There was nothing wrong with it in principle.
Back then, Yeonjun was young, and it never occurred to him that adults, easily ten or fifteen years older, people of uncle age to him, might still crave a raid even though real life left them no time to practice.
He simply couldn’t understand.
You’re adults, he thought. Don’t waste other people’s time if you can’t improve.
He wished those so-called “villains,” who showed no progress yet never considered the party’s time, would just stay away.
And so, the static party dissolved, and just before gloom descended on Yeonjun’s life, a post on the Incident-Report board sent a chill down his spine.
[Incident Report Board]
Title : (Nacht) [Defendant] Crayon [Reason] Inexperienced mechanics at Kalem’s Nest + Progress fraud
(body)
(screenshot)
He’s been queueing for public parties at dawn for three weeks straight, yet shows so little improvement that it feels like griefing. Posting this so you can avoid him.
(screenshot)
Seeing Crayon’s play log attached in the screenshot made Yeonjun’s back go cold.
Crayon hadn’t skipped practice. Every time he had been kicked out.
Why, when he had practiced, did he choose to be misunderstood as a freeloader who never lifted a finger? Back then, Yeonjun couldn’t understand. Now he could.
Once a top dog in an overseas raid title, Crayon had fallen so far in just ten years that he couldn’t keep pace with the very first end-content of a newcomer game, getting kicked out everywhere he went.
Yet his pride couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t accept that he, once so good, was now unable to progress nor could he stand letting kids young enough to be his nephews see how exhausted and stagnant he was.
Is that inevitable when you get older…?
If you keep hovering around hardcore content, unable to forget the glory and fun of the past, but refuse to admit your reflexes aren’t what they were, are you doomed to end up reported like that?
Watching—not just Crayon, but many gamers he’d once respected—collapse one by one as they became responsible for their own livelihoods, he made a decision.
When I grow older, I’ll retire from raids, no matter what. The glory of the moment is for now only. Before I become like that, I’ll graduate from games and live real life.
There was a time he vowed that, unable to see even one year ahead.
Ten years passed.
Ah~ here comes the middle-aged office worker who can’t act his age.
Smirking with dead eyes, Yeonjun scratched his head.
You ran your mouth like that and six years later you applied to a game company and got hired.
He told a truth that his past self would never hear.
Even older, slower, and lacking the energy of the past, when he looked for a hobby that needed little money, prep, or time, only games came to mind.
Office life meant lots of sitting. He kept up basic workouts to survive but had no desire to dive into full-time gym culture.
Single-player console games? He’d played plenty, but after finishing every DLC within a month, nothing matched an MMORPG with ten years of accumulated content. So, bit by bit, he’d ended up back in Eraha Online.
He wasn’t as old as Crayon had been, yet he now understood the man’s feelings although he himself absolutely did notwant to end up that way.
I’m sure I was faster than this, could do this easily. At this difficulty I should recall the moves…
It’s easy to think you’ve only slipped a little from your past peak, but reality is never so kind.
Manager, what were you thinking, raiding till daybreak…
If it hadn’t hurt his job performance, that alone would count as lucky. Adults have adult problems.
When you’re grown, the energy must go to work and family, not games. Growing older doesn’t just mean less free time and slower fingers. It means knowing exactly where your priorities lie.
Long preamble aside: recalling old ties, Yeonjun vowed he would not repeat that path. He couldn’t guarantee the future, but if anyone remembered him as a hero, he would rather die than scramble back into hardcore content now and show a weaker self.
Old soldiers never die, but the gaming world doesn’t wait. He’d sooner let past glory sleep than kill it with his own hands. He shook his head firmly.
[Whisper/Ignis : I honestly have no plans for combat content.]
[Whisper/Ignis : Your offer alone is plenty, thank you.]
[Whisper/Ignis : But I only just returned,]
[Whisper/Ignis : and I’m not sure I’ll even keep playing.]
That was the truth. Like a salmon swimming upstream for nostalgia, he’d crawled back, but if a quick taste turned out boring, he’d drop it.
He had spent time working on the game as part of the studio staff, sure—but if it wasn’t fun, he had no reason to stick around.
If a game is fun, it justifies itself. If it isn’t, it’s not worth the time.
Though he’d avoided social online games for a while, at the heart, he was still a rational gamer.
[Whisper/Dohaesal : So you really just logged in, huh?]
[Whisper/Ignis : Yep, that’s right.]
[Whisper/Dohaesal : OK. If anything blocks you,]
[Whisper/Dohaesal : feel free to ping me right away.]
[Whisper/Dohaesal : Mind if I add you?]
[Whisper/Dohaesal : Our guild would be even better, though.]
What are you on about? Why would I join your guild? He’d refuse that for sure, but flatly rejecting a friend request too would look suspicious. Tsk. He clicked the keys.
[Whisper/Ignis : I’ll think more about a guild.]
[Whisper/Dohaesal : Then is a friend request OK?]
Why is this guy so fast? Yeonjun wasn’t slow, but he at least allowed people a moment to read.
[Whisper/Ignis : Sure,]
[Whisper/Ignis : a friend request is fine.]
Thinking little of it, he right-clicked the rabbit-eared avatar.
[Dohaesal]
View Gear | Trade | Party Invite | Add Friend | Block
He clicked Add Friend; a message confirmed the registration.
[Whisper/Ignis : I’m off to pick up my returnee quests now.]
[Whisper/Dohaesal : Yep!]
[Whisper/Dohaesal : Have fun~]
He hit “Return to nearest town,” waved a smile emote, saw the screen fade to black and back, and his expression hardened.
Time to log out.
Without hesitation he tapped Esc and saw the familiar options.
Settings | Log Out | To Title | Character Select
Settings and Log Out sat annoyingly side by side—one slip and you were at desktop. So many complaints had forced them to add an “Are you sure?” prompt, but players who reflex-hit Enter still fell in. No better reminder not to play brain-off.
Character Select.
He returned to the roster and rolled a brand-new avatar. Better to start fresh at level one than tangle in stupid trouble. He wasn’t even max level anyway.
Tutorials were great now. He’d level fast. With that light thought, he clicked Create Character.
There were five playable races. Two were beastfolk and fueled Eraha’s moe culture: the rabbit-folk Yana and the feline-folk Kiran. The standard humans Mar, the giant-descended Teran, and the god-descended Divar rounded out the roster.
Back in Ignis’s heyday, the most popular was Kiran. Compared with the Yana, you could pick many ear-and-tail shapes and male Kirans had a comfortable 170-185 cm frame—perfect for players who found the human Mar too plain but wanted only a dash of otaku flavor.
Like most giant races, the Teran were least popular because of their size, but after the reboot their racial trait got a crafting-quality bonus, so their share had risen.
He knew, because he had stress-tested that bonus. Though he’d stepped back after the transfer, the broad strokes hadn’t changed.
Anyway, Kiran again. Divar were too lanky, and he never liked the Mar’s default walk. He’d complained in his player days, asked dev to tweak it, got ignored. Yana were just… too otaku for him.
Yeonjun was a hardcore gamer, yes, but he kept a strange line from full otaku. To a normal person, playing an MMORPG was hardcore enough but anyway, Kiran it was.
With a sigh, he rolled another fire-attribute character whose looks differed little from before.
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