God of Water Veil.
Nicknamed Gat-o-ve, this game—put simply—is about reclaiming a world submerged in water after the benevolent gods disappeared and evil gods took over. You band together to defeat cult leaders who worship these evil gods, and the Apostles, their monstrous offspring.
Raiding those Apostle bosses and the story itself used to be really fun.
It’s currently the top-grossing MMORPG in Korea and has even improved the average specs of Korean PCs.
Ye Uwon used to play it seriously enough to reach max level, but lately he’d been too busy. More than anything, the cold war with Kim Heeyeon had made him forget about it entirely.
Well, I only really played it because she wanted to.
Still, now that he thought about it, he suddenly got curious about what had been happening in the game.
Last time he logged in must’ve been around five months ago. He vaguely remembered hearing something about a new Apostle being released, a major update or something.
Almost like he was in a trance, Ye Uwon found himself entering the PC bang and somehow sitting down in front of a screen.
It’s crowded.
Maybe it was because of the event. The PC bang was nearly full.
Nice setup.
Seeing himself instinctively launching the game made Ye Uwon let out a soft snort.
It’s time to reclaim the land we lost.
The game’s sound pierced through the chatter of the busy room. Ye Uwon hurriedly slipped on a headset and stared at the familiar loading screen he hadn’t seen in ages.
God of Water Veil
Once the startup sequence ended, a massive, muscular character appeared on screen.
Bulging muscles twitched with every breath. Dragon scales flashed on and off as the character moved. Slitted, bright yellow pupils and a glimpse of sharp teeth—hallmarks of the Dragon Knight class.
[Ye Ubeomjeol]
His nickname glowed beneath the character, practically begging to be clicked.
With his chin resting on one hand like he was debating, Ye Uwon tapped his cheek with his finger, stared at the screen a bit longer, and then finally clicked.
The Dragon Knight slammed his enormous greatsword into the ground—and the screen transitioned immediately.
A world drowned after the gods’ departure
Darkness welcomed him. From the pitch-black seabed, a trail of bubbles rose. A tiny remnant of the continent appeared, and with it, massive subtitle text filled the screen.
Only the Savior can lift the veil and retrieve the body of the god…
Ding. A system notification popped up. Ye Uwon couldn’t help but smile.
[SYSTEM]
Welcome back, Ye Ubeomjeol! Here’s this week’s update list!
With flashy effects, a wall of update announcements scrolled down the screen—new outfits, patch notes, bug fixes.
After closing it, he saw his character had logged out in a town, which meant the area was packed.
(Normal Chat) PandaIRL: Bus@300@@@@@mail meeeee
(Normal Chat) Tsureng: Selling 3,000 soulstones. First offer gets it.
(Normal Chat) rhMinusRabbit: Delgeureok, can you share that custom avatar?
He’d barely logged in and the chat window was already getting spammed. The hustle and bustle of the place hit him immediately.
Well, it was the most popular MMORPG in Korea right now. If he focused, he could even hear “Gat-o-ve” sounds coming from other PCs in the room.
Logging in for the first time in five months, Ye Uwon scanned his surroundings.
A necromancer riding a scythe, an elf mage playing a flute, an engineer strolling along with massive cannons strapped to both arms. Then a vampire dragging a shadow larger than their body, and a tiny dwarf hopping around wielding a giant hammer.
Still the same.
Seeing it all again after so long, it was cute. Fun, even.
Is that fashion popular now?
He stood there for a while, watching people pass by in strange, flashy outfits. There were lots of new NPCs and unfamiliar gear floating around.
Where do I even start?
It’d only been a few months, but so much seemed to have changed.
Ye Uwon had been max level before, but with a new Apostle released, the level cap had probably been raised. Which meant there were new zones he could level in.
Time to build new gear, huh.
Gear was usually crafted from Apostle boss loot. But since the drop rates were random, everyone’s progress varied wildly.
He slowly opened the event window and started skimming through the info on the new Apostle.
Oh, not bad...
The teaser video had an impressive start. He watched, kind of hypnotized—until suddenly, the chat window flashed.
(Normal Chat) DPSOnly: Yo, are you a Dragon Knight?
