The Return of the Genius Ranker of All Times - 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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Episode 1

Chapter 1.

Deus Ex Machina – Ragnarok.

Shortened to Demroc.

Demroc emerged with praise as the most perfect and detailed VR game in history, instantly capturing gamers’ attention.

And it wasn’t just simple interest.

Despite being a VR game, its outstanding realism and artificial intelligence exceeded expectations, achieving the remarkable feat of reaching 1st place in game rankings within just 3 days of release.

[Ragnarok]

[Deus Ex Machina]

[Demroc Skill Recommendations]

[What is Gacha]

The green window real-time rankings were always filled with Demroc.

As such, this game made money.

More precisely, it had tremendous potential to make money.

At least among all the games released so far, none had received greater attention than this.

That’s when the Dark Gamers appeared.

Those who make a living from games. The so-called rice-eating users.

‘This makes money.’

Dohyun was also one of them.

It wasn’t like that from the beginning.

He just happened to be passing by and saw a Demroc advertisement on a huge screen, tried it out of curiosity.

He discovered a gaming talent he didn’t know he had and decided to become a Dark Gamer.

Nevertheless, he could proudly say he made money from games.

[Kaiser – Rank 1]

[Annihilation – Rank 2]

[Kukkudakkukku – Rank 3]

[Sword Master – Rank 4]

[Purple Taste – Rank 5]

[Judge – Rank 6]

…

Despite starting later than other rankers, he managed to reach rank 1.

Moreover, he wasn’t just high in ranking.

Fraudulent physical abilities, genius combat sense, improvisation, PvP that transcended matchups – he lacked nothing.

People called him an unprecedented genius in history.

Countless people asked him questions.

How could he do that? How could they become like him?

Dohyun’s answer to such questions was always the same.

“Combat tips? Hmm… can’t you just see it?”

“…Excuse me?”

“When the opponent attacks, if you dodge, an opening appears. If you hit then, you can definitely hit without getting hit.”

“…”

An interview video uploaded under the name ‘Divine Deception.’

This video of Kaiser answering a user asking for combat tips was now a well-known anecdote among anyone who knew Demroc.

Though one might be angry at such extreme deception, everyone could feel the sincerity in Kaiser’s expression as if he genuinely didn’t understand why they were asking, so no one could even get angry.

-If it’s Kaiser, he could do that…

-Hahaha right, if you dodge and hit back you won’t get hit while landing your own strikes. Who doesn’t know that?

-If it were anyone else, I’d curse them out first, but since it’s Kaiser saying it, I can’t argue.

-Kaiser, he is god. Kaiser, he is god. Kaiser, he is god. Kaiser, he is god…

-God, he is Kaiser. God, he is Kaiser. God, he is Kaiser. God, he is Kaiser…

-Ugh, these Kaiser fanboys are at it again.

Instead, they became even more enthusiastic about Kaiser.

The reason people cheered for him as he reigned as the god of Demroc wasn’t simply because of his overwhelming genius.

Of course, that was his biggest trademark, but there was another decisive reason why many users viewed Kaiser favorably.

[New Skill Tree Created by Kaiser]

[Kaiser! Creates Another New Meta!]

[Even Dog Poop Has Its Uses! Kaiser’s Unique Method of Turning Ignored Skills into OP Skills…]

[Kaiser Character Building Guide]

[Legendary Boss Kabaurel! Kaiser’s Strategy is…]

It was the numerous strategy guides he uploaded.

Although most were incomprehensible guides like ‘dodge here and hit’ or ‘just hit around here,’ at least the skill trees were real.

And those skill trees were like rain in a drought for users.

-Kaiser’s new skill tree is up.

-Oh, awesome. He made it with non-mainstream skills again. I was wondering where to use Bite, but he applies it here? Simply god…

-Seriously, this game would’ve failed long ago without Kaiser.

-But what kind of world makes you draw skills by chance to build skill trees?

-It’s fucking annoying but strangely addictive.

