There was this mobile game.

It was called Battle of Summoners.

Like many others, it was a typical collection-based RPG.

You summon creatures, build a team, strengthen it and fight against other players, climb towers and do raids...

Popularity?

Not much.

It had a brief spike in popularity because of the AI, but it quickly faded.

Not only were the in-game purchases quite aggressive, but the difficulty level was insanely high.

There was nothing easy to obtain in the game, and it was extremely difficult to grow your summoned creatures.

To make matters worse, there were too many different types of summons.

To the point that people joked, "Is the AI making these up on the fly?"

With such an unfriendly game, it was only natural that it failed!

The casual players all left, and only the true die-hards remained.

The so-called "veterans".

***

Baek Jin-woo was one of them.

He was twenty-four years old.

He had been playing the game since his first year of middle school.

This made him a ten-year veteran player.

He had achieved a lot in this game.

- He was ranked 1st in Player vs. Player (PvP)!
- Ilcheon (一天, A Day Without a Loss)!
- Conqueror of the 99th floor of the Trial Tower!
- Free-to-play Ranking Master!
- World Time Attack Record Holder for all Daily Dungeons!
- Holder of the fastest time to complete the Chaos Demon Dragon (47 seconds)!

To the uninitiated, these achievements may sound confusing, but to anyone who has spent any time in the game, they are breathtaking.

A god among gods!

The idol of veteran players!

This was Baek Jin-woo, known by his nickname JinuGod.

Of course he was.

When you've spent ten years immersed in such a difficult game, how do you think your real life would turn out?

It was a disaster, of course.

His grades at school - whether in class, the national exam or essays - plummeted.

He couldn't even get into college, so he scraped by with part-time jobs and manual labour.

It wasn't because he was stupid.

If he had been, he wouldn't have been able to reach the rank of #1 as a free-to-play user.

Baek Jin-woo was just obsessed with the game.

When he looked at the letters in the books, all he saw were summoner statistics.

Even when he tried to focus on something else, all he could think about was the auto-farming that was probably happening in the background.

There was no avoiding it.

His mind and soul were already consumed by Battle of Summoners.

That's right.

His real life was a shambles, a stark contrast to the glamorous world of the game.

If his parents were at least well-off, he wouldn't have had to worry so much, but neither of them were well paid.

Of course, he had no complaints.

Why did his mum and dad have three different jobs and run around all over the place?

It was all for Jin-woo and his little sister, Baek Ah-jin.

They were very responsible people.

In fact, they were incredibly kind.

So kind that it was almost foolish.

Although they had every reason to scold their useless son, they just cheered him on...

Ah, what a pathetic piece of garbage.

Jin-woo swallowed his tears.

I know. I'm an ungrateful idiot. A damn bastard.'

For someone who grew up in such a warm and caring family, it was a shame that he was still stuck in the virtual world, drowning in it!

Jin-woo cursed the friend who had recommended the game to him in middle school.

While cursing, he found himself in a nearby garden, tapping away on his mobile phone.

He climbed the tower, communicating with the dazzling summoned creatures equipped with fancy 'runes' and using skills as he climbed.

'Please.

If I can just get to the 100th floor...

I'll stop there and come back to reality, Mum.

It's unfair, you know?

I was the first veteran to reach the 99th floor.

I can't stop now!

It may be a meaningless game in the real world, but for Jin-woo this game was his life.

It had accompanied him through all his school years.

It was everything to him.

Even though the creatures were controlled by AI, he felt a deep connection to them and respected their lives as if they were real.

And it wasn't just that.

He had studied a lot.

If you didn't study, you wouldn't even make it past the lower floors of the tower, let alone develop your summoned creatures properly.

Jin-woo's knowledge of 'Battle of Summoners' was vast, surpassing that of most scholars.

Just a little more.

Tap, tap, tap!

His fingers tapped faster and faster on the phone screen.

He'd been stuck on the 99th floor for a year now, but conquering the tower was within his grasp.

**

[Baekcheon: Damn it! I can't stand this stupid game anymore]

[Rachel: What now?]

[Baekcheon: How did you even get to the 80th floor?]

[Rachel: Hahaha, still stuck there? Weren't you on that floor a month ago?]

In "Battle of Summoners", there was a chat room.

Players could communicate with each other, and the system supported private chat rooms for players who wanted to talk in groups.

[Baekcheon: I swear I did exactly what Sugoi told me!]

Playing alone could be lonely.

Some veteran players created a private chat to share valuable information with each other.

There were six of them.

Each of them stood at the pinnacle of Battle of Summoners.

Together they were known as the Ilcheon-oje (一天五帝), which means "One Heaven, Five Emperors".

It was a title that symbolised one heaven over five rulers.

This room had been maintained for five years, ever since Rachel, the second-ranked PvP player, invited them.

[Sugoi: You know, every player has their own strategy. It's really meaningless.]

[Baekcheon: No, seriously, I'm at the point where I really want to quit.]

Baekcheon was Taiwanese and ranked 6th in the game.

He was the youngest of the five emperors.

Notably, he was filthy rich.

[Baekcheon: You know how much money I put into this game, right?]

[Sugoi: 300 million.]

[Baekcheon: Right. And yet I still can't get past the 80th floor! Damn it!!]

[Sugoi: Calm down, you lunatic. It's not like 300 million is a big deal to you].

