Return of the Final Boss
Episode 4
I caressed the sleek, streamlined silver capsule that occupied more than half of my old studio apartment with trembling hands.
The virtual reality access device—commonly called a capsule—that I had ordered yesterday had arrived this morning with an installation technician.
That's right.
Today was D-Day. The day I returned to Arth Saga Second.
'Finally, this day has come!'
Though I had spent a month, I didn't think that time was wasted.
I was already two years late to the starting line.
Another month wouldn't have made much of a difference.
Rather, charging headfirst without thorough preparation was far more dangerous.
Thinking so, I pressed the button on the outside of the capsule. It whirred open, revealing its interior.
I quietly climbed inside.
My heart began to pound at the feel of the seat against my back after so long.
It had been a full six years since I had last entered a capsule.
I tried to stay calm, but I couldn't stop trembling.
When I put on the helmet, my eyes slowly closed, and soon, a massive temple made of white stone unfolded before me.
It was the character creation space.
[Welcome to Arth Saga Second, user.]
'In the first game, it was a grassland, but it seems they changed it to a temple.'
As I recalled my first experience with Arth Saga, semi-transparent message windows rose one after another before my eyes.
[Iris scan results identify you as a returning user.]
[As a second-run bonus, you may apply the Legacy System 'Steel Monarch'.]
[Please select whether to apply the Legacy System.]
A smile curled at the corner of my mouth as I read the system messages.
"Apply."
[The Legacy of Steel Monarch Drakan is activated.]
[You change to a special class, 'Legacy Bearer'.]
[Your status window undergoes a change.]
[Your unique trait is replaced by the Legacy.]
The moment I spoke, dark crimson light surged through my body and vanished.
My newly created character had inherited the Steel Monarch's Legacy.
The Legacy System.
This was the secret weapon I was certain would let me close the two-year gap.
The core of the Legacy System was the Legacy mentioned in the system message.
And this Legacy was a comprehensive concept encompassing the quests one's character had completed, the achievements earned, the reputation and fame accumulated, and the items gathered in the previous game—a system where the achievements one's character left behind in the history of Arth World were inherited through the Legacy Techniques and Legacy Armaments.
Thanks to this Legacy System, in Arth Saga Second, existing users had a far more advantageous starting position than new users, and veteran rankers with many achievements from the previous game started from an even more favorable position than existing users.
The drawbacks were that applying the system forcibly changed one's class to the special class Legacy Bearer, and the new system introduced in Second, the 'Unique Trait', was replaced by the Legacy. But because the merits outweighed these drawbacks, countless returning users had changed to Legacy Bearers.
And I was no different.
[Legacy]
[Steel Monarch]
[Grade: Legendary]
[Legacy Level: Beginner Level 1]
[Drakan, leader of the Ironblood Alliance who was called the Steel Monarch, was a hegemon who once reigned at the pinnacle of the Arth World and even achieved the feat of continental unification. Although he was defeated in battle against the Hero Yujin and countless other heroes, eventually losing his throne and falling into miserable ruin, his tyranny left scars upon history that can never be erased. Drakan's name, which changed the map countless times and created innumerable victims, is still synonymous with tyrant.]
[Legacy Technique]
[Steel Sword Path]
[Grade: Legendary]
[Legacy Level: Beginner Level 1]
[Where Drakan passed, only ruins and corpses remained, and behind his footsteps trailed a path of blood and iron. This offensive-defensive unified Sword Path, which seemed to project his hegemonic path itself, boasted ultimate destructive power and absolute defense.]
[Legacy Armament]
[Ironblood Executioner]
[Grade: Legendary]
[Legacy Level: Beginner Level 1]
[A famed sword Drakan obtained after conquering the Dwarf Kingdom. The Dwarf craftsmen had to swallow tears of blood to forge and offer this sword to the tyrant. Thereafter, it devoured the hegemon's enemies for many years, but was ultimately damaged in the battle against the Hero Yujin.]
I shut off the semi-transparent Legacy System notifications appearing before my eyes.
The grade of the Steel Monarch Legacy I had inherited was Legendary, one tier below the highest grade.
Yujin, that bastard, was known to have inherited the 'Hero' Legacy of the highest grade, Mythic, but considering that even most rankers couldn't inherit a Legendary-grade Legacy, I was starting from a favorable position.
'At this level, it's worth a shot!'
The Hero, Yujin.
I gritted my teeth at the thought of him.
Right then.
Another system message appeared before my eyes, and a large mirror rose up, reflecting my appearance clad only in the basic outfit of a short-sleeved shirt and shorts.
[Please set your character's name.]
The character creation process was beginning in earnest.
Looking at that familiar sight, I set my character name to Drakan, race to Human, and without changing my appearance, finished customizing my character. The mirror and the temple background were consumed by darkness, leaving only holographic messages floating in the air.
[The tutorial will begin shortly.]
[TIP. In Arth Saga Second, your character has only one life. If you die, you will lose everything. Be careful not to die!]
The moment the message disappeared, a grassland appeared, with users being summoned upon it in flashes of light.
"Whoa, this is really realistic?"
