Nightfall - First Broadcast (2)
“Alright then! From this moment on, we’re booting up Nightfall for my big brother, who’s never touched a VR game in his life!”
The instant Winter launched Nightfall, the colorless void around them began reassembling itself at breakneck speed into something entirely new.
When Eugene came back to his senses, he was standing in a city.
A desolate, bleak city where not a single passerby could be found anywhere.
Caw! Caw!
Somewhere a crow’s harsh cry echoed, and from the far end of an alley several enormous shadows began to take shape.
Woooooooo!
They were not human.
They were werewolves—creatures that looked like someone had mashed wolf and man together and then inflated the result several times over into something grotesque.
And one man was already striding toward that city where such abominations roamed freely: Arkham.
That man was none other than Nightfall’s protagonist, the Hunter—and at the same time, Eugene himself.
“…So this is the city of the cursed beasts… Arkham…”
The Hunter—Eugene—muttered in a low voice, let out a quiet sigh, then simply stared up at the blood-red moon hanging in the sky.
“Still… I have to go. My duty is to hunt the things that are not human…”
The moment those words left his lips, Eugene’s body carefully brushed the weathered signboard that read Welcome to Arkham.
Welcome to Arkham
“Huh?”
Control flooded back into the body that had been moving on its own until that very second.
“Man, I felt this way with the Dark Ring series too—Powell Software’s atmosphere is still absolute fire. Am I right, chat?”
Seeing Winter floating beside him in a half-transparent, almost ghostly state while she cast the stream, Eugene finally realized that everything he had just experienced was not reality—it was a single scene from Nightfall.
“…This is really a virtual reality game?”
The viewers flooded the chat with gentle, understanding messages as they watched Eugene blink in a complete daze.
This is basically indistinguishable from reality…
Honestly, no matter how sophisticated VR was supposed to be, Eugene had always assumed it would still just be a game.
But what he had just seen with his own two eyes… it was close enough to another full-blown reality that the difference barely mattered.
Even back in the other world, mages who could weave illusion magic on this level were extremely rare.
Only those who had earned the title of Archmage, or specialists who devoted their entire lives to the study of illusion, could create phantasms that didn’t fall short of the real thing.
And yet Earth’s modern science had somehow built another reality that was virtually identical to the original. Eugene still couldn’t quite believe it.
“I’ve told you a hundred times already. That’s why I kept saying you should try a VR game at least once. Regretting not listening to me sooner?”
“Yeah… if I’d known it was this close to real life, I would’ve jumped in ages ago…”
Winter smirked at his answer, then turned back to the audience.
“Alright, before we dive in properly, let me give you a quick rundown of Nightfall. The game is set in the nineteenth-century European city of Arkham. You play as a Hunter who walks the streets and puts down the monsters roaming the place.”
“Whoa whoa, calm down. Personally I don’t mind story spoilers at all. Because this is a Powell Software game. Who the hell plays a Powell Software title for the story?”
Powell Software had always been famous for crafting games that pushed a player’s mechanical skill to the absolute limit with razor-sharp difficulty. On the other hand, they barely paid any attention to the story that was supposed to be the backbone of a game.
To be more precise, a story did exist inside their titles, but the characters only ever spoke in the most vague and cryptic terms about it. You could ignore the plot entirely and still play just fine, so almost nobody bothered with it.
In fact, people who actually tried to piece together a Powell Software story were mocked as “running full Powell-brain,” and the term had become a meme of its own. That said everything that needed saying.
“Nightfall doesn’t support multiplayer, so my brother and I are going to take turns every time one of us dies. That means even though he’s a complete VR newbie, our overall progress should still move pretty fast.”
“Aw, come on, guys. I cleared Dark Ring 1 through 3 with fewer than a hundred deaths total. With skills like that, don’t you think I can carry one troll of a brother all the way to the Nightfall ending no problem?”
If you reach the Nightfall ending with 10 deaths or fewer, I’ll drop 1 million won. Chicken out and die, I guess.
“Clear the ending in under ten deaths? How am I supposed to beat a mission like that? If I weren’t dragging my brother along like today it might’ve been doable, but this is just unfair, right?”
After bantering with chat and hyping the atmosphere for a while, Winter finally noticed that enough time had passed and gave a little shrug.
“Alright! Let’s officially kick off my brother’s first playthrough of Nightfall!”
The moment Winter finished speaking, Eugene felt his body start moving on its own again.
He was standing at the entrance of a city that felt completely deserted and carried a distinctly sinister atmosphere.
When he focused, he realized a middle-aged man in a bowler hat and a worn coat was standing right in front of him, staring quietly.
“Haven’t seen your face around these parts. A visitor, perhaps? Quite the rare sight—tourists showing up in a city like this.”
The man looked Eugene up and down, then suddenly smiled as if something had clicked.
“Oh-ho. Looking closer, you’re no tourist. Judging by that gear… you’re a Hunter, aren’t you? Did you come here after hearing the news that monsters have appeared in Arkham?”
“That’s right, sir.”
Eugene’s body automatically nodded and answered as if agreeing with the question.
“Well… if your profession is Hunter, then of course you’d come to purge the monsters that showed up in Arkham. But this time it’s far too dangerous. The creatures currently roaming Arkham… they aren’t the kind that human strength can put down.”
The middle-aged man placed a hand on Eugene’s shoulder, looking genuinely worried.
“I’ll give you some advice here and now. If you value your life, turn around and leave. One more man walking into Arkham won’t change a thing. Just like every time before, you’ll only add one more meaningless corpse to the pile. You’ll meet nothing but a pointless, dog’s death. Even knowing that… can you still say with confidence that you’ll enter Arkham?”
“I am a Hunter. And there is no Hunter anywhere who runs just because monsters are scary. Because…”
“…Monsters eat humans, but the ones who hunt those monsters are Hunters.”
When Eugene nodded once more, the middle-aged man let out a long sigh and handed him a small key.
“Haa… Fine. I clearly warned you not to enter Arkham. So from this moment on, everything that happens… remember that it is the result of the choice you yourself made.”
At those words, a thick fog began to fill Eugene’s vision.
While his startled body looked around wildly, the already fading middle-aged man’s cackling laughter echoed from every direction.
“Welcome. Welcome to Arkham, the hellish city that has unfolded upon this world.”
The fog surrounding Eugene vanished in an instant.
He realized he was now standing in a completely different place.
The central plaza right in the middle of the city of Arkham.
From this point on, Nightfall’s tutorial section truly began.