Sword Master With One Strike Kill - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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One-Strike Kill Swordmaster Episode 1

Episode 1. Prologue.

It all started with a rather trivial story.

[Strawberry Latte] : Bro, don’t you get tired of playing hardcore games all the time?

Open-world dark fantasy RPG, Lost Elder.

Commonly known as LoEl.

Despite grinding away for a whopping 12 years, I had never once seen the true ending of this game.

And it wasn’t just my story.

Even though quite some time had passed since its release, no one had yet seen the damn true ending of this game. Everyone had only seen bad endings.

‘That’s how insanely difficult Lost Elder is.’

Bosses with bizarre patterns.

Unnecessarily detailed and vast world maps.

Growth systems that were endlessly unfriendly to players.

True to being a game that boasted extreme hardcore difficulty, Lost Elder had absolutely hellish difficulty.

‘Even renowned gaming YouTubers from around the world would boldly throw down the gauntlet only to give up within days… that says it all.’

Because of this, Lost Elder’s brief moment of popularity quickly faded.

In an era where easy-to-control and simple games dominated the mainstream, it was natural for games like Lost Elder to decline.

Now there were only about 50 users domestically who were seriously sticking with this obsolete game.

These few users gathered in the Community to continuously exchange information in hopes of somehow clearing the game.

I was one of those players too.

[Strawberry Latte] : How about trying some variety play this time?

[Strawberry Latte] : It seems like Lost Elder is the only game you play, so what if you get tired of even this?

Just then, my younger companion who had been tackling the game with me suddenly offered some advice.

Telling me not to just play hardcore games all the time and to try some variety play too.

“…”

Normally, I would have lightly ignored what he said.

And for good reason, since I was a user who preferred hardcore gaming over casual gaming.

As someone who played Lost Elder solely to see the true ending, childish things like casual gaming didn’t match my style.

‘…Should I really try it once?’

But that day was different.

After 12 years of repeated strategy failures, I had fallen into serious burnout.

With my mind and body exhausted to the limit, I needed new stimulation.

So…

Click-.

…I was thinking of trying what people commonly call Concept Play for the first time in this playthrough.

[Strawberry Latte] : By the way, I don’t understand.

[Strawberry Latte] : How could you play Lost Elder for 12 years and never try concept play even once?

[The Protagonist] : It’s a difference in preferences, I guess.

[The Protagonist] : You’ve been playing League of Legends for over 10 years but never play support characters either.

[Strawberry Latte] : Is that the same thing…?

It is.

At least it was for me.

[Strawberry Latte] : Anyway.

[Strawberry Latte] : Usually variety play is divided into two types.

[Strawberry Latte] : Either you raise a trash character from the start like a strength mage.

[Strawberry Latte] : Or you dump all stats into just one talent to solidify your concept.

[The Protagonist] : I’ll have to go with the latter.

[Strawberry Latte] : Talent dumping?

[The Protagonist] : Yeah

Originally, dumping all stats into just one talent was a taboo action in Lost Elder.

Because of this game’s system, characters needed a proper ‘foundation’ to perform certain actions.

To wield heavy weapons, you needed corresponding strength or stamina stats, and to handle magic, you needed sufficient mana or intelligence stats as a foundation.

For this reason, hexagonal characters that distributed abilities evenly became established as the most stable and efficient play style recognized by rankers.

‘But well, what I’m doing today isn’t efficient play anyway…’

Since this was a character made purely for fun, I could throw efficiency to the dogs.

Therefore, I was planning to just dump all stats into one talent.

Click-.

Sword.

One of the 【Hidden Mastery: Weapon Arts】 traits that could only be unlocked by players who defeated mid-bosses.

There wasn’t any particular special reason; I just chose this talent because I liked sword characters.

“Let’s see. I’ll put this in, and let me try adding this too…”

Not only the basic starting stats provided in the game, but I poured every single additional option I had gained through hundreds of playthroughs into the character.

Achievement points, additional points gained from killing named monsters, and so on.

“…Phew, I guess this should be enough.”

After finishing all stat distribution, I looked at the monitor screen.

True to being a game with high freedom, even this ridiculous setting of dumping everything into just one talent was being applied.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

Strength : 1

Agility : 1

Stamina : 1

Mana : 1

Intelligence : 1

…

【Hidden Mastery】

Weapon Arts

Sword : Lv. MAX

━━━━━━━━━━━━

After finishing customization, the character’s form appeared along with the status window.

Seeing his appearance, I couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

“Puhaha, what is this!”

An endlessly frail-looking character appeared beyond the screen.

The skin-and-bones guy looked like he was about to collapse at any moment, swaying weakly.

In his hands was a crude one-handed sword, and the character dragged the weapon across the ground as if even that was too heavy for him.

Snicker-.

At the ridiculous sight, I let out a mocking laugh at the character beyond the screen.

What good is overflowing talent with swords?

When you’re such a weakling that even a one-handed sword is too heavy.

As if to represent the inner thoughts of this pitiful character, the game’s system began outputting the following messages in succession.

〔Warning: Some stats are abnormally low.〕

〔System Recommendation: We recommend redistributing your stats-〕

“Decline.”

I immediately ignored that warning.

〔Warning: This character cannot play normally.〕

〔Are you sure you want to proceed with the game like this-〕

“Yes.”

So what if normal play is impossible?

I created this character with that intention from the very beginning.

Click-.

I clicked the arrow to proceed to the next step.

At that very moment, a message appeared on the monitor.

〔The Pantheon is amazed by your unprecedented talent! The forgotten Tuners bless your path ahead!〕

〔Reward: You have acquired the hidden skill 【Soul of the Sword Master】.〕

“…Huh? What’s this?”

