There was nothing particularly noteworthy in the post. How did you clear Bael's Great Demon Lord's Castle? Tell us about it. Nothing more, nothing less—those were the exact words. It seemed VenusPants hadn't cleared Bael's Great Demon Lord's Castle yet.
I was quietly pleased with myself. I showed an excess of kindness and wrote out the entire walkthrough in painstaking detail.
—Dtequila: First off, we cleared it with a minimum four-person party. Me, a knight, a grand mage, and a healer.
—VenusPants: A four-person party is way too unstable. You're supposed to go with at least twenty-five people—that's the standard.
I furrowed my brow. The standard? Was he really going to sit here and lecture me about the standard?
There was no such thing as a standard in games. At least, not once you reached the highest level. True masters create new standards. VenusPants couldn't possibly be ignorant of that. And yet he invoked "the standard"—which meant he was challenging me to a duel over whose method was closer to the gold standard.
Call me garbage all you want—I don't care. It's true, after all. But calling me garbage as a Dungeon Attack player? That I won't tolerate. All the effort I'd poured into this side was vaporized into nothing, while on his side, everything I had built was stacked neatly away.
It was a world only I knew, but it was still a world of its own!
—Dtequila: The Demon Lord's Castle AI is absolutely insane. The more party members you bring, the more monsters multiply like cockroaches. And that means more monster types, making it impossible to respond to each one individually. It's far easier to minimize the number of monsters and reduce the patterns—that's the real way to conquer it.
The replies kept flowing. The two of us exchanged theories and counter-theories. It was practically a full-blown fight, save for the fact that it wasn't purely an exchange of profanities.
Before long, the debate had shifted to the mechanics of Dungeon Attack itself. The comment count skyrocketed past two hundred in no time. Idiots, that's not right! a third party interjected. A massive argument erupted. Fan site members split into VenusPants's camp and my camp and went at each other ferociously.
Evening arrived before anyone noticed. The comment count had surpassed seven hundred and fifty. Only then did the dispute come to a tentative close.
In the latter stages of the discussion, members who had been quietly watching the verbal sparring delivered their verdict.
—ParthenonPillar: Looks like Dtequila won this round?
—PlusHundred: Even I can see that Dtequila's point was correct.
The bloody battle was over. Members raised my right hand in triumph one after another.
Having survived the colosseum, I still wasn't particularly happy. It was exactly the same as before. Nothing remained but emptiness. I thought to myself with a bitter smirk, I knew I'd end up wasting my time like this.
Just as I was about to close my laptop, VenusPants dropped yet another comment.
Was he going to contest the outcome?
But when I read the comment, it wasn't that at all.
─VenusPants: Hey, did you hear the news about a Dungeon Attack sequel?
A sequel!?
My fingers hit the keyboard on spinal reflex.
─TequilaLatte: Wait, for real?
─VenusPants: Real talk. Basically the same as Dungeon Attack. But there's exactly one difference.
My eyes went wide. Was the rumor that VenusPants was part of the dev team actually true?
I quickly asked what that one difference was.
─VenusPants: That's classified.
Are you kidding me right now! I hammered the keyboard in excitement. If I'd typed any faster, the thing would've fallen apart.
─TequilaLatte: You're really milking the suspense, huh. Almost got excited there.
─VenusPants: Anyway, if the goal in Dungeon Attack was to stop the Demon Lords and protect the world, this sequel is apparently about conquering the world as the main objective. This is important. Make sure you remember that.
VenusPants kept beating around the bush. It was nothing but tidbits.
I was on edge but not angry. Even as a developer, it wouldn't be easy to just casually leak sequel information.
Even though the core details were missing, scraping together all the little bits of info gave me a rough sketch. It seemed like in the new game, you wouldn't play as the Hero but from the Demon Lord's perspective. So the objective would be to conquer the world, then.
My heart was racing.
