Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Possession (1)

My home was a tiny studio apartment, barely four pyeong in size.

Thick curtains sealed it shut, keeping it dark, and two days without ventilation had left the air stale and musty.

Dishes left unwashed for ages reeked in the sink, and garbage rolled around every corner of the room.

It was, quite literally, no different from a pigsty.

In one corner, a monitor blazed with light, asserting its presence.

White text scrolled across the black screen—ending credits. Producers, development studios, that sort of thing.

They were the ending credits of Florian Rhapsody, the game that had set every gaming community in the world on fire.

"God-fucking-damn, what a shit game."

That's right.

The reason I used the past tense—"had set on fire"—was because that was no longer the case.

Florian Rhapsody tanked not long after launch, and I tanked right along with it.

What does a game flopping have to do with me?

Until last year, I'd been a student at what people commonly called a no-name university. Located in Seoul, but with zero edge when it came to getting hired. That kind of school.

Back in high school, I'd buckled down and studied diligently in my own way.

I thought once I got into college, I'd coast through life nice and easy.

But fuck me.

When I actually got to college, the happy life I'd imagined was nowhere to be found.

If you wanted a job, there was a metric ton of crap to deal with—GPA, certifications, the works. In high school, I'd thought getting into college would solve everything.

In short, the whole "just get into college" line was the greatest scam ever pulled on every high school student in South Korea.

A life spent sitting at a desk studying wasn't for me.

So for the first time in my life, I gambled.

X-Tube was blowing up these days, wasn't it?

If you staked your claim on the right popular game early, there were plenty of cases where people raked in tens of millions of won a month.

Right on cue, the single-player game Florian Rhapsody launched at the perfect time.

Its production budget had been close to a staggering one trillion won, and the PV they'd released boasted unbelievable quality. The moment I saw it, I just knew—this was the game.

Without a shred of hesitation, I filed for a leave of absence and holed up in my studio, playing the game like my life depended on it.

I had some confidence in gaming. I was weak at the AOS genre that was trending these days, but when it came to RPG walkthroughs, that was undeniably my specialty.

Even for someone like me, this game was brutally hard. It took a full two months before I saw my first ending.

But the fruit was sweet in proportion to the struggle.

The moment I uploaded the clear video to X-Tube, all hell broke loose. According to the comments, I was apparently the first person in the entire world to clear it.

That video—edited down to just the final boss fight—blew past three million views.

That day was my first and last golden age.

The walkthrough video I uploaded the next day got a measly 3,601 views. And the one after that? 949.

─Why would anyone play this trash game?

─The difficulty, seriously, what the fuck.

─How are you supposed to aim magic and arrows? ㅗㅗ What is this, an FPS?

─What kind of tank dies in 3 hits? Give me a break.

─Braindead garbage game. You're telling me a character gets deleted when they die once?

That was the public's verdict on Florian Rhapsody.

A failed game that botched its difficulty balance.

People were curious about what kind of lunatic would clear a game like that, but not many actually wanted to sit down and watch someone grind through it.

It would've been great if I'd come to my senses then.

But at the time, I was afflicted with what you'd call "masterpiece syndrome."

I'd had fun playing it, so I believed everyone else would too. I told myself it was only unpopular because people didn't know about it yet.

So I deluded myself into thinking that if I just made proper walkthrough guides, the game would skyrocket and my X-Tube channel would skyrocket with it.

And the result of that delusion was this sorry state.

[Cleared Florian Rhapsody. / 3.3M views / 1 year ago]

[Florian Rhapsody Beginner's Guide Ep. 1 / 3.6K views / 1 year ago]

.

.

.

[Magic Swordsman Skill Tree Complete Guide! / 41 views / 3 weeks ago]

[Tutorial Boss No-Hit Clear! / 13 views / 1 week ago]

Thirteen views.

That was the view count on my latest video after a full year of investment into my X-Tube channel.

"No kidding. Why the hell did I ever start this trash game?"

In the end, my gamble ended in failure.

All I'd gained were dozens of walkthrough guides nobody cared about, an account with completion records for every single playable character, and a hard lesson in just how difficult it was to make money.

At least I was lucky enough to come to my senses now.

I'd decided to enlist next month, then go back to school after.

"It's fine to goof off a little more until then, right?"

That was why I was sitting in front of my computer again today.

I'd just watched the ending for my last remaining character, making my account a full-clear account.

When I pulled up the main menu, a new option appeared—one that had never been there before. A brand-new mode.

▼ Customization Mode

: Upon selection, you may play the game as a new character. Character information can be sculpted by the player.

"This is it!"

In other words, a hidden mode—a perk exclusive to full-clear players.

Was there anything better for killing time before enlistment? Love it or hate it, I'd spent a whole year with this game. It'd feel wrong to just part ways without a proper sendoff.

I fully intended to see the hidden ending before I was done.

"This is insane? I can set the stats however I want too?"

First, the name.

Let's see, for a name... I went with Cha Eunwoo.

It was a customization, after all—might as well go with something nice. I modeled the appearance to vaguely resemble the image in my head, too.

Thrilling. Always fresh. Nothing beats being handsome!

"I can set the class too?"

Every character in Florian Rhapsody started at the academy, Florian, without exception.

All playable characters were students. Maybe because the game's difficulty was filthy hard, the in-school tutorial was generous to a fault.

Of course, someone as seasoned as me didn't need any of that.

▼ Please select a class.

: 1. Current Student

: 2. Graduate

: 3. Professor

: 4. External Mercenary

.

.

.

I clicked number 3 without a moment's hesitation.

The word "Professor" appeared in the class field.

The reason I picked professor was simple.

I'd played everything else in some form or another, but professor was the one option that was completely new to me.

