~Chapter 1~
Prologue
The beginning wasn’t anything particularly special.
[StrawberryLatte]: Bro, don’t you get tired always playing hardcore?
Open-world dark fantasy RPG, Lost Elder.
Nickname: LoEl.
Even after pouring in 12 whole years of my life, I never once reached the true ending of this game.
And it wasn’t just me.
It’s been quite a while since its release, but not a single person had ever reached the true ending of this damned game. Everyone only ever saw the bad endings.
“That’s just how insanely difficult LoEl is.”
Bosses with absurd patterns.
A ridiculously detailed and massive world map.
A progression system that’s endlessly unfriendly to players.
As a game that prided itself on extreme hardcore difficulty, LoEl had an utterly hellish level of challenge.
“Even world-class gaming YouTubers gave up within days after taking on the challenge—it says everything.”
So it was no surprise when LoEl’s short-lived popularity quickly fizzled out.
In an age where easy, user-friendly games were the norm, LoEl naturally declined.
Now, only around 50 players in Korea were still seriously sticking with this fossil of a game.
These few players gathered in communities, sharing information to clear the game somehow.
I was one of those players.
[StrawberryLatte]: Try doing some casual gameplay this time.
[StrawberryLatte]: I mean, LoEl is the only game you even play. What if you get sick of it too?
One day, my younger sibling who used to raid with me gave me a suggestion.
“Try casual gameplay instead of always playing so hardcore.”
“……”
Normally, I would’ve brushed off what they said.
Because, after all, I was the type of player who preferred sweating it out.
I played LoEl solely to reach the true ending, and casual play was nothing but child’s play to me.
“…But maybe I should actually try it?”
But that day felt different.
After 12 years of failure, I’d fallen into deep burnout.
Mentally and physically exhausted, I needed something new to shake things up.
So…
Click—
…I decided to try a so-called “concept play” for the first time in this cycle.
[StrawberryLatte]: Still can’t believe it though.
[StrawberryLatte]: How can you play LoEl for 12 years and never do concept play even once?
[MiddleFinger (Me)]: Just a difference in style.
[MiddleFinger (Me)]: You’ve played League of Legends for over 10 years and never played support either.
[StrawberryLatte]: That’s not the same…
To me, it was the same.
[StrawberryLatte]: Anyway.
[StrawberryLatte]: Casual play usually falls into two types.
[StrawberryLatte]: Either raising a crap-tier build like a Strength Mage from the start—
[StrawberryLatte]: Or dumping every stat into a single trait to push a pure concept.
[MiddleFinger (Me)]: Then I’ll do the latter.
[StrawberryLatte]: Going all-in on one trait?
[MiddleFinger (Me)]: Yeah.
In LoEl, dumping all your stats into one trait was basically taboo.
Because of how the system worked, your character needed a proper foundation to function.
To swing a heavy weapon, you needed Strength and Stamina. To cast magic, you needed Mana and Insight.
That’s why balanced “hexagon” builds were considered the most stable and efficient style by top-ranked players.
“But I’m not here for efficient gameplay today…”
Since this character was purely for fun, I could toss efficiency to the dogs.
So I planned to dump all my stats into a single talent.
Click—
Sword.
One of the traits under the 【Hidden Mastery: Weapon Techniques】 category, unlocked by defeating a mid-boss.
No special reason. I just liked sword builds.
“Let’s see… I’ll add this… and try this too…”
Not just the base starting stats, but every additional option I’d earned across hundreds of cycles—I dumped them all into the character.
Achievement points, bonus points from defeating named monsters, everything.
“Phew… that should do it.”
After distributing all the stats, I looked at the monitor.
As expected from a high-freedom game, even this ridiculous all-in build applied without issue.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Strength: 1
Agility: 1
Stamina: 1
Mana: 1
Insight: 1
…
【Hidden Mastery】
Weapon Technique
Sword: Lv. MAX
━━━━━━━━━━━━
As soon as customization ended, the status window popped up and showed the character’s appearance.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Pfft, what is this?!”
On screen appeared an absurdly frail-looking character.
So skinny he looked ready to collapse, dragging his cheap one-handed sword like it was too heavy to lift.
He was hilarious just to look at—I snorted at the character on the screen.
What good was sword talent if you couldn’t even lift the blade?
Right then, as if sympathizing with this pathetic figure, the system began throwing out messages.
〔Warning: Some stats are abnormally low.〕
〔System Recommendation: Please redistribute your stats—〕
“Decline.”
I immediately ignored the warnings.
〔Warning: This character cannot be played normally.〕
〔Are you sure you want to continue—〕
“Yes.”
Who cares if it’s not playable?
That’s the whole point of this build.
Click—
I pressed the arrow to move on.
Then suddenly, a message appeared on the monitor.
