The moment I created my character, I checked the commands first.
After swinging my sword at the air for a while to learn the frames, something felt off.
This worldline’s Odinson was familiar yet strange. The system hadn’t changed much from Tyr. It was only natural since the game had originally been planned as DLC. Most users probably felt there was no change.
But to me, who had chewed through and devoured a thousand hours every year, a strange sense of déjà vu lingered.
It wasn’t simply that the system had changed because a sequel came out…
It felt like déjà vu, as though I were repeating something I had experienced long ago.
“…This hit detection is weird.”
I brought the broken straight sword down several times. The timing, which clashed against my familiar senses, grated on me.
Something was strange.
No—rather, maybe this side was the normal one.
Come to think of it, I didn’t exist in this world, and neither did the builds developed by Deungjjak.
Then all the bug-exploiting builds I had unearthed and the emergency stealth patches in the original worldline probably didn’t exist either.
The moment I realized that, I checked the rune system experimentally, but there were no equippable runes in the tutorial section.
Even so, a snicker escaped me. My expectations swelled, and I could hardly contain my laughter.
I organized my thoughts and moved toward the open world. The graphics had definitely improved. Having spent my life clinging to a decrepit 11-year-old game, playing a cutting-edge title like this filled me with fresh emotion.
Of course, it wasn’t only the graphics that were new.
Rainbows flickered here and there across the field.
“Urk…!!”
I was reminded of Odinson—a game where newbies had long since gone extinct and no one left summoning signs anymore—and before I knew it, tears were trickling out.
“Right. This is how the world should be.”
Overcome with emotion, I basked in a newbie’s warmth for a good while before following the rainbow’s trail.
A horse-headed grasshopper-like thing lunged at me midway, but it was no big deal. Since it was a tutorial map, its patterns were straightforward.
Still, a boss is a boss, so flickering rainbows gathered nearby.
Soaked in longing, I looked around and opened my inventory.
“Let’s see. Heimdall’s Seal…”
I rummaged through my inventory and checked the key items list. Sure enough, the item I was looking for was waiting with a new icon.
After newbies had completely died out, there had been no use for it, so I had forgotten about it… It stirred fresh emotions.
Smirking, I stamped the seal on the ground, and rainbow colors began to ripple. Wow. Even the effect changed.
[A rainbow from another world summons you, Deungjjakeulboja.]
“?”
Right away?
***
-Neigh!!!
I gauged the distance from the flying hoof.
A beginner would roll backward here, but that wouldn’t be a good choice. Against a boss larger and with longer reach than the player, rolling recklessly would only get you hit by its homing attack.
The proper method is generally to learn the invincibility timing of the roll.
The same was true for the “Rainbow Gatekeeper Gleipnir” I was facing now.
It felt designed to let players roll through to dodge and clear easily, and also to learn stamina management while rolling.
The developer’s careful consideration could be felt.
But for a user somewhat accustomed to the game, there was an easier and more convenient path.
After dodging attacks a few times, I roughly got its reach into my sights. From then on, I stood and walked along that boundary line.
I lightly moved in and out of this boundary, baiting its patterns.
When its attacks grew sparse and the boss’s stamina was nearly full, I rolled backward to create distance… Now!
I raised the broken straight sword high and brought it straight down.
The hitbox of the broken straight sword jutting out and the hitbox of the ferociously leaping horse hoof collided.
For an ordinary newbie, trading blows with a boss would be suicide, but for a seasoned user, the situation changes.
I matched the buffered straight sword input perfectly against the charging hoof’s hitbox.
-CLANG!!
A burst of blue light scattered between the two.
Like sparks flying when a blacksmith tempers metal.
The boss staggered back briefly.
I didn’t take any damage at all.
The hit detection of overlapping attack frames—it was a clash.
Of course, since the boss hadn’t taken damage either, the moment the horse sprang back up and resumed its attack, I had to roll across the ground again.
But it wasn’t meaningless. The stamina cut from the clash had definitely accumulated.
-CLANG!!
-CLANG!!
If I cut through a few more times like this…
-THUD!
A groggy sound effect would ring out instead of a metallic one.
I hit the staggered horse-head with a front grapple. I plunged my sword into the gatekeeper’s thick neck and threw it down with my whole body.
Since it was a broken straight sword, the damage was minuscule, but there was fixed damage against groggy enemies, so repeating it roughly eighteen times did the trick.
Until then, it would be repetitive work.
I kept avoiding the hoof’s hitbox with rolls, landing a clash every time a pattern with fixed timing came out.
While swinging my sword monotonously, I suddenly recalled something from the past.
In the previous worldline, this game—Hella: Odindoty—which hadn’t even had a title reveal and was simply called the sequel, had originally started as DLC.
