Chapter 3: The End was just a New Beginning (3)

<You've indicated 'Royal Roader's renewal as reality' as your wish. If this is correct, please press the confirm button.>

A new 'confirm' button appeared below.

They shouldn't have put so much effort into this.

I pressed the 'confirm' button.

Finally the screen moved on. And not much later, the screen froze. Instead, a new window popped up.

[Royal Roader's service has ended.]

I looked at the clock and noticed it was exactly 10pm.

I closed the game and tried logging onto the Royal Roader website to see if my wish was granted and if there was any news of a renewal.

Of course, I knew the chances of that happening were zero.

[The requested page cannot be found.]

'As expected.'

The homepage had disappeared. It had finally ended for good.

I felt like there was a giant hole in my chest. It feels like the first time I've ever felt this way in my life.

Royal Roader was that important of a game to me.

It wasn't like that from the beginning. I first started to play Royal Roader in the second year of middle school. It was because of something my friend Hwang Joon Yul said to me.

[Log into Royal Roader and go mine a 'Mithril'!

Well, our relationship is kind of complicate to call it friendship. Hwang Joon Yul was the coolest kid in the class and was in the position of giving me orders, and I was just his 'bread shuttle'.

He just pretended like he didn't know I was saying I was his friend as long as we were in the same class and I worked hard as his bread shuttle.

You're saying I was a wimp?

How laughable! You think you wouldn't have acted that way if you were in my shoes?

Hwang Joon Yul was at the top of the food chain at the school. I don't know what kind of man his dad was, but even the principal would shake in fear in front of Hwang Joon Yul.

Because of that, the majority of the students acted like his lackies. It was because I had some courage and conscience that I acted as his bread shuttle.

What does being a bread shuttle have to do with courage and conscience?

It's simple. I didn't have the courage to stand up to Hwang Joon Yul, but I also didn't want to bully other students.

That was why I didn't follow his command to 'slap that bastard ten times,' and that day, I got beat up so hard before it was decided that I would serve as his bread shuttle.

I think with that much, I can say I have courage and a conscience.

Anyways, Hwang Joon Yul commanded me to 'go mine a Mithril in Royal Roader,' and I followed his command diligently. I immediately created an account with Royal Roader and without thinking about leveling up, I spent all my time swinging a pickaxe.

That was how I spent six months of my life.

After he finished the mithril quest, Hwang Joon Yul gave me a new command.

[People say that it is easy for miners to become blacksmiths. Become a blacksmith so you can fix my weapons.]

I worked as hard as I could for another 3 months to become a blacksmith. And then I took all the worn out weapons that Hwang Joon Yul threw at me and fixed them up like new.

It was the definition of exploitation.

Because of that, Royal Roader was a game that felt like hell. To think that Royal Roader would end up becoming the flower of my life.

Hwang Joon Yul grew tired of Royal Roader after only 1 year. When we moved up to our third year, we were in different classes.

My real experience with Royal Roader started at that point.

At that point, Royal Roader had already been going for over three years. It was like I had started over 2 years later than all the other users.

Regardless of that, I leveled up at a scary speed. I swept a ton of Royal Roader's records and when I became a freshman in high school, I had become Royal Roader's strongest character.

I was not just the strongest character. I was so overwhelmingly strong that it wouldn't have been wrong to call me an overlord.

How was that possible?

Ironically, it was because of Hwang Joon Yul.

Did Hwang Joon Yul pass his character and items to me when he stopped playing?

Nonono!

How could you imagine such nonsense? Hwang Joon Yul would never do that.

Then my method?

It was because of all the mining in the mine. It turned out that a miner was a 'hidden class' in Royal Roader. The majority of users started by hitting a scarecrow when they first started playing Royal Roader. That's the only way to increase your 'dexterity,' the most important stat to use a weapon.

If you don't increase your dexterity, no matter how much you swing your weapon, they will all end up with a 'miss.' You wouldn't cause any damage at all. You had to raise it to at least Intermediate 1st level to start hunting.

Your stats also go up as well.

That is why the majority of people would spend around 30 minutes hitting the scarecrow to raise their dexterity to intermediate level 1, and the really persistent people would spend over 4 hours to raise it to intermediate level 2 before starting monster hunting.

Mining ended up having the same effect as hitting the scarecrow. Your dexterity went up as well as your stats.

I did that for about 6 months. Not six hours, not six days, not even six weeks, but six freaken months.

Thanks to that, I was able to raise my dexterity to advanced level 3. I was the only player in Royal Roader's 14 years to increase their dexterity to the advanced level.

That was not it. When you are mining, you tend to run into a lot of fortuitous encounters. Through those encounters, I gained a lot of stats or learned a lot of new skills that other people could not get. I even earned a unique slave.

The blacksmith was also similar to a hidden class. If you become the greatest blacksmith, you could even reach the level of 'One with the Sword,' where you are connected mentally with your sword, and could even become promoted to an alchemist.

I reached the 'One with the Sword' level after working as a blacksmith for 6 months, and I even got promoted to an alchemist. Of course, all of this was only possible because my dexterity was at an advanced level.

This was also something that only I managed to accomplish in Royal Roader's history.

Thanks to that, as soon as I started hunting out in the field, I could run wildly. Even if a horde of monsters over 10 levels higher than me were coming at me, I could easily defeat them on my own.

It's no surprise that I was able to create all sorts of new records.

Spending my time like that for 1 year, I had ended up becoming the strongest character in Royal Roader. No wonder I found it to be so fun.

No matter how difficult my life was, or what kind of sorrows I faced in life, I could forget about all of it once I logged in to Royal Roader. The moments I was playing Royal Roader were extremely delightful and made me happy.

I also earned a decent amount of money through it. It was easy for me to earn around 2,000,000 won a month, and if I was lucky, I could even gain an item worth 5,000,000 won in one go.

But that was it.

Royal Roader quickly started on its march to the afterlife and it finally came to today's situation.

"Sigh, what should I do with my life from now on?"

Should I find a new game and start fresh?

I didn't dare to do so. The only reason I was able to become an overlord in Royal Roader was because I happened to start on a path to a hidden class. Unless a coincidence like that happened again, it would be impossible.

It's also difficult for me to make time to play.

'Let's stop playing games! Am I even at a place to play games right now? Let's use that time to get a second job.'

Tomorrow, I should look for another job that I could work for a bit in the evening. In order to do that, I guess I should get a good night's rest.

I turned the light off and laid down.

Maybe it was because of my regret and longing for Royal Roader, but I could not fall asleep easily.

'How great would it be if Royal Roader was to reopen tomorrow?'

Was my imagination too much? I started to hear some weird chants in my head.

'Yes, please renew.'

My mind had headed towards the dream world at some point.

Even as I was falling asleep, the chants still continued. It was almost like a lullaby.

The chants didn't stop even after I fell completely asleep.

<...4, 3, 2, 1, 0. Now commencing Royal Roader's Reality version.>

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