5 Episode 2: The Synergist (1)

[ You have levelled up to level 100! ]

[ You have reached the maximum level. ]

[ All stats and attributes are increased. ]

[ The goddesses praise the feats of the Hero of Light! ]

[ They all wish to grant you a blessing before the final battle. ]

[ "Light's Upon the Stars" has been obtained. ]

[ Illopa's journey is about to come to an end. ]

Lying down on his bed, a young black-haired man could be seen lazily staring at a widescreen that displayed an elven character before him. In his hands, was a controller which controlled the elf to move forward through a dark and menacing passageway.

As the elven character—Illopa and his companions reached the end of the hallway, they were quickly greeted by a demonic-looking monster sitting on a throne in front of them. At that moment, his group brought out their weapons, soon rushing into battle the next second.

In response to their charge, the demon began raising his arm high up into the sky, summoning an army of monsters to fend off the attackers. However, in the blink of an eye, the summoned army was completely wiped out.

"Y-You...! Y-You!" The demon king cried out at the slaughter before him. But, before he could even react, Illopa shot out an arrow straight towards him, growing vines along its path. As the arrow landed, the vines swiftly latched onto the demon. "A-Argh! Damn you...!"

Without wasting a single second, the elf's group leapt straight at the demon lord, striking him down. Without being able to fight back, his life came to an end just like that. No struggle or final stand. He just remained there, lifeless after his defeat.

"...huh? Seriously? Is that it?" Laying down on his bed, Jace blankly stared at the victory screen in confusion. It was only a few minutes later did he frown in disappointment. "Really? There isn't any special mechanics or last-ditch effort? What kind of final boss is this?"

A week had gone by since the day of the press conference, where he had announced his retirement. During that time, Jace had stayed cooped up in his room, playing games all day long. Not once did he do anything but eat, sleep and game the entire time.

"Ugh... Don't tell me there's a hidden plot twist or something after I leave the demon castle?" After seeing that the final boss was a joke, he felt annoyed, and in denial that this was the actual boss. However, even after Illopa had left the throne room, all he had gotten was the end credits. "...did I seriously pay 120$ for such a trash game?"

At the realization of that fact, his brows furrowed even more. Though Jace had spent a little over 14 hours on the game—"The Legend of Illopa: Whispering Wilds 2", he felt immense disappointment in it. Not because of the game's content which was about half a day, but, it was the fact that the game felt utterly rushed and incomplete. For an RPG game, it was a joke compared to the previous instalments of the franchise.

"Man... Here I thought I'd have an enjoyable vacation of just playing games. But... Why are all the modern games this bad?" He scratched his head in frustration, exiting the game and going into his online library. In just a week alone, he had gone through about 15 games. However, most of them weren't even halfway done when he dropped it. "Some of these crap games are buggy as hell... While others are all DLC locked. Why did gaming stoop so low?"

Rather than playing all those 15 games during his time off, he would've much preferred just replaying the classics like Epilogue Fantasy or Xenosword. Even reading novels or binge-watching shows would've served as a much better alternative than those games that he played the past week.

But unfortunately, his time had already been wasted. So, with a sigh of defeat, he closed his console, remaining silent the next moment. With no games left to play, he was now bored. Of course, he could always pick up a new game or read a novel, but, he just wasn't feeling it anymore.

"...sigh. Nowadays it's all hunter this, hunter that. Has the world really come to this?" He sighed, reminiscing about the days when gaming was a big part of his life. "If The Great Awakening didn't happen... Then could we have gotten better-quality games? Heck... Maybe even VRMMORPGs could've been a thing."

Prior to being a hunter, he was a casual streamer, playing games and entertaining his audience for a living. But now, those days were long gone. The golden age of gaming had disappeared; overtaken by the era of dungeons and hunting. To the majority of gamers, it was a far more thrilling experience than just playing games like Code Name: Go, League of Rants or even Overclock 3.

"Hah... So many missed opportunities. Did it have to come to this?" Although he liked playing games, he couldn't deny that he himself also found the idea of hunting in dungeons more thrilling. It couldn't be compared to the competitive environment of gaming. "...dungeons and hunting, huh? Ugh. I'm on vacation. Let's try to think of something else to do."

Having lost the motivation to play a new console game or read a novel, the next best thing that came to mind was playing a gacha game. Of course, it wasn't that he was addicted to gambling. It was just that, compared to the modern games of today, gacha games were comparatively better in story, design, and even gameplay.

"Hmm... Should I play Generation Impact again? Or maybe Arcanium Knights..." In silent contemplation, Jace grabbed onto his phone, scrolling through the applications on Goomie Playstore the next moment. "Everything seems so boring though..." After a while of scrolling, an app called 'Rankers War' caught his eye. "Oh? Right. Wasn't this that gacha where it has a bunch of well-known hunters in it? It's apparently all the rage nowadays..."

Tapping on the app out of curiosity, he was immediately greeted by the sight of a ginger-haired man featured in the game's first screenshot. Following it, were a bunch of other S-Rankers known throughout the world of Terra, and "Ace" was nowhere to be seen.

"...seriously? Soren's the first to be displayed?" He silently grumbled, swiping past the first screenshot and checking out the rest. "Tactical RPG gameplay alongside original characters... Hmm. I might as well try it out. Seems interesting enough."

Soon after pressing the download button, Jace's phone vibrated in his hand, soon transitioning into a call, where he saw the name [ Problematic Dumbass ] on his screen. At that moment, the young man frowned, putting his phone to the side.

"Tch... Speak of the devil. Soren's calling..." He sighed, turning his phone upside down. "Well, now that I have to wait for the app to finish downloading... I've got nothing left to do." Seemingly ignoring the ringtone from his phone, Jace averted his attention over towards a pile of dungeon gear thrown to the side at the corner of his room. "...yeah, I've got nothing left to do, huh?"

All this while, Jace had been living as a hermit after his retirement. Not once had he contacted anyone or even stepped foot out of his house. To him, there was no reason to. But, after a week of just eating, sleeping and gaming, a thought slowly seeped into his mind. It was something that he wanted to avoid for as long as possible, but inevitably, it caught up to him.

"...just what am I going to do from here on out?" To be frank, Jace never thought far after retiring. All he knew was that he needed to retire as 'Ace' due to the class change that he had undergone. However, anything further than that was pushed aside for another time. "Now that I'm forced to start over... Should I officially call it quits? I already did the legwork of retiring, but..."

Much as how he had felt prior to his retirement, there was a feeling of uneasiness growing within his heart. He couldn't describe it nor could he ignore it anymore. He knew not of what to do. Between starting over and officially calling it quits, there was a block that prevented him from making a decisive decision.

"I'm a level one Synergist now. Is it really worth it?" Opening up his status window, he took another look at the details of his stats and skills, hoping that after analyzing his current state, he could finally make a choice on his future.