002. Cliché World.
[5.4.3.2.1. Connecting···First connection confirmed OK!]
The screen went dark, and then letters began scrolling upward like the opening crawl of Star Wars.
Right from the opening, it was blatantly parodying Star Wars.
[Due to the schemes of Osteri, the God of the End, countless worlds met their demise. Busker, the God of Peace and Harmony, set out to resurrect the worlds that had met their end.]
When the name Busker came up as a god's name, I laughed.
But since it was true that he was trying to resurrect the game world, I gave him that.
[You must now connect to ‘Cliché World’ and stop the dangers threatening a world rushing toward its end.]
[Creating character. Please set your appearance.]
Perhaps because it had scanned my body, a skinny man with a build similar to mine appeared.
Since customization was possible, I reduced the head size a bit, lengthened the arms and legs, and increased my height and muscle mass.
I left the black hair and black eyes as they were.
Since I could change my appearance at any time, it didn't matter if I was sloppy about it.
[Beginning stat distribution. Randersius, the Guardian of Abilities, exercises his authority.]
Clatter—
Six dice of various colors fell from the sky with a sound.
They weren't simple square dice with numbers 1 through 6, but polyhedral dice with numbers 1 through 10.
[Each time you roll the dice, your job, Strength, Intelligence, Magic Power, Agility, Harmony, and Charm will change.]
“Hmm. This is similar to old TRPGs.”
When I rolled the dice for the first time, I got Spirit Shaman for my job, and my stat total came out to 35.
The job was good, but since the maximum was 60, a stat total of 35 was far too low.
I was reminded of the dice grinding from Lineage, the game that had been hot in the early 2000s.
They said knights would grind dice endlessly for two nights and three days to hit the maximum Strength of 19.
The simpler the grind, the more it brought out a gamer's competitive spirit, so I kept rolling until I got numbers I could be satisfied with.
One hour, two hours, three hours…
“Ha!”
I got 57 for my stats, but the job was ‘Bare-Fisted Brawler.’
The job was really not good.
After agonizing over it, I rolled again.
Then I remembered that people were waiting outside.
Looking at the play time, I realized I had been rolling dice for over three hours already, so I decided to try just three more times.
Of course, whatever the job, the total had to be over 50.
Clatter—clatter—clatter—!
“Yeah. Sixty! That’s it!”
On the last of those three, the dice total came up 60.
The grind had succeeded.
“But the job… Buff Shaman??”
It seemed to be a support-line Shaman in the mage class. Even if I couldn't receive noble treatment like a priest, if I had essential buffs, I figured I could at least get semi-noble treatment.
Feeling pleased, I pressed the button to confirm character creation.
[Character created. User Park Jinwoo connects to Cliché World.]
Thick fog gathered before my eyes, then thinned to reveal lush greenery.
I was standing in the middle of a forest surrounded by dense trees.
In an instant, the smell of grass flooded my nose.
At the refreshing scent of grass, I unconsciously took a deep breath, savoring it.
I didn't know if they supported smells like a 4DX theater or if they manipulated the brain, but I was moved by the scent that made me feel like I was really in a forest.
And when I checked my body, there was no sense of dissonance even when moving my fingertips.
Yamashiki Yasuke had said he strongly recommended me as a tester because I was the most nitpicky person there was, and even by my nitpicky standards, the background was perfect.
“Status window!”
A semi-transparent gray window appeared before my eyes.
It was satisfying to see the familiar status window appear.
These days, games supposedly implemented completely realistic open worlds without status windows, but I liked these typical status windows.
Because this kind of status window was the very foundation of gaming and a user's dream.
I tried to touch the status window with my hand, but I couldn't touch it—my hand just passed right through.
It seemed physically impossible to touch.
Name: Park Jinwoo
Race: Human
Job: Buff Shaman
HP: 100 MP: 100
Strength: 10
Intelligence: 10
Magic Power: 10
Agility: 10
Harmony: 10
Charm: 10
Skills
◆Active Buff – Activates the target's metabolism and grants vitality based on the target's HP. Lasts for 3 hours. Consumes 5 MP.
