I must look like a madman.
But I can’t help it.
Hesitantly, I opened my mouth and spoke to my reflection in the mirror.
“Who am I? What’s my name?”
My name is Park Jin-woo. Yes, that’s right. Jin-woo Park.
I have three older sisters. My father, overjoyed to finally have a son after so many daughters, gave me that name.
But the name that came from my mouth was not the one in my head.
“Valerius Maximilian von Augustus.”
It was the name of a nobleman from some country I’d never even heard of. A ridiculously, bizarrely long name.
Had I suddenly recalled a past life? I certainly hoped not. No, I knew it wasn’t anything so fantastical.
My reflection told me everything.
My eyes were sharper, my gaze more intense. My physique was leaner, more defined. And then there were the words that flashed before my eyes, a translucent screen hanging in the air.
It was an awakening. I had become a player.
That much, I could accept. The world had changed, and this was the new reality. The problem was this new appearance and the absurd name that came with it.
No matter how I looked at it, this was a ghost from over a decade ago.
[Name: Valerius Maximilian von Augustus]
Twelve years ago, to be exact. I was fifteen, in the throes of my cringiest middle school phase. The origin of this character was painfully obvious.
I muttered to myself.
“My younger self must have been seriously screwed up.”
To think I’d once pretended to be a nobleman.
Tsk.
I was well and truly fucked.
Despite my inner turmoil, my movements were unnervingly calm. I retrieved an unused teacup from the cupboard and brewed a cup of green tea—something I would normally never touch. I sat at the table and took a slow, deliberate sip.
It didn’t smell bad.
Still, this felt like acting in a period drama. The thought was as awkward as the stilted way I held the cup.
I could just feel it. My every action, my very tone of voice, had been altered by the awakening.
Player awakening. I’d always thought it was something that happened to other people. I’d practically forgotten it was even a possibility for me. It had all started more than a decade ago with Chronicles of Elysia.
Thirteen years ago, it was the virtual reality game that had dominated the charts since its release. It wasn't just a game; for many, it was a second life.
Then, the world broke.
[Unidentified Structures Appearing Worldwide. Are They Related to the Elysia Shutdown?]
Elysia had become reality.
[Monstrous Creatures Emerge Across the Globe! Japanese Netizen Claims: “It’s an Elysia Monster!” Controversy Erupts.]
Monsters from the game now roamed our streets.
[A New Species? Monstrous Creatures Defeated with Bare Hands!]
And those monsters could be hunted. People began to awaken, inheriting the abilities of their characters from Elysia.
Years had passed since that cataclysm. The world of Elysia had been fully superimposed onto our own.
I’d been serving in the army when the news first broke. I remember being completely dumbfounded.
“Ha. If I’d known this would happen, I never would have quit,” I’d muttered to myself while standing guard one night, imagining a different life.
Because the players were modern-day heroes.
[Player Defeats Named Monster, Vorlag, the “Gilded Blight”!]
[Rift Clearing Rewards Estimated at Over 5 Billion Won.]
[Close-Up Interview: Choi Hyun-seok, the Player Who Prevented a Catastrophe.]
But that was just a fleeting fantasy.
“It’s not like I’d awaken with anything useful, anyway,” I’d told myself.
I had quit Chronicles of Elysia after less than a year. Reality had gotten in the way. The connection rig alone cost ten million won, and the monthly subscription fee was hundreds of thousands.
“Kids… I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Dad. You don’t have to apologize to us.”
“Just look at my face. Your mom can’t even stand to see how pale I’ve gotten.”
“Dad, really. What’s wrong with Mom is her own business.”
“We’re all grown up. Don’t worry about us.”
I was about to enter high school on the day the foreclosure notice was slapped on our door. After that, I completely lost interest in games like Chronicles of Elysia.
That didn't change in high school. I was forced to study, like it or not, and that path led me here. A decent enough job, a decent enough apartment. I visited my family in my hometown every weekend. It was a modest life, but I wasn’t greedy. It was enough.
So what in the world was this?
My head throbbed. I forced myself to take another sip of tea.
For now, I had to stop thinking about how much I felt like an actor in a cheap historical drama. The point was, I had awakened as a player. The character I created twelve years ago in Chronicles of Elysia—Valerius Maximilian von Augustus—had been imprinted onto me, Park Jin-woo.
I’d seen interviews about this phenomenon.
