The Trapster
Whatever kind of Game Labyrinth Loki had cooked up, he would smash it head-on.
He had the confidence — and the skill — to back that up.
"Divine Comedy's Asgard is a board game."
That was what he'd thought, at least, before hearing what genre the game actually was.
"A board... game?"
"Yep."
"The kind where you roll dice?"
"That's right. Why do you think I took out a pair of dice?"
Cold sweat broke out.
Master, one of the reasons Divine Comedy's Asgard is a trash game is that the genre changes whenever it feels like it. Board game is one of them. Kkk.
He'd been sure he could clear any Game Labyrinth. Sure — but a labyrinth where luck played a massive role was another story entirely.
How lucky he usually was? Just watch him spin a Random Box. The answer was plain as day.
"Why a board game of all things? Pick something else!"
"Why's the guy who pulled a UR so scared? Your luck is the best in the world."
"No, that's—"
"It's a light party game. You can laugh, have fun, play it casual. The traps are absolutely heinous, sure, but there's no way the guy who pulled a UR would ever land on one."
I guarantee it. One hundred percent you will.
YggON's tone was dead serious.
Given how his luck had always behaved, if a "nightmare trap" sat right in front of him, he would absolutely land on it.
The stronger the random element, the worse the tendency got.
And of all things, a board game — where everything came down to luck.
"You slap on a grandiose name like 'Twilight of the Gods' and it turns out to be a board game. The name should at least earn its keep."
"That's exactly what makes it fun. Fallen gods getting recycled as board game material — I'd say they should be grateful, no?"
The die Loki threw spun across the ground like a top.
"I swear on the name of S.E.N that this game contains no manipulation whatsoever. Now then, do humor me in this little diversion."
The rules were simple.
Roll the dice and reach the goal.
Each square on the board was either an empty safe square, a combat square stocked with monsters to fight, a trap square that triggered all manner of hazards, or an event card square loaded with various events.
When the game began, he was teleported to the starting point of the board. A giant die sat just ahead.
He experimented, wondering if he could advance without rolling the dice at all — but the path forward was simply walled off.
He considered punching through with Delete, but with the goal still so far away, it seemed pointless.
The dice have no manipulation whatsoever applied to them.
"Fine, whatever. Let's just get this stupid game over with."
He grabbed the giant die with both hands and hurled it skyward.
The die landed on ⟨6⟩.
He didn't even need to walk — he was teleported automatically.
An empty square with nothing on it. A good start.
The board has 54 squares in total. If you keep rolling 6s from here on, this will be over in no time.
"Luck's on my side as usual. Then I'll take my turn—"
Loki threw his die too.
⟨4⟩.
The moment he landed on a trap square, Loki's face scrunched up.
"A trap right out of the gate? Did you perhaps steal my luck? Let's see, what trap is this—"
So cold! You cannot move for 3 turns, or until you roll a ⟨6⟩. In the meantime, you will experience extreme cold.
"You really did steal my luck— SO COLD!"
The temperature around Loki plummeted in an instant.
Watching Loki shiver violently, Ryu Hwi threw his die again.
⟨6⟩ this time as well.
Event card square.
You discovered a shortcut. Advance +3 squares.
*Unaffected by the effects of the square you land on.
He advanced another three squares.
Luck kept holding.
"M-my turn... ⟨5⟩?! If it had just been ONE higher!"
Loki was still stuck shivering in the cold, unable to escape.
Without ever hitting a trap or a combat square, Ryu Hwi found himself right in front of the goal in the blink of an eye.
Loki was somewhere far behind.
"Pulling out a board game against a UR master — was that my mistake? Hmm, to think I'd lose this badly."
Three squares remained.
One was a trap square, and another was an event card.
As long as he didn't roll a '1', he could wrap up the game at his leisure.
And yet somehow, Ryu Hwi found himself unable to throw the dice.
Loki gave him a puzzled look.
"What's wrong? Hm? Why the face like you just ate something awful?"
Ryu Hwi's expression was grim.
YggON had gone silent too.
His luck was good. Too good. Whenever this happened, the rebound always came.
Nine times out of ten, the next roll would be a 1.
Ryu Hwi swallowed hard and threw the die.
Praying — please, anything but a 1.
⟨2⟩.
Ryu Hwi pumped his fist.
