Yeonjun plopped down in front of the monitor with energy, and what greeted him were a shabby level 5 newbie character that looked no different from any other, and an equally shabby but level 80 character. Without a moment’s hesitation, he logged in on the level 5 character first.
[System: Welcome back to Erha Online, where your story soon becomes legend.]
Left standing alone in the starter village where he had logged off last night, the character looked utterly pathetic. Of course it did. Wearing the standard-issue trainee uniform for beginners, it was bound to look plain and weak.
“First, let’s level up.”
Today’s goal was at least level 10. Following the quest marker that told him to move to the next map, Yeonjun went toddle-toddle, running hard and running again.
“When does riding unlock again?”
He quickly pulled the full screen down and searched the portal for [Erha Online riding level] and up came a 2017 post saying you had to class-advance first to get a basic riding mount by attribute.
Fine, got it. With a humble heart, he stared off at the far hills along with his character pumping its two legs for all they were worth.
“Crawl then, just crawl.”
Test accounts varied depending on what settings you wanted to check, but they were basically set up at the max level. Running around an actual field on an honest-to-goodness newbie account that could not use movement skills or a mount pet, rather than in a separately generated test space, was a first.
He took a deep breath, clenched his fists, then gazed at the screen through narrowed eyes. Watching players around his own level keep overlapping his route and trotting back and forth was only making him more frustrated.
The only weapon he could use was a wooden practice sword. At level 10, he would be able to use a “sharp wooden sword,” but a wooden sword was still a wooden sword. With no real skill effects to speak of, the simple swing animation had no hit feel at all, like trying to slice water with an invisible blade.
One reason he had stuck with the Playmer was that, although it was hard to handle, the crisp, satisfying impact that no other class could match played a big part. He knew he would not be able to control at that old level, but at least if your auto-attacks connected properly you should get those pop-pop criticals for fun. Right now, he was frail, powerless, and hopelessly slow.
Bwoong. Bwoong.
Even the sound it made as he swung the wooden sword through the air was frustrating.
Seriously, real life already had him on edge every day, so did the game have to be this sluggish too. By the time he had barely reached level 8, his feeble patience hit its limit. He immediately went into the cash shop.
Maybe that money-grubber Director Joo had added a flying mount pet to the shop in the meantime that even a newbie could ride the moment they bought it. With that faint hope he peeked at the cash-pet tab, but what waited for him was a cold notice.
[This product can only be used by a character who has completed the level 20 class advancement.]
So it was. There are far too many problems in this world that money cannot solve.
I mean, with a game this old, shouldn’t these low-level zones be something you can blow through in a few tens of minutes.
For the first time in a while, a sincere customer-service urge welled up in him from a user’s point of view, but for now there was nothing he could do.
“Sigh…”
Having already spent most of his energy at work, he was a worn, tired adult. When he ran into a problem that money could not fix, it was easy to lose all motivation.
“Should I just quit and sleep?”
He took off his glasses for a moment and pressed the eyelids that were already weighing down on his heavy eyeballs, but the sense of his blurry vision clearing again was nonsense. He was just tired. He sighed, put his glasses back on, and set his hand on the mouse.
There was actually a real reason he was putting himself through the pain of leveling a character like this. The ultra-fast growth bonus that applied only to the very first character created per account did not apply to alts. If only he had been a true beginner, this would be easier than this. Since his account was so old you could worry about digital weathering, he could not get the bonus, and he had thrown away the returning-player perks he could have gotten on his main, so his road of hardship was guaranteed to be smooth and wide.
On top of that, when he opened the map and clicked a portal to move to another region, a message popped up saying he did not have enough funds to travel.
Argh.
In the end he threw his already flattened pride to the floor and moved to the character select screen.
Maybe not at high levels, but newbies do not need much money yet. If he rummaged through Ignis’s storage, there should be a little cash left. It had been pocket change to him back then, so he had not even bothered to liquidate it, but for a level 8 newbie it would be a generous war chest.