〔A miraculous talent that startled the Pantheon! Forgotten Harmonizers bless your path!〕
〔Reward: Hidden Skill 【Soul of the Sword Master】 acquired.〕
“…Huh? What’s this?”
I frowned.
A hidden skill? Since when did LoEl have that?
“Normally it should go straight to the cutscene after customization.”
It had never happened in 12 years.
Muttering in confusion, I checked the skill description.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
【Soul of the Sword Master】
Grade: ★★★★★★★★★★★★ (12-Star – Mythic)
Type: On/Off Skill
Mana Cost: 100 per second
[Skill Description]
Among tens of millions of ordinary people, the one with the greatest talent is called a “genius.”
Among tens of millions of geniuses, the one with the greatest talent is called a “Sword Master.”
You are the most gifted among hundreds of millions of Sword Masters.
So hold your head high.
No threat shall ever bring you down.
[Passive Effect]
Mentality stat is always MAX.
[Active Effect]
When active, reach the peak of absolute mastery.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…What?”
My eyes went wide.
“Soul of the Sword Master? Wait—did that just say 12-star?”
Chills ran down my spine.
12 stars.
Mythic-tier.
I had never seen a skill this high in LoEl.
Until now, the highest known was 10 stars. What was this?
“Damn, I gotta take a screenshot.”
Click!
I snapped a photo with my phone.
Might be lower quality than a screenshot, but at least no one could say it was fake.
[MiddleFinger (Me)]: Yo.
[MiddleFinger (Me)]: I just got a 12-star skill.
[MiddleFinger (Me)]: (photo)
I immediately sent the pic to StrawberryLatte.
Barely three seconds later, notifications started pouring in.
[StrawberryLatte]: ????
[StrawberryLatte]: What the hell did you even do???
[MiddleFinger (Me)]: Just dumped all my points in and this popped up.
[StrawberryLatte]: I dump all my points too when I do concept builds! But this has never happened!
[MiddleFinger (Me)]: How many achievement points you got?
[StrawberryLatte]: …Like 30 million?
“Thirty million, huh…”
Glance—
I peeked at the number in the corner of the screen.
【179,312,341 pt】
Rounded up, nearly 180 million points.
That was six times more than StrawberryLatte, who was #2 on the rankings.
No wonder no one had ever discovered this skill.
“You really need this many points to trigger the hidden reward…”
If I’d known, I’d have tried concept builds a long time ago.
[StrawberryLatte]: But bro, how many points do you even have??
[MiddleFinger (Me)]: (photo)
[StrawberryLatte]: ?
After seeing the screenshot of my achievement points, the chat went dead silent.
Even after waiting 3 minutes, no reply came.
Must’ve hit him hard.
“Well, anyway…”
I turned back to the monitor.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
【Soul of the Sword Master】
Grade: ★★★★★★★★★★★★ (12-Star – Mythic)
Type: On/Off Skill
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Even without fully understanding it, this was clearly a ridiculously powerful skill.
I mean, even Meteor, which could wipe a whole town off the map, was only 10 stars.
“Ah—wait.”
But as I read the description again, I frowned.
I’d found a problem I didn’t expect.
〔Mana Cost: 100 per second〕
“…Sigh.”
A hundred mana per second?
That was a huge problem.
Sure, 100 MP wasn’t a big deal.
Average MP pool outside starter areas was about 2000.
That meant the skill could be used for at least 20 seconds early on.
“But…”
〔MP: 1/1〕
…my character wasn’t “normal.”
Max MP: 1.
I had set every stat except Sword Technique to 1 as a joke—and now it backfired.
Could I even use this skill? Maybe for 0.01 seconds?
Honestly, it wasn’t even clear if I could activate it at all.
“Might as well go back and redistribute stats so I can at least test this skill…”
I hit the back button to increase my mana pool a little.
But then—
Click—
“…Huh?”
Suddenly the screen froze.
“What the—why’s this happening?”
Click, click, click!
No matter how much I clicked, nothing changed.
Annoyed, I muttered,
“Seriously… what the hell…”
Just as I was about to force-quit the game, thinking it was some old-game lag—
“Huh? What…?”
A bright light flashed from the screen with a mysterious message.
〔You who have surpassed limits.〕
〔Become a ‘myth’ by challenging the impossible.〕
FWOOOSH—
My vision went dark as I lost consciousness.
It felt like I was being sucked into a whirlpool, my whole body floating—
…and that’s the last thing I remember.
I told you, didn’t I? That the beginning wasn’t anything special.
A washed-up gamer fiddling with a dumb character build, only to get sucked straight into the game—
That kind of cliché story.
I never imagined I would become the main character in one.
“F**k.”
…It’s already been five days since I got dragged into the game.
〔Hidden Message: You have begun your 200th cycle.〕
〔Hidden Message: First player to enter the world.〕
〔Hidden Message: Time has begun flowing in Lost Elder.〕
