There are two kinds of games in the world.

God-tier games and trash games.

If I had to give an example of each, I would, without hesitation, name ‘Magic Knight Academy’ and ‘Martial Academy’.

Two games from the same company, StopSeeker, that were polar opposites.

Among them, ‘Magic Knight Academy’ was the game of my life.

Despite its simple title, it boasted a high degree of freedom, a well-structured composition, and a variety of challenges.

On the other hand, its sequel, ‘Martial Academy’, was a disappointment.

The rushed plot, the seemingly insane characters, and the terrible balance and difficulty. It was hard to believe they were made by the same company.

‘I cleared it just once and then deleted the account entirely.’

But now, I heard that game company was going bankrupt.

They were already an indie developer, so it was inevitable after releasing something like that and calling it a highly anticipated title.

As I logged into the game with a bitter heart, a developer message arrived in my account.

[Thank you for loving ‘Magic Knight Academy’ all this time. We are sending a final DLC to the users who loved this game until the very end.]

“For some reason, this is touching.”

I read the message with a sense of regret. How many years had it been since this game came out?

Even a hardcore user like me had subconsciously forgotten about it, but this meant that for all that long time, the development team had continued to develop the game to save it until the very end.

For the users who might still be waiting.

That was strangely moving. The beauty of a graceful exit, perhaps.

I quickly downloaded the DLC and logged into ‘Magic Knight Academy’.

When the character selection screen popped up with a flash, I let out a cry of admiration.

“Oh, is this a master setting?”

Spread out before me was a long list where I could select the character’s stats and talents.

A list that allowed one to freely set a character’s stats and talents.

Originally, after clearing all character routes in the game, you could raise or lower certain stats. But this DLC completely unlocked elements that had been blocked for balance reasons.

“Yes, this is it!”

From the heart of a hardcore user, I praised the developers.

This kind of freedom was the identity of this game. Thanks to it, concept plays like a strength-based mage or a magic archer were possible.

Moreover, discovering new achievements and talents allowed you to select those talents when creating your next character, and expanding the playstyle in that way was also quite enjoyable.

Even compared to recent games, its world was so vast and detailed that it didn’t fall short.

Even for a veteran player like me, the highest I had reached was about a 90% achievement completion rate.

“Let’s see, there’s all sorts of things here.”

[Sword Saint], [Absolute Magic], [God’s Agent], [Hero’s Destiny], [Transcendent Growth]….

Even the so-called mythic-grade talents were all unlocked.

“It seems like anything is really possible now.”

I muttered while looking at the list of over a thousand talents. For me, who had combined countless talents over the years, it was a gift that ignited my competitive spirit.

Of course, the total amount of stats and talents per character was fixed, and even then, debuffs were adjusted to match the balance after selection.

But I was a hardcore user and a veteran player.

Naturally, I could handle that much with talent settings and a corresponding playstyle.

Soon, the character creation screen appeared.

[Would you like to create a character?]

I pressed confirm without hesitation. The moment the final character was selected, a message window popped up with the loading screen.

[Verifying user’s account.]

[User’s hidden achievement completion rate is over 90%!]

[An amazing achievement! The title (talent) [Will of the Extreme] is granted. This title (talent) does not consume talent points.]

“What?”

For a moment, I gasped. A title that doesn’t consume talent points. It meant I got a free base talent without any risk.

I had cleared all sorts of achievements and received titles before, but this was a first. As expected of the final send-off, they were being really generous.

Moreover, [Will of the Extreme] was at least a legendary-grade talent for mental and growth-related attributes.

It especially granted strong resistance to mental-type debuffs.

“With this, I can create the ultimate character.”

I went into the talent point settings and started throwing in mental-type debuffs left and right.

Anger management issues, helplessness, and so on. As I did, the number of talent points I could assign to the character increased significantly, corresponding to the negative values.

Now, I just had to choose talents with these points. Preferably, an ability that would create synergy with [Will of the Extreme].