If you diligently attend the academy and level up your character, you should go out and fight. Who stays behind at the school teaching kids?

Next was talent selection.

I could only pick three.

Talents that would drastically lower the game's difficulty even with just one—Talent of the Sword Saint, Talent of the Sage, Talent of Growth Speed—were all right there.

If I took all three, wouldn't clearing the game be a breeze?

But that wouldn't be any fun.

Since I'd gone with the professor class, I decided to build around a concept that matched it.

First: Talent of the Mentor.

A talent that let you gain experience proportional to the amount your companions gained whenever their experience went up.

If you were picking the most garbage talent in Florian Rhapsody, this one would absolutely make the shortlist.

I'd tried to figure out how to use it—my idea was to leech off a high-level character and soak up free experience—but that had failed.

The talent only granted experience proportional to how much you personally contributed to your companion's growth.

Still, with the special condition of being a professor, wouldn't it be a decent fit?

Next: Talent of Charisma.

A talent useful for recruiting companions, commanding subordinates, or negotiating with merchants and the like.

This was also an unquestionably garbage talent.

In this game, any talent that was completely useless for combat or growth was generally considered trash.

The last one I picked was the Teachings of Seshet.

According to the game's lore, Seshet was the goddess of records and history. It was said she knew all the knowledge of every event that had ever occurred in the world.

The effect of this talent was borrowing Seshet's knowledge.

Put simply, it was a talent that let you view the lore encyclopedia.

The Talent of Charisma I'd picked earlier was garbage, but this one was truly, truly garbage.

The entire lore encyclopedia was already posted online word for word—what kind of idiot would look it up inside the game? This was genuinely no different whether you had it or not.

Finally, I maxed out every potential stat to the ceiling of 99.

This, unlike everything else so far, was an absurdly overpowered condition.

Across the entire game, only a handful of characters had a potential stat of 99. Even the character with the most only had three.

Having all six stats at 99 was something only a customization character could achieve.

Given that I'd built this character around a hell-mode concept, it was a shockingly ill-fitting condition for the theme.

But I couldn't give up on the dream of all-99 stats.

Besides, with talents this pathetic, reaching those stats would be hard enough, and I probably wouldn't be able to utilize them properly anyway. So it was fine.

"Done."

───────────────

▼ Name: Cha Eunwoo

▼ Gender: Male

▼ Class: Professor

▼ Stats

: [STR 10/99] [AGI 10/99] [VIT 10/99]

: [MP 10/99] [END 10/99] [LCK 10/99]

▼ Talents

: Mentor

: Charisma

: Teachings of Seshet

───────────────

Damn, that's the stuff.

A wave of satisfaction hit me as I looked at the well-crafted character.

Picking all three of the spoons—the talents that determined your starting advantage in Florian Rhapsody—and trashing every single one? This was undeniably a doomed character.

Could even I reach the ending under these conditions? Probably impossible. This wasn't just a dirt spoon—it was being born without a spoon at all.

Seeing this godawful difficulty made my motivation surge.

After all, the harder a game is, the more fun it gets.

A final message appeared warning that once a character was created, it couldn't be changed—but I coolly hit the accept button.

The moment I did, a short pop came from the PC tower, and the monitor went dark.

"What? Ah, shit."

What's wrong with this thing?

I pressed the power button again, even smacked the tower a few times, but it stayed dead.

As if staging a protest about breaking down, the monitor flickered in three different colors.

I'd only bought this thing two years ago, and it was already fried? Was it from playing too many games? I felt a twinge of remorse.

──♪

Right on cue, my phone rang. The caller ID read: Dumbass #1. It was Seok Junoh, a friend since middle school.

"Yeah, what."

"Where are you?"

"Home."

"Come out. Let's shoot some pool."

Seok Junoh—this bastard never had any context, ever.

"Where?"

"Pungsa, by three."

And just like that, the call cut off.

Whatever, that son of a bitch. I was bored anyway, so it worked out.

But Junoh, you idiot—Pungsa's the pool hall near our middle school. How the hell am I supposed to get there from my studio near campus by three?

It was easy enough to decide to ignore Junoh's demand and take my sweet time.

I showered at a leisurely pace, then stepped outside for the first time in a while.

The scenery after three days indoors was a welcome sight. The biting winter air, the bare trees, the breath that frosted the moment I opened my mouth.

Actually, scratch that "welcome."

It was so cold I already wanted to crawl back to my room.

Bored on the way, I plugged in my earphones to listen to music. Florian Rhapsody's OST poured through.

I'd listened to this track dozens of times a day, but I never got tired of it.

They'd spent that much money, so they really did nail every little detail.

I arrived at the bus stop and waited for the bus, humming along.

Maybe I looked strange doing that. An ajumma across the street waved at me.

What's she trying to say?

She wasn't just waving—she was flailing her whole body around like she was having a seizure.

Had she been day-drinking? The way she was hopping up and down looked like she was having a blast. Want me to bust out a move too?

Nah, too embarrassing. Let's not.

But wait—looking more closely, she wasn't in high spirits. It was more like the frantic gestures of someone in a panic.

Her expression wasn't a smile either. It was frozen in terror.

I stared a moment longer, and it clicked.

What the ajumma was desperately pointing at was right beside me. I turned my head to see what was there.

What the fu—

A dump truck was barreling straight toward me. It had smashed through the guardrail, invaded the sidewalk, and the road was being torn apart under its massive wheels.

It was too late to dodge. Something like a life flashing before my eyes raced through my mind.

Ah, I'm fucked.

CRASH—!

"Kid! Kid, are you okay?! Kid!"

What kind of crazy son of a bitch does this.......

All I could remember was the ajumma's scream, coming from far away.