About 10 years after the release of a game, the community of players was bound to become bored to the point of accumulating some level of brain rot.
At that time, due to the lack of new content, players began engaging in peculiar behaviors, such as wearing only a piece of underwear and clearing dungeons in the shortest time possible. Some even resorted to replaying the existing content over and over again until they had sucked it dry.
Among those players, there were those who even dared to go for the so-called 'shit-tier characters' that no one else would touch...
And I was one such person.
The game was called 'Aether World'. It was originally released as a dating simulation game marketed towards women, but thanks to its flashy combat style, infinite content, and myriad of playable characters, this unique game had surprisingly attracted more male players.
Some of the characters were easy to play yet boasted the best performance, while others were completely garbage, with a level of difficulty so extreme that not even 10-year veteran players dared to touch them.
That's right.
And I was the pervert who had been playing the character 'Baek Yu-Seol', the one with an atrocious level of difficulty, worst performance, and more weaknesses than advantages, for a whole 10 years now. To be honest, I couldn't even comprehend why such a character even existed.
In the fantasy world of Aether, where everything revolved around magic and everyone could wield it, Baek Yu-Seol was the only one who couldn't. Thus, the character had no popularity whatsoever and he was treated like an extra with almost no presence.
Of course, it did not mean that Baek Yu-Seol couldn't use any magic at all.
He could use only one magical skill called 'Flash.'
Flash was a skill that could be learned by anyone as long as they were a mage, but due to its long cooldown, excessive mana consumption, and a two second stun after use, very few people used it.
Was that all?
No.
Basically, 'Flash' teleported one 'randomly' to a distance ranging between three meters to ten meters, and even the direction of teleportation was 'random'.
If one were really unlucky, he could end up crashing into the ground or even shooting through the ceiling or walls, leading to instant death.
In other words, Baek Yu-Seol was a character who couldn't use any magic except for the trash skill 'Flash' that no one ever learned or used.
Of course, there were some advantages. The character, Baek Yu-Seol, had trained 'Flash' to the extreme. He could adjust the direction of movement and move within a fixed range, while eliminating the two second stun. Additionally, since Baek Yu-Seol didn't have any mana stat from the beginning, there was no need to worry about mana consumption.
But that was it.
In conclusion, the fact that he could slightly improve the trash skill 'Flash' was the end of it.
'Flash' was essentially a skill that allowed for extremely fast movement, so fast that if one smashed against a wall after failing to adjust the distance, they would die instantly due to the tremendous impact.
As such, when fighting in narrow spaces with many enemies in the vicinity, Baek Yu-Seol usually turned into a helpless half-wit.
For that reason, being able to control the range of the 'Flash' was almost essential, while also being extremely difficult. So naturally it wasn't very popular. After all, who would raise a trash character with no magic skill other than 'Flash' in a game where other characters could easily and efficiently use magical skills?
Numerous hardcore players took on the challenge, but they all gave up in the end.
While everyone else quit, I continued practicing 'Flash' over and over again, and in the end, I was able to completely master it.
After coming to the realization that the characteristic of 'Flash' allowed for rapid advancement, I learned how to cancel the skill in the middle, which allowed me to perform 'distance control'.
That was easy to say, but in fact, 'Flash' took around 0.1 seconds, so it wasn't something anyone could easily control.
I became deeply immersed in playing this single skill character, and unlike other mage characters, I relied solely on precise control to overcome everything. I dedicated most of my time to PvP battles against other player-controlled mage characters.
After 10 years of that.
[You've defeated the final boss, The Demonic Black Dragon, Darkest Night of the Thirteenth Month.]
{TN:- The Demonic Black Dragon, 黑夜十三月 Dark Night of the Thirteenth Month. The traditional Korean calendar is the lunisolar calendar. Example: It's based on both moon and sun cycles. Also the reason why most Korean festivals are based on the lunar calendar. This type of calendar tends to have a 'leap year' of sorts every 2-3 years or so where there's a 13th month. The Final Boss is basically called Dark of the Darkest Darkness, lol.}
"Eh?"
I ended up killing the final boss I didn't even know existed.
"What?"
I was just performing a sudden quest to find the 'female heroine' who had suddenly disappeared. Why did a black dragon with such an imposing name appear out of nowhere?
"What is this final boss?"