“There’s really only one choice.”

After staring at the talent list for a long time, the talent I chose after much deliberation was [Transcendent Growth]. It was a talent that literally allowed one to grow by transcending all aspects.

In theory, it boasted such monstrous potential that most debuffs could be overcome with it.

It might seem ridiculously overpowered, but in reality, users rarely used it. The reason was simple.

‘Because the failure rate for clearing the game skyrockets.’

As a mythic-grade talent, [Transcendent Growth] inherently eats up a considerable amount of talent points.

With no specialty, the early to mid-game becomes incredibly difficult, and even if you manage to grow, you can’t catch up to the specialized growth speed of other high-tier talents.

In other words, the early to mid-game is hellishly difficult, and even if you barely manage to grow and reach the late game, your main abilities end up in an ambiguous state compared to other specialized characters.

‘I rarely used it for that reason too.’

No matter how good a talent [Transcendent Growth] was, if the character’s growth speed and mental strength were eaten away by the debuffs assigned to afford it, it would actually be a net negative.

But with [Will of the Extreme], the story changes.

‘This is a tech tree only possible for this character who has obtained the [Will of the Extreme] title.’

Keeping this in mind, I carefully adjusted the debuffs and buffs.

For example, if you attached [Time-Limited Life] and [Life Extension], since [Time-Limited Life] is a bigger debuff, the available talent points for the character increase.

In this case, the character would have a short life, but by growing the [Life Extension] talent through the combination of [Transcendent Growth] and [Will of the Extreme], even [Time-Limited Life] could be overcome.

Of course, if the growth of the [Life Extension] talent slowed down even a little, the character would die from the reduced lifespan caused by [Time-Limited Life].

But that’s what hardcore mode was all about. A day-to-day existence where one misstep means death.

All the user could do was either succeed or fail.

‘It’s just a game, anyway.’

I nonchalantly arranged the talents.

“Done.”

After finally assigning enough debuffs to cover the talent points consumed by [Transcendent Growth], I read through them.

‘Time-Limited Life’, ‘Mana Severance’, ‘Weakness’….

Debuffs that made you sigh just by looking at them were packed tightly together.

“Still, thanks to them, the talent points have increased. Two high-tier legendary talents, that’s a bit disappointing.”

‘If possible, I definitely want to have a mythic-grade talent as my main.’

As I was pondering, a status window caught my eye. It wasn’t for talent points, but for stats.

“They said this could be adjusted too, right?”

I immediately lowered all the stats like health, agility, dexterity, and mental strength. The values, which normally couldn’t be dropped below 5, went down to 2 or 3.

“This is absurd.”

It was questionable if the character could even move like this.

If such a human actually existed, they would need to start with convalescence, let alone enter the main scenario.

‘Still, this is a game.’

It was worth a try. After all, [Will of the Extreme] would support the mental strength, and the rest could be supported by talents and dramatic play.

After lowering all stats except for mana to their lowest, I looked at the talent points again.

“Oh.”

A considerable amount of talent points had been gathered. More than I had anticipated.

‘With this much, I can afford to be a little greedier.’

While I was at it, I scrapped my original ideal plan and started designing an ideal talent combination that was only possible in theory.

In the process, I added two debuffs I had previously omitted.

They were the chuunibyou trait [Arrogant Young Master], which I had given up on due to fame points, and [Intermittent Debuff Enhancement], the main culprit for extremely raising the play difficulty.

[Warning: The account’s survival probability is extremely low. Do you really wish to grant the above talents?]

I immediately pressed the confirm button. With this, the lacking talent points were filled up at once.

“Done.”

At the same time, I unhesitatingly chose the two talents I had in mind.

[Absolute Magic] and [Limitless Martial Body].

I planned to use the mythic-grade talent [Absolute Magic] as the main talent to maximize my magic potential.

And the high-tier legendary talent [Limitless Martial Body] was a placement to support the abysmally low physical abilities and to keep in mind future growth as a knight.