-Yeah, that’s gambling addiction. Go see a doctor.

In this luck-based trash game where even skills were obtained through gacha, his skill trees were innovation itself.

There was even a saying: “Trust and use Kaiser skill trees.”

God-given talent.

Avatar of VR games.

Creator of metas.

Genius.

Countless modifiers were attached before his name.

Truly days worthy of being called a golden age.

But everything has an end.

Demroc, which was burning endlessly, would surely fall someday, and Dohyun was aware of this fact.

‘No, this is too much.’

But he didn’t know that day would come so quickly.

The first problem erupted 8 months after release.

A fatal problem occurred in Demroc.

-No, what the fuck, why is everything a gacha system? Isn’t it too much that even items are all gacha?

-Agreed, even the probabilities are all shit.

Everything being composed of gacha systems.

Everyone already knew this from the moment of release.

But since it was so popular and everything else was excellent, everyone endured it.

The problem was raids.

-Isn’t the point of games to do raids?

-Raids are the flower of RPGs!

Like most VR games, raids themselves weren’t something you could do easily.

You needed proper gear setup, level up, and good control.

Furthermore, you needed decent connections to do raids.

It was truly worthy of being called the flower of RPGs.

-They shouldn’t make raid rewards this shitty.

-Have you tried spending millions of won to get proper gear, then getting 5 consecutive bricks as raid rewards?

But this damn game played tricks even with raids.

To get stronger, you had to do raids, but to do those raids, you needed pretty good equipment.

After struggling to clear a raid, the reward you get is a brick?

As a gamer, there could be no greater sense of futility.

-I was really having fun, but I didn’t expect high-level content to be like this too.

-Raids are at least better. I grinded like hell to max out NPC favorability, so why the hell is the reward a gacha draw, seriously….

-This is why honey traps are so scary.

-Are there still any suckers out there sacrificing their liver and gallbladder to get bricks?

To make matters worse, the content that followed was also mostly below expectations or the kind that backstabbed players like this.

When you actually experience this, it drains every bit of affection you had, whether genuine or not.

“Damn shitty game!”

Eventually, countless users left the game.

From those who played for money to regular users.

Within a year of release, its ranking plummeted, and by the second year, it had become a stagnant game where finding newbies was harder than plucking stars from the sky.

And when the third year came, even the few remaining veterans became hard to find.

A game that no longer made money.

A game where mentioning you played Demroc would get you called a sucker first.

A game that always appeared in memes about washing your hands instead of shaking them.

A game so stagnant it had become diluted!

‘Why am I even playing this shitty game?’

But even while saying that, Dohyun didn’t quit.

It was something he couldn’t understand himself.

Whether he had developed a love-hate relationship over three years, or if it was similar to reaching for cigarettes despite knowing they’re harmful to your body.

Despite clearly starting for the money, he had stayed longer than anyone else.

But now even that was coming to an end.

[Hello. This is Deus Ex Machina – Ragnarok.]

[Service will terminate in 30 minutes.]

“….”

As is always the case with failed games, Demroc too was facing service termination.

As he stared at the notice floating alone, he heard a chuckling voice.

“I shouted dozens of times that I hoped this fucking shitty game would fail… but now that it’s actually failing, I feel strangely conflicted.”

Glancing to the side, he saw a burly muscle pig of an Afro with purple skin.

It was ‘Purple Taste’, one of the hardcore veteran users.

An old-timer who hadn’t missed a single day from the first day of release until now.

He was so passionate that the close-knit veterans had half-jokingly made him a perfect attendance award in front of the campfire.

His gaming skills were terrible, but he was a pay-to-win player with ridiculous capital and grinding power.

‘There were many rumors he was a building owner. He denied it till the end, but….’

That old-timer looked quite bitter as he crouched in front of the campfire.

At his muttering, a man with the dignified image of a swordsman who had his hands over the campfire, ‘Sword Master’, nodded.

