Unknown's Deep Sea Escape 5 — Linpel Darius Attacked Me, So I Deleted His Account.

A month had passed since his last upload when, at last, a new video appeared.

So Ryu7017 hadn't tucked his tail and run from the Linzea Guild after all?

People were baffled. This was a man who had been branded an enemy of society at a Linzea Guild press conference, with bounty hunters combing the world for his whereabouts. Everyone had assumed that by now he was either hiding somewhere, trembling in terror, or already in Linzea's clutches.

And then, out of nowhere, this video dropped.

People scrambled over one another to click on it. Within the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hour, the view count had blown past several hundred thousand.

"Greetings, everyone! Ryu7017 — Ryu Hwi here."

The video opened with Ryu7017 — Ryu Hwi ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— offering a cheerful bow to the camera.

"At the press conference held recently, Gabriel Darius of the Linzea Guild called me an 'enemy of society.'"

With that, Ryu Hwi slowly shook his head. To anyone watching, the gesture was a naked, deliberate jab at the Linzea Guild and Gabriel Darius himself.

"So here's the thing."

Ryu Hwi smiled.

Why was it, though? Everyone who saw that smile felt an inexplicable, creeping sense of dread.

"If you're all going to expect that much from me, I really have no choice but to deliver, don't I?"

The smile vanished in an instant. With eyes as cold as a frozen lake, staring dead into the camera, Ryu Hwi made his declaration.

"I will bring about the collapse of World of Phantasm."

The moment those words landed, countless viewers felt a shiver run down their spines.

Take Ryu Hwi at his word, and the meaning was clear: he'd never intended any such thing — but since the Linzea Guild had decided to hound him, he would now destroy World of Phantasm for real.

"That said, collapsing World of Phantasm outright would be a bit of a tall order... so let's call this a practice match! Now — can anyone guess where I am right now?"

The camera, which had been fixed on Ryu Hwi, panned across the surroundings.

It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was a bizarre landscape. The entire palette was pastel, and in the sky hung clouds and a sun — both built from countless little cube fragments clustered together.

People had naturally assumed Ryu Hwi was inside World of Phantasm. Instead, he was standing in some entirely unrelated game labyrinth.

"Does anyone recognize this labyrinth? Anyone? It's called Doki Doki Builder — a sandbox game that was trendy once upon a time, which someone slapped together half-heartedly and then abandoned."

Viewers immediately searched for Doki Doki Builder.

"Resource yield is pitiful, it's no fun at all, and there are no gamers left. Any sane operation would have shut it down ages ago — and yet it's still running. Care to guess why?"

It was a game labyrinth more than ten years old. It had enjoyed a brief moment in the sun before sinking under a avalanche of scathing reviews and fading from public attention. Who would have imagined a labyrinth like this still existed?

"A game labyrinth that no gamers visit, kept running on pure neglect. Honestly, the world wouldn't miss it one bit, right? And for that reason—"

Ryu Hwi paused, then finished the thought with quiet finality.

"—I'm going to erase it."

A new screen unfolded. What were the conditions for destroying a game labyrinth?

After the caption flashed across the center of the screen, the feed cut back to Ryu Hwi, who was wandering alone through what looked for all the world like a children's playground.

"A shame I can't do this with live commentary. If I could, I'd have made it an interactive Q&A. Well — first, as you all know, game labyrinths get terminated fairly often. So the question becomes: under what circumstances does a labyrinth get terminated...?"

Ryu Hwi looked up at the sky. Then he started gathering nearby cubes of a suitable size and began building something. After about ten minutes of assembling yellow cubes, the finished product took the shape of — a gold coin.

"Reason one: resources. When the resources allocated to the labyrinth itself run dry."

Gamers ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠enter game labyrinths to harvest resources. And of everything a labyrinth yields, ether is the single most essential commodity keeping modern civilization running.

"You may already be aware of this, but resource extraction from World of Phantasm has been plummeting lately — in both quantity and quality. All of it. Why do you suppose that is?"

Fundamentally, far too much about Yggdrasil and the game labyrinths remains unexplained. But one thing was beyond dispute: the labyrinths universally praised as masterpieces — or at least as solid works — were the ones that yielded the richest harvests.

"There's a saying — just a legend, mind you — that Yggdrasil likes what's fun. So then: is World of Phantasm a game fun enough to be called a masterpiece? A fine work?"

Ryu Hwi let the question hang for a moment before answering flatly.

"You've all felt it in your bones, I'm sure — World of Phantasm is a piece of garbage. Latia Soft has been papering over a hollow game with sheer scale, and that's exactly why the quality and volume of its resources keep sliding. And once resources run out and the labyrinth shuts down? We've watched that happen countless times by now."

Game quality = resource yield and quality. Resource depletion = labyrinth termination.

"Reason two: the number of gamers."

Ryu Hwi swept his gaze across the vast pastel terrain of Doki Doki Builder. Not another gamer in sight.

"When a labyrinth's player count stays below a certain threshold for an extended period — like it is here — the labyrinth is terminated. Naturally, this ties back to reason one. If resource yield drops, the gamers leave, don't they?"

Ultimately, a labyrinth's quality was the single most decisive factor in determining its lifespan.