◆Growth Buff – Grows the target's stats. Lasts for 3 hours, and growth from the buff is retained permanently. Consumes 5 MP.
◆Luck Buff – Increases the target's luck. Lasts for 3 hours and prevents receiving critical hits in combat. Consumes 5 MP.
◆Heal Buff – A buff that raises the target's HP. Restores 5% of total HP every minute. Lasts for 1 hour. Consumes 10 MP.
“Damn…”
No matter how much I looked, there were no attack skills.
“Soloing seems like it'll be tough with only support buff skills.”
Checking my inventory, I had 100 gold and 1 dagger.
The inventory had 100 slots, but I'd have to check if multiple of the same item could stack in one slot.
“Ah, the secretary.”
When I hurriedly logged out, the secretary and equipment team, who had been waiting for nearly four hours, were either looking at their phones or dozing off while sitting.
“I’m sorry. I got too immersed in character creation.”
“We expected that to some degree. Most gamers are serious when it comes to that kind of stat distribution. What was the job, and what was the total stat?”
“The job seems to be Buff Shaman, a support class. I made the stats 60.”
“Ooh! You hit the MAX. Then it was worth investing the time.”
The secretary looked surprised that I had hit the stat limit of 60.
“For now, there were no rejection reactions from Park Jinwoo-nim in the capsule. All figures are stable, so please just make sure to keep to the 8-hour playtime. Well then. We’ll see you next time.”
After the secretary and equipment team left, I skimmed the manual and got back in the capsule.
Because I missed the grassy scent of the forest that had put me in such a good mood.
“Hmm~haah, the air is really so clean. How did they implement this?”
Upon reconnecting, I stood for a long time enjoying the grassy scent filling my nose.
Because the Chinese bastards had built so many factories and nuclear power plants in the southern coastal areas, in Korea of 2040, we couldn't even breathe clean air for half the year.
So I wanted to enjoy this kind of nature and air, even if only in a game.
I turned on the map, but only a black veil was visible since it was an unexplored area.
After getting my fill of the air, I tried touching a tree, and then touched grass and dirt.
Everything was as real as the real thing.
I didn't know how they implemented it, but I felt as though I had been transported to another world.
As expected of a game from Changing, the world's number one group, the quality was the best.
“In a normal online game, an NPC would appear right away and give the first quest, but there’s nothing like that.”
I felt like I understood the game's direction: focusing on realism without fixed NPCs who gave quests.
First, I had no choice but to walk out blindly, and since I didn't know what would happen, I walked holding the dagger from my inventory.
“Ah, buff!”
Instead of just walking, I tried casting Active Buff and Luck Buff on myself.
Sparkling light settled down from above my head and was absorbed into my body. Seeing my body flash for a moment, it seemed the buff had been properly applied.
The sight of light settling onto my body was visually a pass.
It was an impressive buff effect with that appearance of descending light.
Perhaps thanks to Active Buff, my body wasn't tired even after walking the mountain path for two hours, and perhaps thanks to Luck Buff, no monsters appeared.
Then I saw a flowing stream and started walking along it.
“S-save me!”
Hearing a voice from afar, I got the feeling that this was an event quest.
It was the first quest since connecting two hours ago, so I was expectant.
Of course, first events that happened to the protagonist at times like these were mostly predetermined.
It would either be a noble lady's carriage attacked on the road, or a mountain village girl being chased by goblins or orcs.
Saving people like that was the cliché.
If not that, it would be a fiery game start where you met a dragon right before your neck was chopped as a death row prisoner.
Curious about what event it would be, I ran over and saw a girl being chased by three goblins.
It looked like the typical girl-acquisition cliché of a JRPG.
That girl was probably a child ostracized by her village, or an orphan.
And it seemed like the common cliché of journeying together because she had been saved by the protagonist.
