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Chapter 1: I'm a Veteran
There was a mobile game.
Its name was 「Battle of Summoners」.
Like countless others, it was an extremely common collectible RPG.
You summoned familiars, built a team, strengthened them, fought other players, climbed towers, and did raids...
Was it popular?
Not really.
At first, it blew up somewhat because people said it used AI, but before long, it crashed and burned.
Its monetization was pretty brutal, and on top of that, the difficulty was absurdly high.
There wasn't a single material you could get easily, and even raising your familiars was a pain.
There were even way too many types of familiars.
People joked that every time you summoned one, the AI must be generating it on the spot. That alone said it all.
With a game this unfriendly, of course it was doomed to fail. All the casual players left, and only the hardcore diehards remained.
The so-called veterans.
* * *
Baek Jinwoo was one of them.
He was twenty-four years old.
He had been playing this game since his first year of middle school.
A full ten-year veteran.
And he had achieved many things in this game.
Ranked No. 1 in PvP!
God Ji-nu!
Conqueror of the 99th floor of the Tower of Trials!
Highest-ranked free-to-play player!
World record holder in every daily dungeon time attack!
Holder of the fastest clear record for the Chaos Wyrm (47 seconds)!
To someone who didn't know the game, those might sound questionable, but to players who had spent any real time in it, they were records so shocking they bordered on insanity.
The god of gods!
The idol of the veterans!
That was none other than the man with the nickname
Of course.
If someone had obsessed over a game this difficult for ten years, what do you think his real life looked like?
A total ruin.
His grades in school, the CSAT, his essay exams, all of it had plunged through the floor and straight into the basement below.
Without ever making it into college, he was surviving off part-time jobs and construction labor.
It wasn't that he was stupid.
If he had been stupid to begin with, there was no way he could have reached the achievement of ranking first as a free-to-play player.
Baek Jinwoo was simply crazy about this game.
Whenever he looked at printed text, information about familiars swam before his eyes, and whenever he tried to do anything, he could only think about the farming that must be running on auto.
What was he supposed to do?
There was no helping it.
His mind and heart had already been swallowed whole by the Battle of Summoners.
That was the truth.
In stark contrast to the game's dazzling world, his reality was an absolute gutter.
If only his parents had been well-off, maybe he wouldn't have worried so much, but neither of them earned much.
Even so, he had no complaints.
Why did his mom and dad run all over the place, even taking on three jobs each?
To feed Baek Jinwoo and his little sister, Baek Ajin.
They were unbelievably responsible people. And kind, too. Painfully kind.
Even though they had every right to say something to their worthless son, all they ever did was cheer him on...
'Ah, you pathetic bastard.'
Baek Jinwoo swallowed his tears.
'I know too. I know I'm unfilial. I'm a piece of shit. To think a guy raised in such a warm family still can't get a grip and is floundering around in a virtual world!'
Baek Jinwoo cursed the friend who had recommended this game to him back in middle school.
And while cursing him, he stepped out into the nearby garden and began tapping furiously at his phone.
Inside that world, he communicated with his familiars decked out in flashy runes, used skills, and climbed the tower.
'Please.'
Just let me clear the 100th floor of the Tower of Trials...
Once I clear that, I'll go back to reality, Mom.
It's just too unfair.
I was the first veteran ever to make it to the 99th floor—how can I quit here?
Even if it was a meaningless game in real life, to Baek Jinwoo, this was his life.
It had been with him through his school years.
It was everything to him.
They were AI, yes, but he had bonded with his familiars and sincerely respected their lives.
And that wasn't all.
He had studied like mad, too.
If you didn't study, you couldn't even properly raise your familiars, let alone clear the tower.
The vast amount of Battle of Summoners knowledge in Baek Jinwoo's head would easily surpass that of most experts.
'Please, just a little more.'
Tap tap tap!
His fingers moved faster and faster over the phone.
He had already been challenging the 99th floor for a whole year now, and the tower's conquest was finally within reach.
[Baekcheon: Dammit! Goddamn trash game, I can't play this anymore.]
[Rachel: Now what.]
[Baekcheon: How the hell did you clear Floor 80?]
[Rachel: Lol you're still stuck there? You were there a month ago too.]
Inside Battle of Summoners there was a chat window.
It was a space where users could communicate with one another, and it let you group together with whoever you wanted.
[Baekcheon: No, I swear I did exactly what Sugoi hyung told me to dooo!]
Playing alone all the time could get lonely.
So a few particular fossils had created a chatroom to share their precious information.
There were six people in total.
Every single one of them stood at the very top of Battle of Summoners.
The so-called One Heaven, Five Emperors.
It was a nickname meaning that above five emperors, there stood one heaven.
And for the last five years—ever since Rachel, the No. 2 player in PvP, had invited them—it had remained intact.
[Sugoi: You know this already. Everyone's clear method is different. Honestly, it's meaningless.]
[Baekcheon: No, hyung... I'm serious when I say I've been thinking about quitting lately.]
Baekcheon was a Taiwanese player ranked sixth.
The youngest among the Five Emperors.
His defining trait was that he had a ridiculous amount of money.
[Baekcheon: You know how much money I've poured into this game.]
[Sugoi: Three hundred million won.]
[Baekcheon: Right. And even then I still can't break through Floor 80! Fuuuuuck!]
[Sugoi: Calm down, you lunatic. Anyway, three hundred million is nothing to you.]
[Baekcheon: Hyung. Why would you say it like that? What money isn't money in this world?]
Sugoi was Japanese.
As expected of a game built around AI, everything was immediately translated.
[Xenos: By the way, did you ask God Ji-nu?]
