Chapter 3

A class you can play alone (1)

2010 was the era of smartphones . They changed the lives of millions of people .

But technology continued advancing, and in year 2030, the smartphone era came to an end . It was now the new era of virtual reality . Peach Corporation’s virtual reality connection device, V-Gear, gave way to the beginning of this era . For just 20,000 dollars, any household could dive into the world of virtual reality .

The smartphone era was nothing in comparison to the VR era . Virtual reality did not just absorb the technologies of the real world, as new content developed just for the virtual world .

Among them, virtual reality games were the most popular .

Game companies didn’t hesitate to invest millions or even billions of dollars into developing this new technology . As a result, they could release higher quality content than any other business in the world .

At the same time, it was the start of a war .

Due to their investments and preparedness, their games had similar quality, and none stood out as the best .

It was the beginning of a warring era .

Game companies experimented with new methods of raising their market shares, and many went bankrupt as a result . The one that put an end to this warring era was not a game company, but an AI developing company called Tobot Soft . It was with their AI program that Warlord was created .

Warlord .

With a typical fantasy setting, the game was not too different from the other games in the market . In fact, it was much tamer compared to games where the players battled in space or flew in the air with wings .

It was the scale of its world and its stability that made it unsurpassable by others .

Tobot Soft’s secret lied behind a management artificial intelligence program called M . I .

Simply put, the game wasn’t controlled by the company but an artificial intelligence program . Its initial development cost was huge, but the management cost was ground-breakingly small . At a time when the price of VR game programmers was soaring to the sky, the method proved to be especially efficient . A . I . s didn’t need a salary .

Plus, it was easy to copy and mass produce an A . I . Hiring a thousand professional programmers took at least six months, but obtaining a thousand copy of an A . I . took only about a month .

Countless A . I . s worked to control and manage the server, and as a result, Warlord became a game that surpassed any other game in existence .

March 11th, 2035, a year after the game made its debut, the player base was well over one million . By its 4th anniversary, the number rose to over ten million, worthy of the game’s title as the greatest game to ever exist .

Ten million was not a small number .

To play a VR game, one needed a VR device . Peach Corporation controlled 70 percent of the VR device market and its cheapest VR device, the Level 1 V-Gear, cost 20 thousand dollars .

In addition, one needed 2,599 dollars just to create a Warlord character . Upon creation, one could play the game free for 3 months, but afterwards, there was a monthly fee of 799 dollars .

In Korean standards, it cost 20 million won to buy the gaming device, another 3 million to make a character, and 800 thousand more every month .

There were ten million people who could meet such requirements .

An economist once said,

“If you calculate the average income of a Warlord player, it would be about 80 thousand dollars . A game with over 10 million players and an average income of 80 thousand . That’s enough purchasing power to match a country’s . ”

Businesses smelled the money just as easily .

Numerous companies and corporations became sponsors of Warlord players that had fame and influence . Famous rankers, especially the official top 100 rankers, were walking advertisements, and their bodies were worth at least a billion won .

Most importantly, Warlord was fun .

Players with superhuman powers killing monsters with different skills and magic was more exciting than any movie, and the fact that a player could die at any time made the game more thrilling than any sports in the world .

Someone once said,

“The proliferation of virtual reality games had the biggest impact on sports and movie industries . No matter how thrilling a sports is, no sportman puts their life on line, but in the game world, everyone fights with their life on the line . No matter how well-made a movie is, at the end of the day, a movie is a movie . It has a set scenario, while gamers create their own scenario . A game character is one’s second life, and in this world, a movie can never beat a real life . ”

In this era, one could gain the wealth and prestige of a professional soccer player or a major league star just by gaming . As a result, countless people sought to become this era’s protagonist .

However .

“Becoming a famous gamer? Only one out of every thousand can do that . Right now in Warlord, there’s only about 3,000 people who make over a 100 million won . Considering Warlord’s player base, that’s less than the top 0 . 01 percent . Plus, imagine the amount of money you have to spend to maintain your ranking that high . Take any one of these 3,000 people, they probably spent just as much on Warlord as they earned . ”

Only a very small minority of players could enjoy the life of wealth and fame .