It seemed this Busker guy, who had apparently played EverQuest in the early 2000s, had carefully packed in those classic JRPG clichés from the 2000s.
I muttered under my breath that it was a cliché boiled down to the bone, yet I prepared to follow the cliché.
But I also worried whether I, without combat-related skills, could defeat goblins.
The distance was too ambiguous for a surprise attack to even work.
“All I’ve got is meat shielding.”
I had no choice but to trust my total stat of 60.
I cast a heal buff on my body and revealed myself before them.
When I appeared from the front, the goblins stopped chasing the girl, but the girl just ran away even after seeing me.
As I blocked them, the three surrounded me, which was a real shame.
Because I thought if I had even one attack spell, I could get the first strike and fight smoothly.
But with no other attack method, I trusted the buffs on me and launched myself at the one on the far left.
The one who hadn't expected me to attack first was startled and stabbed at me with the spear he held, but I blocked it with my left forearm.
Squelch!
Excruciating pain like being burned surged from my left forearm pierced by the spear.
My hair stood on end from the pain.
“A game shouldn't be like this. Fuck. What are they trying to do making this realistic too!”
I cursed at the pain, but pushed the goblin down and fell with him.
And I stabbed the dagger into his neck.
Thud—
The feeling transmitted to my hand was strange, but I had no time to dwell on it.
Pulling out the dagger, I immediately rolled to my feet and took a stance.
The remaining two rushed at me, so I had no choice but to throw my left hand out as bait again.
“Kuhk. Fuck.”
As I tried to check him, the goblin's bone knife pierced through my wide-open left palm.
A burning pain reached my head through every nerve in my body.
It hurt so much the back of my head felt tight, like all the strength would drain from my body.
But instead, I clenched my fingers to grip the bone knife so it couldn't be pulled out.
While the goblin only tried to pull out the knife caught in my hand, I stabbed the dagger into his neck.
When I pulled the dagger from his neck, green blood gushed out with a gurgle and splattered on my body.
I shoved the dying goblin spraying blood at the other one.
“Kuhk.”
When his bone knife ripped free from my hand as he was shoved aside, it hurt like crazy.
Blocked by his shoved comrade's corpse, the goblin nervously pushed the corpse to the side, and at that moment something lunged before his eyes.
“Kuek!”
It was Jinwoo performing a flying kick.
Goblins were frightening because of their pack nature; one-on-one wasn't something to fear.
Even an ordinary human man's body was super-elite compared to a goblin's.
Since their body mass was completely different, the goblin crumpled from a single flying kick, and I immediately delivered a soccer kick to his head.
Climbing onto the body of the goblin whose neck was broken by the soccer kick, I plunged the dagger into his nape.
When the goblin died from his neck being stabbed, I slumped down right next to him.
“Wow, fuck, this game is insane. It's real. It's real. Ahh, my arm. It really hurts!!”
The pain in my left arm had been tormenting me constantly since I was first stabbed by the spear.
In a normal game, pain wouldn't exist at all, or even if it did, it should hurt once and stop.
But since it kept hurting like in reality, I wondered how they implemented a system that let you feel pain for such a long time.
And I worried about how much it would hurt if I died to a blade later.
“Still, I can see the wounds healing.”
Thanks to the heal buff I had cast before fighting, the wounds were healing; black blood was dripping from the spots pierced by the spear and the bone knife as they closed up.
If there were bad bacteria or poison, it seemed to expel them first before healing.
The heal buff's performance seemed good, but the healing speed seemed slow.
Healing about 5% of HP per minute felt too slow.
Compared to the instant healing magic in other games, it felt somewhat lacking; I thought it might be hard to find a place as a support class in parties or raids.
“A-are you alright?”
The girl who had run away returned, wearing ragged-looking clothes and holding a basket full of mushrooms in one hand.
However, with her blonde hair and blue eyes, she was faithfully following the textbook JRPG cliché of the blonde, blue-eyed white heroine.