1.

Around the year of 2020, Virtual Reality games began trending on the global scale.

Soon after, in 2034, the virtual reality game that the world had been waiting for finally appeared.

God Wars.

The game that held the title of a war between gods surpassed the imagination of the people, as it took the world by storm and firmly took over it.

In 2038, the number of registered players was 1.8 billion while the number of viewers surpassed 5.1 billion.

This became known as the moment in history when all kinds of entertainment from sports such as soccer, baseball and basketball, to opera, concert and orchestras were all taken over by a single game.

The era of God Wars had started.

In such an era, being good at the game called God Wars was a formidable skill to have.

[Professional player’s yearly salary reaches 300 million dollars!]

[[Two Hand] becomes the professional with the highest salary!]

A single person had managed to earn a yearly salary of over 300 billion won just because they were good at the game.

[Haze game company, starts stocks on COSDAC]

[Haze game company, stock value increasing 5 days in a row!]

[Goblin Guild, propelling plans to start stocks in NASDAQ?]

On top of that, the so called game companies gathered players who played God Wars and earned a profit off of them and became the hottest items on the stock market.

[The value of God Wars’ greatest guild Beta?]

[Beta guild: Its members won’t change guilds even for 10 billion dollars!]

It became an era where the value of a single guild in a game surpassed hundreds of billions of won, and sometimes even reached the trillions.

As such, many leading figures appeared.

[God Wars changed my life as an outcast!]

[God Wars is the reason I, a long time shut-in, managed to become a millionaire!]

People whose lives had changed so dramatically that even Cinderella would be jealous appeared and became able to grasp wealth and fame by gaming.

Many people grew in fame and power in that way.

“This is too much. Isn’t a daily salary of 300,000 won too low for a raid with a survivability rate lesser than 30%? 80 hours of hard work just disappears once it’s game over, right?”

Also, extras that were more than tens of millions more in number than the main rankers appeared.

– Don’t do it if you don’t like it.

“It’s not that I don’t like it, I’m just asking for a raise. Isn’t only offering 300,000 won for a level 100 and the same 300,000 for a level 200 going too far?”

Jung Hyun-woo was that extra.

– Hey, Ciroco guild is only giving that much so what do you want a broker like me to do?

What the 5.1 billion viewers enjoyed the most was none other than boss monster raids.

Of course, boss monster raids being the main profit of guilds and game companies, they were farming them without rest.

After all, the most important thing to them was generating benefits.

“Damn it, if they’re going to wrung me dry then they could at least admit me into the guild. Are there no seats left in Ciroco guild?”

– Hey, it’s a situation where even existing seats are disappearing. It’s not like Ciroco guild members are overdoing themselves to run raids you know.

To earn a greater profit than guilds or game companies, one had to manage groups more efficiently.

Looking at it from this point of view, it was inefficient to permanently employ all thousands to tens of thousands of players.

Because of that, they started employing them only when they were needed.

– It’d be a good idea to go while they still give 300,000 won. There’s a rumor going around that large guilds are colluding to lower the price of extras.

“What?”

He was one of those extras.

“The guys that earn big are going to cut the already low pay?”

– What can you do? Be good at the game if you don’t like it.

Of course, there was not a single person that dreamed of being an extra, and Jung Hyun-woo was the same.

“Bastard, hitting the sore spot with facts.”

In 2034, when God Wars was revealed to the world, Jung Hyun-woo had poured everything he had into it to become a main character.

He had quite some confidence too.

‘Damn it.’

The source of his confidence was none other than baseball, a sport he used to play but that had ruined his life.

Virtual reality, as the words suggest, meant controlling a virtual body, which only made the gap in talent appear more noticeably.

Magician was the prime example of this.

It was not difficult to use magic in God Wars, the problem was landing it.

Other games had auto targeting, but in God Wars, spells that could be targeted had limitations, and their power was mediocre as well.

In the end, it meant that players had to manually aim at the target.

On top of that, they didn’t just have to land the spells, but also needed to run around to kite running monsters, which wasn’t easy even for professional baseball players.

– Hey, don’t feel so down, yeah? You used to be pretty good at one point, didn’t you?

‘Yeah, it went pretty well in the beginning.’

As a former professional baseball player who had been been evaluated to have good control in exchange for low speed, it came as a golden chance.

On top of that, to Jung Hyun-woo, who had been expelled from his professional team after an injury, it was more than just a golden chance.

He wasn’t part of the worst players in the beginning.

No, he was actually quite good.

There were more players than grains of sand, but in a situation where only a small number of magicians that could properly land their magic, Jung Hyun-woo’s record was on the good side.

There were many times when he partied with players with good abilities, and he used those to get a few connections with rankers.

He had thought that he entered their league.

He thought that his flow wouldn’t be bad.

– If it wasn’t for this accident you had, you wouldn’t be like this…….

Indeed, if it wasn’t for his life’s worst event, it wouldn’t have turned out bad.

“That doesn’t matter anyway. It’s just that I didn’t have anything at that time.”

But Jung Hyun-woo didn’t think that he ruined his life that day.

“The reason I’m in this situation looking like this is just because of that. It’s just because I have no talent, no money, and no luck.”

– And you have no penis either?

“You want to die?”

The mood of their conversation softened and they returned to the original topic.

– So you’ll do it, right?

“I have to.”

– But this is dangerous and you know it. Are you going to be alright? No matter how one looks at it, anyone can tell that Ciroco guild is overdoing themselves.

“The chance the raid will succeed is less than 30% according to my calculations.”

– It’s really low.

“However, the chance I’ll survive is over 80%.”

Jung Hyun-woo’s eyes became sharp as he said so.

“My nickname isn’t die-hard for nothing.”