It had only been a few hours since I'd cleared all of Dungeon Attack and felt utterly deflated. Now I had somewhere to invest my time again. In the back of my mind I could hear voices calling me a washed-up loser, but right now none of that mattered. I was completely spaced out thinking about playing the sequel.
Then an even more shocking piece of news dropped.
─VenusPants: You might've already noticed, but you were actually selected as a beta tester.
The world spun before my eyes. My fingers were striking the keyboard all on their own, like a pianist who'd been hammering away for twenty straight years.
─Dekke Latte: Oh my god, you were actually the developer!
─VenusPants: I strongly recommended you for the beta test, that's how you got picked.
─Dekke Latte: Milky VenusPants I love you VenusPants
─VenusPants: Fuck off.
─VenusPants: I said fuck off.
He hated it so much he even made a typo.
I was already grinning from ear to ear. An insult like "fuck off" was easy to brush off.
─Dekke Latte: When does the beta start?
─VenusPants: Honestly, if you want, it could start today.
─Dekke Latte: Nice. Let's go.
─VenusPants: Right now?
─Dekke Latte: Let's go.
─VenusPants: It's already night though. What about your daily life?
─Dekke Latte: My daily life? I don't know anything about that.
─VenusPants: You're a shut-in.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
Since he was saying it could start today, he was probably planning to send some kind of trial version through email.
The sooner the better for me. Going back to my rental apartment would just plunge me into that familiar emptiness again. I'd rather forget everything about my daily life and lose myself in a game.
─VenusPants: Seriously right now?
─VenusPants: You won't regret this?
─VenusPants: You might lose all four hours, you know?
It struck me as a foolish question.
Of course I'd regret it. I already had regretted it. I was regretting it now. I'd regret it in the future too. Somehow, I was certain of that.
Without much deliberation, I typed.
─Dekille Latte: That doesn't matter at all.
The other person replied that they understood. After that, no more comments appeared on the post.
I waited, wondering if they were sending the file. Thirty minutes passed with no response. I considered prodding them, but decided they'd probably handle it on their own and closed my laptop. As I stepped out of the café, the thought crossed my mind that maybe they'd been messing with me.
Cars sped through the wide intersection of the university district. Most of them must be commuters. I stood at the crosswalk, imagining each of their homes. A pop song played through my earbuds.
The traffic lanes flashed white, yellow, red. They flickered into my field of vision for a moment, then swept past.
How long would this kind of life go on?
When the break ended and the semester started, what would change?
Would I just keep living like this until one day it all fell apart?
My situation was better than most. There were plenty of people in this world who were more desperate and more pathetic than me. So at least for now, I should take comfort in that. Right now, right now, right now... If I just kept repeating "right now," eventually a time would come when I could no longer say it. I could live with regret then. A fair judgment would be passed on everyone—so fair that no one could take solace in being better or worse than anyone else.
The traffic light shifted from red to green. I left the thoughts that filled my head behind on my heels and walked forward.
That was the last scenery I could clearly remember.
It hurt so much.
For one instant, my mind went blank.
I lifted eyelids I didn't remember closing, and the world was flipped upside down.
'Oh.'
Even though the music was coming through my earbuds, it sounded strangely distant. I thought in a daze. I'd been hit. By a truck. It figured. I'd stuffed my ears with music and filled my head with idle thoughts. I'd walked along without even noticing a car barreling toward me from the side. I suppose I was destined to be unfaithful to this world until the very end.
'I don't want to die.'
'Mother.'
'……It hurts.'
My vision flickered. It wasn't moving according to my will. It felt like someone else was opening and closing my eyes on my behalf. But, yes. It was true.
It was true……
Everything went black.
I woke up with the sound of the ceiling collapsing.
One corner of my head felt strangely numb, but a rock plummeting right in front of my eyes snapped whatever remained of my consciousness into gear. I scrambled to my feet. Something like a bomb had gone off in the distance, and the ground was shaking. One after another.
