Sudden World Event (2)
Day two of the closed beta, 9 PM.
Galicia was peaceful once again tonight.
Even the lucky winners from the United States and other overseas regions had woken up with early-bird determination, poured their entire lives into the game, and dived in. So, with the exception of a handful of people suffering through brutal overtime, the concurrent player count sat at a staggering nine hundred thirty.
The original closed beta registration had been one thousand four. Factoring in the keys distributed to prospective employees today brought the total to one thousand ten. That meant over ninety percent of all registered players were currently logged in — a truly remarkable sight.
Naturally, Pradera was overflowing with energy.
The noisiest place of all was, of course, the Grand Plaza.
"Looking for people to grind Wolfwood! Got tank and heal, just need DPS!"
"Selling weapons better than the shop gear! Free equipment repairs with every purchase!"
"What's the best path after Swordman Rank 1? Looking for a mentor...!"
"Looking for a Daksa party on the Great Plains! Solid EXP gains! Just need you and we're good to go!"
The plaza was packed with people belting out lines that belonged in chat windows, fleshed out and delivered at full volume.
"I'm Kim Chang-sik, the fifth-generation only son of Boksan-dong, looking for a girlfriend! Cash required!"
...There were some slightly strange proclamations mixed in, but that too was a form of roleplay.
And so, as everyone's experiences and everyone's stories jostled against one another, weaving new tales in the process—
The shadow's demonic hand begins to stretch across Galicia.
For the first time, a world message appeared.
"What the hell?"
"You got it too?"
"What the crap is a 'near-lim-ja's nose-beast'?"
Until now, world messages had only ever appeared for hotfixes — the kind that told you to check the patch notes. And those messages were usually sent under the name of GM Se-rin.
This time, there was no sender at all. Just a pure system announcement.
People tilted their heads in confusion.
Shadow?
It was already night, though?
Because the game ran in real time, synced to Earth — more precisely, to Korea Standard Time (KST) — looking up at the sky for shadows or anything else revealed nothing but darkness.
Of course, the anomaly made itself known soon enough.
"Did it just get darker?"
"I can't... see the stars?"
Normally, Galicia's night sky scattered the brilliant light of the moon and stars so freely that you could roam the fields at night without any light source at all.
But not now.
"Uh, uh, where even is the road?"
"Anyone got a spare torch?"
"Lumos!"
The heroes inside Pradera itself were relatively fine, but those who'd been wandering around outside the city found themselves lost in a darkness so thick it swallowed the path in an instant.
Unfortunately, with no world chat or megaphone system to speak of, the experience didn't spread quickly — but then...
(Screenshot of a Mushroom Rabbit steeped in dark, shadowy energy)
Their levels went up and their names changed to "Shadow-Corrupted Mushroom Rabbit" lmao;;;
Is this related to that world message from earlier
In the virtual reality, you could link your real smartphone at any time for calls and messages, and web browsing worked just fine. So posts sharing the current situation flooded the gallery in real time.
Naturally, people looking to stir up aggro inevitably appeared in the chaos — but genuine, useful eyewitness accounts poured in as well. Players quickly pieced the situation together.
Ah!
It's an event!
Are there linked quests?
Those who'd read plenty of game-development novels, and those with vivid imaginations, diligently put in the legwork. Players who ran to the Royal Guard received the sudden quest Suppress the Cultists and racked up merit points. Those who went to the City Watch could take on commissions to hunt the corrupted monsters.
Just as people were settling into the idea that this was simply a monster power-up event...
The power of the shadow grows stronger. The invasion begins.
Another new message appeared.
Hooks once again floated above everyone's heads — but this time, there was no need for anyone to go hunting for answers.
Stop the Shadow Invasion!
An enemy invasion of Pradera is imminent. Gather together as one and repel the assault!
Status windows popped up before everyone's eyes with a cheerful boop.
An enemy invasion of Pradera was imminent, so everyone needed to gather with one heart and one mind to hold the line...!
Well, it was a common type of defense quest in RPG games. So people grasped the situation quickly.
In the Grand Plaza of Pradera, where every kind of shout had been mixed together just moments before, only one kind of cry remained.
"Looking for party members!"