Tyr: Odinson, into which I had poured ten thousand hours, was truly a masterpiece. It revamped the old system and presented a new path for the series.
Even before release, it received overwhelming positivity from reviewers, went viral by word of mouth, and monopolized critical acclaim the moment it launched.
Outstanding boss monsters, a vast open world, superb artwork—it lacked nothing. It was a game I hadn’t poured my life into for nothing.
But even such a god-tier game couldn’t defeat time.
No matter how vast the content, it would dwindle as time passed.
That’s how the world works. Stagnant water is bound to rot.
By the time four or five years had passed, players whose skills had risen to their peak had completely stagnated.
Anon: Ugh, this game is no fun (playtime: 4,000 hours).
Anon2: There’s fucking nothing to do, no content (playtime: 5,000 hours).
Deungjjak: That’s just how dead games are, I guess (playtime: 6,000 hours).
Around this time, the users started getting weird.
Clearing bosses by equipping thorn gear in Darikan and dancing ballet with them went viral as a meme.
In the arena, everyone and their dog was parrying, and if you hadn’t seen the ending, you wouldn’t even be called a newbie anymore.
And the veterans often lamented.
They said newbies these days had no grit, so new bosses came out too easy.
…Would this game actually be fine even if it flopped?
Ah, no!! That can’t be!!
My life game failed all because of the developers.
If only the developers hadn’t done such terrible things, it wouldn’t have flopped so disastrously.
A nightmare I didn’t even want to recall crept up slowly.
That’s right, it was around the 5-year anniversary, I think.
Asgard, which had announced its intention to release Niflheim as DLC, had been radio silent for a long time.
We waited with bated breath until the 3rd, 4th, and 5th anniversaries, but only got meager notices. Aside from minor bug fixes, there wasn’t even a speck of an announcement regarding DLC or a sequel.
Discouraged, we wandered the internet.
We crawled across the floor, breathing in dust, desperate for any clue. Game shows like E3 were a given, and we scoured other platforms’ presentations too.
[Title: The Dead Crawl Out of Niflheim Again]
: Yep
- What’s the Xbox launch title?
- Did the He*lo next title drop?!
- Next title? Niflheim?!
- ?
- Niflheim!!
- Niflheim!! Niflheim!! Niflheim!! Niflheim!! Niflheim!! Niflheim!! Niflheim!!
- What’s with them?
- You crazy bastards, get lost with your Pl*yStation, why are you causing a scene at the X*ox Direct;;
Anon: Are these even human? Are they beasts?
Anon: Odinson is this bad for your health.
Anon: No updates, yet it drives people this far ㅠㅠㅠ
We were starving for content to the point of nearly falling ill from frustration, and just as we were consulting a doctor about whether to get our split heads stitched up.
[We are more than happy to deliver you some news.]
The developer smashed our skulls with Mjolnir.
[Our next title, which had been in development as DLC, has grown too large in scale and is scheduled to be released as a sequel.]
- The notice dropped!!!
- God
- Light-light-light-light-light Software ㅠㅠ
- Director.jpg
- Who set off a flashbang ㅠㅠ
I, who had personally trepanned my own skull, got onto the operating table, tore off my voice, and ripped my underwear to declare. On this operating table, Odinson and I had become one.
Everyone praised Asgard Co., and the stock price skyrocketed.
My old man even went in for more shares, and got ridiculed endlessly for posting things like retirement-plan.jpg as a meme.
- So what do we do now?
- Ha!!!!!!
There were occasional trolls in between, but by the divine power of the report button, all of them…
No, now that I think about it, that pisses me off.
…the more I think about it, the angrier I get?
Now that I look at it, those bastards who escaped back then were right, weren’t they?
Indeed. Those with intact skulls are always the ones who choose the correct answer.
After the announcement in year 6, Asgard fell into a long silence.
7th anniversary.
8th anniversary.
9th anniversary.
And until the 10th anniversary, which everyone fussed over insisting had to be the king’s return, watching for the last leaf.
Odinson delivered no news whatsoever.
Not a single livestream, not one notice, not even a single common social media post.
- Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck Software
- Yeah~ don’t release it~ you don’t have to~(please release it)
- Director.jpg
- The day is dark, is it going to rain…
- Who turned off the lights?
Would there have been any news in year 11, right after I returned?
Who knows.
I had come here because I lost a bet, but that comment had been vague from the original text.
I only hope my old man and friends are enjoying Odinson to their hearts’ content in that world too…
-Neigh!!!
While mechanically landing clashes and letting my mind wander, its HP bar soon bottomed out.
It did have a phase 2, but aside from one straightforward off-beat attack added, there wasn’t anything special.
For a new boss met after six years of waiting, it was a bit lackluster.