The one man on the other side of the phone said to such Jung Hyun-woo.

– Isn’t your nickname cockroach?

2.

Beep!

With a short sound, the white capsule the size of a bed opened and a man’s figure appeared.

he man’s 180 cm high figure looked quite sturdy as he was wearing a full body swimming suit.

One could see that this body had done some sports.

The man took off the helmet on his head.

A man in cleaning clothes approached him and handed him a candy.

“Hyun-woo hyeong, did work go well?”

Jung Hyun-woo replied to the Capsule Room part time worker Lee Hyuk-joo while putting the candy in his mouth.

“As if it would go well. In the end, I’ll be risking my life working part time as a meat shield for 300,000 won.”

“So where is it this time?”

“Cicoro guild.”

“CIcoro guild? You’re participating in the Blue Back Lion Turtle raid?”

“That’s right.”

A cold attitude that would make even the person hearing it feel down.

However, Lee Hyuk-joo’s eyes shined brightly at Jung Hyun-woo’s words.

“Hyeong, I don’t care if I have to pay for it, I really want to join such a raid.”

Jung Hyun-woo couldn’t help but make a bitter expression at Lee Hyuk-joo’s desperate look.

Jung Hyun-woo, he was definitely an extra.

No, he couldn’t even be called an extra.

Guilds and game companies hired him  just to throw him away after using him once, he was nothing more than a disposable tool.

He was no different than being human fuel.

“I’m investing all the money I got from my part time job to be able to be hired as a helper to not even a boss raid but a normal hunt.”

Despite this, the world was overflowing with people that dreamed of becoming human fuel that would be thrown away after a single use.

“I don’t even dream to become like hyeong. I just want to not use money while playing.”

In reality, among the 1.5 billion players, professional players that make a living out of playing God Wars numbered less than 15 million.

It was proof that Jung Hyun-woo didn’t entirely lack talent.

‘There’s nothing more miserable than having mediocre talent.’

But Jung Hyun-woo knew better than anyone just how miserable mediocre talent a person could be.

Because he experienced it.

‘No matter where it is, it’s a stage made for those with talent. Whether it’s baseball or video games.’

It wasn’t just once but twice.

“Yeah, thanks for at least saying it like that. You work hard as well and succeed by leveling up.”

Of course, Jung Hyun-woo didn’t discourage Lee Hyuk-joo.

There was no need to put out the fire of his dream.

“Eh, would that even be possible? The people who started first would end up eating up everything anyway.”

Even if he didn’t do so, the world seemed to have already drowned Lee Hyuk-joo’s dream after all.

“Even if people pour in money from winning a lottery, they wouldn’t be able to become a ranker.”

It has now been 5 years since God Wars started service so God Wars’ vested rights class had already created a clear line.

They had already created a perfect stronghold tough enough to prevent later starters from even daring to cross and even went as far as to collude with each other to create an entire kingdom.

That was the exact reason why Jung Hyun-woo couldn’t change his current situation without being able to start anew.

“Yeah, people that are raising their characters now will never be able to rise to the top even by pouring in money, even if they have talent.”

Jung Hyun-woo had poured in 5 years of money and time into his character, which was why he couldn’t give up so easily.

It was difficult to even get a job in God Wars.

‘I used almost 5 million won when choosing Magician of Ifrit after all.’

The character’s job is decided from the moment a character is created in God Wars.

The problem is that the method the job is decided is random.

God Wars players had to choose one among 1,000 cards when creating a character, which was when the job got decided.

Also, there were the sub-classes within the job.

From Normal to Legendary tier.

As such, to be able to get the job one wanted, there were even people that invested hundreds of millions to keep creating characters.

‘Starting over would be out of question.’

Jung Hyun-woo thought about that fact and grit his teeth.

‘That’s right, this is the only thing for me right now. The thing that can feed my brother and our cute Hye-rin.’

He accepted his own reality.

“I have to do it again 3 days later so leave a reservation for me.”

“Yes. But please don’t forget to give me the raid video for it.”

“Okay, I’ll give you the video so hopefully you can finally get 10 views on Wartube.”

Crunch!

With those words, Jung Hyun-woo crunched up the candy he was eating.

Afterwards, he talked while frowning at the taste of the candy that spread in his mouth.

“Hey, what kind of candy is this? What’s up with the taste?”

“It’s a glucose candy.”

“Glucose?”

“I saw it in a game novel in the past, the main character ate glucose candies because it was good for the brain.”

At that answer, Jung Hyun-woo prevented himself from mocking him.

“So how did the main character of that novel become the game’s greatest? Did he gain some hidden class or something?”

“Hmm, I think he got hit by a truck and returned to the past to play solo as a necromancer?”

At that explanation, Jung Hyun-woo waved his hand as if there was no point to the conversation.

“That’s such a retarded novel.”

“That’s why it’s fun. Ah! If I could return to the past then I would really play God Wars, even if it meant going as far as to sell my organs. Hyeong is the same right?”

At Lee Hyuk-joo’s words, Jung Hyun-woo held back his laughter.

“Am I crazy? The moment I’d return to the past, I would gather money and go all in on shares related to God Wars, then sleep in my house while scratching my belly. A guy with no talent, no money, and no luck shouldn’t go to the past anyway.”

With those words, Jung Hyun-woo left the Capsule Room.

Jung Hyun-woo let out a long sigh while his breath covered his sight.

A world that was quiet despite the absurd quantity of skyscrapers welcomed him.

Drip, drip!

Falling raindrops greeted him.

“Arg, damn. It’s raining.”

Jung Hyun-woo lowered his baseball cap at the rain and moved his foot towards it.

But at that moment.

Screeech!

‘Hm?’

A speeding truck that lost its balance in the rain was rushing towards him like crazy.