At the same time Yuuri was looking at the blacked-out screen and the red letters, screaming.
Jincheol, in his shabby state, was also staring at those same letters.
“Hrr… hngh…”
Only, there was a slight difference in their reactions.
“Eheheh…!!”
Unfocused eyes and a giggle slipping out.
Ragged breathing, and even a lewd chuckle bursting out before he could hold it back.
At a glance, he looked like there was something wrong with his mind.
By sheer luck, Jincheol was alone in the room. It was fortunate there was no one there to see the state he was in and call the police.
Jincheol slowly caught his breath.
He was happy. It finally felt real now.
In truth, until just a moment ago, he had still felt somewhat dazed.
Like meeting an old best friend again after more than ten years and feeling awkward about it.
But if the gameplay up until now had been an awkward reunion after a long absence, then right now it was like a drinking party where stories of old memories poured out without end.
He had sunk into nostalgia and become endlessly absorbed in old tales.
The Underground Dungeon was the same. It was talking to him endlessly.
As if saying, “Hey, you remember that?”
For example… when he wandered through darkness like this, one memory came to mind.
[Title: Underground Prison Arrow Perfect Challenge]
: ㅇㅇ
(Underground Prison map.jpg)
Run this route and knock away all 21 arrow traps to succeed.
Time limit 3 minutes. If you get hit midway, start over from the beginning. Go?
ㄴBackside: Too easy. Should probably lower the time limit?
ㄴㄴㅇㅇ: If I worked hard putting it together, then at least do it, damn it.
ㄴGut: Hm;; cleared in 1 minute 53 seconds;;
ㄴㄴㅇㅇ: …?
ㄴ00: Still, the route was arranged fairly evenly, and I can tell some thought went into the time limit, so it wasn’t bad.
ㄴ00: My score is 3/5. I place importance on how much a challenge needs to be learned, you see.
ㄴBackside: Seems good enough to loosen up with while waiting for cup noodles to cook.
Back then, the map had been so clear in his head that even if he wanted to die, it was hard to die. But this place now gave him the pressure that if he let his guard down even a little, his head would go flying.
—Click.
Just like this.
The moment he heard the click, he changed to a low stance and executed a thrust. The command, input with razor-sharp timing, shed its delay and shot forward.
The disheartened warrior stepped in boldly, supporting the pommel with one hand.
A maximum-range thrust, pushed straight through with the momentum of advancing.
The thrust, stretching forward as if he might fall, stabbed into the darkness of empty air. By itself, that meant nothing.
But thanks to the low-tilted posture required for this motion, the arrow aimed at his head passed over his lowered hitbox.
The smile around Jincheol’s mouth deepened.
He ran without delay, and soon heard another trap activating. This time, to make things worse, it came from the front and above his head at the same time.
As planned, he used an upward slash from a high stance to knock the arrow away, then chained it immediately into a dash.
Sure enough, he heard something drop behind him.
From the splat, it was a slime. Even if it chased him, it would be slow, so he ignored it and ran.
If he kept moving, a swamp appeared.
Stepping on it inflicted the poison status effect, but he had already experienced this before, so he had a countermeasure ready.
He took out a potion, put it in his mouth, and continued forcing his way through. If he ran by the shortest route, he could escape before the poison buildup reached max.
His vision in the pitch-black darkness was dreadful, but the map unfolding in his mind was gradually approaching completion.
He continued breaking through, and near the end of the swamp, he jumped without slowing down.
With a leap carrying acceleration, he cleared three traps at once. They had plastered the area with traps in preparation for people trying to jump over.
Earlier, he had made it this far and gotten caught.
He would not be caught twice. His accelerated jump barely carried him over the trap zone.
Amazingly, the developer had foreseen even that.
As soon as he landed, a heavily armored knight came charging from beyond the alley.
He was in a situation where his health and stamina were both on the verge of running out after breaking through the swamp and traps.
If he backed away, he would immediately step into a minefield covered in pressure-plate traps.
The knight was already bringing down its mace.
Her two eyes sparkled lovingly.
The opponent was not a boss mob, just a normal mob by classification.
The mace in the knight’s hand was familiar.
The poise he could estimate from the heavy armor it wore.
And the simple intuition that had settled into his hands after enjoying this dungeon for two hours.
That intuition quickly reached a conclusion.
It was the mid-stance light attack motion of the straight sword he had relied on whenever he was driven into a dead end.
