Most men fell into a bit of narcissism, looking at themselves in the mirror after showers. It was a strange, unfortunate, and rather sad habit of the male species.
But An Jaehyun detested looking at mirrors. He didn't have any particularly handsome feature, and he couldn't even look at the mirror without his thick glasses.
But at the moment, An Jaehyun was staring into the mirror with a big smile on his face.
It wasn't an ordinary smile.
Grin!
It was a refreshing smile. It may look odd to others, but An Jaehyun was doing his best to make his smile look as clear as possible. Looking into the mirror, An Jaehyun spoke to himself.
"You unlucky bastard," he criticized himself.
But while criticizing himself, An Jaehyun didn't lose the smile on his face. In fact, he made an even happier smile.
'Yep, you really had an unlucky life.'
An Jaehyun once again recalled the last moment of his life.
It was a car accident. After he bought a lottery ticket, he resolved his mind for a new start. That was when a truck hit the bus station and crushed An Jaehyun with it. He couldn't even feel any pain as he died instantaneously. He was thinking 'Ah!' as he was hit, and when he opened his eyes again, he was back in January 1st, 2036.
'I knew I was unlucky, but come on, a car accident? Just how unlucky was I?'
It was a time when vehicles had built-in autonomous navigation system designed specifically to prevent car accidents. It goes without saying that An Jaehyun was extremely unlucky to have died from a car accident.
But as of now, his unlucky life had never happened.
'Yep, you lived one really unlucky life.'
"So it's time to live a lucky one."
He had returned to the past.
There was no penalty. His memory, body, and thought process were all perfectly fine. He was disappointed that he didn't gain a superpower, but he was nonetheless satisfied. What was so important was that something that would only happen in movies and novels happened to him. It meant that he became a main character, since obviously a side character wouldn't be sent back in time.
An Jaehyun didn't think too much into his situation.
It was a common cliché. An Jaehyun didn't stop to think whether he was dreaming, or whether he had been dreaming a long dream all this time. He also didn't think about the butterfly effect his return would have on the world. He found it useless to bother with anything that wouldn't make him money.
There was only one important thing to him right now.
'I'll hit it big with Warlord this time.'
Just that.
He knew Warlord was the only way for him to change his miserable life. An Jaehyun in real life was a dispensable, minimum-wage slave, but in Warlord, he was the Hero Slaughterer, a character worth an immense amount of money and capable of slaying any foolish challengers.
In other words, what was important to An Jaehyun were the tools he needed to achieve success.
'The date is January 1st.'
He needed to first understand the situation.
The current date was January1st, 2036, 1:22 P.M. to be exact.
'If you were going to send me back, why not a year more…'
Unfortunately, Warlord had already begun its service 10 months ago.
If An Jaehyun had gone back one more year like he wished, he wouldn't have any big concerns.
In any case, he had to face the current situation. Truthfully, he was thankful. Wishing for more would be too greedy.
'The gap is huge.'
10 months weren't a small difference. In fact, it was anything but small.
Warlord released its top 100 rankings weekly, but rankers didn't refer to just these top 100. Although true rankers were those on this list, one could be called a ranker if one's level was above a certain standard based on the top 100 rankers.
The competition was fierce within the top ranking players. Only the names of top 100 rankers were displayed, and the money one could get from contracts by being a top 100 ranker were vastly different. Warlord's rule of thumb was that every time the front digit of a rank changed, the front digit of a contract payment changed.
Anyways, what was important was that almost all rankers started playing within the first one month of service.
'5 months was it? Super Rookie Myojyo, I think he started the latest out of the rankers.'
In this area, a Polish player called Myojyo made a name for himself.
He started Warlord exactly 144 days after its launch and managed to enter the top 100 in 2038, on Warlord's 4th year of service.
This meant it took him close to 3 years to bridge the gap with the Starters.
Myojyo's play time was freakishly high as well. Most rankers played about 100 hours per week. The Rule of 100. The standard was to invest 100 hours to playing every week. 110 hours meant a 10% higher result, 90 hours meant a 10% lower result. This was Warlord's Rule of 100.
In Myojyo's case, his average weekly play time was 130 hours. Normal people weren't able to play for so long. Warlord required high amount of concentration, and loss of concentration meant death. In addition, death meant 48 hours of downtime. It was clearly better to sleep 8 hours for a good rest than getting 6 hours of sleep and dying because of it. Regardless, Myojyo managed to reach the top 100, and he was given the nickname Super Rookie.
But what if there was a difference of 10 months?
'I don't know about the titles that have already come out, but I know all the titles that will come out in the future. If I can monopolize them, I can cover this gap.'
It would normally be impossible to bridge such a gap.
