The Ten-Thousandth Attempt

Staring down at my character sprawled miserably on the ground, I slammed my fist against the desk before I even realized I was doing it.

“Aaaargh!”

Months of effort, gone in an instant. Do you have any idea what kind of character this was? He was supposed to be the Savior — the one destined to save the entire world. And now look at him, snuffed out like it meant nothing.

“Goddammit!”

I chugged the energy drink sitting beside me and glared back at the screen. Sure enough, the lifeless character hadn't moved. A heavy sigh escaped me on its own.

Last Savior — an open-world RPG infamous for its hellish difficulty. It was the one and only game where I'd poured in over five years of my life and still never cleared the final achievement. A completion rate of 0% on the achievements tracker, which meant not a single person on Earth had ever unlocked the last one.

And the problem was, that final achievement was the true ending. In other words, no one had ever actually seen this game through to its end.

“Whew.”

A roguelike structure where death meant starting over — and on top of that, every new character's traits and starting point were randomized. That was exactly what made the game so addictive to anyone with a stubborn streak.

Then again, I'd always been the kind of person who couldn't rest until every last achievement in a game was cleared. Didn't matter if it was mindless grinding or an intricate puzzle — I'd simply refuse to quit until it was done.

'There's no such thing as impossible. Just keep at it until it works.'

With nothing but that mindset, I'd beaten countless games and even made a bit of a name for myself in the community. But lately, I'd become famous in a very different way.

So yeah — these days I was famous for exactly one thing: being the headbutting dinosaur with nothing but an absurd number of attempts to my name.

The reasons people mocked me were, admittedly, as simple as they came. Whatever. What actually mattered was that I'd failed yet again.

“Hah.”

Time solves everything. Especially in a package game with no pay-to-win mechanics. '...I actually used to believe that, didn't I?' Maybe there really were things in this world that time alone couldn't crack. Thinking about how I'd sunk more hours into this game than any other, it was a question worth seriously considering.

I'd optimized for efficiency, chased the best possible outcomes, thrown attempt after attempt at it — and failed every single time. The biggest problem was the sheer, unnecessary abundance of apocalypse scenarios. From what I'd confirmed with my own eyes, there were four distinct bad endings, and the community had never found evidence of any others.

First, the indiscriminate war of conquest waged by the Central Empire. Then the evil god summoning orchestrated by the southern zealots. The undead rampage unleashed by the western necromancers. And finally, the Great Demon Invasion that began in the North.

Stopping all of them was the bare minimum requirement for reaching the true ending — because if you didn't, the game simply ended right then and there.

I'd managed to cut the first three off at the pass before, but the Great Demon Invasion was the real killer.

“How the hell are you supposed to stop an invasion that's already carved up half the North by the time it starts?!”

That was the single biggest reason this game was a steaming pile of garbage. They should have moved the starting point earlier, or at the very least delayed the invasion event by a few in-game months. Anything.

“Garbage game.”

Not that saying it out loud changed anything. All I could do was press the start button — because this was me: feeling the sheer bullshittery of it all and still wanting to overcome it anyway.

“Haa, whatever. Please, just this once, let me start with some broken-as-hell trait. Give me the First Prince, I'm begging you...”

If I failed to see the ending this time too, I was dead serious — I'd march straight to the developer's office, or at the very least leave them a five-thousand-seven-hundred-character review.

The moment that thought crossed my mind, a fanfare burst out like it was mocking me, and a message floated up on screen. I read it slowly, and the back of my neck prickled.

'Who exactly is being mocked here?'

My teeth ground together on their own, but I forced the irritation down and moved to start the game —

Another message appeared, dripping with condescension, and my hand shot to the monitor before I could stop it. Because yes, anyone with eyes could see this was mockery.

“Obviously!”

I reached for the mouse to click the final prompt — and that was when something felt wrong.

'The screen...'

A burst of light flared like a camera flash. I squeezed my eyes shut, opened them again, and what greeted me was —

“What the...”

An antique room I had never seen in my life. Dazed by the suddenness of it all, I sat up and looked around.

'Why am I' — here, of all places?

My own bed had been replaced by something lavish. The room was far more spacious than before, and the furniture had traded itself out for pieces straight out of some medieval noble house.

'Medieval?'

As it happened, Last Savior was set in a remarkably similar era. And with that thought, my last memory came flooding back — all that muttering about marching to the developer's office, about writing a review...

No. Surely not.

“Ugh.”

The moment the thought formed, a small jolt of pain ran through my head, and the memories of this body surfaced.

'Ian Rashid.'

Second son of House Rashid. A boy who lost both parents at a young age and spiraled into despair — a boy who had shut himself behind a locked door for an entire year, leaving the family's last remaining pillar, his older brother, to shoulder the house's affairs as its lord.

As I combed through the memories of the past, certainty struck me in an instant.

“I'm screwed.”

I was inside Last Savior.