With this, I had all the talents of a mage and a knight.

“This is insane.”

I let out a dry laugh looking at the character sheet plastered with mythic and legendary-grade talents.

It was a complete cheat. A dazzling feast of talents of a level I had never seen before, even after playing hundreds of playthroughs.

“What kind of monster is this…”

With this, couldn’t I even take down the final boss of the late game by myself?

“I’ll have to play this seriously.”

I steeled my resolve.

The fatal weakness of this character is that if it stops growing, it dies. Because it’s built for maximum efficiency, it can only survive by moving towards the best possible move.

Otherwise, it would be overwhelmed by debuffs and die. In the end, it was a high-risk, high-return situation.

However, I had hundreds of character-building strategies from my playthroughs. As long as I had a growth strategy for each situation, there was nothing to be afraid of.

“Well then, shall we get started?”

As I pressed the save button before playing, the traits I had set up popped up one after another.

[Absolute Magic] [Transcendent Growth] [Limitless Martial Body] [Will of the Extreme] [Life Extension]…

[Mana Severance] [Anger Management Issues] [Insomnia] [Dulled Senses] [Arrogant Young Master]…

“Ugh, just looking at it makes me dizzy.”

As I was about to close the message window, I paused.

‘I wonder if Martial Academy has a DLC or something?’

No matter how much of a failure it was, it was still from the same game company, so I felt like there might be something. I immediately logged into ‘Martial Academy’.

“Nope.”

I figured as much. There was no reason for the developers to cling to a dark chapter of their history.

But at that moment, a comment displayed at the top of the game’s sales reviews caught my eye. It was a review written on the day ‘Martial Academy’ was released.

[It’s not as good as the previous game. The freedom is low, and what’s with the in-game balance? The difficulty too. What’s with the main character dying out of nowhere? A reclusive master suddenly appears and cuts the character down before they can even grow, what am I supposed to do? At least make the instant-death events with some sincerity. I managed to clear it somehow, but I was really disappointed.]

It was a scathing review, to say the least. Below it were several painful ‘agree’ clicks.

Still, since it was the end, I thought it might be better to delete this review now and was about to press the edit button.

Then, a comment added by an official account named ‘Story Team’ below it caught my eye.

[Then why don’t you try it yourself.]

“What?”

I furrowed my brow, bewildered. Looking at the timestamp, it was a comment posted just a few minutes ago.

If the account manager themselves was like this, there was no way the service would be run properly.

“Jeez.”

I clicked my tongue lightly and brought up the ‘Magic Knight Academy’ game window. I couldn’t let something like this ruin my final playthrough.

I moved the cursor and placed it over the game start button.

“It feels just like the first time I played.”

A new challenge is always enjoyable. Full of anticipation, I pressed the play game button.

“Huh? Did it freeze?”

But the game didn’t respond. Instead, another window popped up.

[Achievement Point Ranking 1st place confirmed. Kim Jaejun has been selected as the final one chosen by our company. According to the final DLC special privilege….]

The text stops. At the same time, the screen flickers. It doesn’t respond.

“What, did the window close?”

At the sudden disappearance of the game screen, I inadvertently double-clicked the game start button in front of me.

“Ah.”

And then I realized.

The trash game’s screen was displayed in the background behind the closed god-tier game’s window.

‘This was ‘Martial Academy’, right?’

You’re not supposed to touch anything else when it’s lagging. It would just make the loading take even longer.

I tried to close the naturally appearing ‘Martial Academy’ window, but no matter how many times I pressed the button, the screen wouldn’t close.

‘What the?’

[Loading account….]

“What account?”

I deleted it completely after seeing the ending of ‘Martial Academy’. Since I deleted all the existing information, there should be nothing to load.

At that moment, a window popped up before my eyes.

[Found you!]

“What kind of program speaks informally….”

I stared at the message window with a look of disbelief.

That was the last thing I saw.

(End of Chapter)

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep