Character Creation

August 16th, 10:00 a.m.

On any other morning I would have been poking around some gallery, hunting for a game to kill time. Not today.

Today was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the day Lost Skill Online officially went live. A major MMORPG hadn't dropped in ages, and the gaming community had completely lost its mind.

"Still plenty of time before launch. Might as well hit the gallery."

I kept scrolling from bed. Beta-tester write-ups, worthless shitposts, and the occasional flex of someone's character custom, scattered in between. I'd already read most of the useful info threads. Nothing left had any real meat on it.

"Time to get ready."

10:08. With nearly fifty minutes still on the clock, I launched the game.

I typed in the name I'd already decided on and went straight into customization.

"Gender to female, first…"

Female characters have always been the truth. Hair long, the most familiar black. Eyes set to blue. Done.

"Clothes… a simple robe should cover it."

And just like that, the customizing was finished. Next came the stats.

For the kind of adventure-focused character I had in mind, vitality mattered most. I put three points into agility for faster movement and split what was left between magic and strength.

"Nice."

Stats locked in, I looked at the last screen.

Lost Skill Online was not like other MMORPGs. Skills mattered more than class. The ten you picked at the start all but decided how you were going to play. You ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could pick up new ones later, sure — but the early game was a different story. The right skills could multiply your growth several times over.

From a list of nearly five hundred, I started ticking off the ones I'd already planned.

First up was Archery. Beta testers hadn't rated it highly, and the reason was simple: arrows were consumable, and once you ran dry, fighting got ugly. The skill that patched that hole was Mana Manipulation. Learn both, and you could shape arrows out of mana — Mana Arrows. As long as your mana held, you never ran out.

To keep that mana coming back, Meditation and Rapid Recovery. For combat support, Stealth and Focus.

And more important than any of those: Self-Study. The skill beta testers recommended above everything else. It put a modifier on skill experience.

"And then there's this."

Appraisal. Cooking. First Aid.

LSO wasn't a game built around combat alone. Exploration mattered just as much — because finding lost skills was the point. So when I built the character, I designed her to be self-sufficient.

The list of skills I'd chosen stacked itself on the screen, and a new message followed.

The character was done, but there was still a decent stretch of time left. I was considering ducking back out to the gallery when another prompt appeared.

"Right. This was a thing."

A system that let you try the skills first and rebuild around what actually felt good. Plenty of time left before the servers opened. More than enough to move around a little.

The tutorial had facilities set up for beginners. Targets stood at measured distances for bow practice, and there were dummies for sword and spear work as well.

"Oh. So this is the starter bow."

Wooden weapons — swords, spears, bows — were piled in one corner. I nocked an arrow, drew, and felt the stave flex as the string went taut. The instant I let go—

A sharp whistle. The arrow cut the air and flew.

"Huh. So that's the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠feel of it."

That one had been Archery alone. The arrow buried itself nowhere near the target, which said everything that needed saying about my current skill.

"Well. Nobody fills up on the first bite."

This time I started chaining the skills together. The moment I used Mana Manipulation, something drained out of me, and a blue arrow took shape in my hand. I set it on the string and drew slowly. Focus kicked in at the same time — my vision snapped clean — and I loosed.

A thin hiss. The arrow left a blue afterimage and punched into the target.

"Yeah. That's more like it."

It was sitting dead in the center.

I spent the time I had left working through the rest of the skills one by one. Cooking was a non-starter in a tutorial with no ingredients, but everything else fired just fine.

Then I activated Appraisal, and something off registered through it. How to put it? It felt like watching a whirlpool appear, for no reason I could name, on the surface of still water. I stepped closer, and the disturbance resolved into a sentence.

It left that riddle behind and vanished.

"What the hell was that…?"

When I came to, I panicked. What I was looking at wasn't some fantasy landscape. It was the familiar ceiling of my studio apartment.

"Did I just DC?"

Even as I said it, something felt wrong. The voice was mine, and yet it wasn't. I sat up, and my line of sight sat lower than it should have.

"……?"

The hands I ought to have known were strangers. The fingers were slender, the skin far too pale. I brushed my hair back without thinking, and black strands spilled past my shoulders.

"Wait."

My heart dropped. I bolted for the full-length mirror in the corner of the room.

And there she was.

Standing in the glass was the character I had just finished customizing. Long, flowing black hair. Blue eyes. A woman in a dark robe.

"……Ruind?"

The name I'd chosen slipped out of my mouth on its own. No matter how I looked at it, this was the character I had made.

"This is… ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reality?"

I pinched my cheek, hoping it was a dream. All I got was a sharp sting. I did not wake up.

Then the room shook. No — more precisely, the ground itself was shaking. I went to the window to see what was going on, and the moment I pulled the curtain aside, I witnessed something I could not believe.

A tower.

There was no other word for it. A tower so tall it seemed to pierce the sky had appeared over South Korea.

"So it wasn't just me…"

Most of the users on the gallery had ended up wearing the faces of the characters they'd customized.

Half believing it, I followed the gallery posts and tried a skill. It actually worked. When I used Appraisal, information on the objects around me started displaying itself in my vision.

"Inventory."

Inside was a bow and a single bundle of arrows. Thirty shots, give or take — a lot if you wanted to call it a lot, not much if you didn't.

I was still poking through one thing and another when the ground began to shake again.