House Rashid. 'An unremarkable family, really.' In the game, they were barely significant at all. If they carried any weight whatsoever, it was this: they were one of the noble houses that got wiped out during the Great Northern Invasion — an early-game event.

“Well, that's just great.”

The one mercy was the timing. I'd arrived exactly five years before the game's official start date. The problem, of course, was that I'd stepped into a cursed game where one wrong move meant extinction.

'Five years until the invasion.'

When the Great Demon Invasion hit, the North would be devastated, and the vast majority of its territories would fall into the demons' hands. It was, for all practical purposes, an unstoppable event. I remembered that the standard route to the true ending wasn't to block it at all — it was to lose the North, then wage the long campaign to retake it afterward.

“Five years... Five whole years.”

It was enough time to put up a real fight. Maybe, just maybe, enough to go beyond mere survival and see the true ending with my own eyes.

'And besides — the North lives by the rule of the strong.'

With enough strength, you could earn a measure of recognition anywhere, which would help enormously down the road. But if I didn't grow, starting now, I was a dead man walking the moment those five years ran out. Even if I somehow fled or scraped by and survived the invasion itself, the endless chain of catastrophes that followed would swallow me whole. There was no surviving those without power.

“So I have to get stronger, one way or another.”

Surviving in the North, dodging annihilation — both demanded strength, plain and simple. While sorting through my notes on the great events to come, writing them down one by one like a man mapping out his own funeral arrangements, a voice drifted in from outside the door.

“Young Master? Did you cough?”

A voice I remembered well — the butler who had cared for me since I was small.

“I've left your meal outsi—”

“Ah, I'll be right out.”

“...Pardon? Ah — yes, Young Master! Right away!”

Cla-clatter!

Something hit the floor, followed by the sound of rapid footsteps retreating down the hall. 'Well, I suppose it would shock him. I've been sealed in my room for a full year.' As a butler, the reaction was understandable. In any case, what mattered now wasn't their reaction — it was finding the fastest possible route to power.

'Born into a noble house? Then I'm using every last resource it offers.'

Modest or not, a noble house was still a noble house. Even if only to stop the catastrophes bearing down on me, everything had to be put to work. 'It's going to be rough.' Survival alone demanded strength — the voice of the weak was ignored here as a matter of course.

“Alright, then...”

I stepped calmly out of the room and followed the still-wide-eyed butler through the manor. The place where we arrived had someone waiting for me.

“Ian?”

“Brother.”

“Ian... it really is you.”

He approached slowly, reaching out to touch my face. 'God, he's handsome.' A face I knew well. Of course I did — he'd featured prominently in the invasion cinematic. Early on, that looks alone had made him a topic of discussion. But after that, people talked about him for very different reasons.

'Every kind of man showed up in that story.' Lords who fled. Nobles who gave up entirely. Others who fell so low they became the demons' lackeys. And through it all, Kain Rashid led his soldiers into battle, fighting with everything he had, until he met a gloriously heroic death. It was the kind of direction that struck a chord straight through a man's heart.

'Hah. Honestly, I wouldn't mind going out like that myself.' For a fleeting moment, I even thought it might have been easier if I'd become Kain instead of Ian Rashid —

“Brother, that's enough.”

“Ah, forgive me. I just... couldn't help wondering if my eyes were deceiving me.”

“I'm starving. Let's eat first, shall we?”

“Ha! Now that's the right of it! When the butler told me, you have no idea how shocked I was. I've prepared the finest feast...”

I started eating while listening to him carry on. It really was delicious — someone had clearly gone to great lengths for this meal. The only problem was that I had absolutely no attention to spare for the taste.

'Ian Rashid has no foundation whatsoever.'

Losing both parents young was a tragedy, certainly — but the real issue was that he'd never touched a sword or a spellbook afterward. Honestly, judged purely on his body, this was close to the worst possible starting roll. In a game where you began as a random person, starting with no skills learned whatsoever meant you'd rolled trash. 'And that trash is me. Wonderful.'

At least being nobility was a stroke of luck. And his relationship with Kain Rashid didn't look bad at all, either. Midway through the meal, I waited for the right moment and opened my mouth.

“Brother, would it be alright if I used the training grounds?”

“The training grounds?”

Startled by the sudden request, Kain Rashid studied me with widened eyes. After all, this was Ian — the same Ian who'd been entombed in his room every day, more or less waiting to die.

“I've been thinking it over, these past days. That I can't go on like this.”

“...”

“I decided I need to do something. Anything.”

“And so?”

“It seemed to me the right place to start was forging my body.”

I said my piece and stole a glance at his reaction. In that instant, I saw emotion well up in Kain Rashid's eyes.

“Yes... I always believed in you. Use it as you wish, whenever you like.”

“Thank you.”

Watching him rise from his seat and take his leave, I felt an awkward flush creep over me for no good reason. His face was genuinely, sincerely moved — and now I felt silly for having braced myself.

'In any case, first objective achieved.'

I was a full five years ahead of the game's opening. No doubt the flow of events would shift in all kinds of ways — but there was still plenty to be gained from what I knew. Of course, most of those events demanded at least a baseline of martial skill, so growth was non-negotiable.

