Shield Warrior didn’t actually know what a Wolf’s Soul was—he was just surprised it looked like an ore with an emerald-like sheen—and I knew it from what Jaejung had told me.
“What is a Wolf’s Soul?”
Charming held it up, intrigued by the red glow pulsing inside it, and Shield Warrior explained.
“Oh, guess none of you care much about blacksmithing. It’s a crafting material. Wouldn’t drop in the field no matter how much we farmed… I figured it only came from named bosses.”
Looked like Shield Warrior had studied the blacksmith in the refugee village. He’d practically memorized how many you needed depending on the weapon type.
“Oh! So it’s valuable?”
“Yeah, as things stand, it’s rare. If we stockpile them, we can craft every type of weapon and armor piece. A tier above the current wolf drop series. Longswords, greatswords, staves—totally doable, if we’ve got the mats. Ah, there were accessories and robes too! You buy thread and cloth from the general store, add a few more ingredients, and you can make them.”
Everyone’s eyes lit up at that. Looking at PrettyGirl’s glaive, the importance of weapons didn’t even need saying. And we’d never seen robes drop—apparently they were craftable.
“Crafted items roll options, so as long as we’ve got plenty of Wolf’s Souls, they’re must-have pieces. Real ‘must-haves.’”
“‘Must… have?’”
PrettyGirl tilted her head. What was that?
“‘Must-have item.’ Shortened it. Sounds kinda silly when I say it out loud, huh?”
“Yeah. Very.”
Without a second’s hesitation, PrettyGirl dubbed it silly, and Shield Warrior deflated on the spot. We left him to it…
We scooped the loot and barely exchanged a few words before another War Wolf respawned. One at a time was easy for the four of us; we dropped it in an instant. Then another popped. With the timers slightly offset, they kept spawning in sequence, and we kept killing steadily.
“Armor enhancement stone?”
After a good stretch of grinding, a blue-glinting Armor Enhancement Stone thumped onto the ground.
“Oh!”
Shield Warrior and I exclaimed in unison.
“Enhancement stone, huh?”
Charming grinned, pleased. PrettyGirl’s eyes sparkled too.
“Seriously, the stuff that wouldn’t drop at all out in the field keeps showing up here. We should’ve come here from the start.”
Shield Warrior groaned, remembering the day he’d busted his back farming field mobs. Truth was, without enhancement stones, hunting here would’ve been rough anyway.
I wondered if Jaejung already knew. Then again, even if he did, he’d never have posted about it. Come in here with unenhanced weapons or armor and you just die; most players wouldn’t learn about this place for a while.
Before I knew it, I’d passed level 12, and Charming, PrettyGirl, and Shield Warrior were level 14.
“Let’s call it for today.”
“Good work, everyone.”
This two-spawn camp would be just fine even without me now. PrettyGirl had gotten used to it, Charming was dialed in on her new spells—our teamwork clicked.
We said our goodbyes, and I stepped a bit away from the camp before logging out. If you log out on a spawn, you can die by accident.
***
Hello.
This is Lost Sky, the light that brightens the heavens.
On August 12, Lost Sky’s official live service finally begins!
We’d like to thank everyone who has been waiting for Lost Sky. Please check the following details for information related to the upcoming official service.
⁝
(omitted)
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We will do our utmost to repay the support of everyone who has been waiting for Lost Sky.
***
On the website, they laid out the official service schedule, how to download the game, and detailed instructions for using the 4th-Generation VRS.
They’d added two servers for a total of twelve, and claimed over eleven million registered users. The portal news said they’d expected to lose a chunk of players by switching to a subscription model, but over two-thirds had prepaid already.
Compared to the price of a 4th-Generation VRS, the subscription fee wasn’t exactly high. And right now, the only virtual reality game that really leveraged 4th-Gen VRS was Lost Sky Online.
Word was that Tels would soon release a 4th-Gen-VRS-powered FPS war-simulation VR game, but the MMO and FPS player bases barely overlapped, so it wasn’t likely to siphon many users.
Then ES Sports would roll out a soccer title, and another company had an AOS-style (MOBA) competitive action game lined up.
“So many games coming out.”
“Plenty of studios have been prepping. There’ll be more soon. Not just here—overseas too.”
Jaejung mumbled around a mouthful of black bean noodles.
“Lost Sky goes live today, right?”
“Yeah. Lucky you. You don’t even have to pay the subscription, do you?”
Jaejung just shrugged—didn’t care much.
He only played at the PC bang, and since the boss ran it as a franchise outlet, he didn’t have to pay separately. I, on the other hand, played at home, so I had to sub. Felt a bit wasteful. Was there any way around it?
“If you’re jealous, just play here.”
