The Abyss of the Labyrinth
There is a saying that all real-time games are actually turn-based games.
That is, if you think of "doing nothing during an infinitely subdivided unit of time" as completing a single turn.
Sophistry?
I thought so too.
Until I possessed this insane game and became a turn-based wizard.
That game was a traditional D&D-style turn-based strategy RPG. A roguelike single-player game that descends into the deepest depths of a labyrinth.
You form a four-person party, uncover secrets, go on adventures, and engage in turn-based combat with enemies you encounter.
The time given to me for one turn is 60 seconds. To win a battle, I must thoroughly plan my strategy within that time.
According to the order in which party members take their turns.
[Shadow Leap]
If I use my rogue's movement skill to place him next to the enemy archer.
[Sentinel Repositioning]
Because the archer is burdened by close combat with a rogue, he uses a movement skill to retreat to high ground.
I wait for that.
[Position Swapping]
Then, on my wizard's next turn, I swap the positions of our archer and the enemy archer.
That way, not only does my archer move to the high ground, but the enemy archer ends up next to our warrior with no movement skills left.
[Dragon's Strike]
On the warrior's following turn, he smashes the enemy archer to pieces with a powerful physical attack.
Like this, you predict the enemy's moves as if playing chess, distribute each party member's actions one by one, and fight strategically.
Utilizing all kinds of elements such as flanking attacks, area control, mines, traps, ropes, hills, cliffs, rivers, snares, bushes, trees, sticky terrain, neutral monsters, toxic gas, oil barrels, magic arrows, bombs, summons, potions, and more.
That was fun.
Apparently others found it fun too, because for a while the game The Abyss of the Labyrinth was quite popular.
The problem was…
No, holy shit, this game is insanely hard
Does anyone even see the ending of this thing?
It's the final chapter, but what the hell is that Labyrinth Master? One volcanic eruption spell and everyone just dies
Even the underlings that come out under the Labyrinth Master are crazy strong
This game was so difficult that no one managed to see the ending.
The first person in the world to find a way to clear it was me.
The key to the strategy was to shove even the Labyrinth Master's underlings into the range of the Labyrinth Master's volcanic eruption spell and wipe everyone out.
And in my party, I make sure to keep at least the 'wizard' alive.
By placing the Blessing of Final Resistance on the wizard, letting him endure with 1 HP.
[Raise Up Dead Body]
Then I use necromancy to resurrect my companions.
[Clockwork of Natural Order]
At that point, the Labyrinth Master activates a dispel spell to kill the undead.
At the same time, the Labyrinth Master's own 'Status Resistance' blessing disappears—which was the goal from the start.
Now it's a one-on-one duel between the wizard and the Labyrinth Master.
I pelt him with all kinds of status-effect spells and CC items, grinding him down and killing him.
That's how I cleared it.
The strategy I devised became a sort of official guideline, and countless players followed my method afterward.
And then I started increasing the game's difficulty.
After clearing Classic difficulty, the 'Hard' difficulty for second-playthrough players was unlocked.
After struggling for several months, I cleared Hard difficulty as well.
Difficulty: Strategist
The next difficulty was unlocked.
From then on, I couldn't stop.
Like a madman addicted to it, I kept clearing the game repeatedly using all kinds of bizarre methods and strategies.
Difficulty: Supreme Strategist
Difficulty: Endless Struggle
Difficulty: True Leader
Difficulty: Hall of Honor
Difficulty: Beginning of Legend
Difficulty: Ordeal
Difficulty: Struggle of Despair
Difficulty: Endless Challenge
Difficulty: Indomitable Spirit
Difficulty: Enlightenment
Difficulty: Great Wisdom
Difficulty: Absolute Strategy
Difficulty: End of Strategy
Difficulty: Transcendence of Humanity
Difficulty: God of Strategy
....
For a while, there were players who followed me and challenged the high difficulties together, but at some point they all disappeared.
So I also stopped sharing my clear strategies on MyuTube. That must have been around the 'Hall of Honor' stage, I think.
Still, I found strategic combat itself fun, so I kept repeating this process, and then one day.
[Difficulty: Developer]
I reached a difficulty with a rather strange name.
