? What's wrong with this?"

Click, click, click!

No matter how much I clicked the mouse, the screen wouldn't budge.

I muttered in irritation.

"Ah, seriously."

Just as I was about to force-close the game, thinking it was lagging because of how old it was—

"Huh? Wait..."

The screen began to emit a brilliant light along with a cryptic message.

Flash!

My vision went black, and my consciousness faded. Along with it came a sensation of floating, as if I were being sucked into a whirlpool.

...That was the last thing I remembered.

Didn't I tell you? It all started with a trivial conversation.

A veteran player messing around with customization for a new playthrough, only to transmigrate into the game as a completely broken character. A story so common it was almost cliché.

I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would become the protagonist of such a story.

"Fuck."

...And just like that, five days had already passed since I entered the game.