“What’s the biggest change since your awakening? It’s the feeling of assimilation. I feel like my real self and my game character have merged into one. It’s almost like being possessed, I guess.”
“Well, it’s not true possession, since I was the one who played the character. It’s more like the lines have blurred.”
“I think that’s one of the reasons I can face real monsters without being scared.”
But my case was different. For one, I hadn’t touched the game in over a decade. And for another, my fifteen-year-old self had been deeply immersed in the persona of Valerius Maximilian von Augustus.
“This is delicious,” I heard myself say.
The tea was actually good. My taste buds had changed. My head was spinning.
Was this the result of my old Elysia character data being overlaid onto my soul?
Slowly, the forgotten settings for Valerius Maximilian von Augustus began to surface in my mind. Of course, it was an extensive backstory, born from a severe case of what they call middle-school syndrome.
Valerius Maximilian von Augustus.
Age unknown. Heir to a fallen noble house, destroyed by a great devil. As the sole survivor, Valerius—as he preferred to be called—had dedicated his life to hunting demons to avenge his family. His defining features were his long, silver hair, his handsome appearance, and a refined, noble manner of speech.
To think I’d come up with something so uselessly specific.
God, damn it, past me!
It was a character concept so edgy it made me cringe just thinking about it.
Of course, none of that flowery backstory was ever reflected in the actual game. It was all just nonsense I’d scribbled down in a notebook. In the game, a Fallen Noble was just a fancy name for a broke, level one beginner. I’d just picked the setting because it sounded cool.
Yeah, only one part of that long, embarrassing setup had any truth to it.
I was destined to be a demon hunter.
[Name: Valerius Maximilian von Augustus]
[Class: Abyssal Stalker]
Back then, the main reason I played Elysia was for the roleplaying. I wasn’t just playing a character; I was living as Valerius. Thinking about it now, I must have been out of my mind. I was in my second year of middle school.
It should have been a memory I could laugh about. A fond, embarrassing memory.
But now, the memory I most wanted to forget had become my reality.
Damn it. My migraine was getting worse. I could feel my face flush with shame, and I prayed no one could see me.
No, wait a minute.
I have to go to work tomorrow!
I needed to think about this rationally. Could I really go to my office and function normally? Could I maintain a social life? It was already hard enough. There were countless times a day I had to swallow my pride and bow my head to superiors.
But now, thanks to Valerius’s personality bleeding into my own, even my tastes had changed. Could I survive in the cutthroat corporate world?
Valerius Maximilian von Augustus is noble. He never bows his head, no matter who he faces. His pride is a heavy, unshakeable thing—he would rather sink and drown beneath its weight than compromise it.
I’d be lucky not to get fired for throwing coffee in my boss’s face. The settlement would probably cost more than my annual salary.
How long could I keep my head down? After a long, dignified moment of teatime, I came to a conclusion.
I couldn’t. Not anymore.
My life as a corporate drone was over. I was quitting my job. From now on, I would be a player.
To some, this might seem like a rash, unreasonable decision. But to me, it felt entirely rational.
Think about it. I would be a walking disaster in any office. My bank account would drain just trying to keep up with my new, ridiculously aristocratic tastes. I’d have to budget for tea parties I didn’t even enjoy. The need to make money had suddenly become far more pressing.
In other words, to make a living, I had no choice but to be a player.
Of course, I wasn't greedy. As I’d gotten older, I’d learned my limits. The teenage delusions of being a special, chosen one obsessed with Valerius were long gone. I was no longer sick with that particular brand of middle-school disease.
All I wanted was to survive. But wouldn’t being a player put my life in even more danger?
First things first: research.
I knew very little about the world of players. I’d never aspired to become one; I was too busy trying to make a living to pay much attention. I’d only ever envied them for the money they made.
Hmm.
Dozens of billions, hundreds of billions. The news was filled with articles about players earning fortunes.
But as I read, another thought intruded, cool and detached. For Valerius Maximilian von Augustus, riches were fleeting. Born the heir to a great family and having tasted the end of affluence, he saw no reason to obsess over glorified wealth.
I guess that was another side effect of this damned character setting. I should probably be thankful. At least I wouldn't be risking my life out of simple greed.
But there was a much more serious problem.
I was weak. Would I even be able to kill a single monster? Could I even pull my own weight in a party?
