BEGPH CH 01

Chapter 1: The Final Achievement

[Achievement unlocked.]
[Current achievement completion rate: 99%]

No way… I spent the entire New Year holiday on this and still couldn’t finish it.

I checked the small message in the corner of my monitor and let out a sigh.

“What the hell is left now?”

I rubbed my eyes and checked again, but the achievement rate was still 99%.

“This is driving me insane.”

What I had to do to unlock it.
How many achievements even existed.
The game never told me a single thing.

And yet I had spent over a year collecting achievements in this damned game.

Warrior, thief, mage, archer…

I had challenged the game head-on with all kinds of classes.

I had even subdued the final boss not with force, but with persuasion, or even wealth.

Sometimes I built up my own faction so much that I didn’t even need to fight personally, ending the game through war.

I had even cleared the game with no damage taken.

I had tried every method possible, so I had no idea what else I could do.

Because the game had such high freedom, whenever there was no clear goal, it felt like staring into a vast open sea.

“Fine. Let’s see who wins.”

I was the type who couldn’t let go of a game until I had completely conquered it.

I wasn’t about to break a personal tradition I had kept for over twenty years.

After calming myself with a deep breath, I was about to start a new playthrough when I noticed something unfamiliar on the screen.

“Huh? I’ve never seen this before.”

– Challenge as a Resident –

Confused, I moved the mouse cursor over it, and a description appeared.

A mode where you play as a randomly selected NPC instead of a normal playable character.
Hardcore difficulty only.
Clear conditions are the same as Normal Mode.
Bonus items and bonus skills you have obtained so far can be used.
Once started, you cannot quit midway, and restarting is impossible.

A brand-new mode I had never heard of made my heart race as a gamer.

But once I actually considered starting, the description bothered me.

“Randomly selected from all NPCs?”

The game I was playing, Survival Fantasy, had an enormous world, which meant there were countless NPCs.

Sure, some NPCs had appealing stats and strong abilities.

But most were poor commoners struggling to survive.

Statistically, I was much more likely to end up as one of those.

“How am I supposed to clear Hardcore with a trash character? One death and it’s over.”

Hardcore mode tripled monster health, and if your character died, all save data was erased.

Even I, who had cleared the game dozens of times, didn’t take that difficulty lightly.

“And I can’t even restart.”

Anyone could tell this was a cruel mode designed to torment players.

The developers probably didn’t want someone to clear it.

They wanted someone to suffer through it.

But even knowing all that, I boldly pressed the start button.

“This looks fun.”

The remaining achievement was almost certainly tied to clearing this mode.

If I wanted to complete my achievement collection stuck at 99%, I had no choice but to challenge it.

After pressing Start, the familiar loading screen flashed by.

Then a violent pain surged up from my stomach.

“Urgh!”

What spilled onto the floor wasn’t the food I had eaten today.

It was bright red blood.

As I lifted my head in confusion, unfamiliar scenery entered my view.

“What is this…?”

My tiny apartment was gone.

In its place stood an old-fashioned mansion straight out of a romance comic.

I thought maybe I was dreaming.

But the overwhelming pain denied that.

I screamed and collapsed to my knees.

“There was poison in the wine! Hurry, call a physician!”

‘Poison?’

Judging by how it felt like I was dying, I seemed to be the victim.

I had only started a game.

Why had I been dragged to some unknown place and poisoned?

Before I could make sense of it, I lost consciousness.

***

When I came to and opened my eyes, I saw unfamiliar surroundings.

Judging by the luxurious bed, it didn’t seem like I’d been taken to a hospital.

“Where… am I?”

As I held my pounding head and sat up, someone rushed toward me.

“Young master!”

An old man with white hair in a suit clung to me while calling me young master.

“Thank heavens you’ve awakened!”

I had no idea why a stranger was crying and latching onto me.

And “young master”?

No one had ever called me that before.

It only made me more confused.

As I blinked and looked around, I noticed another man beside the bed.

He had been organizing medicine bottles.

When our eyes met, he let out a small sigh.

“If it weren’t for the antidote we recently developed, you would have lost your life.”

“Doctor! Thank you so much!”

The old man released me and ran toward the doctor.

The doctor looked disgusted and tried to push him away.

“There is still more I need to explain, so please step back.”

“Huh? What else is there?”

The old man stepped back, alarmed.

The doctor cleared his throat.

“The antidote isn’t 100% complete, so we could not fully cure the poison.”

“Don’t tell me…”

Leaving the pale old man behind, the doctor looked at me with pity.

“Young master, please stay calm as you hear this.”

“Y-Yes.”

“You can no longer use magic.”

As if giving a terminal diagnosis, he said it in a sorrowful voice.

The old man collapsed, sobbing.

“That can’t be! Doctor, anything but that!”

“I’m sorry. This is the best current medicine could do.”

“Oh, our poor young master!”

While the doctor and old man acted like they were in some tragedy…

I simply blinked.

‘Are they messing with me?’

They acted like something terrible had happened, and all they meant was…

I couldn’t use magic?

If I were some boy attending wizard school with a lightning scar, maybe I’d be shocked.

But for someone from the 21st century…

That meant nothing.

“The second son of the Renorf family unable to use magic? Does that even make sense, Doctor?”

