[Level Up!]

[Maximum Level Achieved.]

After an eternity, the blue window I’d been waiting for finally blocked my view.

[Stellite LV200]
Class: Bard

“Haa…”

With this, my collection of max-level characters grew from 15 to 16.

“Damn… That was f*cking tough… But today’s the last day, so whatever.”

LostWorld, the world’s most famous virtual reality RPG… or it was, until the probability manipulation scandal two years ago tanked it.

After that mess, most players ditched the game, but people like me, who’d sunk too much time into it, stuck around.

“All 16 classes at max level… Hah, if the people who quit saw this, they’d be floored, heh.”

There were 16 classes in the game, and today, I hit max level with the final one: Bard.

“To think it’s shutting down after all this… Shouldn’t the developers give me something for this?”

“I’m the first—the only one—to max out every class…”

Kim Juwon, 24-year-old guy. Just an ordinary college student at H University in Seoul.

I never slacked on my studies, even while gaming, which is how I got into a decent university.
Sure, I’m on a break now, holed up in my room playing games, but…

LostWorld was what got me through those brutal high school years.

Tomorrow, though, LostWorld’s servers were shutting down.

Pushing back the wave of emptiness, I climbed out of the capsule, shut off the game, and opened the community site.

[LostWorld Gallery]

I’d been lurking in this community for eight years.
Before the scandal, it was thriving—posts popping up every second or two.

Now? You’re lucky to see three or four posts an hour. A ghost town.

Still, I checked it out of habit. Today, the post rate was unusually fast.
Probably because it was the day before the shutdown.

[Is this where the funeral’s at?]

Author: Anonymous
Honestly, they screwed over the players, but I didn’t think it’d last this long lol.
Dogsh*t game, upvote if you agree lol.

[Upvotes] 31 [Downvotes] 10

– Shut up, you b*stard.
– You still wanna play after they bled you dry? Lmao.
– Just shut it. It’s the last day, can’t you let it go peacefully?
– Upvote lol.
– Honestly, the devs were always sh*tty, never liked ‘em lol.

[Fact: The gaming market’s healthier now]

Author: FPSFanatic
One RPG dominating the market was nonsense anyway lol. Come play FPS games!

– Your name screams recruiter, but facts are facts, so upvote.
– Not going far~
– Real talk, they milked us dry lol.

I could say I played LostWorld harder than anyone, so seeing people mock it on its final day pissed me off.
I downvoted their posts and started firing back with comments.

Under my main character’s name, [Noel].

– It’s the last day, do you have to mock it like this?
– Lmao, are you actually Noel? This guy’s head is cracked lol.

– RPGs can dominate the market; if you don’t like it, make a better game.
– I get you… You worked harder than anyone, so it’s gotta sting with the shutdown.
– What, you saying FPS games aren’t competitive? You little sh*t.

Ignoring the flood of curses, I started blaming the developers.

“F*ck… After all my hard work…”

With hollow eyes, I kept scrolling through the community posts.
Then one caught my eye.

[Noel << This guy’s legit insane lol]

Author: Anonymous
While everyone else was cursing and quitting during the scandal, this guy was quietly leveling up…

While people called Noel an idiot, he didn’t even argue back, just kept leveling…

Almost maxed out all 16 classes, which proves he’s absolutely nuts lol.

– What kind of life does this guy live to almost max out every class? Lol, leveling in LostWorld is brutal.
– Dunno, he says he’s got some secret method… Honestly, no clue lol.

To feel even a sliver of pride for being the first and only to max out all 16 classes, I left a comment.

– Just maxed out all classes today… Hit max level with Bard 10 minutes ago and logged off…
– Stop lying, you were level 193 yesterday. How’d you gain 7 levels in a day?
– Does this guy not eat or sleep, just play LostWorld? What kind of life is that?
– No, I’m serious… I posted proof, check it.

[Maxed Out All Classes]

Author: NoelNoel
(Bard max level screenshot jpg.)
(Max level character collection jpg.)

Bard was tough, not gonna lie.

– Crazy bastard lol.
– Is this even physically possible?
– Gotta be rough for this guy, maxing out every class the day before shutdown, then poof, it’s gone lol.
– Try contacting the devs, maybe they’ll toss you some compensation lol.
– Gotta say, his character designs are f*cking gorgeous. All his characters are hot or handsome.

My lips twitched into a small smile, feeling a bit of recognition for my achievement.
But the more I smiled, the worse I felt.

Then I felt a tear drop.
LostWorld carried me through my miserable high school years.

Back then, I saw a girl getting bullied and stepped in to stop it, just once.
That’s all it took for my life to fall apart.

The harassment aimed at her turned to me.
It started with verbal abuse, then spread to my surroundings, and eventually became physical.

The bruises on my thigh and side are proof, but even now, thinking about it makes my side ache.

“…These marks don’t fade easily.”

Sure, after we all went to different colleges, I lost contact with everyone.

Come to think of it, I wonder how that girl’s doing.

I can still see her guilty expression when I took the hits for her.

We’re not in touch anymore, so I don’t know how she’s holding up.

For a coward like me, too scared to even think about ending it all, gaming was my only escape.

Of course, I never neglected my studies—falling behind would’ve meant ending up at the same level as those bullies.
LostWorld, a game just three months old when I started, became my refuge.

Unlike the weak, pathetic me who couldn’t fight back, I made my characters cool and handsome.
Watching them defeat enemies and grow stronger gave me the courage to keep going.

…Sounds like I was way too immersed in the game, but unless you’ve been through it, you wouldn’t get it.

You’d never understand.

In my desperation to cling to something, gaming was a lifeline worth holding onto.

I asked for help, but no one gave me the answers I needed.
Turns out, one of the bullies had some serious backing.

When I went to a teacher for help and got told to just accept an apology, you can’t imagine how humiliated I felt unless you’ve been there.

My parents? They ditched me sometime in high school.
Don’t know where they are, if they’re dead or alive.

In that mess, I buried my shattered self-esteem and threw myself into leveling up my characters.

I’m this weak, but you keep beating enemies and getting stronger. I want to be like you.

But I couldn’t.

Over six years, I met all kinds of people online—good and bad.
LostWorld was my other world, my society.

The more time I spent there, the more I realized the real world wasn’t all bad.
My broken self-esteem started piecing itself back together, bit by bit, like a puzzle.

I got to the point where I could hold a conversation while making eye contact.

Not that I thought I’d amount to anything.
My self-assessment just went from “pathetic loser” to “forgettable nobody.”

The shining title of LostWorld’s number-one leveler hid the pathetic, forgettable me.
I never showed the real “me” to anyone—it’d be laughable.

But knowing my other world, my society, was disappearing made me feel inexplicably sad.

I stared blankly, chuckling hollowly as tears fell.
My life felt utterly empty.

So, I decided to reread a novel I’d been into.

It was a hugely popular TS (transgender) streaming novel.

Overwhelmed by helplessness, I muttered something without thinking.

“…Hah, if I’d been born a pretty girl like this, would my life have been different?”

*Ding—*

Thinking it might be a reply on the community, I checked my phone.
What I saw was completely unexpected.

[LostWorld Announcement]

An apology for the server shutdown?
I wiped the smirk off my face and opened the notice.
After reading it, all I could muster was a question.

“LostWorld… Season 2 showcase announcement…?”