It began with a completely trivial story.
[Strawberry Latte] : Big brother, don't you get tired of always playing so hardcore?
Lost Elder.
An open-world dark fantasy RPG.
Known colloquially as Loel.
Despite having poured a full twelve years into it, I had never once seen this game's true ending.
And it wasn't just me.
Quite a while had passed since its release, but no one had ever seen the true ending of this goddamn game. Everyone had only ever reached bad endings.
‘That’s how absurdly hard Lost Elder is.’
Bosses with monstrous patterns.
A needlessly intricate and vast world map.
Even a growth system that was endlessly unfriendly to players.
As befitted a game that prided itself on extreme hardcore gameplay, Lost Elder boasted an utterly fucked-up difficulty.
‘The fact that even acclaimed gaming YouTubers from around the world would boldly throw down the gauntlet, only to give up before even a few days had passed, says it all.......’
As a result, Lost Elder’s brief burst of popularity quickly faded.
At a time when comfortable, easy-to-control games were in vogue, it was only natural that a game like Lost Elder would decline.
By now, there were only around fifty users in Korea who still seriously clung to this washed-up game.
Those few users gathered in the community and continually exchanged information in the hope of somehow clearing the game.
I was one of them.
[Strawberry Latte] : Try a gimmick build this time, at least.
[Strawberry Latte] : It seems like Lost Elder is the only game you play. What’ll you do if you get tired of even this one?
Then, out of the blue, the younger player I had been working through the game with offered me some advice.
He told me not to play so hardcore all the time and to try a gimmick build for once.
“......”
Normally, I would have casually ignored him.
That was because I was the kind of player who pursued hardcore gameplay over playing simply for fun.
Since I played Lost Elder for no reason other than to see the true ending, childish nonsense like playing for fun did not suit me.
‘......Should I really give it a try?’
But that day was different.
After nothing but failed attempts for twelve years, I had fallen into a serious rut.
With both my mind and body already exhausted beyond measure, I needed a new stimulus.
So......
Click—.
......I decided to dabble, for the first time in this run, in what people commonly called a Concept Play.
[Strawberry Latte] : Still, I don’t get it.
[Strawberry Latte] : How could you play Lost Elder for twelve years without ever trying a Concept Play?
[Middle Finger (Me)] : Different strokes, I guess.
[Middle Finger (Me)] : You’ve played League of Legends for more than ten years, but you say you never play support characters at all.
[Strawberry Latte] : Is that really the same thing......?
It was.
At least, it was to me.
[Strawberry Latte] : Anyway.
[Strawberry Latte] : Gimmick builds usually fall into two categories.
[Strawberry Latte] : Either you build a hopelessly shitty character from the start, like a Strength Mage.
[Strawberry Latte] : Or you dump every stat into just one talent and firmly establish the concept.
[Middle Finger (Me)] : I’ll go with the latter.
[Strawberry Latte] : A talent dump?
[Middle Finger (Me)] : Yeah.
Normally, pouring every stat into a single talent was taboo in Lost Elder.
Under this game’s system, a character needed an appropriate “foundation” to perform any given action.
To swing a heavy weapon, you needed the corresponding Strength or Vitality stat. To wield magic, you needed the appropriate Magic Power or Perception stat as a base.
Perhaps for that reason, balanced characters who evenly distributed their stats had become recognized by top-ranked players as the most stable and efficient way to play.
‘But what I’m doing today isn’t an efficient build.......’
Since I was making this character purely for fun, efficiency could go to hell.
So I simply intended to dump every stat into one talent.
Click—.
Sword.
It was one of the traits in 【Hidden Mastery : Weapon Arts】, which only players who had defeated a mid-boss could unlock.
There was no special reason for it. I had chosen it simply because I liked swordsman characters.
“Let’s see. I’ll put this in too, and give this one a try......”
Not only the basic starting stats provided by the game, but every bonus option I had earned over hundreds of runs went into the character.
Achievement Points, extra points gained whenever I defeated a named monster, and so on.
“......Phew. This should be enough, right?”
Having finished distributing every stat, I looked over the monitor.
As befitted a game with such a high degree of freedom, even this ridiculous setup—where everything had been dumped into a single talent—appeared to work.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Strength : 1
Agility : 1
Vitality : 1
Magic Power : 1
Perception : 1
......
【Hidden Mastery】
Weapon Arts
Sword : Lv. MAX
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Once I finished customizing the character, his figure appeared alongside the status window.
The moment I saw him, I could not help but burst out laughing.
“Pfft, what is this?!”
A character who looked endlessly frail appeared on the other side of the screen.
He was so skinny that his skin clung to his bones, and he wobbled as though he might collapse at any moment.
He held a crude one-handed sword, yet the character dragged even that weapon along the ground as if it were too heavy.
Heh-heh—.
The sight was so ridiculous that I mocked the character beyond the screen.
What was the use of having an abundance of talent for the sword?
He was a weakling who struggled under the weight of even a one-handed sword.
Right then, as though to speak for this pitiful character’s inner thoughts, the game system began displaying the following messages in succession.
〔Warning : Some attributes are abnormally low.〕
〔System Recommendation : We recommend redistributing your stats—〕
“Reject.”
I dismissed the warning at once.
〔Warning : This character cannot be played normally.〕
〔Are you sure you would like to proceed with the game as it is—〕
“Yes.”
What did it matter if normal gameplay was impossible?
That had been the point of creating this character in the first place.
Click—.
The moment I clicked the arrow to move on to the next step, a message appeared on the monitor.
〔Unprecedented talent that astonished the Pantheon! The Forgotten Harmonizers bless the path before you!〕
〔Reward : You have obtained the hidden skill 【Soul of the Swordmaster 】.〕
“......Huh? What is this?”