As I wondered how to process all this, the old man’s words made my eyes widen.

‘Second son of the Renorf family?’

I repeated the words in my head.

Then knowledge from playing Survival Fantasy flashed before me like a panorama.

To confirm it, I ran straight to a mirror.

“Y-Young master?”

The old man called anxiously, but I ignored him.

I focused only on the reflection.

“This… is me?”

Dark navy hair that looked dyed.

Narrow snake-like eyes that almost seemed closed.

Balanced features.

But this wasn’t the time to be happy about being handsome.

‘This guy…!’

I knew who this appearance belonged to.

Translated into game graphics, there was only one possibility.

Ian von Renorf.

‘Right after being poisoned… he loses the succession struggle and is expelled from the family.’

In the main game, Ian von Renorf was the lead of a side story.

Once the player gained enough fame, Ian would approach and ask for help.

That triggered a side quest.

Its goal was assassinating certain people so he could take revenge on his family.

Without assassination skills, it was extremely difficult.

And even if you cleared it, the rewards were mediocre.

It was an unpopular quest.

‘And the ending was terrible too.’

If the player refused the quest, Ian later failed on his own and ended up in an underground prison.

Even if you helped him succeed, the player would have killed most of the family’s core members.

All Ian inherited was an empty shell of a ruined house.

In short…

A side-character irrelevant to the main story.

Even his own side quest only had miserable endings.

That was Ian von Renorf’s place in the game.

“You just said I can’t use magic anymore, right?”

“…That’s correct.”

Only then did the doctor’s words truly sink in.

To the Renorf family, known for producing brilliant mages…

Someone unable to use magic had no value.

And Ian wasn’t even a legitimate child.

He was a bastard born from a one-night affair.

“Excuse me, old man. Can I ask something?”

I asked for details.

But instead of answering, the old man panicked.

“Oh young master! You must be so shocked you’re even speaking politely to a servant like me!”

Just using polite speech caused that reaction?

Seeing the elderly man make such a fuss…

Apparently polite speech didn’t suit this body.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

I forced myself to change my tone.

“Enough fussing. Just answer the question.”

“Y-Yes! Ask me anything.”

“The succession duel. When does it start?”

“Tomorrow, young master.”

“I’m screwed…”

The old man heard my muttering and burst into tears again.

“Young master! At a time like this you must stay strong! There must be a solution!”

Honestly, it wasn’t comforting.

I was born into a mage family and knew nothing but magic.

And I had just lost that.

Worse, the duel was tomorrow.

How was I supposed to fix anything?

‘This is way too brutal from the start.’

I had only pressed the Start button.

Just for that, I was thrown into a hopeless situation in someone else’s body?

It made no sense.

But I couldn’t just give up.

There was no point wondering why this happened.

The important thing was how to survive.

‘First, I need a way to stay alive.’

If I really had been dragged into the game…

Then I was almost certainly in Hardcore Mode.

And dying in Hardcore meant everything was erased.

That meant I could die too.

Maybe there was a way back to reality.

But counting on that was too optimistic.

If even a tiny chance of death existed…

I had to avoid it.

“Young master? Are you alright?”

Seeing me silent for a long time, the old man approached worriedly.

I waved him off.

“I want to be alone. Everyone leave.”

“I can’t! I, Albert, as your servant, cannot leave your side—”

“Please. Just do as I say.”

The old man, Albert, swallowed his grief and left with the doctor.

Once the room was silent, I sighed deeply.

“What do I do now…”

First, I needed to check this character’s information.

In the game, a shortcut key did that.

But how did it work here?

As soon as I thought that, familiar screens appeared before me.

Traits
Skills
Stats
Inventory

I checked Traits first.

Broken Mana Circuit

Grade: Highest
Cannot Grow
Due to poison, most skills can no longer be used.
Permanent.

Half-Baked Blessing

Grade: Transcendent
Cannot Grow
A blessing granted by an unknown being.
The bearer will never meet the worst ending.
But can never obtain the best outcome either.

After reading both traits, I felt empty.

“What kind of trash character is this?”

Born a noble, but a bastard.

Survived poison, but lost magic.

Even revenge only leaves an empty family.

Maybe that “Half-Baked Blessing” fit such a character.

But I didn’t need lore.

I needed something useful.

So I checked Skills.

Fireball

Unusable

Lightning Chain

Unusable

Heal

Unusable

…

Despair hit even harder.

There were many skills.

All unusable.

Except one.

A bonus skill I had earned by clearing Normal Mode.

Skill Combination

Grade: Basic
Can Grow
Consume points to activate one random skill.
(Current cost: 1,000 points)
Spend additional points to limit activation to a specific class skill.
(Current cost: 1,000 points)
Points can be gained by consuming valuable items.
(Items you do not own cannot be consumed.)
Activation may fail, but there is a low chance of triggering a skill up to two grades higher.

Failure: 60%
Success: 35%
Great Success: 5%

Available Skill Grades: Basic to Intermediate

It had been a joke skill.

But now it was my only lifeline.

How pathetic that my survival depended on a 35% chance.

“There should’ve been a bonus item that came with this…”

I opened the inventory.

As expected, there was a ring.

Appraisal Ring