Chapter 7 : The Saint Plays Games (2)

[You have entered the campsite.]

With the message notification, my senses came alive.

Just like when I was fighting in that other world.

Feeling a familiar sensation in my left hand, I raised it.

It was a dagger. About 30cm long, and surprisingly heavy.

“This is more realistic than I thought.”

My senses heightened, but it wasn’t a bad feeling.

This was a game.

The various interfaces reassured me.

Apart from that, the graphics were incredibly realistic.

“Let’s clear this quickly.”

Just then, an old man glanced at me repeatedly, as if wanting to talk.

In a computer game, there would probably be an exclamation mark above his head.

“Hmm.”

Whatever. I ran straight ahead. The village was quite small, and I soon came across an old stone bridge.

[Entering the Wasteland of Death]

The moment I crossed the bridge, the notification changed, and an ominous BGM began to play.

The kind of music that made you expect zombies to pop out.

‘Come to think of it, weren’t zombies the first monsters in this game?’

As soon as I thought that…

“Groaaar!”

A creepy scream echoed from behind a tree.

‘Here it comes.’

I took a stance, and a zombie lunged at me. Its arms swung down in a wide arc, as if trying to claw at me.

I dodged easily, and the zombie, losing its balance, stumbled forward, trying to bite me.

Swish.

I sidestepped and swung my dagger.

Thud.

“Huh…?”

The zombie’s head rolled on the ground.

That was it.

“What…?”

That was too easy.

In my vague memory, the first zombies took about ten hits to kill.

Well, it would be strange for it to be alive after its head was cut off.

Although it was also strange to say a zombie was “alive” in the first place.

It seemed to be a VR balance adjustment.

I tilted my head and moved on.

‘Oh.’

After moving a short distance, I heard the sound of zombies, along with quicker, lighter footsteps.

‘Three. No, seven in total?’

The difficulty seemed to have jumped suddenly, but it wasn’t a problem.

“Groar.”
“Gaaaah!”

One zombie and six small, red demons called Imps.

They quickly circled me.

Just like goblins.

The moment I flicked my left wrist…

“Gah!”

A red imp charged. The dagger it held was as flimsy as mine, but unlike me, it also carried a proper shield.

It held the shield in front, charging forward. As it closed the distance, it swung its dagger.

Whoosh!

The dagger cut through the air. Like with the zombie, I twisted my body slightly to dodge the attack and swung my dagger in a swift motion.

Spurt!

Red blood splattered as the imp’s head flew off.

“Gaaaah!”

A furious cry.

“Do they have… some kind of camaraderie?”

The five remaining imps rushed at me even faster.

Dodge and slash, dodge and slash. I plunged my dagger downwards into the last imp.

“Kieeek!”

A fountain of red blood erupted, complete with a metallic scent. It was literally blood, realistically rendered.

‘It’s been a while.’

No, it hadn’t.

I had no time for such thoughts.

“Kiiiiiieeeeek!”

As if drawn by the scent of blood, a larger horde of imps swarmed towards me.

What followed was a repetition of the same actions.

“Phew…”

About twenty of them?

After defeating all the enemies, I looked down at myself.

“Ugh…”

Seeing it with my own eyes made me groan involuntarily.

I was covered in blood, as if I had taken a blood bath.

There was a way to reduce the sensory input, I thought.

I couldn’t stand the smell.

I should be thankful this was just VR.

If it weren’t VR, I wouldn’t be covered in blood like this.

Perhaps due to game balance, my movements felt sluggish.

It felt like I was winning purely through skill and experience.

I couldn’t have dodged and killed dozens of monsters while remaining spotless.

“Right.”

I could wash off the blood in the village.

After that, I should aim for a faster clear time.

The first stage boss was probably a spider woman hiding in a monastery, a humanoid boss.

“Phew… that was tiring.”

The Capsule Room’s lounge. This was a place for people to take a break after playing games.

“Six hours?”
“Yeah.”
“Heh. I did twelve.”

And most of them were hardcore gamers.

People who spent most of their lives playing games.

In fact, in-game currency in VR games could be converted to cash with a single touch.

