“Khk…”
How long had it been since I’d had a hamburger? The taste of a hamburger after all those long years was paradise.
The juices of a processed patty built upon the very essence of modern civilization, the thick aroma of yellow cheese wafting up from it, filled my mouth.
A simple hamburger—something any modern person could get with a tap on a delivery app, or at a fast-food place found anywhere.
The moment I took a bite, I realized all over again just how blessed modern people were.
To someone else, it might have been simple food, but to me, it was more rapturous than any dish in the world.
It felt as though all the hardships I’d endured had been comforted, if only a little.
The taste of the hamburger I hadn’t been able to savor all this time was heavenly.
The reason I had come to worship hamburgers was because I had been cut off from modern civilization for so long.
Fifteen years…? No, was it seventeen? My sense of time was all tangled up, so I wasn’t sure of the details, but I had been trapped in a game for at least over fifteen years.
Not figuratively—my body and mind had literally possessed a character inside a game.
There was a game called Star of Adenia.
It was a game close to what people commonly called dark fantasy. Every single boss mob had filthy patterns, and their specs were abnormally high.
I was instead captivated by the difficulty, which demanded extreme physical skill.
I also had the complacent mindset that, with my level of skill, I’d be able to figure out the patterns after a few tries even without a guide.
So when I started the game and encountered the first boss…
I nearly quit right then and there because of the godawful difficulty.
I could understand patterns where the boss adjusted the timing however it pleased. The skill level of players had risen too, so it was only natural for pattern difficulty to rise as well.
But what the fuck was the point of having it go berserk regardless of whether it was your turn or mine? And this was the first boss encounter, no less.
If I looked up a strategy, I’d probably be able to clear it easily, but I didn’t want to take the easy way out from the very first boss.
My stubbornness flared, and I forced myself to slam into it head-on.
The black screen and the words “Game Over” appeared hundreds of times in repetition.
Even so, the reason I didn’t quit was because the game had a strange addictiveness to it.
The feeling of dodging a pattern and landing a hit was pretty addictive, after all.
So I kept challenging it.
Each time I died, I began to see the telltale signs of the next pattern. Once I got used to one, I died again, challenged it again, and died again.
At some point, that goddamn thirty-two-hit sequence of offbeats and downbeats began to faintly register in my eyes.
When I became able to distinguish that godforsaken pattern, whether it was offbeat or on-beat, the sense of accomplishment I felt upon defeating that infamous boss was a thrill I had never experienced in any other game.
The confidence that I could do it now was shattered the moment I met the second boss mob.
Tentacle attacks flew at me from every direction, and I died without even being able to dodge—no, without even being able to approach the boss.
With my gaming skills, only two choices remained: quit the game, or look up a guide.
But watching a boss pattern guide wounded my pride.
So I found another way. I scoured every corner for usable items, skills, and the locations of hidden pieces.
Once I obtained items and skills, the insanely difficult level of challenge dropped, if only a little.
In that way, though it was still difficult, I was able to proceed through to the final chapter fairly smoothly.
However, true to its reputation, the final boss was a piece of shit.
No, it was hard even to see the final boss’s face. In order to meet that bastard, I had to defeat the bosses of twelve gates in a row.
If I gave up midway, I had to start over from the beginning. I couldn’t replenish items or potions either.
I think I spent about three months challenging the twelve gates.
Because whenever I absolutely couldn’t do it, I had to go farming to level up, or break through side-story areas to obtain new items.
On the final attempt, when my gear and skill came together and luck stood on my side, I was finally able to clear the game.
If a critical hit hadn’t triggered when I struck the final boss, I might have had to grind for half a year instead of three months.
Star of Adenia was the most fun game I had ever played, and the sense of accomplishment it gave was in a league of its own.
So when I heard that the company that made Star of Adenia was recruiting beta testers for a new game, I ran to apply like a dog.
The new game’s name was just a simple project number. Trivial things like that didn’t matter. What mattered was whether the game was fun.
The new game shared a world setting with Star of Adenia. No, it went beyond being related—it was set in the past, what people commonly called a prequel.
A prequel to a dark fantasy world? How could my heart not pound?
With excitement, the moment I created my game character, I opened my eyes not in the corner of my one-room apartment, but in the world of the game.
Rather than panic at the fact that the game I loved had become a real world, joy came first.
I had even thanked a god I had never once believed in.
‘The life of a shut-in gaming addict ends here. From now on, I’m going to live for myself.’
That joyful feeling didn’t last long before it plummeted straight into the abyss.
Possessing someone inside a game was fine. No, it was actually good. I had already cleared Star of Adenia, after all.
But the problem was that the game I had possessed wasn’t Star of Adenia, but its prequel. On top of that, it was a beta test game.
