Fantasy of Galicia Is... Shutting Down... (4)
Mobile games have a certain cliché of a tutorial.
The protagonist burdened with a grand backstory — a legendary hero beloved by a goddess, or the sole hope of a kingdom or empire.
They start fully maxed out, carving through monsters with flashy, overwhelmingly powerful skills, literally butchering everything in their path. Then they face off against some final-boss-caliber nemesis, and—
"Was it... a dream?"
It turns out the whole thing was a dream. (Usually a prophetic one.)
"You've finally awakened, Hero...!"
And then, after exhausting every last drop of power, they wake up with amnesia. In other words: the demo's over, and now you're nothing but a Level 1 scrub who has to claw back the strength you lost!
That kind of plot.
It isn't just mobile games, either — PC RPGs pull this exact stunt fairly often.
So why give players power only to snatch it away?
Because the act itself builds anticipation.
Ah! So if my pathetic little character grows, they'll become that strong! Better grind my heart out, then!
And then around Level 5 the Welcome Package (about five bucks) pops up, and the moment the equipment enhancement system unlocks, the Welcome Reforge Package (twenty-two bucks) materializes right behind it...
It was also a fantastic vehicle for slotting in that classic Korean freemium monetization pipeline.
Which is why the players who had received Elisha's Blessing and Se-rin's Blessing to stand against the suddenly appearing powerhouse — the Evil Dragon — couldn't help but feel a flicker of déjà vu at the whole production.
But Se-rin's intentions were a little different.
Over those two weeks, the users — the heroes — had fully adapted to virtual reality. People who'd leaned on the assist system at first gradually had epiphanies like, Huh? If I attack manually, I hit way harder, and one by one they cast off their training wheels.
Unlike the real world they lived in, they would have felt the physics engine (not really) operating with a freer, more generous hand.
And now—
"Hellfire——!"
With nothing more than a short chant, a mage conjured a colossal mass of black flame large enough to swallow a small village whole, hammering the evil dragon's scales without mercy.
"True Colors of a Hero — Desperado!"
A gunslinger with a lit cigarette clenched between their teeth dual-wielded a pair of pistols, magazines that would never empty for as long as the cigarette burned, and opened fire like a man possessed.
"Starcall—— Slash——!"
A swordsman cleared a good thirty meters in a single leap, starlight coiling around the blade as they launched their strike, liberation written all over their face.
The things that had felt lacking throughout the closed beta. Being able to freely do anything they imagined on an unfamiliar fantasy continent had been deeply satisfying — but that had only ever been the expression of human power.
Now, though, the disappointment that had been knotted up in the users' hearts was melting away all at once.
A sense of power as if they had become transcendent beings. Even from the fists of the martial artists who'd been mocked as monkeys, countless streams of fist-energy stretched outward like the Thousand-Armed Guanyin, battering the enemy without end.
"Hahaha...! Now this is a game...!"
"Ah! I wanna grab that red snout!"
Even knowing that all of it would vanish the moment the closed beta ended, people savored the moment with pure, unfiltered joy. Just watching it on a screen as a secondhand experience was already a rush. Experiencing that action high with their own bodies?
There was no way they could hold back.
And so the heroes went to town, treating the infinite-stamina evil dragon like a punching bag, or cutting down the swarms of shadow demons that poured in like a plague of locusts every time the dragon beat its wings.
Unfortunately, no show that joyful lasts forever...
The curtain on their happy hour was about to fall.
Shortly, beginning at 23:00, the cinematic marking the end of the Closed Beta will play.
"Already?"
"Ugggh."
"Nooo, I'm not ready...!"
"Just one more day — no, one more week of extension, please...!"
A chorus of thoroughly regretful wailing spilled out for a moment, but well. Reality seeped back into the heads of people who'd been over-immersed in their god complex, and once the battlefield settled into a brief lull, they diligently screenshot every liberated skill and started cataloging the data.
After roughly five minutes of grace time—
With the roar of the Demon God Asile, the world froze.
Every player's controls locked in unison, and their viewpoints rose — not through their own two eyes, but drifting higher and higher into the open sky.
And what filled their vision were the two goddesses.
The fallen Se-rin and Elisha, locked in a desperate struggle.
Se-rin's face twisted in pain, as though she were reclaiming memories long lost. The force behind her attacks gradually drained away, and the red that had dyed her brainwashed eyes began to yield to a blue radiance — when suddenly—
Unable to simply watch, the Demon God Asile's jaws wrenched open wide.
Crying out in a frantic voice, Elisha looked down at the heroes who had been fighting so hard. But every last one of them had somehow frozen solid.