'I'll make it work.'

Sitting still never changed anything. That much, ten thousand failed runs had taught me.

“Whew...”

The training grounds. Naturally, I'd never held a sword even in my old world, so the thing felt awkward in every possible way. 'But I have to try.' The moment I wrapped my hand around the grip —

-Finally! Someone's holding me!

A voice. I glanced around at the sudden sound, realized no one was there, and slowly lowered my gaze.

-Swing me just ten thousand times.

-I've been so long without use. My body aches for it.

“A sword...?”

-Hurry!

“What in the...”

Urged on by the insistent voice, I slowly gripped the sword hilt. And the instant I did, words bloomed before my eyes.

A quest? I'd assumed I was hearing things, but with something literally floating in front of my eyes, apparently not. 'An ego sword?' No — who'd leave something like that lying around a training ground?

Still utterly bewildered, I heard the sword add one more thing.

-Fulfill our Covenant, and I'll give you something good!

A Covenant. Even after five years and ten thousand runs of Last Savior, I'd never once seen anything like this.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

“Something good?”

-You'll surely be able to grow further.

Growth. The moment that word landed, my gamer brain spun up like a hard drive at full tilt.

'Just swinging a sword makes me stronger?' And the number was ten thousand. A measly ten thousand swings — the exact number of times I'd played this game. 'Worst case, my arm gets sore. That's the entire risk profile.' Was there really any reason to refuse?

“Hup.”

A short breath out, and I swung the sword.

The counter climbed immediately. “Ha... it's actually a quest.” An absurd laugh bubbled up at the sheer ridiculousness of it — but my body was already moving on pure reflex. Simple, mindless repetition: for a man who'd beaten countless games on nothing but grinding, there was no task more familiar.

One swing. Another. The number began climbing fast.

“Whew... hah...”

But that momentum lasted only through the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠early hundreds. Ian Rashid's untrained body was barely capable of staying upright just from swinging a sword over and over. 'This cursed meat-sack is worse garbage than my real body, isn't it?' I'd thought it would be trivial. It was anything but.

“Ngh...”

Maybe from gripping the sword too tightly — pain throbbed through my palm with every swing. And yet...

'The number's going up, isn't it?' The corners of my mouth curled upward on their own.

“Um...”

“Shouldn't you be taking it easier?”

The eyes of the household servants, the murmurs drifting past my ears — none of it registered. Not anymore.

The form that had looked halfway decent on my first swings had long since collapsed. My entire body was screaming. If I didn't keep hold of the sword, I felt certain I'd simply fold to the ground where I stood.

'Higher. Keep climbing.'

With this much sunk cost already paid, quitting was more unthinkable than ever. Every time the pain flared, I corrected my form instead of slowing down — because that was the only way the count kept ticking honestly.

'If I quit here, all I'll have to show for it is a sore arm!'

What mattered now wasn't the pain. It was the reward of this... whatever this quest thing was.

[6,109/10,000]

The sun that had hung overhead when I first gripped the sword had, at some point, drifted far toward the horizon. It sank away, and the North's biting wind came alive — I paid it no mind.

[8,308/10,000]

Blood kept seeping from my ruined palms. By now, unless I actively concentrated, even the counter wouldn't register my swings properly.

'Almost there. Just a little more. A little more.'

[9,360/10,000]

“Ian, there's no need to push yourself so hard on your very first day.”

“Hah... I'm f-fine...”

“I gave permission for training, not for this. Why would you go to such lengths...”

Kain's worried gaze flickered past me. “The number... the number's going up.”

“...”

Shock and concern flashed across Kain Rashid's face — but this was no time to notice.

[9,999/10,000]

[10,000/10,000]

Ten thousand swings. I had actually done it.

“Yes!”

The shout burst out of me before I could stop it. I raised both blood-soaked hands into the air and let the sense of achievement wash over me like a wave.

-Wow! You really did swing me ten thousand times, just like that!

-Thank you. It's been so long since I was used. I was happy.

-Though your form was an absolute mess, I'll admit.

'This little—'

That voice was pure, unfiltered teabagging. But just as I was working up the indignation to respond, another message unfurled before my eyes.

A trait — appearing out of nowhere. Unlike skills or attributes that could be raised through the game's systems, a trait was an innate ability fixed from birth, never to be changed. 'A hidden trait?'

I'd thought ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I knew everything this game had to offer, but this was one I had never laid eyes on. A Mythic-grade one, no less. 'And it's a growth-type?'

This was a reward that broke the game's entire economy. But the messages weren't finished.

“Huh?”

Staring at the window before my eyes, my mouth fell open on its own. A skill. In ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠any other game, maybe — but of everything in Last Savior's character sheet, skills were the single hardest thing to fill in. You literally couldn't learn one without a master, a limited skillbook, or a rare artifact. There were no other paths. Period.

'This is, without exaggeration...'

A cheat.