I furrowed my brow.

A hidden skill? Did Roel have something like this?

“Normally after customization ends, it should go straight to a cutscene, right?”

A phenomenon that had never occurred once in 12 years of playing the game.

I muttered to myself with a puzzled voice and read the skill window that appeared in the corner of the monitor.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

【Soul of the Sword Master】

Grade: ★★★★★★★★★★★★(12-Star – Mythic Grade)

Type: On/Off Skill

Cost: 100 Mana per second

[Skill Description]

Among tens of millions of ordinary people, those with the most outstanding talent are called ‘geniuses.’ Among tens of millions of geniuses, the most outstanding are called ‘Sword Masters.’

You possess the most outstanding talent among tens of millions, no… hundreds of millions of Sword Masters.

So hold your chest high with pride. No threat whatsoever will be able to break you.

[Passive Effect]

Your ‘Mental Power’ stat is permanently set to ‘MAX.’

[Active Effect]

While the skill is active, you reach the ultimate realm.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

“…What?”

My eyes widened in an instant.

“Soul of the Sword Master? No, wait. More importantly, a 12-star skill?”

Goosebumps covered my entire body.

12-star.

And it’s even Mythic grade.

This was the first time I’d encountered such a high-grade skill while playing Roel.

The highest grade skill known until now was only 10-star, so what is this?

“Wow, damn, I should take a photo.”

Click-!

I took out my smartphone and photographed the screen.

The quality would be worse than directly capturing the PC screen, but at least I wouldn’t be accused of faking it.

[The Protagonist]: Hey.

[The Protagonist]: A 12-star skill appeared.

[The Protagonist]: (Photo)

I immediately sent the photo to Strawberry Latte.

Then, in less than 3 seconds, notifications started ringing incessantly.

[Strawberry Latte]: ????

[Strawberry Latte]: No, what the hell did you do?

[The Protagonist]: I put in all the points I had and this happened.

[Strawberry Latte]: I also dump all my points every time I do concept plays, you know? But I’ve never had something like that happen.

[The Protagonist]: How many Achievement points do you have.

[Strawberry Latte]: …About 30 million?

“30 million…”

Swoosh-.

I glanced at the number written in the corner of the screen.

【179,312,341 pt】

Rounded up, it was a whopping 180 million points.

That was about 6 times more than Strawberry Latte, who was ranked 2nd.

I could instantly understand why other people hadn’t discovered 12-star skills until now.

‘You need to invest this many points to get hidden rewards.’

If I had known this, I would have tried concept plays much earlier.

[Strawberry Latte]: But how many points do you have that such a skill appeared?

[The Protagonist]: (Photo)

[Strawberry Latte]: ?

The chat window instantly went quiet after I uploaded a photo of my Achievement points.

Even after waiting about 3 minutes, no reply came.

He must have been quite shocked indeed.

“Well, anyway….”

I turned my gaze back toward the monitor.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

【 Soul of the Swordmaster 】

Grade : ★★★★★★★★★★★★(12-Star – Mythic Grade)

Type : On/Off Skill

━━━━━━━━━━━━

Soul of the Swordmaster.

Even without knowing its detailed effects, it was surely a skill with absurd power.

And for good reason, since its grade reached a whopping 12 stars.

Even 【Meteor】, which could completely erase a small city from the map, was only 10 stars, so that says it all.

“Ah, wait.”

But as I examined the description more closely, I couldn’t help but frown.

It was because I discovered a completely unexpected problem.

〔Consumption: 100 Mana per second〕

“Haah….”

A consumption rate of 100 mana per second.

There couldn’t be a more devastating setback than this.

Right. Of course, 100 mana wasn’t a particularly large amount.

The average MP pool for characters who had left the starting area was about 2,000.

Considering that, 【Soul of the Swordmaster】 was a skill that could easily be activated for about 20 seconds from early on.

‘However….’

〔MP : 1/1〕

…the character here wasn’t a ‘normal’ character.

The maximum MP value was 1.

The problem was that I had jokingly set all stats except swordsmanship talent to 1.

With this, could I use the skill for only 0.01 seconds?

No, I wondered if the skill would even activate in the first place.

“Rather than being unable to use the 12-star skill I finally obtained, it would be better to redistribute the stats again….”

I pressed the back button to increase the character’s mana pool even slightly.

That way, I could at least get a taste of that 12-star skill.

Click-.

“…Huh?”

At that moment, the game screen suddenly froze.

“What the. Why is this happening.”

Click, click, click-!

No matter how much I clicked the mouse, the screen wouldn’t change.

I muttered in an irritated voice.

“Ah, shit. Really.”

I was about to force quit, thinking the old game had lagged or something.

“Huh? Huh huh…?”

A meaningful message appeared and the screen began emitting bright light.

〔O one who has transcended limits.〕

〔Challenge the impossible and become a ‘legend’ yourself.〕

Whoooooosh-!

My vision darkened and I lost consciousness. Along with a floating sensation throughout my body as if caught in a whirlpool.

…That was as far as my memory went.

* * *

Didn’t I say so? That the beginning was quite a trivial story.

A veteran gamer tinkering with new playthrough customization and ending up possessing into the game along with a screwed-up character—such an all-too-common story.

I never imagined I would become the protagonist of that story.

“Fuck.”

…And so, five days had already passed since I entered the game.

* * *

〔Hidden Message : You have started your 200th playthrough.〕

〔Hidden Message : You are the first player to enter the world.〕

〔Hidden Message : The timeline of Lost Elder begins to flow.〕

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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