"Developer?"
For reference, the difficulty right before that was 'Turn-Based Master'.
After a long string of fancy-sounding difficulty names, suddenly 'Developer'.
It felt a bit deflating, yet at the same time I had an intuition that this was the end.
'What do I do after clearing Developer?'
That thought crossed my mind as I started Developer difficulty.
At some point, the ending had stopped being my goal and had become my routine.
The game ending left me with mixed feelings.
[Caleb]
I set my nickname and created a new character for Developer difficulty.
Once again, a wizard.
My party members' positions had changed many times, but my main character was always a wizard.
Because the wizard is the core of most strategies.
[Distribute 10 Attribute Points]
I allocated them like this.
[Strength (0), Agility (0), Wisdom (10), Vitality (0), Dexterity (0)]
The higher your Wisdom, the stronger your magic.
In the past, there was a popular meta where even wizards invested a few points into Strength and Vitality early on to equip heavy armor and increase early survivability.
But in my experience, starting from 'Absolute Strategy' difficulty, that doesn't work anymore. No matter what you do early on, you die in one hit.
So the new method I developed was to dump everything into Wisdom. If you're a glass cannon anyway, the mindset is to kill before you get hit.
[Select a Special Ability]
Special abilities are unique powers inherent to a character, separate from skills.
Things like 'Corpse Devourer', which restores HP by eating corpses, or 'Perfectionist', which increases attack power when HP is full.
'Shall I start the same way as the previous difficulty aga—huh?'
As I was browsing the Special Ability tab, I discovered an unexpected option and my eyes widened.
[Select a Special Ability.]
....
Hourglass of Turn-Based Systems: Unlocked by clearing 'Turn-Based Master' difficulty.
"What is this?"
The difficulty right before Developer was 'Turn-Based Master'. This special ability hadn't existed even when I played that.
"Should I try it once?"
If it's bad, I can just delete the character and start over. It's not like I expect to clear the final difficulty, 'Developer', in one go anyway.
I chose the special ability and moved on to the next screen.
[Enter the Abyss of the Labyrinth? Y/N]
The moment I pressed Y.
I lost consciousness on the spot.
When I opened my eyes again, I was inside the game.
I had become a wizard.
I'm fucked.
I'm not someone who swears much, but there's no more appropriate phrase than this.
'I'm seriously fucked.'
Even more so than when a useless junior in the army fired artillery shells toward the North, triggering a response broadcast from North Korea.
The place I'm in is a magic academy.
I've seen this scenery countless times, so it's familiar.
It's the scene that appears when you start the game as a wizard.
There is one difference—the perspective.
Not a quarter-view looking down from above, but a first-person perspective. I could see the terrified expressions on people's faces.
About twenty of them.
We are slaves of the magic academy. Bought from slave traders by the academy last night.
"Today, you will enter the labyrinth. If you come back alive, you can become students of the magic academy. If you earn money inside the labyrinth and repay your own price, you can even escape your status as slaves."
An old professor came out and explained.
I tried to construct all kinds of hypotheses to understand this situation, then quickly gave up.
First of all, the body I was inhabiting wasn't my real one. It was Caleb, the character I had customized at the start. In a situation this blatantly non-physical, any kind of common-sense reasoning was meaningless.
There was no choice but to acknowledge it and accept it as it was.
"The labyrinth is, of course, dangerous—but if you proceed carefully, you can survive."
And there wasn't even time to sink into unsolvable worries. This game rushes at you relentlessly from the very introduction.
"Everyone, step forward and take one magic wand each."
The slaves stepped forward one by one and picked up wands.
I took one as well.
"You'll be divided into groups of four. Then follow your teaching assistant and enter the labyrinth."
People immediately lined up into groups.
My team consisted of one elf woman and three human men. I was one of those three.
The elf woman was so terrified she looked about to foam at the mouth, and one fat human man was drenched in sweat from extreme tension.
And the last one was…
"Dum jilāākāya sarābitānya wa abrāpsaro kirimantāya..."
With both hands clasped together, he was desperately muttering a prayer. Judging from the game's lore, he was someone from the far southern desert regions. As a bonus, he was also a cripple.