“You crazy bastards, what’s so great about that?”
“How long did you play?”
“…I don’t know. I think I got about six playtime warning messages.”

Playtime warning messages. A warning that popped up every three hours of continuous play, and also an alarm to remind players immersed in VR of the time.

“Crazy, so at least eighteen hours.”

Most of them were gamers who “farmed rice,” meaning they earned in-game currency to exchange for real money.

“Ah… I’m bored. Honestly, I’m sick of it.”
“Then why don’t you try clearing Demon King?”
“Are you crazy? That’s impossible.”

Demon King. A VR adaptation of a classic masterpiece.

But there was a big problem.

As with most VR games, the realistic graphics earned it an 19+ rating right out of the gate. But that wasn’t the real issue, as the game allowed censorship in the settings.

“F*ck. Why doesn’t a VR game have assists?!”

The problem was the difficulty, which made players cringe.

Yes, most VR games had an “assist” function.
For example, when shooting an arrow, a trajectory prediction point would appear. Or, for players who didn’t know how to use a sword, there were system aids called “assists,” different from skills, such as swing, thrust, and upward slash.

But Demon King had no such assistance.

“Dude, you seriously can’t clear that game. I’d bet my left nut on it.”
“You crazy? Why would you bet your balls on that?”
“He’s not wrong. Left nut? I’d bet both.”

When Hyunwoo, in his outburst, made that ridiculous statement, the other men laughed playfully.

Their reaction wasn’t surprising. That was the general consensus among players about Demon King.

The game had no difficulty settings. While the original PC version had three difficulty levels, they seemed to have considered that a waste and combined them. That meant, from the players’ perspective, it was hell mode from the start.

“Well, I died to a zombie when I first started.”
“Dude, seriously? A zombie?”

Despite his teasing words, Hyunwoo nodded. He had been lucky, really.

Zombies in most games were tutorial fodder, flinching until they died.

But what about Demon King?

Whether you hit them with a mace or stabbed them with a dagger, they would bite and claw at you as if nothing happened.

And forget about life points; one bite to the neck, and you were dead.

Hyunwoo clearing the first zombie was pure luck. He frantically stabbed at the zombie that had bitten his arm, and luckily, after about three stabs to the neck, it collapsed.

It was a close call, a fight to the death.

If you didn’t know, you’d die.

The red imps were faster than the players.

At level 1, you couldn’t outrun them.

He still remembered. The Wasteland of Death. It truly lived up to its name. He had died there countless times. The only known strategy to get through it was to lure the zombies one by one and level up. If you accidentally pulled too many, well, you died, and your experience points plummeted.

The hardest part of the game so far was Act 3.

The boss, Mephistopheles, named after a famous demon, was insanely difficult.

In the PC version, he was a loot pinata. In VR, he was notorious for his vicious patterns and wide attack range.

The only bosses confirmed to have been cleared in Demon King were the Spider Woman and Scorpio. Just two.

And even that was the result of a raid by eight Sorceresses, all at max level.

But the level cap was 99. No more firepower was possible. That was why Act 3 was considered impossible to clear.

A player who knew how to use a shield in real life had once joined as a Crusader. His tanking ability was impressive, proving the importance of real-life physical skills.

But that was it.

Real-life physical skills. But where would you find a human who could go toe-to-toe with that demonic boss?

Without a raid, they would have been stuck at Act 2, the scorpion boss.

Fighting that massive boss in a narrow cave…

The only known strategy for Scorpio was this:

One by one, players would sacrifice themselves to the boss’s charge attack, creating an opening for others to deal damage.

There was a way to disable the mechanic, but it took too long. A no-death clear was impossible.

Reaching level 99 wasn’t everything.

As if they were the reincarnation of the red imps from the early game…

Black imps appeared in the Act 3 jungle.

It was truly hell.

They were faster than max-level players and hid in the trees, making them hard to see.

And if you managed to defeat them, they exploded.

The explosion radius was small, but it was an instant kill.

Hyunwoo had encountered the Act 3 imps firsthand.

The imps, giggling “Kukuku” as they charged…

“…Just thinking about it gives me chills.”