NOVEL NEXT WORLD Chapter 1 - I Am a Veteran Player
Chapter 1 I Am a Veteran Player
There was this mobile game.
The game’s name was 「Battle of Summoners」
Like many others, it was just a typical collection-based RPG.
You summon creatures, build a team, strengthen them, and battle against other players, climb towers, and do raids…
Popularity?
Not much.
It had a brief surge in popularity at first because it was said to involve AI, but it quickly faded away.
Not only were the in-game purchases quite aggressive, but the difficulty level was also insanely high.
There was nothing easy to obtain in the game, and it was extremely hard to grow your summoned creatures.
To make matters worse, there were too many different types of summons.
To the point that people joked, “Is the AI making these up on the spot?”
With such an unfriendly game, it was only natural for it to fail!
Casual players all left, and only the true die-hard fans remained.
The so-called “veteran players.”
***
Baek Jin-woo was one of them.
He was twenty-four years old.
He had been playing this game since his first year of middle school.
That made him a ten-year veteran player.
He had achieved a lot in this game.
– Ranked 1st in Player vs. Player (PvP)!
– Ilcheon (一天, A day without a loss)!
– Conqueror of the 99th floor of the Trial Tower!
– Free-to-play ranking master!
– World record holder for time attack in all daily dungeons!
– Holder of the fastest clear time for the Chaos Demon Dragon (47 seconds)!
To someone unfamiliar, these accomplishments might sound confusing, but to anyone who had spent some time in the game, these were jaw-dropping achievements.
A god among gods!
The idol of veteran players!
That was Baek Jin-woo, known by his nickname: JinuGod.
Of course.
If you’ve been diving deep into such a difficult game for ten years, how do you think your real life would turn out?
Naturally, it was a disaster.
His school grades—whether it was in-class performance, the national exam, or essays—plummeted beyond rock bottom.
He couldn’t even get into college, so he scraped by with part-time jobs and manual labor.
It wasn’t because he was dumb.
If he had been, he wouldn’t have been able to achieve the rank of #1 player as a free-to-play user.
Baek Jin-woo was simply obsessed with this game.
When he looked at the letters in books, all he saw were summoner stats.
Even when he tried to focus on something else, all he could think about was the auto-farming that was probably happening in the background.
There was no avoiding it.
His mind and soul were already consumed by 「Battle of Summoners」
That’s right.
His real life was in shambles, a stark contrast to the glamorous world within the game.
If his parents were at least well-off, he wouldn’t have had to worry so much, but both of them weren’t exactly well-paid.
Of course, he had no complaints.
Why did his mom and dad work three different jobs, running around all over the place?
It was all for Jin-woo and his little sister, Baek Ah-jin.
They were incredibly responsible people.
In fact, they were incredibly kind.
So kind, it was almost foolish.
Even though they had every reason to scold their useless son, they only cheered him on…
‘Ah, what a pathetic piece of trash.’
Jin-woo swallowed his tears.
‘I know. I’m an ungrateful jerk. A damn bastard.’
For someone raised in such a warm and caring family, it was a disgrace that he was still stuck in the virtual world, drowning in it!
Jin-woo cursed the friend who recommended this game to him back in middle school.
While cursing, he found himself in a nearby garden, tapping away on his phone.
He climbed the tower, communicating with the dazzling summoned creatures equipped with fancy ‘Runes,’ and used skills as he ascended.
‘Please.’
If I can just clear the 100th floor…
I’ll stop there and return to reality, mom.
It’s unfair, you know?
I became the first veteran player to reach the 99th floor.
I can’t quit now!
It may be a meaningless game in the real world, but for Jin-woo, this game was his life.
It had been with him through all his school years.
It was everything to him.
Even though the creatures were controlled by AI, he felt a deep connection with them, respecting their lives as if they were real.
And it wasn’t just that.
He had studied a lot.
If you didn’t study, you couldn’t even make it past the lower floors of the tower, let alone properly develop your summoned creatures.
Jin-woo’s knowledge of 「Battle of Summoners」 was vast, surpassing that of most scholars.
‘Just a little more.’
Tap, tap, tap!
His fingers tapped faster and faster on the phone screen.
He’d been stuck on the 99th floor for a year now, but conquering the tower was within reach.
**
[Baekcheon: Damn it! I can’t take this crappy game anymore.]
[Rachel: What now.]
[Baekcheon: How did you even clear the 80th floor?]
[Rachel: Hahaha, still stuck there? Weren’t you on that floor a month ago too?]
Inside 「Battle of Summoners,」 there was a chat room.
Players could communicate with each other, and the system supported private chat rooms for players who wanted to talk in groups.
[Baekcheon: I swear, I did exactly what Sugoi told me to do!]
Playing alone could get lonely.
Some veteran players created a private chat to share valuable information among themselves.
There were six of them.
Each one stood at the pinnacle of 「Battle of Summoners」
They were collectively known as the Ilcheon-oje (一天五帝), meaning “One Heaven, Five Emperors.”
It was a title that symbolized one sky above five rulers.
This room had been maintained for five years, ever since Rachel, the 2nd-ranked PvP player, had invited them.
[Sugoi: You know, each player has their own strategy. It’s honestly meaningless.]
[Baekcheon: No, seriously. I’m at the point where I want to quit for real.]
Baekcheon was Taiwanese and ranked 6th in the game.
The youngest of the Five Emperors.
Notably, he was filthy rich.
[Baekcheon: You know how much money I’ve poured into this game, right?]
[Sugoi: 300 million.]
[Baekcheon: Right. And yet, I still can’t get past the 80th floor! Dammit!!]