To siphon some off, he once again laid hands on Ignis. Just in case, he would switch his visible status to offline mode right away. He swallowed and stared at the screen.
[System: Welcome back to Erha Online, where your story soon becomes legend.]
[System: Returning-player bonus is in effect.]
The spot where he had logged off was as quiet as the night before, to the point where you would be hard-pressed to find any humanoid beings besides NPCs. He needed to go to a larger city to check the bank… After a moment’s thought, he decided that if anything happened he would just log out, and he moved to the nearest big city.
[System: Move to <Poltem Grand Plaza> ?]
[Yes/No]
He hit Yes without hesitation, and with an animation of the Kiran character’s eyes closing and ears pricking, the screen went dark. As he remembered it, it was a pretty crowded major city, so what if someone who recognized him got surprised? And what if he drew attention?
His heart pounded with a mix of worry and excitement.
What do you mean, ‘what’? He could just log out. He pursed his lips at his own timid heart.
Soon the screen brightened again, and his character landed lightly in the middle of a Spanish-style plaza. Thankfully, only roaming NPCs were hanging around the square, with not a single user in sight.
He immediately used a dash skill and sprinted straight for the bank, and even without a mount pet the character tore off toward it in an instant.
Yes, this is how a game should feel. Is it even a game if you spend all day paddling around on foot and mindlessly clicking through quest windows. With the cathartic feeling of his chest being blown open, he hurled a whoosh of flaming blade aura into the air.
There was no target in his aim, so the on-hit effect did not play, but compared to the pathetic sound of a wooden sword, these sound effects made the game feel good.
Well, unless he went to the max-level zones, the maps would be empty like abandoned houses with no one around, so maybe he should just keep going on this character. With that thought, he moved into the bank and saw a few users inside, either AFK or doing something else.
“…!”
While he, all chicken-hearted, was startled, no one paid him any mind.
“…”
Wondering if maybe no one had seen him, he slouched around inside the bank, but everyone just did their own business, without talking to him or even hitting a surprised emote.
“Hmm…”
He had worried that, like last time, a passerby might suddenly jump over to him and confess they were a fan the moment he logged in, but it turned out to be needless worry. Everyone seemed focused on something else or heading out of the bank, with not the slightest interest in him.
“Was that person yesterday just an oddball…?”
After transferring a small amount of the gold he had deposited in the bank to his alt, he took heart from the nonreaction and moved outside. At the top of the UI a notice was flashing, telling him to come pick up the new chapter quest, following the last main quest he had done.
“Let’s just clear a few quests first.”
He had to level up casually anyway… As he roamed the old, former-chapter regions that were like ghost towns, getting used to the controls again, far away there were people watching him pretending not to.
[Party/Fang: So I’ve got a question]
[Party/BananaCook: Yeah]
[Party/Fang: What exactly are we doing here]
BananaCook, whose main was MiddleAgedHunter, formerly ProstateConqueror, and whose newbie alt was NewbieCreator, answered without a moment’s hesitation.
[Party/BananaCook: I’m observing, for now]
[Party/Fang: Observing what]
To the guild member whose main’s nick was Fang, BananaCook replied with a soulless expression.
[Party/BananaCook: Haesal, the bastard]
Since hitting ㅗ instead of ㅣ does not happen by a slip, calling him “bastard” instead of “nim” was plainly deliberate. At that, ScoldMePlease, the alt of ScoldThemAll who was standing side by side up on the ramparts looking down, typed in a fluster.
[Party/SayPlease: ?]
[Party/SayPlease: Weren’t we watching Is-nim]
[Party/BananaCook: That’s also true]
From raids to sieges to PvP to crafting and more. The idea that quasi-nameds and rankers with giant influence over every bit of in-game content would huddle together just to watch a single user was absurd. Fang, baffled, asked again.
[Party/Fang: I mean, so]
[Party/Fang: Why are we doing that?]
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