Chapter 1

Hiddens

"Damn, what kind of trash game is this?"

Clutching the secret letter from his mother, he stared at the 'Game Over' message on the screen and clenched his fist. The moment his character disintegrated in mid-air, he felt an intense rage, almost throwing his mouse. However, he quickly calmed himself, as if it were a routine, and lit a cigarette.

"Already over five years, and I'm still clinging to this one game. My life is a legend in itself."

He lit the cigarette and gazed out the window. After all, was I in a position to call something trash?

Park Hyunmyeong, a name given by my parents to live wisely, but I was far from living wisely. The sun was already high in the sky outside the window. It was a weekday, not a weekend. A time when everyone was working hard. I, a jobless bum, was engrossed in the game without even washing up.

"It's time to quit."

Pangenia, a game that had a brief moment of popularity five years ago. It was heavily criticized as a crazy game at the time of its release. When a character died, everything vanished, and the player had to start from the beginning. Moreover, it boasted an unprecedentedly extreme difficulty level, with no one having cleared it.

Perhaps that's why its fleeting popularity quickly faded. Now, it was questionable if anyone besides me was even playing the game. The number of concurrent users recorded on the homepage server was always 0 or 1. 0 when I wasn't playing, and 1 when I was.

...A one-player game that's still running, impressive, but whatever.

I had plenty of time. I had quit my job, and my nagging girlfriend was gone.

"Damn."

A sudden memory made him close his eyes tightly.

-You're a good person, but... I'm sorry. I can't keep seeing someone with no future. I'm at the age where I need to think about marriage.

I was dumped by my girlfriend of five years. It seems I was the only one who had a future together in mind.

-My friends are all dating and marrying people from famous companies. You... sigh. It's over. Let's break up.

She left, having made up her mind. What a bitch. Thanks to her, I quit my job with no future. What should I do now? Maybe I should learn a skill.

Click. He picked up the mouse. The screen soon displayed the message, "Do you want to create a character?"

"Life is a gamble."

He had the same thought when creating his previous character. But the last of the last is usually the real last.

Of course, there were already many characters in the game, not just the one he had just deleted. Some had reached the max level, and others were adorned with all kinds of treasures, but he was confident that none of them had the specs to clear the game.

This crazy game had an absurdly high difficulty at certain points. Bosses that seemed impossible to beat, villains who betrayed you unexpectedly, and named NPCs who would hunt you down and kill you if you were wanted. For example, the character 'Brainbreaker' created to test the game had max level and treasure-grade items but was immediately killed upon login due to a special bounty.

Some of the strongest named NPCs in the game had levels that surpassed the player's max level, so if you were targeted by them, your character was as good as deleted. That's why I couldn't even log in.

In any case.

"Let's enjoy the game, let's enjoy the game."

The character I created to clear the game was ultimately deleted. Thinking about the items I had equipped made me want to cry. I had gathered all the unique items from other characters...

There are 15 unique items known in Pangenia so far. I had poured eight of them into one character. It was a gamble of a lifetime. If I died, five years would be gone.

But I died. The character was deleted, and all the items vanished. Damn...

"1.6 million Soul Points? Unique items do give a lot of points, indeed."

But where there's a loss, there's a gain. Pangenia has a Soul Point (SP) system. When a character dies, the value they had is converted into points. Players can use these Soul Points to give advantages to new characters.

I had accumulated about 80,000 SP from deleting hundreds of characters over five years. But with the deletion of the character with eight unique items, I gained 1.6 million Soul Points.

Not only the unique items but also the highest chapter progress. It was definitely a near-clearing spec.

"10,000 Soul Points for one talent? That's a lot."

The main use of Soul Points is for 'talents.' When creating a character, you can invest points in the talents you want, and the higher the points, the faster the growth.

The upper limit was also 10,000 Soul Points. For reference, 'Miracle Conan,' who invested 10,000 Soul Points in swordsmanship, died as a master of swordsmanship.

"Usually, I'd invest in the safest lightning magic talent..."

There were a few set routes. The safest was the lightning magic talent.

However, this game had hundreds of talents to invest in. With 1.6 million points, I could max out a significant portion of them.

"If I invest more than 3,000 points in each of the five elements, the Void attribute will open. If I invest 5,000 points in the Void attribute, I can get the Voidless trait."

Talents can spawn other talents. It's a kind of hidden feature. There were countless such 'designs' in Pangenia, even I, a veteran, couldn't grasp them all.

"Having the Voidless trait allows the use of opposing magic. I can also stack light and darkness affinity, so I must get it."

In this game, a character cannot use conflicting attributes simultaneously without tools or other mediums. But with the Voidless trait, you can use opposing magic and attributes together.

However, it costs 10,000 points just to get the Voidless trait, leaving me with insufficient points for other talents. The game is already difficult, and if a character dies, the invested SP is lost. It's hard to start with a clear talent.

"But true enjoyment is in randomness. Let's go, all random!"

Planning out routes and making decisions only gives you a headache. For true enjoyment and quitting, nothing is as sure as all random.

Randomizing everything, including traits, was a destructive choice, but a smile crept onto his face.

The purpose of enjoyment, not clearing the game. I'll invest all 1.6 million points randomly.

"I can't clear it anyway."

I've tried everything to clear it. To put it bluntly, this game wasn't made to be cleared.

When Pangenia was released, the developer made a bold statement to the users.

- I will grant one wish to the person who clears the game.

Grant a wish. The developer's promise to grant any wish led many to challenge and fail.

In the five years since, the game has not been cleared. There were a few people until about a year ago, but now I'm the only one left.

But this time, I want to enjoy the game properly, for the first and last time.

"Should I press it?"

I had randomized the appearance before, but choosing 'all random' was a first. The 'all random' button was notorious for being highly inefficient and pointless.

It wasn't easy to make this decision, encapsulating all my time and effort.

I closed my eyes.

And.

Click!

I pressed it.

Firmly. The dice began to roll, and everything was randomized.

But that wasn't the end.

<Hidden feature activated.>

<Congratulations! You have been invited to Pangenia by satisfying a singularity!>

A message I had never seen before appeared on the screen.

"Hidden feature?"

【Brighter than light, darker than darkness, in the whirlwind of creation and destruction. May you be happy in Pangenia.】

The game intro appeared.

Just as I was about to skip it as usual.

"Huh...?"

The words on the screen began to spill out and blur.

At that moment.

-Damn god! I'll burn all the worlds you created!

A grating voice echoed, and a hellish scene unfolded before my eyes. The Pangenia continent was falling and collapsing over the Earth. The quality was so realistic, it didn't look like a cheap graphic.

Was there such a video in the intro?

Before I could ponder this, my consciousness faded into the distance.