Most of the information I knew about the original game turned into scraps of paper.
Because the locations of skills, items, and hidden pieces were all elements that appeared after the destruction.
‘You fucking piece of shit.’
When I first realized that fact, curses came out on their own.
Still, just in case, I searched every location thoroughly to find hidden pieces.
It wasn’t satisfying, but I did obtain a few items and skills. Considering the level of strength in that era, I could have lived arrogantly and comfortably.
But the problem was that the world I had possessed was a prequel game whose destruction was already confirmed.
If I just lay around and enjoyed life, I wouldn’t even get to do that for many years.
In the world of Adenia, which had now become real instead of a game, I ran in order to enjoy even a little more sweetness.
I truly rolled around like a madman, trying somehow to twist the certain destruction.
Though they had turned into scraps of paper, I still forcibly utilized whatever future information remained usable. I tested the functions of the status window to their limits.
In that way, I managed to postpone Adenia’s predetermined destruction, if only briefly.
… I couldn’t stop the destruction. A postponement was the best I could do. That was when I realized it. That there was absolutely no way I could do it alone.
If I tried to live for myself, it was certain I’d die before I could do anything.
I went around gathering companions to stop the destruction.
The first people I sought out were the heroes who would be active in the future, in the destroyed world of Adenia. They were my top priority for recruitment.
But every single one of them was weak, young, and their potential wasn’t satisfying either.
In a way, it was only natural.
Those who awakened and grew amid destruction couldn’t possibly be strong during an era of peace.
Even so, I didn’t have the leisure to calmly raise them.
As I kept agonizing over what to do, a rather interesting thought came to mind.
What if, instead of the heroes after the destruction, I recruited the bosses?
The idea of striking first before they fell or colluded with the forces of the Abyss, and stopping the destruction that way, seemed quite brilliant to me.
Of course, there would be various obstacles in bringing them in as companions, but I didn’t want to give up without doing anything.
With a chaotic plan in hand, I immediately set off to recruit the bosses.
I stormed into the Great Forest of the elves and successfully recruited the imprisoned high elf.
In the process, the Great Forest burned down due to a minor issue. That was actually better.
The World Tree had long since reached the end of its lifespan, so the elves would leave the Great Forest and settle somewhere new.
I saved the saintess who was destined to fall. While I was at it, I blew away half the imperial capital.
The empire chased me around in outrage, but it couldn’t be helped. It was a maze-like place that was bound to explode someday.
I obtained ownership of the golem the Abyss had made such good use of.
During the golem’s performance test, the Floating Island Archipelago fell. No, that one really wasn’t my fault.
‘Hehehe… I’m curious about your mana circuits! Hurry up and show me what’s inside you! Hahaha, uh…?’
I went there to receive a supply of mana stones, and the Tower Master got excited, tried to disassemble the golem, and got his own head blown off. How was that my fault?
The spellcasters made a huge fuss, but what were they going to do? If they didn’t like it, they should have been stronger than me.
Anyway, I successfully recruited three bosses. Full of confidence, I thought maybe I could just recruit all the bosses like this.
… However, most of the remaining bosses were lunatics, so there was no talking to them. Instead, they tried to bring the destruction forward, so I cleanly separated their heads from their bodies.
By chance, I picked up someone similar to the final boss. I never saw that guy in Star of Adenia either, so I had no idea why he was so strong.
Living together with them wasn’t bad.
It was better than when I had been rolling around like a dog alone. The level of my companions’ strength was decent too.
To make sure we stopped the destruction, I shared the hidden pieces I had monopolized.
And together with them, I stopped the destruction. There were several crises where I nearly died, but since we succeeded, they were only minor incidents.
Once I had stopped the destruction and was about to enjoy a sweet, happy ending, the status window gave me the final reward.
“This is what you call a final reward.”
I cleared away the hamburger I’d finished and peeled the wrapper off a new one.
The final reward was a return to Earth. If it had been a permanent return, I would have gotten angry and asked why they were even giving me this, but I could return to Adenia again whenever I wanted.
“Buuurp… Well then, guess I should get going.”
I had been disappointed that I never had time to myself while living together with my companions, but this five-day vacation satisfied that.
I had enjoyed advanced modern civilization enough, so now it was time to return.
Just in case, I had lent them the items I had been wearing, and I had left a letter behind too, so those guys probably hadn’t worried too much.
I opened the status window and pressed the Adenia button.
Bzzt— crackle—!
“What is it this time?”
When I pressed the return button, the status window suddenly began crackling. In an instant, the size of the status window shrank, and the brilliant numbers of my stats decreased.
At the sudden situation, my mind went blank.
“Pardon?”
[ Welcome back after 50 years, User Evan. ]
“… No, is this for real?”
And my consciousness sank.