A miracle! I dread to imagine what kind of rebound is coming next.
Even YggON gasped at a miracle it had never foreseen.
Only Loki, who had no idea what was wrong with the two of them, wore a puzzled expression.
You were caught in a storm of time and space.
Return to the starting point.
"Called it, dammit!"
Right on schedule, as predicted!
When he came to, Ryu Hwi was back at the starting point.
He'd thought he'd dodged the trap — only for the event card itself to be the trap.
"Seriously? Who hits exactly that card there?"
Even Loki looked flustered.
He clearly hadn't expected to land on precisely the 'return to starting point' event card of all things.
"Tsk tsk. Well then, take your time waiting up there. From the look of things, this will end in my victo—"
You were sucked into a ⟨Black Hole⟩. If you do not roll a ⟨6⟩ within 3 turns, you return to the starting point.
"That's strange. I've played this game plenty of times and never had traps hit me back to back like this. What on earth is going on?"
The corners of Loki's eyes twitched.
It appears Master's bad luck is contagious.
"Shut up, dammit!"
Ryu Hwi kicked the die with all his might.
The tumbling die came to rest on ⟨4⟩.
"Ah." / "Ah."
A trap card spun round and round before Ryu Hwi.
You've been spotted by enemies. Survive 3 consecutive battles!
"Of all the cards to draw, you pick that one. Are you really a UR master?"
Loki wore an expression of utter disbelief.
Three consecutive battles — one of the absolute garbage cards among this game's traps.
And with good reason: each enemy that appeared one after another was a monster designed as a fallen god, beings once worshipped as 'gods' in ages past.
Monsters befitting the name 'Twilight of the Gods'.
The stage transformed into a battlefield in an instant, and the first enemy revealed itself.
Nightmare Thor.
A monster with a hammer slung over its shoulder, wreathed in dark crimson lightning.
The 'prince' who had once been so valiant was now nothing more than a hideous, shambling skeleton.
"In this board game, you can only get equipment and skills through event cards. Face an enemy without gear or skills and you can never win!"
Loki said it like he was bragging.
Why would anyone proudly advertise trash-game design like that?
"Running into a hellish situation the moment the game starts is one of life's little pleasures. Enjoying even that is what this board game is all about. So then — will you manage to surviv—"
Loki never got to finish.
A bolt of lightning far more intense than the dark crimson sparks coiling around that hammer carved a trajectory connecting heaven and earth.
SR — Grimoire: Lightning Lv1
He unleashed the power of the 'magic' he had just acquired.
Nightmare Thor, caught completely off guard by the sudden strike, jolted as though his entire body had gone paralyzed.
Loki let out a wry, exasperated laugh.
"You throw a generic lightning-attribute skill at an enemy wielding a hammer wrapped in lightning? You know that's a weakness matchup — it didn't even occur to you?"
"It felt like it would work, so I went for it."
"A true UR is terrifying. Ignoring the system like it's nothing. Casually sniffing out an enemy's weak point like it's nothing."
Loki clicked his tongue.
Exactly right.
Nightmare Thor wielded a weapon that commanded thunder and lightning, yet he himself was weak to lightning-type skills.
Intuition had parsed that fact in a heartbeat.
Enchant Lv1
SSR Shuffle Gun + SR Grimoire Lightning Lv1
Enchant duration: 10 minutes.
The Shuffle Gun became wreathed in lightning.
"Let's see whose hammer hits harder, you walking pile of bones!"
⟨Mode Change: Golden Hammer⟩
The Shuffle Gun's form shifted into a hammer.
One of the weapons from Super Gemini — a hammer with the properties of an elastic material.
The lightning-wrapped hammer swelled enormous in an instant and sent Nightmare Thor flying.
Hurled into the distance, Nightmare Thor shattered into pieces.
Loki stared blankly at the scene for a moment, then doubled over, clutching his stomach in laughter.
"AHAHA! That's incredible! Ahh, well. I did hear you subdued Hecate, so I suppose the monsters in this game wouldn't even register as opponents."
Marveling at Ryu Hwi's prowess, Loki threw his own die.
⟨1⟩. Hello there, Black Hole. Loki smiled.
"Who on earth made this garbage game? ...Oh right. Me."
The next monster was subdued just as instantly.