"What the— what is this!?"
I was standing in a room I had never seen before. No, calling it a room was generous. It was a massive cavern. The ceiling was at least twice as high as the stalactite cave I'd once visited on Jeju Island. The cavern stretched on and on into the dim distance as far as the eye could see. A fleeting thought crossed my mind — why am I in a place like this? — but I didn't have the slightest gap to entertain the question.
An overpowering stench of blood. A sharp, coppery smell that seemed to grind its way from my nostrils straight into my brain.
"Ugh…!"
Vomit surged up my esophagus.
Corpses lay scattered everywhere around me. Bloated human bodies, humans with their heads severed, humans whose limbs had been twisted backward at grotesque angles, humans pierced with arrows with their innards spilling out — every conceivable manner of death on display, as if someone were staging an exhibition on the diverse ways a person could be killed.
Here and there among them were the carcasses of monstrous, non-human creatures. But I wasn't in any state of mind to fixate on those.
"Ugh! Hagh, bleargh!"
I vomited once, then instinctively realized this was not the time to be leisurely throwing up. Distant rumbling still echoed from somewhere far away, and with each boom the cavern floor and ceiling shook violently.
"Damn it, ugh, son of a bitch!"
I wiped my mouth and moved forward blindly. Staying here was dangerous no matter what.
The instant I shifted my right foot, I collapsed helplessly onto the ground. Only then did I realize my right leg was broken. It wasn't just a simple sprain. The bone had clearly shattered. My right leg dangled uselessly, completely beyond my control.
"Damn it, ugh!"
After collapsing again while trying to stand, I started crawling on all fours. As far away from the explosions as I could get. Between the thunderous booms, I could occasionally make out shouts and screams. Even someone like me, who had never experienced war, could tell that those were the sounds of a life-or-death battle. This was a battlefield.
What the hell is going on.
I didn't die?
No — where am I?
Just then, someone shouted from behind. It was a man's gravelly voice.
"There he is! The Demon Lord is over there!"
Demon Lord.
A title that had absolutely nothing to do with me. Yet I could feel it — the shout was aimed squarely at me.
Lying face-down on the ground, I barely managed to turn my head. A dozen-odd people were shouting something at me. I couldn't make out the words clearly, but the atmosphere was anything but friendly. In that instant, something slammed into the space right in front of my eyes at tremendous speed. It was an arrow. They were shooting arrows at me!
I crawled forward, forward, like a madman.
"Don't shoot! Ugh, please don't shoot! It's not me! It's not me!"
Even to my own ears, the voice was pitifully weak. Buried in sobs, it came out barely above a whisper — just enough to draw breath. Still, I couldn't hold back, so I kept spitting out the words in ragged bursts.
"Ugh, don't — don't shoot! Please, it's not me!"
I couldn't breathe. Even so, arrows kept flying. I can dodge this. I can dodge this. Those words looped over and over in my head like a broken record.
But my luck ran out quickly. An arrow grazed my forearm. The flesh was sliced to ribbons.
It hurts!
It really — it hurts!
"Ugh, ughhh!"
My vision went white. Tears streamed down. The tears were scalding hot.
I dragged myself forward like a caterpillar, flailing my limbs without any sense of direction, having no idea where I was going. A sharp rock on the cave floor pierced my thigh. That hurt too. There was nothing I could do about it. I kept crawling. Then, suddenly, something pressed down heavily on my back. It stomped on me with force.
I realized it was a human foot.
"Got him! I caught the Demon Lord! I, Leaf, have caught the Demon Lord Dantalion!"
"Look at this! This bastard looks just like a bug."
"Leaf, don't tell me you think this was all your own doing."
My body wouldn't move at all, as if an anchor had dropped onto my waist. Still, I struggled. I stretched my arms out and clawed at the ground. I kicked my legs like I was splashing through water.
Countless people above me jeered and laughed.
"Really does look like a bug. No, it's literally a bug."
