Throughout the entire service life of Eraha Online, there had never been—and would never again be—a moment when the server chat scrolled this fast. You couldn’t even read the messages.
Thus, from the game’s launch-era to that point, Bingsu’s reign came to an end, and a new age began.
Because Eraha Online’s popularity had soared beyond that of an ordinary “national game,” there was not a single classroom in any elementary, middle, or high school across the country that didn’t talk about the legendary ranker Ignis the next day.
When Ignis drove out the tyrant castle-lord guild Bingsu and locked the tax at a rate lower than other servers’, the merchants who had run away to other realms came rushing back.
Nacht, once mocked as a “hick server,” suddenly bustled and shot up to second place in population among the twelve servers.
Later there were so many people that new character creation had to be suspended periodically.
All Yeonjun had wanted was to recover the loss someone had shoved on him, but before he knew it, he had become a hero of the entire game.
It was both burdensome and thrilling, filling him with pride.
His character and battle record were splashed across the main-site banner that every user saw before logging in, and wherever he went people recognized his nickname and cheered as if meeting a celebrity.
On the big portals, fan clubs sprang up that centered on elementary-school kids. Unless you had zero interest in games, not knowing who Ignis was could get you branded an outsider among your peers.
Ignis, the irreplaceable hero of the national game Eraha Online.
With so many eyes on him, Yeonjun had no choice but to act worthy of that title.
They say position makes the man. There were no other words were needed.
Yeonjun became the most spotlighted star among all players, a national hero whose real identity was unknown.
Even the official staff, who had seemed to tolerate Bingsu’s bad manners, contacted him and ran an Ignis interview in a magazine special edition. Various humor sites collected his stories as “best posts.”
It was like a dream, but Yeonjun knew that even if someone did nine things right, one mistake could make them a target.
I must never give them grounds to nitpick. Whatever happens, no one can find out I’m Ignis.
So, in real life, he hid the fact that he was that Ignis even more thoroughly.
He gave his few guildmates not a hint of who he was offline.They just guessed, from all his free time, that he might be on leave from school.
Thus Yeonjun’s identity remained a mystery. The hero with no age, no job, no trace stirred users into greater frenzy, and Yeonjun worked hard not to betray that expectation.
He fixed the tax at the minimum, patrolled the low-level questing war zones to prevent newbie slaughter, and cracked down hard on price manipulation like market hoarding—utterly crushing anyone who muddied Nacht’s waters.
He could do it all because his skill let him keep an unbroken winning streak against anyone.
And there was one grade schooler whose eyes sparkled whenever he saw Ignis.
In truth, Ignis had plenty of grade-school fans, but one boy’s fervor was exceptional.
Eraha Online was rated for all ages but basically it was a paid service. Students who couldn’t afford the monthly pass of over ten thousand won only had three free hours a day and were capped below level 50.
So all the boy could do was sometimes trail after the parked Ignis from a distance, secretly take screenshots, or repeatedly watch Ignis gameplay videos on FedoraTV or MoonPlayer.
Because of his low level, he couldn’t enter the contested zones where Ignis often appeared, let alone end up on the same raid or PvP team.
Someday, when I can pay to play Eraha Online with my own allowance, I’ll definitely join Flammer.
The boy cherished that dream and rolled a new character, Storm Haste, a Wind-attribute magic synergy dealer that paired best with Flamers. When he hit the free-trial level cap, his parents laid down a condition.
If he passed the exam to get into a top middle school, they would raise his allowance.
The boy had no choice but to set games aside. After all, during those three hours, all he could do was follow Ignis until Ignis vanished into a restricted area, and then he had absolutely nothing to do.
Time passed.
The boy graduated elementary school, became a middle-schooler, and his monthly allowance rose to thirty thousand won. Overjoyed, he logged into Eraha Online—only to find another name had replaced the castle lord.
Ignis had vanished. The account wasn’t deleted, but he had disappeared without a word.
The gray-lit “Ignis” in the one-sided friend list never lit up again.
No one knew why.
At first everyone guessed military service, yet two years passed and Ignis did not return, and Flammer’s remaining members moved servers, changed nicknames, or quit, fading into history.
Ignis, the boy’s first love and idol, burned the game’s early days with overwhelming presence—just like his nickname meant—and then disappeared.
Tower of Agony 50-floor fastest clear, first clear of the first epic raid, a perfect record in 1-on-1 PvP, longest castle tenure until he relinquished it himself, unbroken defense of Shal’s Base from launch onward—none of these feats had existed before or since.
Even after Ignis left, his legends were passed down among players, but that too lasted only seven or eight years.
In the game’s ninth year, a reboot update rebuilt almost everything, refreshing the player base.
The reboot succeeded. As the in-game models were upgraded to match trends, the failing Eraha Online became OpenGames’ longest-running revenue source.
With the influx of new players, Ignis’s hero tales were naturally buried.
Now, in Eraha Online’s twelfth year, that forgotten hero, Yeonjun…
“Ha…”
…sat before a monitor, brows furrowed, typing replies.
[Customer Support]
[1:1 Inquiry]
[Writer] BabyAnchovy
[Hello, GM! I’m Shin Han-sol, 4th-grade at Starlight Elementaryㅎㅎㅋ. I’m leaving this inquiry because I have a suggestion. Could you add a booster that looks like this as a new mount? I attached an image.]
Han-sol, you’re finally a 4th-grader. Uncle is happy for your growth. Please, grow quickly enough to realize this helps none of us.
Since 2nd grade, Han-sol had sent in his original mount designs every week. It was an established Monday ritual. Yeonjun mechanically pasted the familiar template.
[Responder] GM Clara
[Hello, Player!
This is GM Clara of Snowy Racing, always cheering on your dazzling runs!
We have forwarded your suggestion to the relevant department.
Should there be any progress, we will provide an additional reply.
Thank you for spending another day with Snowy Racing!
This was GM Clara!]
Uncle pastes this same reply every Monday, kiddo.
Yet an elementary student’s passion never tires. There wasn’t even a “relevant department.”
Updates had stopped five years ago. Snowy Racing, whose events just cycle on schedule, was a prehistoric game developed fifteen years back.
The tech structure was so old that the fact it still ran was a miracle; no change was possible. The only people still playing were lower-grade kids and a handful of adults clinging to childhood memories.
It survived merely as a symbol of the company. It’s one of the titles that, along with Eraha Online, had fed the whole firm in its early days.
But the “team” in charge was essentially exile duty: just two people.
Yeonjun was the combination lead, dev, QA, service, events, and story, plus a team lead.
After answering Han-sol, Yeonjun sighed and opened the next ticket.
[Customer Support]
[1:1 Inquiry]
[Writer] CrayonShingu
[I bombed a mock exam. Life feels too hard.]
Me too. Damn it.
Ha… Having to paste a macro into even this kind of ticket was what really drained Yeonjun.
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