But Ye Uwon didn’t notice.
A new Apostle, huh...
Too absorbed in scrolling through the update notes, he had no idea someone was talking to him in public chat.
The new Apostle, who appeared with the new continent, looked grotesque.
Its long body was covered in countless jet-black legs. It had corpses hanging around its neck like jewelry. On top of its elongated neck, a mouth stretched wide open into a monstrous grin.
Maestro: Create! A new nightmare!
A grating low voice, weird static-filled sounds.
The creepy Maestro illustration made your skin crawl, but beneath it were the raid rewards—detailed and generous.
New gear options, enhancement materials…
Luckily, Ye Ubeomjeol’s level was still high enough to join the Apostle raid immediately.
Maybe I should raid again. I’ll be rusty, but still...
He had originally planned to spend the day with Kim Heeyeon, so now he had plenty of free time.
He didn’t have that many friends to drink and vent about the breakup with anyway—gaming sounded better.
So caught up in his thoughts, Ye Uwon didn’t realize that the town chat had become a full-blown circus.
(Normal Chat) HealPleaseIDK: Wow, first time seeing a Dragon Knight at this level ;;
(Normal Chat) ManduMandu: Dragon Knight? They were already the least played class, but now the new tank class Guardian got buffed so hard~~ Dragon Knights are basically ashes now. Can’t even crawl out of their coffin lol.
(Normal Chat) HealPleaseIDK: Yeah, they got replaced by that OP new class and got benched hard lol
(Normal Chat) KINGKING3: Whoa, same. I still see Dragon Summoners, but no Dragon Knights at this level.
More and more players chimed in, amazed by the flashy Dragon Knight on their screens.
And yeah, it made sense. Gat-o-ve had relatively balanced class populations—except for Dragon Knight.
(Normal Chat) HealPleaseIDK: Isn’t Dragon Knight like... just a meatshield but way harder to play?
(Normal Chat) KINGKING3: Fr, sucks at low levels and sucks at high levels too lol
The class Ye Uwon played, Dragon Knight, was supposed to be a damage-dealing tank. In reality, it was just a human shield, constantly sacrificing itself for teammates.
Because of that, a good Dragon Knight could massively boost a team’s DPS and survivability...
(Normal Chat) ManduMandu: But it’s not even fun, and if you mess up people flame you AND screenshot it for public shaming lol
(Normal Chat) KINGKING3: Lol no mobility either, gotta dodge everything on foot
...But the class was notoriously hard and boring.
(Normal Chat) ManduMandu: Most people either delete the character or switch to Dragon Summoner, right?
In Gat-o-ve, players of the same race could switch classes. Like ManduMandu said, most Dragon Knights either deleted their characters or changed to Dragon Summoner.
(Normal Chat) ManduMandu: And even if you’re good at it, you’ve gotta block with your shield or dodge everything manually, and that’s useless in insta-death mechanics, so it’s easy to troll. You gotta track all your teammates’ positions, calculate exact timing, make sure the Apostle boss doesn’t switch aggro—all of it. This class makes you do everything.
(Normal Chat) HealPleaseIDK: Wait, are you a Dragon Knight??
(Normal Chat) ManduMandu: Nah, I’m a god-tier vampire DPS.
(Normal Chat) HealPleaseIDK: Then how do you even know all this...
(Normal Chat) ManduMandu: shhh.
(Normal Chat) HealPleaseIDK: ??? reincarnated pro??
Who in their right mind would invest time and money into maxing a Dragon Knight?
It just didn’t pay off. Hardly anyone bothered to level them up.
And even when they did, they often quit out of frustration and started over with a new account.
(Normal Chat) ManduMandu: If you’re good, you’re a hero. If you’re bad, you’re a troll. lol
Sure, if a Dragon Knight was actually good, raids got way easier.
But they were borderline trash-tier. Only a few streamers played them well. And unless you were a streamer, there was no real reason to bother.
(Normal Chat) ManduMandu: Everyone wants one—but no one wants to be one. lolol
Dragon Knight?
Right then, Ye Uwon looked up at the chat window and slowly opened his mouth.
That’s... my class.
The one everyone was calling trash. That was his job.