The content of that prayer he was reciting amounted roughly to, 'If I die, please take me to heaven.'
'This is bad.'
A fainting elf woman, a terrified fat guy, and a fanatical cripple.
None of the three looked remotely suited for labyrinth combat. In this game, team composition luck at the start mattered quite a bit.
I had confidence that I could devise a strategy no matter what kind of idiot ended up on my team—but that was when it was a turn-based game that gave me 60 seconds per turn.
"Team Three. Follow me."
We were Team Three. The expressions on our faces as we followed the assistant were no different from oxen being led to the slaughterhouse.
"Entry positions are automatically separated by groups of four, so once you're inside, it'll be just the four of you. Other teams will be scattered randomly somewhere on the first floor of the labyrinth."
The assistant explained.
He stayed behind, and the four of us crossed the labyrinth gate.
In an instant, the entire world went dark. The gate vanished immediately. Now we had to find the exit gate. In the pitch-black darkness, water dripped from stalactites with hollow echoes, and deeper inside, the voices of monsters could be heard.
Heehee! Heehehe! Heehee!
That kind of laughter.
Thud!
The elf woman collapsed onto the ground.
She trembled violently, clutching her wand.
"I can't do this."
Tears began to well up in her eyes.
"I can't."
"Haah… haah…"
The fat guy was also so terrified he could barely breathe.
"Jarbankāya wa elostānde kromi ajjaraptāmi wa ttellākro..."
Surprisingly, the fanatic looked the most composed. He muttered a few more lines of prayer, then his expression brightened.
"It's done! There's no need to worry anymore. Now that I've finished my prayer, even if we die, the Lord will guide us to heaven. Don't be afraid—dying is fine! Hahaha!"
I take that back.
This bastard was definitely the most unhinged.
Anyway, sitting around like this was a problem. Inside the labyrinth, unless you were in a safe zone, you never knew when disaster would strike.
"We can't just stay here. Let's mo—"
Just as I was about to encourage them, an unreal scene entered my vision.
As if played back on a high-speed camera in slow motion, a grotesque green monster leaped toward us from the darkness.
The thing the game called a goblin.
In the game, a message like 'Ambushed!' would appear, initiative bonuses would be applied to the enemies, and turn-based combat would begin.
But, fuck, obviously—
'That's not going to happen.'
Thud!
The crude spearhead pierced straight through the fat guy's back and burst out through his chest.
Hot blood splashed all over my face.
"Heehee! Heehehe!"
Two goblins behind him were laughing wickedly.
"Kyaaaah!"
The elf woman screamed and jumped back.
"Ohhh! O death! Come to me at once! My Lord in the heavens! Open wide the gates of your kingdom—"
Thud!
Another spear flew in and took the fanatic's head clean off.
'Insane.'
My body froze solid.
All those stories about modern people possessing games or novels and mowing everything down are complete bullshit.
Modern people can't do that.
Unless they're former special forces who fought in the Iraq War.
From the perspective of someone like me—who, until yesterday, took bubble baths and grilled supermarket beef—this was total brain shutdown.
A modern person never sees someone stabbed by a spear and blood spraying everywhere in real life. My mind went blank, my body stiffened completely.
"Heehehe!"
Even as a goblin holding a knife leapt toward me.
Until that moment—
[Hourglass of Turn-Based Systems activated]
Until that message appeared.
I thought I was frozen because I was too scared to move, but it was slightly different.
[It is your turn.]
The entire world—including me—stopped.
[60]
[59]
[58]
An hourglass appeared before my eyes, counting down. Three seconds passed, yet the goblin's blade still hadn't reached my neck.
"Wh… what is this?"
The goblin's grin stretched ear to ear, the fountain of blood spurting from the fanatic's neck, the blade hovering barely twenty centimeters from my throat—
Nothing in the world moved, except the hourglass.
All real-time games are, in fact, turn-based games.
If you view infinitely small units of time as turns.
I was fated to do nothing during the 0.0-something seconds when the goblin's blade cut my neck—ending my turn and sending my head flying.
Gaining sixty seconds in that fleeting instant. Being able to devise a strategy during those sixty seconds.
That was the special ability—
'Hourglass of Turn-Based Systems.'