"Of course, there are exceptions. Some labyrinths with genuinely excellent gameplay still get terminated. And then, strangely, there are those that are already dead as doornails yet somehow keep limping along. A prime example of the former is a labyrinth called Crazy Soul."

Those who recognized the name reacted with a start of recognition. Those who didn't searched for it — and discovered it was a game labyrinth a full thirty years old.

"Those in the know, know — it was a genuinely great game. Masterpiece material, or at the very least a fine one. The resource quality was superb, too! And yet it was terminated after a mere three years. Why, you ask?"

The answer was simple. Veteran gamers who had once dared to challenge Crazy Soul, and the spectators who had watched them do it, couldn't help but let out a heavy sigh. The newcomers searched the name, saw the answer, and were left speechless — it was so absurd it wasn't even funny.

"The difficulty was far too high."

No further explanation needed.

"A brilliant game — but back then, there were plenty of other great labyrinths to choose from. The gamers went where the difficulty was reasonable and the resources were plentiful. And the result..."

Crazy Soul was left to rot. When it finally closed its doors, its devoted fans wept — but there was nothing to be done. No matter how brilliant a labyrinth might be, without gamers, it dies.

"Incidentally, this — Doki Doki Builder — is an example of the latter."

Doki Doki Builder's resources were on the verge of exhaustion, and it had no gamers at all.

"Every so often, you find a labyrinth like this one. Which is why I'm going to attempt reason number three, right here and now."

Ryu Hwi broke off mid-sentence and looked up at the sky.

"Well, would you look at that. Perfect timing."

Cube God Doki Doki Cube God.

Floating serenely in the sky: the absurdity of this world made flesh. What would Picasso's broken perspective look like rendered in three dimensions? This. Exactly this. The 'god' that had appeared in the heavens was a giant heart with eyes, a nose, and a mouth sloppily stuck on — an utterly ridiculous sight.

"This being, bearing the laughably stupid name of Cube God Doki Doki Cube God, is the divine entity of Doki Doki Builder."

The moment those words left his mouth, viewers scrambled to search for the Cube God. The world of Doki Doki Builder was assembled from countless small cube fragments — and according to the game's lore, every one of those fragments was created by the Cube God. He was essential to the world's existence... and flagged as indestructible.

"This game actually had quite a few fun elements going for it. The reason it got labeled a kusoge anyway is precisely that god right there."

Trash game. Garbage. An insult to sandbox games everywhere?

As a flood of curses poured in, the story of the Doki Doki Cube God came spilling out:

The comments were a wasteland of vitriol and profanity.

"So then. Starting now..."

Ryu Hwi drew his gunsword.

"...I'm going to destroy that Doki Doki Cube God."

The viewers froze.

Destroy what? Wasn't the divine entity of this game supposed to be indestructible? Had they misheard?

Ryu Hwi gave them no time to wonder. He charged straight at the Doki Doki Cube God.

And in that moment, viewers were brutally reminded of just how absurd this man's build really was.

The gunsword was engulfed in a dazzling radiance.

Even back in World of Phantasm, Ryu Hwi had wielded skills and items that did not exist in that game. The same held true here in Doki Doki Builder. Using the exact same skill loadout and equipment he had shown off before, Ryu Hwi carved his way through the Cube God's defenses.

Watching the scene unfold, people could hardly process it.

How is that even possible?

Transferring between game labyrinths required a Conversion. And after a Conversion, naturally, anything learned or acquired in the previous labyrinth became unusable — because a Conversion reconfigures your character to fit the target labyrinth's system.

And yet Ryu Hwi? That so-called "skill deficit problem" simply didn't seem to apply to him.

The Cube God Doki Doki Cube God constructed cube soldiers to assault any gamer it found. The sheer volume was oppressive, granted, but each individual soldier was hardly impressive. Strip away the indestructible attribute, and its attack patterns were downright simplistic.

So why did gamers call Doki Doki Builder a trash game?

Because dodging a god that demolished everything every single night made "building things" — the entire point of the game — flatly impossible.

But with YggON's skills at his disposal, the foe wasn't remotely difficult. A "god" it might be called, yet its difficulty sat miles below even the Chaos Dark Knight.

Sword Gang tore through the cube soldiers without breaking stride. No matter how frantically the god churned out new ones, none survived so much as a heartbeat. If the Cube God had possessed even a scrap of intelligence, it surely would have raged at the absurdity of its creations shattering the instant they were born — just as every gamer who had ever played this labyrinth once had.

In a flash, Ryu Hwi obliterated the last of the soldiers and closed to point-blank range of the Cube God, driving his gunsword straight into it. That unsettling heart-shaped face let out an earsplitting shriek.

"The third and final way to terminate a game labyrinth."

Ryu Hwi gripped the hilt of the gunsword buried in the Cube God and sank his center of gravity low. However violently the god convulsed and thrashed, Ryu Hwi didn't budge an inch.

"When a fatal flaw emerges in a labyrinth's core design — rendering it impossible to sustain."

A faint light gathered in Ryu Hwi's hand. So faint that unless you were watching with absolute focus, you'd miss it entirely.

"What happens, then, when a labyrinth develops a contradiction so severe it cannot survive?"

An indestructible existence. The very foundation of this world.

Ryu Hwi reached out his hand toward it.

"Let's find out together, shall we?"