[Sugoi: Calm down, you madman. It’s not like 300 million is a big deal to you.]
[Baekcheon: What are you talking about? There’s no such thing as money that isn’t money!]
Sugoi was Japanese.
As expected of a game infused with AI, the messages were instantly translated.
[Zenos: By the way, did you ask Ilcheon about it?]
[Baekcheon: That guy? Uh… isn’t he busy these days?]
When Baekcheon hesitated.
[Rachel: You idiot.]
[Sugoi: What are you doing?]
[MoscowMan: Idiot.]
[Zenos: Pathetic.]
The chat exploded with criticism.
[Rachel: You haven’t asked the god in our chat?]
[Sugoi: I thought you were trying to find a way around it since the JinuGod method wasn’t working.]
[MoscowMan: Go die.]
[Zenos: Hopeless.]
Baekcheon and the rest of the veteran players in this chat had a deity they revered.
The #1 ranked PvP player, JinuGod!
He had always found creative ways to conquer the game’s absurdly difficult towers.
He occasionally dropped some helpful solutions or hints to the Five Emperors in the chat.
Every time he showed up, he broke through whatever obstacles they faced, so they revered him as a god.
They were careful not to upset him, fearing they might be kicked from the chat.
[Baekcheon: Uh… JinuGod-hyung. Are you there? Are you still stuck on the 99th floor?]
By the way, Baekcheon was already past sixty years old.
But in his mind, if someone was better than him, they were automatically his hyung or noona.
[Baekcheon: JinuGod-hyung?]
He kept calling, but there was no reply.
[Rachel: Wait a bit. He usually doesn’t check the chat.]
[Sugoi: Yeah, if you leave a question, he’ll probably respond tomorrow.]
None of them had passed the 90th floor.
Which made JinuGod, who was challenging the 100th floor, seem like a true deity.
[Rachel: By the way… it’s been almost ten years since anyone’s reached the 100th floor, right?]
[Zenos: It’s insane. Beyond crazy.]
[Sugoi: I’ve been playing this game just to see the ending of the 100th floor. Damn, JinuGod.]
[MoscowMan: Look at the way he’s set up his runes. What a lunatic.]
[Rachel: Seriously, how is it that we all put in the same amount of time, but he’s so much better?]
The veteran players were excited.
The Tower of Trials was considered unbeatable!
Each floor was an unforgiving challenge, yet the end was finally within sight thanks to JinuGod.
[Baekcheon: But what happens when you clear the 100th floor?]
There had been an announcement from the developers long ago.
“Conquer the 100th floor of the Tower of Trials!”
The moment it’s conquered, a new world will open!
[Baekcheon: A new world. Does that mean the game will change?]
[Rachel: Hahaha, maybe it was just some random text the developers threw out. Honestly, they probably didn’t even think anyone would clear it.]
[Baekcheon: Or…]
Baekcheon chuckled as he typed.
[Baekcheon: Maybe, just as the announcement said, the real world will transform into the Summoners’ world!]
You know that kind of thing.
The concept that often appears in novels.
Where the real world turns into a game, and the game becomes reality.
[MoscowMan: Idiot.]
[Zenos: How long are you going to stay pathetic?]
[Sugoi: You’ve been reading too many novels, haha.]
As usual, the veterans mocked the youngest.
They had no idea.
No way they could have predicted it.
That Baekcheon’s words were about to become reality.
***
Two weeks later.
On his way to work.
“I… I did it!”
A man walking down the road, furiously tapping away at his phone, shouted out.
“Hahahahahaha! Finally! Finallyyyyy!”
His voice full of joy, the man jumped up and down in excitement.
His name was Baek Jin-woo.
Nicknamed JinuGod.
“What the…”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He must be crazy.”
People passing by frowned in disgust, but Jin-woo didn’t care.
Finally!
At long last!
He had cleared the 100th floor.
He had defeated the monstrous boss and seen the end of the tower.
How hard had it been?
He had sacrificed his real life for this moment.
“Hahahahahaha!”
He was so happy, it brought him to tears.
[You have cleared the 100th floor of the Tower of Trials.]
The golden status window flashed, tickling his senses.
As he snapped screenshots to brag to the veteran players.
“Huh?”
“…What?”
“What is that.”
The murmurs around him grew louder.
Jin-woo also felt something strange.
[You have cleared the 100th floor of the Tower of Trials.]
That sentence, which should have been on his phone screen, was somehow floating outside the screen.
Why was it floating like a hologram in mid-air?
Standing on the crosswalk, Jin-woo furrowed his brows.
Ah.
Had he gone from being obsessed with the game to truly losing his mind?
But it didn’t feel like he was the only one seeing things—everyone else around him seemed to be looking at something too.
[The beta test has ended.]
[A new world is opening.]
What?
Beta test?
At that moment.
Flap!
Red paper began to fall from the sky.
It was a shape Jin-woo was all too familiar with.
“That…”
There was no way he wouldn’t recognize it.
He had seen it countless times.
“A low-grade summoning scroll?”
An item that allowed you to summon a random monster from F-rank to D-rank. One scroll was falling into the hands of every human being.
“What is this…?”
And then.
– Hooooonk!
A deafening truck horn blasted in his ears.
He locked eyes with the panicked truck driver through the windshield.
“Huh, huh?”
He tried to dodge, but his body wouldn’t move.
And then.
Slam!
As Jin-woo was struck by the truck, feeling a heavy impact, a single thought crossed his mind.
‘This damned game.’
One thing was certain.
His life had been ruined by 「Battle of Summoners」.