[Baekcheon: That hyung? Uh... well... that hyung's been busy lately.]
As Baekcheon answered evasively—
[Rachel: Oh, for god's sake.]
[Sugoi: What are you doing, seriously?]
[MoscowMan: Idiot.]
[Xenos: Pathetic.]
The criticism came pouring in.
[Rachel: We literally have a god in this room and you still haven't asked him?]
[Sugoi: I thought maybe God Ji-nu's solution relied too much on mechanics, so you were trying to break through another way...]
[MoscowMan: Go die outside.]
[Xenos: Hopeless.]
Among the veterans in this room, including Baekcheon who was stuck on Floor 80, there was one they called "god".
The No. 1 player in PvP, God Ji-nu!
He had always cleared this absurdly difficult tower in bizarre, unimaginable ways.
And from time to time, he would throw out good solutions or hints to the Five Emperors in the room.
Every time he appeared, whatever had blocked them would be smashed wide open, so they revered "God Ji-nu" with the utmost honor.
After all, if they happened to offend him and he left the room, that would be a disaster.
[Baekcheon: U-um... Lord God Ji-nu. Are you perhaps watching? Or are you still busy clearing Floor 99?]
Baekcheon simply thought that anyone better than him was automatically either big brother or big sister.
[Baekcheon: Lord God Ji-nu?]
He kept typing, but there was no reply.
[Rachel: Just wait a bit. He doesn't check chat very often.]
[Sugoi: Yeah, if you leave the part you're stuck on, he'll probably reply tomorrow.]
At the moment, none of them had passed Floor 90.
In other words, God Ji-nu—who had gone beyond 99 and was attempting Floor 100—could only feel like an actual god to them.
[Rachel: By the way... if he reaches Floor 100 this time, won't that be exactly ten years?]
[Xenos: Seriously insane. Totally nuts.]
[Sugoi: I've only stuck with this game because I wanted to see the Floor 100 ending. Damn, as expected of God Ji-nu.]
[MoscowMan: Did you see his gate enhancement build? He's a total psycho.]
[Rachel: Seriously, how did we spend the same amount of time on this game and end up this different?]
The veterans were excited.
Impenetrable.
That tower, where not a single floor was ever easy, was finally about to reveal its end through God Ji-nu.
[Baekcheon: But what happens if someone clears Floor 100?]
There had once been an announcement from the devs.
Conquer the 100th floor of the Tower of Trials! The moment you do, a new world shall open!
[Baekcheon: A new world. What, does the game itself change or something?]
[Rachel: Lmao maybe it was just some random nonsense they spewed? Honestly, the devs probably never even imagined Floor 100 would actually be cleared.]
[Baekcheon: Or maybe lololol]
Baekcheon typed with a snicker.
[Baekcheon: Maybe the world really changes just like the announcement said. This reality becomes the world of Summoners!]
You know the kind of thing.
That trope that shows up in novels.
Reality becomes a game, and the game becomes reality.
[MoscowMan: ….]
[Xenos: Seriously, how long are you going to stay this pathetic?]
[Sugoi: You've been reading way too many novels lol]
As always, the veterans mocked the youngest one.
They didn't know.
Not even slightly.
They had never imagined that Baekcheon's words would actually become reality.
* * *
Two weeks later.
On his way to a part-time job.
"I-it's finally!"
A man who had been furiously tapping at his phone while walking down the street suddenly shouted.
A man who had been furiously tapping at his phone while walking down the street suddenly shouted.
"Uahahahaha! Finally! Finallyyyyyyyyy!"
The man jumping up and down in ecstatic joy was none other than Baek Jinwoo.
His nickname was God Ji-nu.
"What the hell?"
"What's wrong with him?"
"He looks crazy."
Passersby frowned and murmured, but Baek Jinwoo didn't care.
Finally!
At last!
He had cleared Floor 100.
He had defeated that monstrous boss and seen the end of the tower.
How much had he suffered for this moment?
He had abandoned reality just for today.
"Uahahahahaha!"
It felt good.
So good it brought tears to his eyes.
[You have cleared the 100th floor of the Tower of Trials.]
That golden, flashing status window made his whole body tingle.
While he snapped screenshots—click, click!—to show off to the other veterans—
"Huh?"
"...What?"
"What the hell?"
The murmurs around him grew louder.
Baek Jinwoo also felt that something was wrong.
[You have cleared the 100th floor of the Tower of Trials.]
Why was that sentence outside the phone screen instead of on it?
Why was it floating in the air like a hologram?
Standing on the crosswalk, Baek Jinwoo frowned.
'Ah.'
Had he gone beyond being crazy about games and finally actually gone insane?
But if only he was insane, then why did it feel like everyone else around him was seeing something too?
[The beta test is ending.]
[A new world is opening.]
What?
Beta test?
And then it happened.
Flutter!
Red paper began falling from the sky.
Paper in a shape he recognized all too well.
"That's—"
There was no way he wouldn't know it. He had seen it enough times to be sick of it.
"...A low-grade summoning scroll?"
An item that let you randomly summon monsters from F-rank to D-rank was falling into the hands of every human being, one sheet each.
"What the hell is this...?"
That was when it happened.
—Bwaaaaaaaaaaang!
The deafening blast of a truck horn rang in his ears. And through the glass, he saw the stunned face of the driver!
"U-ugh?!"
He tried to dodge, but his body wouldn't move.
And then, at last—
Craaaash!
As the truck slammed into him and a heavy shock tore through his body, Baek Jinwoo had one final thought.
'This goddamn game.'
There was no doubt about it.
His life had definitely been ruined by the Battle of Summoners.