"A bastard that's worse than a dog. We finally caught the Demon Lord."
"Wait. Everyone, calm down. Don't get too excited. We still haven't heard where the dungeon's treasure is stored. Beating this scumbag up matters too, but if we go back empty-handed, we'll just be a laughingstock."
"Oh, my dear one-eyed friend. You're right."
Someone kicked me in the stomach. I couldn't even scream—I just rolled. The only thing I could manage was gasping, coughing up air. Sand from the ground stuck to my tear-soaked face.
Someone spoke to me, even though I couldn't open my eyes.
"Alright, Your Majesty the Demon Lord. I'm asking you. Where is the room where the dungeon's treasure is stored?"
"Please spare me… please spare me…"
"Leaf. He's being annoying—stab his knee. He'll start chirping like a sparrow."
"No need. This is enough for now, One-Eyed."
It was a chilling exchange. I begged desperately.
"Please spare me… I'm not him… I'm really not…"
"Okay, okay. Calm down, Your Majesty the Demon Lord. We don't want to be more violent than necessary. Stop crying so much, huh? Try holding back your tears. Stop!"
"Kahaha!"
Laughter erupted all around.
I held back my sobs. No matter what, I had to drag this conversation out as long as possible. That was the fuse of my survival. Nausea and tears surged back up my throat together, but I swallowed them down with all my strength. However, hiccup-like sounds kept escaping no matter how hard I tried to suppress them.
"Right, that's the spirit! You've got the right attitude for negotiation! Just keep doing that."
"Ngh……hegh, guhuk."
"I'll ask one more time. Where are the dungeon's funds stored?"
"Myeongnyundong——heguk, they're at Myeongnyundong."
Myeongnyundong was the neighborhood where I lived. I had just blurted it out however I could. What did it matter? I just had to say something — that was all.
The other party went "Huh?" in response.
"Meirun? What?"
"Myeongnyun, Myeongnyundong."
"Weird pronunciation. Any of you bastards understand that?"
"Seems to be the demon race's language. Sounds plausible."
"Okay. Your Majesty the Demon Lord. I like this smart business move. I think we could become friends, hey."
The other party playfully slapped my cheeks.
"So where is that Meiruntou room exactly? Tell me precisely."
"There's a secret passage……from the room I was in."
"In the Demon Lord's room? There's a secret passage in the Demon Lord's room?"
"Yes, in the Demon Lord's room……a secret passage that only recognizes my biometrics to open……meaning it only opens when I place my hand on it……yes, it's there."
"A magical device, then."
"Good," the other man said as he grabbed my arm and pulled me to my foot. Searing pain shot through my broken right leg.
"AAAGH!"
"Tsk. You're a cripple, aren't you?"
The other man clicked his tongue.
"Hey, rookie. Help support His Majesty the Demon Lord. He's a valuable guest."
"Understood, Ritz-senior!"
The man called a rookie looped my arm over his neck, and I had to walk while leaning on him for support.
Only then did I manage a small measure of composure. I rubbed my face against my forearm, wiping the tears away until my vision cleared. There was still dried grime and tear residue caked around my eyes, but I could at least see what was ahead of me.
Surrounding me were roughly ten or more humans. Every last one of them held a weapon — bows, spears, and the like. Their expressions were uniformly grim.
"Move out!"
The man called Ritz barked the order. The men set off in some direction, chattering amongst themselves or passing waterskins back and forth. I was all but dragged along by the rookie.
Fortunately, they apparently knew exactly where the Demon Lord's room was. That was an enormous relief. If they had asked me to guide them there, my lie would have been exposed beyond any hope of recovery.
"Sniff…ngh…"
But I couldn't let my guard down. They had merely granted a brief reprieve to my death.
Along the cave ceiling, the murmur of the group echoed in subdued, almost eerie waves — like a funeral dirge played in hushed tones. Woven faintly into that sound, of course, was my own groaning.