“You say that knowing I can’t. You’re just teasing me, right?”
“Yup. Your perception’s improved.”
I suddenly wanted to punch him.
I didn’t, of course. I just popped the last fried dumpling into my mouth. Jaejung watched it disappear like a man who’d lost his country. The last dumpling is the best one.
***
“Official service” didn’t mean dramatic changes.
When you switch to a subscription, there’s no guarantee OB players will stay. That leaves holes on the servers, so the devs were temporarily allowing fresh character creation on each server.
They were also running EVENTS per server to award cash to high-level players—but that had nothing to do with me, so I didn’t care.
Patch-wise: you could now warp between the refugee village and the crystal in the forest zone; on servers where the refugee village had opened, new characters now started in the refugee village. Most new players preferred those servers.
And then, the mess…
“Ha… I’m gonna lose it.”
I barely stopped Jaejung from punting the expensive VRS rig. He was only pretending, of course.
“The boss couldn’t get in either?”
“Yeah. And what’s with this queue? It’s in the tens of thousands.”
The boss had come out of VRS and flopped into a chair, grumbling.
The late-paying 1st-server folks overlapped with the new character crowd, blowing past the capacity ceiling. Result: the boss and Jaejung were both locked out and fuming.
“Ugh… not an indie studio, and it’s the same circus every time.”
ZUN was a big enough company, but their operations were a mess. The forums were melting down—wall-to-wall profanity. I closed the page before it scrambled my brain.
“Here, cold juice for both of you.”
Nothing soothes scorched nerves like something cold. Jaejung took his with a sigh. Maybe that kind of desperate drive is what success takes.
“We’re stuck competing with the folks from the next village over.”
He answered my unspoken thought—not mind-reading, just timing.
“If we’re Village 3, then we share a region with Village 4.”
“They’re big on cash dumps. Not that skilled. Every time I see them, I wonder where they’re buying all those enhancement stones.”
Sounded like, in the Lycanthrope region’s final content—Forgotten Old Castle—they considered that neighboring group the real enemy in the boss raid. Of course there were rivals within our own village too. But the biggest threats would be the teams that had downed the Orc Chieftain. Naturally, like Jaejung’s crew, they were said to have the Chieftain’s glaive.
Come to think of it, our village’s glaive was in PrettyGirl’s hands. The neighboring village surely had one too.
We had no reason to pick a fight with them, but I was curious—what would a properly composed, by-the-book raid team look like, one that didn’t wipe like the “Assault Team”?
Since we shared the same barony region, we’d probably see them soon.
***
“Why don’t you transfer to our server already?”
Creation limits were lifted for now… rumor said they’d clamp down soon. With queues forming, they couldn’t keep letting people in.
Should I move? Playing together would be nice, but there’s no way I can match that insane playtime.
If Lost Sky taught me anything, it’s that games are honest. Put in time and effort, and it piles up into results—unless you brick your gear on enhancements or drop your loot.
Time and effort in, returns out. That’s the upside. The flip side: if you don’t put the time in, nothing you do will bear fruit. Sure, cash can narrow the gap fast, but that’s a separate thing.
Bottom line, our play hours are way off. That’s a major barrier to playing together. We probably can’t. And I can’t just quit my part-time job to no-life the game…
Plus, it’s only been a few days, but I’ve made friends. I’ve already set a bunch of plates spinning on our server.
“I’ve got a lot going on over there. I’ll stick with our server for now. Even if I moved, it’s not like we could actually party together.”
“Yeah, fair.”
“Hey, do you know a place northwest called the Wolf Den?”
“Course I do. Why? The mobs there hit hard. Their movement’s no joke. Best not to go. Go in unenhanced and you’ll just burn through potions and bail. Didn’t your village’s hunting grounds only open yesterday? It’s too soon.”
“Not right away, but we’ll have to go eventually.”
“Wear the full Wolf set and get your weapon to +4 before you go. Even then, Floor 1’ll be rough. Anyway, once you can hunt, great stuff drops—Wolf’s Souls, enhancement stones.”
I knew that much already. Up to here.
“And archers show up on Floor 2—total pain. Since when do wolves shoot bows? Spear users too, so watch it. Floor 3’s the real deal—warriors and mages. Or shamans, I guess. Floor 4’s mixed spawns, and Floor 5 has the named Twin-Head Werewolf. That one… we can’t do it. Not yet. Even swarming with full parties won’t cut it. For now.”
“I’ve heard of Twin-Head Ogres, but never a werewolf.”
“Right? Feels like the devs ran out of imagination and just slapped combos together. You’ll see. They’ll go Twin-Head, Triple-Head next. Hellhounds are already triple-headed, I guess.”
He said “named” and now I really wanted to try for it.
Was there any way to take it down?