She bit down hard on her small lower lip. The moment those tiny lips began to move, murmuring an incantation...
A brilliant halo wrapped around the heroes' bodies once more.
A large-scale protective spell, poured full of divine power. But it looked for all the world like that was the full extent of Elisha's strength...
KRAAAAAAAAAASH——!
With a sound that seemed to shake heaven and earth, the breath that erupted from Asile's maw swept across the entire area as if to annihilate everything in its path.
The heroes' viewports — the ones who'd been munching popcorn through the cinematic — flashed white.
Lee Han-byul's chat window, streaming the cinematic live, was flashing just as hard.
And when the aftershock finally cleared, what came into view was...
Se-rin — still holding Elisha tightly in her arms, shielding her after pouring out every last drop of power to protect the heroes.
Even though she still wore the form of a fallen goddess, a faint smile lingered at the corners of Se-rin's mouth.
Her trembling lips parted...
The ultimate finishing move.
A line loaded with the full weight of a "you have to cry here" moment.
She gave a gentle smile — and then plummeted straight down, swallowed by the shadows.
But her exit wasn't entirely empty-handed.
In the palm of Elisha's hand — as she stared blankly down at the place where Se-rin had fallen — a sphere of shimmering radiance had appeared at some point.
The final legacy Se-rin had left behind.
Elisha's soft cheeks trembled as she seethed with rage — and in that moment, a window appeared before the eyes of the heroes who had been watching the scene unfold.
Of course, it wasn't a "Press X to show Se-rin some JOY" prompt...
Se-rin's lingering will whispers to you.
She earnestly beseeches you to offer up the Hero's Blessing dwelling within you — to Elisha, Galicia's final hope — for the salvation of the world.
※ Depending on this choice, the story branch at official launch may change.
A choice, dropped on them out of nowhere. And the story branch might change depending on it?
Listening to Se-rin's voice reading the text aloud, the heroes' heads spun. Most of them hit [Y].
But—
"I'm a soulless psychopath so this kind of thing doesn't move me at all."
"If I refuse, does it turn into a dark fantasy world? Actually, that sounds sick...!"
"Heehee, I wanna see Se-rin-chan and Elisha-chan cry more though... buhiiik..."
A handful of people, either clinging to their roleplay concepts or simply following their own desires, defiantly hit [N].
Once the brief window for choosing had closed—
At last, with the final lines of the prepared script, Elisha spread wings of light and Asile — dropping her polymorph — unfurled wings of darkness, and the two collided in midair.
And then — blackout.
This time the darkness stretched on long enough that people tilted their heads, wondering, Is that it? There were still about ten minutes left until the scheduled midnight, after all.
Of course, Se-rin — who had just poured her entire soul into that performance — was never going to flub something this important...
The next moment.
From the ash-gray battlefield of the fight that had just ended, the camera climbed higher and higher into the sky — until it was looking down over the very heart of the Galicia continent.
The city where the game had first begun: Pradera.
And the vast landscape spread out around it.
Ah, I was adventuring out there just a little while ago — players found themselves turning over the memories they'd already accumulated, when—
The sun rose.
The sun set.
And it began to repeat, faster and faster.
If what they'd just watched had been a real-time WWE live show, what filled the players' eyes now was a true cinematic in every sense of the word — a time-lapse.
In the accelerated flow of time, across the plains where only Pradera Castle had once stood as a solitary landmark...
Small villages began to take root, one by one. Those villages grew in scale, and rudimentary walls rose bit by bit. New buildings sprang up around them, and then outer fortifications rose to embrace those buildings entirely...
A city was born.
No — not just one.
Across the wide open plains, countless new cities began to rise.
Then the view shifted to a forest. A forest that had once teemed with magical beasts was wrapped in a mysterious light... and between the greenery, a new race with pointed ears began to sing in their homeland.
Further on, in the sheer-cut mountain ranges, short-statured dwarves erupted from the earth itself, digging mines deeper and deeper inward.
And beyond them, countless other demi-human races came into being...
The view returned to the beginning.
The first city. The city of adventure — Pradera.
And within it, the temple that still stood in all its majesty.
Se-rin's goddess statue still cut a lush, imposing figure — but something had changed with the passage of time.
Elisha's goddess statue was gone without a trace.
A murmur of unease escaped from the people watching the cinematic — and right after that.
In front of the temple.
A cute white-haired girl who looked for all the world like Elisha, who had been fast asleep, slowly opened her eyes... and quietly monologued to herself.
The timestamp hit 23:59:48.
About two seconds of silence swallowed Elisha from view once more.
Then a logo appeared on screen.
And then — a blink.
00:00:00.
The story paused, for a little while.