“Not to mention, VR games are completely different than PC games . You can’t get better by just leveling up . It’s about talent . Even though it’s an RPG game, you can’t become a ranker with just levels and items . If you start playing with that mindset, you’ll end up quiting within a month . You just have to enjoy it . Warlord is the world’s most unfair game . If you compare yourself to others, you won’t win over your inferiority complex . ”

Right, virtual reality games were more unfair than any other games .

Even in PC games, there are good players and bad players . In a VR world, where everyone has superhuman powers, the difference was even clearer .

That’s not all .

In Warlord, the best way to earn money was through live broadcasts .

However, only 30 channels were given permission to broadcast Warlord-related content . In the past, when problems began to arise from gambling and swearing in private broadcasts, most countries began to require licenses for broadcasting certain content . In the case of Warlord, only 30 channels were given licenses .

That was how the Top 30 Guilds were created . Guilds that obtained broadcasting channels received no small benefits .

Furthermore, these guilds used the money and influence gained through live broadcasts and live tickets to prevent other guilds from challenging their authority . Although everyone aimed to become one of the Top 30 Guilds in the beginning, the gap between a Top 30 Guild and a non-Top 30 Guild only grew wider over time .

They were in a league of their own .

By the time Warlord entered its 4th year of service, no one could threaten to close this gap .

Except one .

The Hahoe Mask Guild .

Its members all fought wearing hahoe masks . Despite a majority of them having started a year after existing rankers, they showed incredible skills and results . In time, they even started to threaten the positions of the Top 30 Guilds .

And in the middle of this storm was Hyrkan .

His nickname, the Hero Slaughterer .

The nickname was given to him because he effortlessly slaughtered the rankers that represented Warlord .

He was a monster that defied logic .

“Hyrkan? He’s a real monster, the kind that disrupts an ecosystem . He throws a 150 km fastball, then throws a 250 km fastball right afterwards . Plus, he games harder than anyone else . That’s what VR games are all about . No matter how much time you invest, someone without talent can’t beat someone with talent . Even if someone with talent achieves something by investing time, it becomes nothing in front of greater talent . I assure you, Hyrkan is at the top in both talent and effort . If he started just a year earlier, no one would be his match . ”

A monster that disrupts an ecosystem .

It was an apt description .

It was also the reason why Hyrkan was ostracized .

“Why Hahoe Mask Guild betrayed Hyrkan? It’s simple . They would’ve been ostracized by the Top 30 Guilds otherwise . At first, they all fought to recruit Hyrkan, but they soon realized it wasn’t going to happen . Hyrkan isn’t the type to bow his head in front of others . A tiger can grow up drinking a dog’s milk, but a tiger is a tiger, a dog is a dog . ”

The Top 30 Guilds were already making enormous profit in their own ecosystem .

There was no way they would stand still and watch a monster like Hyrkan ruin it . Even so, they suffered more harm than good trying to take him out .

Hyrkan . Although he was nicknamed the Hero Slaughterer, he never actively sought out to kill others . It was always three or four rankers that attacked him first, and he only retaliated . Hyrkan never wanted to become a “slaughterer . ”

So when Stormhunter Guild absorbed Hahoe Mask Guild and declared war on Hyrkan, the rest of the Top 30 Guilds promised their tacit support . It wasn’t anything unexpected .

“Hahoe Mask Guild is probably thankful to Hyrkan, but their inferiority complex must have been equally big . Betraying Hyrkan and joining the Stormhunter Guild or fighting against the entire Top 30 Guilds . The choice was obvious . ”

No matter how amazing Hyrkan was, he wasn’t capable fight against the Top 30 Guilds by himself .

“In the end, Hyrkan was too amazing for his own good . That’s why he was betrayed from Warlord . ”

Shunned by the whole world, Hyrkan was left with no choice but to quit Warlord .

Of course, all this…

“I can’t believe this is happening to me . ”

Hasn’t happened as of now .

“I returned to the past…”

An Jaehyun, he returned to 2036 .

With all his memories intact!