But it was possible for An Jaehyun, who returned to the past with all his memories.
Warlord has a title system. If a player achieved something no other players had, or if the player was the first to discover something, or if the player accomplished a monumental feat, he was given titles. They had a simple function – to permanently raise the player's stats.
It was a system for those in lead.
In most games, the ones who started later had more advantage, at least in terms of time efficiency. They just had to pick and follow a path other had toiled through. It was fair for the pioneers to receive some benefit, and that benefit was the title system.
There were no information on titles whatsoever. Players had to find them out for themselves by playing the game.
However, the current An Jaehyun was full of title-related knowledge.
He also knew the best hunting grounds and the method for hunting certain monsters. These were among the many weapons at An Jaehyun's disposal.
It wasn't easy to bridge a 10 month gap, but it wasn't impossible for An Jaehyun.
'I'll just have to work hard.'
There was one more problem.
'What's important to me now is money.'
An Jaehyun remembered 2036 very well. It was the year he was fired from the factory he worked in for no clear reason, and was close to running low on the money he had saved up.
'I probably have 2, 3 million at best.'
One needed at least 7 million won to start Warlord.
'I need to borrow 5 million somehow…'
To play Warlord, one needed Peach Corp's virtual reality device, V-Gear. Unfortunately for An Jaehyun, the cheapest Level 1 Model's exact cost was 20,990,000 won.
It was expensive.
It was the cost of a small car. It wasn't a small amount, but it couldn't be considered too expensive for what it was worth. V-Gear was the key to accessing the virtual world.
There was, of course, no need to pay all at once. There were monthly installment plans just like for real cars. For V-Gears, 12 months was the max, and one had to make a down payment for the first three months, which was about 5 million won.
There was also the cost of creating a Warlord character. Upon creation, one could play free for the first 3 months, but other extraneous costs amounted to another 2 million won. This cost couldn't be paid on credit.
All this amounted to about 7 million won.
Taking into account the currently saved up money, An Jaehyun still needed 5 million more.
'There's no way my credit card can handle that much, and I probably can't loan that much from the bank. If I take out the deposit for this one-room apartment and live on the streets with just my V-Gear… no, that would be just asking to be robbed.'
An Jaehyun already knew the answer to this problem.
'Looks like I'll have to go to those loan sharks.'
Private loans.
An Jaehyun hated the loan sharks as much as anyone else, but he knew it was the only way to borrow such a large amount of money. It would be akin to putting himself on shackles, but obtaining 5 million won by honest work would take 3 to 4 months, and that would be no different than cutting off his own legs.
'Assuming I'm okay with money, what's my plan now?'
His next worry was about his future plans.
Warlord's main content was monster raids. It was also the most lucrative content.
However, monster raids were designed for cooperative plays.
An Jaehyun knew for sure that Hyrkan would never be able to solo a raid. Although Hyrkan was strong, it was impossible for him to solo a raid. It was because Hyrkan was a swordsman. Swordsmen were front-liners, and their job was to charge into the enemy and make way for his team.
Additionally, raids required various chemical reactions from different classes. If a monster reacted to a specific magic, it was the players' job to take advantage of the fact and find its weakness. Only a very small minority relied on brute force to fight.
'Damn.'
In the first place, this way of thinking was completely irrational.
An Jaehyun had amazing personal skills and now the knowledge of the future. Using the two, he could easily enter any of the Top 30 Guilds' Esquire groups. Esquire groups contained prospective, back-up players for the Top 30 Guilds, and they received the full backing of their guilds.
If a player distinguished himself somehow, he was promoted to a regular member. At that point, wealth and fame naturally followed. All he had to do was cooperate with the guild's decisions.
'Fuck.'
But An Jaehyun denied such rational way of thinking.
He didn't care about what the rational thing to do was.
'Like I'll ever work under those fuckers.'
Just because An Jaehyun threatened to overtake their positions, those rich pigs had ruined An Jaehyun's life. As a result, An Jaehyun was forced to quit Warlord with nothing but bitterness and anger left in him. An Jaehyun would never forget the persecution, humiliation, and hardships he faced after the Hahoe Mask Guild betrayed him. It's nothing to brag about, but he even considered committing suicide.
Of course, none of this had happened in present time, but those memories were etched onto An Jaehyun's mind.
Join their guild and become their dog?
Maybe he would if he really were a dog.
But An Jaehyun wasn't a dog. He was human. And his human values wouldn't let him accept such a thing.
'A class that can do solo raids… a class you can play alone.'
An Jaehyun racked his brain.
'Does Warlord have a class that can do everything by itself?'
To An Jaehyun anguishing over this question,
'Ah!'
A light bulb went off.
"Rich Lich."
There was one.