“I agree. It’s fun except for being a luck-based shitty game, so I don’t know why it’s failing.”

“Isn’t that the problem? Even tigers leave their hide when they die, but dragons leaving bricks was too much.”

“…Did you really have to kill the mood like that?”

“What, it’s not wrong either. Can’t I even curse a failing game that’s about to disappear?”

The person bickering with Sword Master while wearing a masquerade mask and gentleman’s suit was ‘Kukkudakkukku’.

He was famous for being fearlessly reckless as his speech suggested, but his physical skills were also ridiculously good, so he could demolish everyone.

“Are you not taking off that mask until the very end?”

“…Shut up. You should stop that concept speech pattern too. You’re actually in your twenties but it’s cringey.”

“And you still lack refinement in your speech.”

“What? Want to have a go after a while?”

“Tsk. All you know is brawling….”

Though Dohyun maintained first place, they were already top-tier rankers when Dohyun first started the game—veterans who had stagnated beyond redemption.

Their actual combat abilities didn’t differ much from skilled players.

Thanks to them, he had received a lot of help….

Dohyun, who had been looking at them with bitter feelings, spoke up.

“It is regrettable.”

“….”

A brief silence settled over them.

They just sat around the campfire, wearing profound expressions as if reminiscing about something.

Purple Taste was the first to speak.

“Well, you’d have reason to feel regretful. You studied this game more than anyone.”

“It was always fascinating watching you fight. I could understand the principles theoretically, but I wondered if it made sense… The term ‘God’s Deception’ didn’t come about for nothing.”

“Well, we benefited from that guy’s skill tree too. Usually it’s either brains or physical ability, but how do you have both?”

As they began speaking one by one, Kukkudakkukku, who had been chiming in, soon burst into laughter as if remembering something.

“But God is fair. Your luck is the worst among us. Kekeke.”

“Well, you only got low-grade skills… Maybe you studied to survive?”

“Does it make sense for someone without a single legendary skill to be ranked first? If that guy’s luck was just a bit better, he wouldn’t have even shared a table with us, right?”

“People should have seen him wailing ‘The world is picking on me!’ after failing enhancement ten times in a row. It probably would have circulated in communities with a name like ‘God’s Lament’.”

“Puhaha! Looking at it, that guy is the worst one of all.”

“Ahem… It was the worst luck I’ve ever seen.”

Even Sword Master, who had been listening quietly, nodded at Purple Taste’s hearty laughter.

Even with their characteristic banter that was hard to tell if it was praise or insult, Dohyun maintained a calm expression.

He had heard such talk plenty.

Being a gacha game, stories about Dohyun’s miraculous bad luck were consistently brought up.

He used to get angry about it at first, but at some point, he would chuckle when hearing it, though now for some reason his heart felt heavy.

Maybe because it was his first game, but this was the first time he had clung to and obsessed over something like this….

Was it because he was thinking that such a game was completely ending?

‘I don’t know either.’

After about ten minutes of such meaningless conversation.

[Hello. This is Deus Ex Machina – Ragnarok.]

[Service termination will proceed as scheduled. Thank you for being with us until the end.]

Seeing the additional message that appeared, the veterans began getting up from their seats one by one.

“…Now it’s really the end.”

“Good work everyone. In this luck-based shitty game where concurrent users might not even reach double digits.”

“If we meet again later, let’s meet in a godly game next time.”

Starting with Sword Master, Purple Taste and Kukkudakkukku logged out in order.

He was alone in an instant.

Being left alone in front of the campfire made him feel even more melancholy.

Fwoosh.

Dohyun’s vision, which had been gazing at the night sky for a moment, was dyed in deeper darkness.

Instead of chirping sounds, hearing the VR device running, Dohyun touched the switch of the VR gear on his head.

Click.

[This is a terminated game service.]

However, what unfolded was not the night sky but a brief message.

“….”

Only after seeing that message did Dohyun remove his helmet and let out a short sigh.

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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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