I frowned.
A hidden skill? Had Lost Elder always had something like this?
“Normally, once customization is finished, it goes straight to the cutscene.”
It was something I had never encountered in twelve years of playing the game.
Muttering in confusion, I read the skill window hovering in the corner of the monitor.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
【Soul of the Swordmaster 】
Grade : ★★★★★★★★★★★★(12-Star—Mythic Grade)
Category : On/Off Skill
Mana Cost : 100 Mana per second
[Skill Description]
Of tens of millions of ordinary people, the one with the greatest talent is called a “genius.” Of tens of millions of geniuses, the greatest is called a “Swordmaster.”
You possess the greatest talent among tens of millions—no...... hundreds of millions—of Swordmasters.
So hold your head high. No threat will ever be able to break you.
[Passive Effect]
The ‘Mental Strength’ stat is permanently set to ‘MAX’.
[Active Effect]
While the skill is active, you will attain the ultimate realm.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“......What?”
My eyes widened in an instant.
“The Soul of the Swordmaster? No, wait. More importantly, it’s a 12-Star skill?”
Chills ran down my body.
Twelve Stars.
And a Mythic Grade skill, no less.
This was the first time I had encountered a skill with such a high grade in all my time playing Lost Elder.
The highest grade ever known had only been Ten Stars. What the hell was this?
“Holy shit, I should take a picture.”
CLICK—!
I pulled out my smartphone and photographed the screen.
The image quality would be worse than taking a direct screenshot of the PC, but at least no one would call it a fake.
[Middle Finger (Me)] : Hey.
[Middle Finger (Me)] : A 12-Star skill just dropped.
[Middle Finger (Me)] : (Photo)
I immediately sent the photo to Strawberry Latte.
Less than three seconds later, notifications began buzzing noisily.
[Strawberry Latte] : ????
[Strawberry Latte] : What the fuck did you do?
[Middle Finger (Me)] : I dumped every point I had into it, and it turned out like this.
[Strawberry Latte] : I dump every point I have whenever I do a Concept Play too, you know? But nothing like that has ever happened.
[Middle Finger (Me)] : How many Achievement Points do you have?
[Strawberry Latte] : ......About thirty million?
“Thirty million......”
Glancing over, I looked at the number written in the corner of the screen.
【179,312,341 pt】
Rounded off, it came to a whopping 180 million points.
That was roughly six times as many as Strawberry Latte, who ranked second.
In an instant, I understood why no one else had discovered a 12-Star skill.
‘So you need to pour in this many points to obtain a hidden reward.’
If I had known this would happen, I should have tried a Concept Play much sooner.
[Strawberry Latte] : But how many points do you have for a skill like that to appear?
[Middle Finger (Me)] : (Photo)
[Strawberry Latte] : ?
The moment I posted a screenshot of my Achievement Points, the chat window fell silent.
Even after waiting for around three minutes, no reply came.
He must have been seriously shocked.
“Well, that aside......”
I turned my attention back to the monitor.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
【 Soul of the Swordmaster 】
Grade : ★★★★★★★★★★★★(12-Star—Mythic Grade)
Category : On/Off Skill
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The Soul of the Swordmaster.
Even without knowing its exact effects, it was undoubtedly a skill with absurd power.
After all, it was a Twelve-Star skill.
Even 【Meteor】, which could completely erase a small city from the map, was only a Ten-Star skill.
“Ah, wait.”
However, as I examined the description more closely, I had no choice but to frown.
I had found a problem I had never anticipated.
〔Mana Cost : 100 Mana per second〕
“Haah......”
A cost of 100 Mana per second.
What a predicament.
Sure, 100 Mana was by no means a large amount.
The average MP pool for a character that had left the starting area was around 2,000.
With that in mind, 【Soul of the Swordmaster 】 was a skill that could be kept active for a good twenty seconds from the very beginning.
‘However......’
〔MP : 1/1〕
......The character we had here was not a “normal” character.
His maximum MP was 1.
The trouble was that, as a joke, I had set every stat except his talent for swordsmanship to 1.
Would that let me use the skill for 0.01 seconds?
No, I wondered whether the skill would even activate at all.
“Rather than be unable to use a 12-Star skill I finally obtained, I think it would be better to redistribute my stats......”
To increase the character’s Mana pool even a little, I pressed the back button.
That way, I could at least try out that 12-Star skill.
Click—.
“......Huh?”
Then, out of nowhere, the game screen froze.
“What is this? What’s wrong with it?”
Click, click, click—!
No matter how much I clicked the mouse, the screen would not change.
I muttered irritably.
“Ah, shit. Seriously.”
Just as I was about to force-close the game, thinking that the old game might have started lagging—
“Huh? Huhhh......?”
Together with cryptic messages, the screen began emitting a brilliant light.
〔You who have surpassed your limits.〕
〔Challenge the impossible and become a ‘myth’ yourself.〕
FLAAASH—!
My vision darkened, and my consciousness cut out.
My entire body seemed to float into the air, as though I had been swept into a vortex.
......That was where my memory ended.
***
Didn’t I tell you? The beginning was nothing much.
It was an all-too-common story: a veteran player fiddles with the customization of a new run, then finds himself inside the game with a character that has a few screws loose.
I never imagined that I would become the protagonist of that story.
“Fuck.”
......And that was how five days had already passed since I entered the game.
***
〔Hidden Message : You have begun the 200th playthrough.〕
〔Hidden Message : You are the first player to enter the world.〕
〔Hidden Message : Lost Elder’s timeline begins to flow.〕