While everyone was fighting fearsome monsters as a guild, there was one person who succeeded in soloing a raid.
His nickname, Rich Lich.
"There was that guy!"
His class, necromancer.
Warlord has many classes to choose from.
To elaborate, players of the same class could form highly individualistic characters depending on the skill tree and stat distribution.
Even so, there were popular classes and unpopular classes. It was a matter of fact for RPG games.
In Warlord, necromancer was an unpopular class.
The class itself wasn't bad. They could apply curses, summon undead monsters and golems, and use attack spells like other magicians. They could even modify their own body and increase their combat strength. In a way, it was the ultimate all-around class.
The problem was that it was near impossible to simultaneously acquire high-ranking skills in all these aspects.
Warlord had a skill tree system. To obtain a high-rank skill, one needs a high-rank skill book and its low-rank skill to achieve a certain rank. There were many ways to raise a skill's rank, but the most common way was to use it repeatedly.
Naturally, to obtain skills of different variety, one had to use lower-rank skills of different variety. If a player took his time doing so as a hobby, it wouldn't be impossible.
But because players needed to show results quicker than their competitors, most opted for efficiency rather than enjoyment. As such, it made sense that the necromancer class would be unpopular. It was also the reason Starters didn't give much thought to necromancers. If they became necromancers, they could enjoy the game, but they wouldn't be able to surpass their competitors.
In addition, necromancers weren't all that useful in the main content of Warlord – raids. Standard magicians could cover most of what necromancers could do. They had stronger attack spells than necromancers. Curse magic is a type of debuff magic, but it isn't the only debuff magic.
Most importantly, necromancers could only use a single attribute magic. This penalty was huge for rankers that had to kill higher level monsters. Players could deal more than two times the damage depending on the attribute compatibility, but necromancers didn't have such advantage.
Summoning magic was even more complicated. First, they required a lot of money. Necromancers summoned using cores that were made using materials dropped from monsters. There were other ways to summon, but cores made summons far more powerful. Unfortunately, these cores were expensive. Top level players typically spent several million wons for a single item, and cores costed about the same amount. It would be fine for one or two summons, but some necromancers controlled close to 100 summons.
This was fine if it was one big investment, but necromancers had to change their cores as they leveled up.
There was another problem. Summons were unappealing. Moving skeletons gave off a totally different feeling in the virtual world than on PC screens. If the summons were ghouls or zombies… it was simply too disgusting. A very small minority might enjoy something like it, but even they wouldn't admit that it's a normal hobby.
Even so, there was one player that reached the top 100 rankings as a necromancer.
His username was Himala, and his nickname, Rich Lich.
As one can expect, he was extremely rich in real life.
His real name was Subrata Duta. He was a 33 year old multi-millionaire, who struck rich with a single app. His hobby was gaming, and he was the type of pervert that enjoyed crushing others through money.
Sadly, his money didn't help him in Warlord. He had no talent for VR games. Even if he equipped himself with the best items, he was just food to PKers who wanted his item. It was no different than a beginner driving a Lamborghini. In fact, because he had good items, he was often PKed by other players.
At one point, he gave up going into battle himself. He became a necromancer and made his summons battle. It didn't matter to him how much money it cost.
When he successfully solo killed Queen Blaze Ant, a level 250 elite monster, people started seeing necromancers in a different light. This was also when he was given the nickname Rich Lich.
But necromancers never became popular. They required the biggest investment of all the available classes and were difficult to raise. Plus, when players started to reevaluate the necromancer class, Warlord's raid system was close to being perfected without necromancers. It was out of the question for top ranking players to give up their characters and restart as necromancers. They weren't willing to change their raid strategies for the sake of necromancers either.
This was why An Jaehyun was conflicted.
'It's possible.'
Want to do everything alone?
Then the necromancer class was the answer. Necromancers weren't weak in battle either. They could make themselves into the undead and modify their own bodies. Their combat power wasn't particularly higher than that of other classes, but An Jaehyun was always able to win against rankers with better equipment and higher stats. He just had to meet certain standards.
Money was a problem, but if he monopolized the profit from killing monsters, it wasn't impossible. He could earn as much as he used.
He had only one concern.
'It's possible… but if I fail, I'm done for.'
It was the possibility of failure.
There was enough information about necromancers, but if his plans failed and he couldn't achieve the results he desired, he would be in dire straits.
He didn't think he could return to the past again.
If he failed, he had to change his mind. He had to throw away his pride, borrow a dog's, and bark under someone's legs.
If he failed, it was over.
But what if he succeeded?
What if he could really do everything by himself as a necromancer?
He would be able to place everyone under his feet. That was the case with Rich Lich. He fought with entire guilds alone. He couldn't fight the Top 30 Guilds, but he was able to crush ordinary guilds by himself. In a simple 1v1, only a handful of rankers were able to beat him.