Fast, concise, and the mid-level horizontal slash he had swung more than any other.
The broken straight sword’s motion was hardly different from a longsword’s. It only had lower damage and reach.
The character on the verge of death kicked off the ground. Driven into a dead end, a reach contest was impossible, so instead she had to rush forward.
He measured the timing. He entrusted his body to his senses and flung out the sword.
—Clang!!
A blue burst of light.
A dazzling sound effect.
The enemy’s posture breaking as the mace was deflected away.
This was it.
This was Odinson!!
Newbies theese days had no grit, doing nothing but roll and poke, roll and poke for all eternity.
Even when you gave them a link to a command guide and told them to try this too, not a single one of them practiced.
But behold. Odinson was originally this kind of game.
What had made Odinson famous by word of mouth in the early days was this precise hitbox system.
There were mind games where you memorized the different motions of each weapon and danced along the hitboxes of those motions.
A difficult game. A perverse game. An unreasonable game.
But a game so precise that it stirred the desire for a challenge.
“Haha!!”
Now, he no longer even felt like suppressing his laughter.
Even the unfamiliar voice rising into a high tone felt endlessly nostalgic.
She laughed aloud without restraint and lashed out with her blade.
And so, time passed as she became absorbed as if being sucked into the monitor.
Only the sounds of the keyboard and mouse continued for a long while.
***
Enjoyable time always passes quickly.
I collapsed back into my chair.
“Hah…”
I had focused so hard that I had gone for six hours without stretching even once, and a groan slipped out on its own.
It sounded rather suggestive, but perhaps I had adapted without realizing it, because it did not bother me much.
Still, maybe I should take better care of my body.
After finally returning to a healthy body, it would be a waste if my eyesight worsened again and I even developed forward head posture.
“Hrngh…!”
I stretched out my arms and legs to loosen my stiff limbs.
I could feel blood circulating through every corner of my body.
As I wandered here and there as if possessed, five hours had passed in an instant.
Along the way, I had not even thought about going to the bathroom or eating.
“…”
Now that I thought about it, I finally started feeling hungry.
It was a hassle to eat, and if I had my way, I wanted to keep going straight to the ending, but it was about time to restrain myself.
They said ranked matches opened after clearing the first playthrough… but since an open world had come out, I was planning to savor every corner of it.
Once I actually started playing, it was so fun that I devoured it mindlessly and ended up all the way in the latter half, but that could not be helped.
YOU DIED.
That was why I was almost glad to see the words appear on the screen.
Maybe because my concentration had gone up, I had barely died at all and had been making smooth progress, so it cut off my runaway flow for a moment.
I had gotten through all the way to phase three, but I did not expect the boss to self-destruct in its final struggle.
Still, it counted as a clear.
Honestly, I would not have minded fighting it again from the beginning. Yes, I know. I know it is a little strange that I am happy after getting smacked in the back of the head.
But there is a reason veterans like it even after getting screwed over.
The reason was simpler than one might think. Because there had been a time longer than the time lost by dying now.
In the previous game, there had been a time when I had memorized even every pressure-plate trap location, and even after reaching that point, I still prowled around wondering if there was any content left to scavenge.
That waiting had been far longer.
I quickly made preparations and checked my character at the bonfire.
For reference, the reward from the boss I had just defeated was a two-handed weapon.
[Greataxe: Frost Giant’s Favor]
An axe tempered by freezing and melting has been a symbol of the Jotunn since ancient times.
The Völsung warrior who received the axe as a gift was praised as invincible, but in the end, he could protect nothing.
The last Völsung eventually named himself a gravekeeper. Ah, the peaceful days of old.
Tooltips being pointlessly long and grandiose was something like a tradition of the game.
Of course, once there was nothing left to dig into, speculation based on that story would become a staple of the popular posts… but I did not think some terribly meaningful foreshadowing was hidden in there.
Looking only at the weapon’s performance, it was not bad. There was even a saying that Jotunn-made weapons were reliable, so it should be above average.
But to me, who had already found my main weapon, it was not especially useful.
I will emphasize this again, but in this game, a weapon was not everything just because it looked flashy.
The straight sword I used as my main weapon was not a magic sword like [Fenrir’s Fang] or [Freyr’s Wrath], either.
[Straight Sword: Longsword]
A straight sword forged faithfully to the basics.
It has well-rounded performance with no particular flaws.
This was my ultimate weapon.
A merchant wandering by the roadside was selling it.