[Baekcheon: What are you talking about? There's no money that isn't money!]

Sugoi was Japanese.

As you would expect from an AI-infused game, the messages were translated instantly.

[Zenos: By the way, have you asked Ilcheon about this?]

[Baekcheon: That guy? Uh... isn't he busy these days?]

When Baekcheon hesitated.

[Rachel: You idiot.]

[Sugoi: What are you doing?]

[MoscowMan: Idiot.]

[Zenos: Pathetic]

The chat exploded with criticism.

[Rachel: You didn't ask the god in our chat?]

[Sugoi: I thought you were trying to find a way around it, since the JinuGod method didn't work.]

[MoscowMan: Go die.]

[Zenos: Hopeless.]

Baekcheon and the rest of the veteran players in this chat had a deity they worshipped.

The #1 ranked PvP player, JinuGod!

He had always found creative ways to conquer the game's absurdly difficult towers.

Occasionally, he would drop some helpful solutions or hints to the Five Emperors in chat.

Every time he appeared, he broke through every obstacle they faced, to the point where they worshipped him as a god.

They were careful not to upset him for fear of being kicked out of the chat.

[Baekcheon: Uh... JinuGod-hyung. Are you there? Are you still stuck on the 99th floor?]

By the way, Baekcheon was already over sixty years old.

But in his mind, if someone was better than him, they were automatically his Hyung or Noona.

[Baekcheon: JinuGod-hyung?]

He kept calling, but there was no answer.

[Rachel: Wait, he doesn't usually check the chat]

[Sugoi: Yeah, if you leave a question, he'll probably answer tomorrow]

None of them had made it past the 90th floor.

This made JinuGod, who challenged the 100th floor, seem like a true god.

[Rachel: By the way... it's been almost ten years since anyone reached the 100th floor, right?]

[Zenos: It's crazy. Beyond crazy.]

[Sugoi: I've been playing this game just to see the end of the 100th floor. Damn, JinuGod]

[MoscowMan: Look at the way he's arranged his runes. What a lunatic.]

[Rachel: Seriously, how come we all put in the same amount of time and he's so much better?]

The veterans were excited.

The Tower of Trials was said to be unbeatable!

Each floor was a relentless challenge, but thanks to JinuGod, the end was finally in sight.

[Baekcheon: But what happens after the 100th floor?]

There had been an announcement from the developers a long time ago.

"Conquer the 100th floor of the Tower of Trials!"

The moment it's conquered, a new world will open up!

[Baekcheon: A new world. Does that mean the game will change?]

[Rachel: Hahaha, maybe it was just some random text that the developers threw out. Honestly, they probably didn't think anyone would delete it.]

[Baekcheon: Or...]

Baekcheon chuckled as he typed.

[Baekcheon: Maybe, just like the announcement said, the real world will turn into the Summoners' world!]

You know these things.

The concept that often appears in novels.

Where the real world becomes a game and the game becomes reality.

[MoscowMan: Idiot.]

[Zenos: How long are you going to stay pathetic?]

[Sugoi: You read too many novels, haha]

As usual, the veterans made fun of the youngsters.

They had no idea.

There was no way they could have predicted this.

That Baekcheon's words would become reality.

***

Two weeks later.

On his way to work.

"I... I did it!"

A man walking down the street, tapping furiously on his mobile phone, shouted.

"Hahahahahahahaha! Finally! Finally!"

His voice full of joy, the man jumped up and down in excitement.

His name was Baek Jin-woo.

Nicknamed JinuGod.

"What the..."

"What's wrong with him?"

"He must be crazy."

Passers-by frowned in disgust, but Jin-woo didn't care.

Finally!

Finally!

He had conquered the 100th floor.

He had defeated the monstrous boss and seen the end of the tower.

How hard had it been?

He had sacrificed his real life for this moment.

"Hahahahahahahaha!"

He was so happy that he was in tears.

[You have cleared the 100th floor of the Trial Tower.]

The golden status window flashed, tickling his senses.

As he took screenshots to show off to the veteran players.

"Huh?"

"What?"

"What's that?"

The murmurs around him grew louder.

Jin-woo felt something strange as well.

[You have cleared the 100th floor of the Tower of Trials.]

This sentence, which should have been on the screen of his phone, was somehow floating outside the screen.

Why was it floating in the air like a hologram?

Standing on the crosswalk, Jin-woo furrowed his brow.

Ah.

Had he gone from being obsessed with the game to actually losing his mind?

But it didn't seem like he was the only one seeing things - everyone else around him seemed to be looking at something as well.

[The beta test has ended.]

[A new world is opening up]

What?

Beta test?

At this very moment.

Flap!

Red paper started to fall from the sky.

It was a shape that Jin-woo was all too familiar with.

"This..."

There was no way he wouldn't recognise it.

He had seen it countless times.

"A low level summoning scroll?"

An item that could summon any monster from F-rank to D-rank. One scroll fell into the hands of every human.

"What is this...?"

And then.

- Hooooonk!

A deafening lorry horn blasted into his ears.

He locked eyes with the panicked truck driver through the windscreen.

"Huh, huh?"

He tried to swerve, but his body wouldn't move.

And then.

Slam!

As Jin-woo was hit by the truck and felt a heavy impact, a single thought crossed his mind.

This damned game.

One thing was certain.

His life had been ruined by "Battle of Summoners".