Rich Lich's battle skills were atrocious, but what if he had An Jaehyun's battle skills? He might have changed Warlord's history.
'Yeah, I have to change history.'
An Jaehyun had no use for the history he knew. What he wanted was a new history centered around himself.
Most importantly, An Jaehyun was confident. That if he became famous enough, the Top 30 Guilds would try to eliminate him again. He knew that if anyone threatened them, those fat pigs turned into boars and charged at their target.
An Jaehyun had to fight against them.
In a way, this was most important to him.
'Alright.'
He made his decision.
"Time to go borrow some money."
★★★
An Jaehyun's first contact with Warlord was through a workshop part-time job. Warlord was a game for the rich. Many didn't have the time or were too lazy to farm for levels, skills, or items. Of course, if they could pay for them, they would happily do so.
Workshops were created for this reason, and part-time workers were hired. Since one couldn't use bots like in PC games, one could only hire actual people.
An Jaehyun found his talent in this part-time job. He saved up money and started Warlord about three months after.
Of course, An Jaehyun now had no intention of wasting three months.
The solution to his money problem was private loans.
Private loans weren't illegal, but as one might expect, people who deal with money think in strange ways.
Used V-Gears sold for a high price. As long as it worked, it would sell for 80% of the original cost. So private loaners often lent money with V-Gears as conditions. That way, they wouldn't lose too much money.
People who borrowed money to buy V-Gears were those looking for a way to earn money. No one borrowed money just so they could enjoy playing VR games. As for the remaining money they owned, it could be paid back as referral fees to workshops.
This was called the V-Gear loan.
When An Jaehyun was working part-time in workshops, he saw many who couldn't pay back their V-Gear loan and came to work in workshops. As much as he worked for these people, he knew where to find them.
As a result, An Jaehyun found himself drinking coffee in a private loan company an hour after he made his decision.
"You're here to borrow money to buy a V-Gear, correct?"
"Yes."
At An Jaehyun's response, the loaner, Park Wuyoung, glanced over him from head to toe.
'He doesn't look like anyone special.'
To Park Wuyoung, it was important to know how to categorize their customers.
Even if they could get back most of their money, a loss was still a loss. At the same time, there were other things to watch out for.
How much money could he rip off apart from the amount he lent? Customers who paid back the amount they owed were good, but even better customers were those who could never pay back the amount they owed and only paid back the interest.
To the loaner's eyes, An Jaehyun was the latter.
He looked like a nobody. With all the news of money in Warlord, there were more people of this sort every day. They were the type to think they could become heroes, like the people they saw on Warlord videos. They were the type to think they may have talent in gaming.
Many of them were especially those running away from reality.
To Park Wuyoung, An Jaehyun was exactly that type.
'Well, there's no reason not to.'
Of course, there was no reason for Park Wuyoung to let the man in front of him borrow. He could easily get his money back.
"Alright, but understand that the interest is high. It will be 29.9%."
To Park Wuyoung, it was laughable.
Park Wuyoung was certain. In 3 months, after his free trial period was over, An Jaehyun will come running back to him. With no way to pay back the money he owed, he will cry his eyes out as he begs on his feet.
"How much are you looking to borrow?"
Knowing this, Park Wuyoung smiled on the outside, but sneered inside.
An Jaehyun calmly replied to Park Wuyoung's smile.
"10 million won."
"Excuse me?"
It was higher than he had expected. He knew 7 million was enough to buy a V-Gear and play Warlord for 3 months.
But he's borrowing 3 million more?
To Park Wuyoung's surprise, An Jaehyun kept his calm and replied,
"If I can't pay it back, introduce me to a workshop. Even if I have to work like a dog, I'll pay you back."
Park Wuyoung couldn't answer for a moment.
At Park Wuyoung's silence, An Jaehyun snapped his finger twice.
"Excuse me, but I'm a bit busy right now. Can I get the money or not?"
An Jaehyun knew the man thought nothing of him. He was used to the way the man looked at him. Although he didn't feel good, he could care less about it at the moment.
So An Jaehyun let his displeasure show on his face, but still asked with a calm voice.
In response, Park Wuyoung fixed his attitude.
"We can, of course, but you will also have to put in your one-room deposit as guarantee."
"Done. Alright, let's hurry up."
Before Park Wuyoung had the chance, An Jaehyun grabbed the contract on top of the table and started reading it like it was his. Then, without listening to any explanations, he filled in the blank space with the amount he wanted, then stamped it with his legal seal.
Afterwards, he turned the contract around and handed it back to Park Wuyoung, saying,
"Stamp it."