Wait, was there even such a thing as a final boss in a female-oriented game? Wasn't it supposed to end with the main character ending up with a female lead and getting married?
"It's my first time playing a game like this, so I don't know."
Of course, my so-called 'first time playing this game' was already 10 years ago.
Somehow, I had a feeling I'd have to fight this boss for a considerably long time before it died. Despite equipping myself with legendary-grade artifacts one by one and maxing out my stats, it was a close call. Fortunately, I won. It would have been a shame to lose the title of a hardcore player.
"What the heck was this dragon?"
The Demonic Black Dragon, Darkest Night of the Thirteenth Month.
Still, it was the final boss, so I roughly read through its backstory out of curiosity.
The story went like this.
There was this crazy cult-like group called 'Dark Mages' which had infiltrated and hidden themselves in various parts of this fantasy world. Apparently, their ultimate goal was to taint this world with the Underworld, 'Persona Gate'. And finally, when the Dark Mages had completely encompassed the world through the Persona Gate, what appeared was the Demonic Black Dragon.
I had little interest in the story and was simply enjoying alchemy crafting or whatever the NPCs were doing, so I had no idea that such things were happening in the background.
"Wow. The whole world has gone to ruin."
Looking at the map belatedly, 90% of the continent had been eroded and reduced to ashes by the Persona Gate, and only the background of the game; the 'Stella Academy,' remained intact. However, it was stained red and the situation appeared grim.
I was busy defeating other players on the PvP integrated server, so I was completely unaware.
I wondered about the reaction of the community if I took a screenshot of this and uploaded it, so for the first time in a long time I went to the Aether World Forums.
'What's this?'
The few remaining players' posts were receiving a surge of activity for the first time in a very long time.
[Thread: Ah, this damn trash game, suddenly that Black Dragon or whatever appears and all my game data goes to hell.]
[Thread: What the hell is this Black Dragon thing? It shows that my character died and now I can't even log in.]
[Thread: Whoa, I just came back after a long time because my SNS was blowing up, and guess what? My character got deleted. What's up with that?]
The community was full of posts which revealed their grievances after finding that their character had been deleted upon returning after a long time.
"What?"
I guess the final boss hadn't just appeared for me, it appeared simultaneously in all player consoles.
"How weird."
But there was one strange thing.
I scrolled through the lit panels for a while, but there was no post anywhere saying anyone had defeated the Black Dragon.
No matter how many legend-grade artifacts adorned my character, it was still just a trash character at best. There were far more players who had raised loopholes exploiting characters equal to or stronger than mine.
The Black Dragon should have been defeated dozens of times already for it to be normal. At that moment, I came across a post by a famous high-ranked player, and my eyes widened in surprise.
[Thread: Wait, guys, wasn't this boss not meant to be defeated in the first place?]
[Content: F*ck, this damn Black Dragon has a '99% Magic Resistance' passive, no cooldown on 'Magic Absorption,' and keeps endlessly spamming 'Magic Release.' How the hell are we supposed to kill it? Seriously, what kind of bug/monster is this? Gotta ask the devs, for real.]
"Oh right… there was something like that."
Of course, it was a bit unfair to have the ability to nullify magic in a world of magic.
But it was different for me. 'Flash' was just a teleportation skill, so I had no choice but to acquire exceptional combat skills.
As a result, I ended up being the only player in the game who had raised his physical attack power rather than magic attack power, and consequently I was also the only player who had succeeded in hunting the Demonic Black Dragon.
"Wow. Looks like I'm the only one who has defeated it."
Filled with excitement, I was about to cast a wide-range aggro under the title [Black Dragon Solo Hunt Achievement.jpg] to the forum, when-
Beep!
"Huh...?"
Suddenly, along with the appearance of the beeping sound that seemed to echo throughout the world, the strength drained from my body, and the world began to spin.
[Due to reaching the wrong ending, 90% of the Aether World has been destroyed.]
'Wh... What is this....?'
The ceiling became distant.
My vision blurred.
The world seemed increasingly distant.
[But you are the player closest to the 'True Ending.']
'I.. I caught the Black Dragon... I should be bragging about it.... '
A bizarre, eerie whisper reached my ears, but it felt strangely distant.
[I sincerely hope you reach the 'True Ending'.]
The world plunged into darkness.