At the sight of Ryu Hwi standing tall over the trampled monsters, Loki applauded and offered his praise.
From the starting square.
Because he'd failed to escape the Black Hole for 3 turns, Ryu Hwi had been returned to the beginning.
"Whew! Yes, this is what it's all about! Now THIS is fun! The game continues!"
You fell into a pit of hell. Survive the trap stage!
You were caught in a raging typhoon. Consecutive battles until you roll a 6!
You've been spotted by enemies. Survive 3 consecutive battles!
The Grim Reaper has appeared!
Touch him and you die. Run for your life!
TRAP! TRAP! TRAP! ...
You were caught in a storm of time and space.
Return to the starting point.
Master, let's rebrand from Trickster to Trapster. It's a whole new concept. Trapster.
"Shut it."
Four hours after the game began.
There sat Ryu Hwi at the starting point, refusing even to touch the dice.
A Trapster that doesn't just sink its own luck into the ground but drags the opponent's down with it. Aren't you invincible?
"Shut it."
Loki, utterly worn down by the midpoint of the game, was heaving ragged breaths, his face drained.
"How is this even possible? Normally this game takes two hours at the very most, no matter how long it drags. Why is it nothing but trap after trap after... hah, hah..."
Getting caught in the very traps he himself had prepared was killing him.
Too exhausted to even nag Ryu Hwi to hurry up and roll.
"UR master, do you have some kind of ability that absorbs other people's luck or infects them with misfortune? Because if you do, that's genuinely horrifying."
"Shut it."
Gritting his teeth, Ryu Hwi counted the trap cards remaining in the deck.
"From the look of it, there aren't many trap cards left. What happens when they all run out? Do you reshuffle?"
"We'd never get that far — the game ends before then. Nobody's ever gone through the entire trap deck."
Normally, you'd fall to a trap card and get a game over long before that.
But Ryu Hwi, despite getting hammered by every trap card in existence, had doggedly refused to die.
"Just tell me what happens."
Loki counted the remaining trap cards.
Seven left. A deck of over thirty cards, down to barely a handful.
"Ah, well, that's... when Ragnarok happens — a great collapse — and the board game itself vanishes, and my designated final boss pops out."
"Final boss?"
"I made him on a whim, just for fun — the strongest, most terrible boss I could imagine. I set him up to be literally impossible to beat, so, you know... Um, why are you suddenly grabbing the dice with your eyes all lit up like that?"
"Since we've come this far, I figured I'd burn through every last trap, and then vaporize this final boss or whoever the hell he is while I'm at it."
Loki recoiled in horror.
He was Loki of S.E.N, an entity who lived for amusement — but Ryu Hwi was a being who soared far, far beyond anything Loki's imagination could conjure.
How on earth Master pulled a UR will remain the great unsolved mystery of the century.
Even YggON looked exhausted.
Ryu Hwi threw the dice without a moment's hesitation.
"Three in a row?! Guh... fine, whatever! I just have to get to the goal first and end the game, that's all!"
Loki threw his die too.
"Okay, this is genuinely not normal anymore?!"
A masterpiece of luck — the two of them traipsing merrily from trap to trap like a synchronized duet.
Loki got hit by yet another 3-turn delay trap card and found himself immobilized again.
Meanwhile, Ryu Hwi had nearly reached the end.
Only one trap remained on the path ahead.
If the die landed on exactly ⟨4⟩, it was a trap; ⟨5⟩ was an event; ⟨6⟩ meant victory.
Ryu Hwi hurled the die skyward.
The die hit the ground, tumbling end over end — and just as it was about to settle on ⟨6⟩—
WHACK!
Ryu Hwi kicked the die out from under itself.
"Hey?! That's cheating and you know it!"
Loki shouted something or other, but Ryu Hwi just insisted, "Then add a rule that says you can't kick the dice."
"It was going to be a 6 and end the game anyway?!"
Loki, allow me to enlighten you as to your fatal mistake. Do not go looking for common sense in our Master.
The die came to rest on ⟨4⟩.
The moment the final trap card triggered, Ryu Hwi grinned from ear to ear, as if he'd just cleared the entire game.
The game board collapsed into ruin.
Watching the scene, Loki let out a hollow, disbelieving laugh.
"I've lived a long, long time, and I've never met anyone this unhinged."
Tell me about it.