"Is this really a game?"
The surroundings were filled with users exclaiming at Arth Saga's perfect virtual reality, twisting their bodies this way and that.
Of course, there were also people who seemed to be returning users, and they were gazing into the air with serious expressions.
The total number of users gathered for the tutorial was thirty.
Of course, this was clearly not all the users starting today.
For efficiency, the tutorial was conducted by grouping thirty users into one batch.
I watched the scene and smiled.
Even back when I was actively playing, newbies first summoned to the city square would marvel at the virtual reality indistinguishable from real life, doing stretches or jumps.
Though the place was different, seeing newbies acting the same way again made me keenly feel that Arth Saga's sense of realism had not changed.
At the very moment I was savoring that sense of reality within the game after six years.
[Please select a weapon.]
A system message appeared, and beneath it, weapon icons popped up in a row.
It meant to choose a beginner weapon, but instead of selecting a weapon, I chose a different option.
"Ironblood Executioner."
[Summoning Legacy Armament 'Ironblood Executioner'.]
The instant I spoke, space split apart, and a dark crimson longsword emanating an ominous light appeared and was grasped in my hand.
The Ironblood Executioner.
My primary weapon from six years ago, when I stood at the pinnacle of Arth Saga, and the strongest item by the standards of that time!
A slight shiver ran through me as I gripped its handle.
"What's with that guy?"
"He must be a returning user."
"Just what kind of Legacy did he inherit?"
When I summoned the Ironblood Executioner, which looked anything but ordinary at a glance, I heard the surrounding users whispering.
Leaving behind voices mixed with surprise and envy, I quietly looked up into the air.
[Monsters will be summoned shortly for the combat tutorial.]
[TIP. Death in the tutorial is not real death. However, if you die in the tutorial, it will be considered incomplete, and you will be required to retake the tutorial. If you don't want to repeat the tutorial, be careful not to die!]
As per the information I had obtained beforehand, light burst along with the notification, and soon a wolf appeared that was roughly twice the size of an ordinary wolf.
It was the beginner-level aggressive monster, the Dire Wolf.
"Kraaaargh!"
The Dire Wolf, summoned to match the number of beginners, howled and charged recklessly at the beginners.
"Huh, what? Uwaaack!"
"Mommy! I-it's a real wolf!"
Against the backdrop of panicking beginners under the Dire Wolf's attack, I quietly raised the Ironblood Executioner.
I was someone who had once beaten down world quest raid bosses.
A mere Dire Wolf wasn't even enough for a post-meal snack.
'A Dire Wolf's weak point is between its eyes!'
I precisely thrust the dark crimson sword toward the glabella of the Dire Wolf charging at me.
"Kyaaang!"
The Dire Wolf shrieked and trembled violently before turning gray and scattering.
[Your level has increased.]
[You are the first to slay a monster in the tutorial!]
[Achievement 'A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step!' has been completed!]
[As an achievement reward, all stats have increased by 1.]
Perhaps because it was level 1, my level rose quickly from killing just one monster, and I even earned an achievement.
It was an achievement I had aimed for using publicly released information, and seeing it completed smoothly, it seemed my month of effort attending a training hall to recover my combat senses had not been in vain.
I habitually tried to open my status window, then stopped.
Unlike the previous game, in Arth Saga Second, all stats were automatically allocated according to one's class, so there was no need to open the status window just because I leveled up.
"Kyaaack!"
"S-save me!"
To emphasize again, Arth Saga was a hyper-realistic game indistinguishable from reality.
Therefore, the wolves were exactly like real wolves—no, far more terrifying than real wolves—as they growled and relentlessly attacked the users.
No matter how much prior information they had studied, no one wouldn't panic when a ferocious beast suddenly charged at them. Thanks to that, the newbies screamed in utter chaos.
Of course, there were brave newbies holding swords to fight back, and returning users wielding Legacy Armaments and fighting wolves with familiar movements, but most of the newbies present were too busy panicking.
"N-no!"
Some among them died, their bodies scattering in gray as their vitality ran out.
They were dead.
Unlike the previous game, where you could revive as long as you endured the penalties of experience loss and item dropping, in Arth Saga Second, a character had only one life.
Well, death in the tutorial wasn't real death, and dying here didn't make your character disappear, but the main game was different.
If you died there, your character would disappear permanently, and you would lose everything you had built up in the game so far.
Since Arth Saga maintained a strict one-character-per-person policy with no alternate characters in both the previous game and Second, it was an enormous penalty.
Of course, it was possible to pay for an account creation ticket and create a new character to log in again.
But even if you made a new character and logged in, your past character and new character were treated as completely unrelated strangers within the game.
It meant that even if you visited an NPC with whom you had built up rapport before dying, they would respond with "Who are you?"
In other words, dying in the game was no different than completely resetting the second life you had lived until then.
Therefore, the higher the level and the more one had accumulated in the game, the more users feared death.
And I knew very well who had the most to lose in this game.
'Yujin, that bastard—this means once he dies, it's all over for him too!'
Arth World.
I would make this world, which he loved so dearly, into his grave.