"Invite the Sturdy Shield, please! Confident tank here!"
"Owner of a +4 Greatbow."
"Rank 2 Cleric, noble healer, looking for a group."
For an unknown event, forming a party and tackling it together was far better for reducing variables than going solo. So the manpower market began to overflow with activity...
Bwooooo—
Accompanied by the faint, haunting sound of a horn from somewhere in the distance—
Near Pradera Castle, a sharp crack!
Space split open, and a massive fissure tore into existence.
And the true nature of that fissure was, of course—
"Mobs!"
"Mobs are pouring out...!"
A monster wave.
The vast plain spread before Pradera Castle.
Its official name was the Frigarah Plains... but among the players, it had already solidified under the nickname "Pra's Front Yard."
The sight of the vast majority of logged-in beta testers thronging together to fight alongside the Royal Guard was a true spectacle.
Se-rin spotted a few familiar heroes among them.
Lee Han-byul, still sporting her trademark abysmal accuracy.
"See that?! That's me!"
Fortunately, it wouldn't have been much of an exaggeration to say the entire plain was carpeted in monsters — so she could hit something no matter where she fired.
Beyond her, Se-rin took in Seo Han-ryang swinging his longsword again and again, and the employees (the real ones) who'd already used the beta keys she'd handed out that afternoon to log in...
"...Does that one even have a real life?"
Se-rin let out a sigh.
"Mmm, mmm, this is the fun of going zap!"
In one corner of the battlefield, a single mage was literally dominating the field.
A woman who would have proudly claimed the number-one spot if a ranking system existed.
Username Jijon Ssalcol... Yoo Seol was summoning lightning like a madwoman and pouring it into the monster wave.
Her level was already twenty-one.
Magician Rank 1, Elemental Rank 2.
With a class composition specialized for area-of-effect damage, she was displaying truly overwhelming firepower on a large-scale battlefield like this. It also helped that the monsters had been set to spawn at roughly five to ten levels, accounting for the average player level.
"Whoa, that mage is insane."
"Isn't that broken? Needs a nerf..."
"Melee bros are still melee bros even here, huh..."
Listening to the envious exclamations erupting from all sides, Se-rin made a mental note to add a few lines to the next patch notes.
Balance was a critical matter, after all.
At any rate, it had already been thirty minutes since the monster wave began pouring out.
"About time..."
Se-rin gauged the moment to intervene.
If the battle dragged on too long, people would start complaining of fatigue rather than enjoying a sudden event. Cutting things off at the right point was important.
This wasn't clicking a keyboard. While it didn't strain their real bodies, they were still moving their virtual flesh and fighting. She needed to walk the proper line between fun and exhaustion.
The safest ending would be to simply float a notice like "The fissure is closing!" and wrap things up.
"But that's a little boring."
Events like this would keep happening going forward. And if every single one just dumped a bunch of monsters and called it a day, the players' dopamine threshold would only climb higher and higher.
Just as the boy who cried wolf had an expiration date, she needed to keep providing justification and motivation for people to keep holding the line against monsters.
The safest option?
A boss monster, of course.
She could always yank out a Big Bad Wolf or Goblin Lord from one of the instance dungeons and toss it in with a flourish... but that felt a bit dull.
As the very first event, it needed a more overwhelming production. And something connected to the in-game story would be ideal.
In that case, there was only one choice.
"Haaah..."
Se-rin let out a low breath, and finally made her decision.
This was a critical period for virality. No matter how well-received the game was among the current testers, what came next was still an unknown.
There was that saying about rowing when the tide comes in...
"Well, it is a game..."
Se-rin possessed enough intellectual capacity to distinguish between "Kim Se-rin the human" and "Se-rin the roleplay character."
So, well.
A little embarrassment was something she'd just have to endure.
.
.
.
A short while later.
The shadow begins its final struggle.
The moment Se-rin's world message appeared, the flood of monsters pouring from the fissure began to dwindle.
"Did we get them?"
Just as one of the heroes murmured a magic spell laced with disappointment...
"Uh, uhhh?!"
"Over there, look over there!"
Cries of shock erupted from every direction.
The heroes' gazes locked onto the fissure, which was crackling with static-like visual effects.
And there—