The level of monsters in the real world was insane. I was no match for them. I found a video of a recent Rift subjugation and scrolled through the comments.
“Wow, that was a close call.”
“An average party level of 200 barely made it through, right?”
“The monsters just keep getting stronger.”
“Rankers must love it, though. The experience payout must be huge.”
An average party level of 200.
I checked my own status again.
[Name: Valerius Maximilian von Augustus]
[Class: Abyssal Stalker]
[Level: 55]
Only level 55. My level hadn’t changed in over a decade. Back then, while not a ranker, I was still a reasonably high-level player.
How times have changed. They say ten years is enough for a river to change its course.
“Why did I waste so much time?” I muttered, a wave of self-pity washing over me.
On a whim, I typed “Abyssal Stalker” into the search bar.
Right, I’d almost forgotten. How do you even build a Abyssal Stalker? It had been so long.
Back in the day, Demon Hunters had a very specific progression path. Unlike other classes that could level up by grinding monsters, Demon Hunters could only gain experience by completing specific quests.
[Skills]
Natural Enemies
Silver Mastery
Shooting Mastery
Simultaneous Shooting
Demon Ritual
The vast majority of these quests involved exterminating demons. This made the class extremely limited.
[Natural Enemy]: Massively increases combat power when fighting against demons.
It was a class that boasted overwhelming strength against demons but had crippled stats against everything else. A class that was completely useless in any normal hunting ground.
That was the reality of being a Abyssal Stalker.
So, why not just hunt demons?
If anyone had asked that back then, the answer would have been simple: at the time, there were no demonic monsters in Elysia. The only time a Abyssal Stalker ever saw a demon was during a class-specific quest.
As a result, the Abyssal Stalker was a deeply unpopular class.
But that was the past. A full decade had passed. Surely, by now, new Demon Hunters had emerged. The old guides from the game wouldn't apply perfectly to the real world, but they would be a start.
Good.
The fog that had clouded my mind since awakening was finally starting to clear. Maybe it was the tea, maybe not. Either way, I was thankful to be living in the information age. I could find anything with a few taps on my phone.
I typed “Abyssal Stalker build” into the search bar.
I scrolled through the results.
“What the hell is this?”
The results were not what I expected.
[Asphodel Garrison Wiped Out? All NPCs Confirmed Dead.]
What the hell happened to Elysia in the last ten years?
Asphodel Garrison. It was the headquarters for the Demon Hunters, the only place where a player could take the class advancement quests, complete the training, and officially become one.
But for some reason, it had been destroyed, and all its NPCs were gone. As a result, it was no longer possible to become a Abyssal Stalker.
That had happened a long time ago?
Wait, what about me? Where were the new Abyssal Stalker quests?
After scouring forums and community sites, I came to a shocking realization.
No way.
“I miss the old days. Back then, there was a class called Abyssal Stalker.”
“Lol? Never heard of it.”
“Abyssal Stalker was such a trash class back then.”
“I tried leveling one, deleted it, and re-rolled.”
“It was just a pain to play, not that it performed well.”
The more I searched, the more certain I became.
There wasn’t a single active player with the Abyssal Stalker class. Because I had awakened now, after all this time…
I was the only one.
Unbelievable.
I cursed my past self and my stupid sense of style. I was the type to value aesthetics over performance, but even I would have hesitated if I’d known this would happen.
My head was pounding again, probably from the sudden influx of information. I needed a break. I was about to put down my phone when a single post caught my eye.
“I should have kept my Abyssal Stalker.”
What was this about? Why would anyone post something like that?
Curious, I clicked on the thread.
And I was stunned.
“The new update officially added Chthonians, and that’s when the difficulty of Rifts skyrocketed. If it weren’t for the Chthonians, real players wouldn’t be losing their lives, right?”
What? Chthonians were added to the game?
Chthonians were running rampant in the real world?
Could this be…
A possibility flashed through my mind, so bright it was almost blinding. But I didn’t dare say it out loud. High hopes only lead to bitter disappointment. After all, players with levels far higher than mine were struggling against these new enemies.
I muttered to myself, the words of my old character description echoing in my mind with newfound, terrifying weight.
“The pride of Valerius Maximilian von Augustus is, ironically, most exalted in the presence of demons.”
“Consider it an honor.”
“All the devils’ temptations, deceptions, and trials cannot make a dent in Valerius’s noble pride.”
“I will condemn you to hell.”