The northern wastes were a jagged landscape of ice and desperation, a place where the wind howled like a wounded beast caught in a trap of its own making.
For Shin Youngwoo—known to the digital world of Satisfy as Grid—it had been a month of pure, unadulterated hell.
His face was gaunted, his eyes were bloodshot, and his pride had been ground into the frozen dirt so many times it was practically a geological layer. He had died in ways that defied the laws of probability; he had been trampled by goats, slipped into ravines, and once, in a moment of peak humiliation, choked to death on a piece of particularly dry jerky while trying to hide from a level 20 goblin.
But today, the "Gods of RNG"—or perhaps just the sheer statistical probability of a blind squirrel finally stumbling over a mountain of nuts—finally blinked.
Grid had reached the sixth hurdle on the path to the northern cave. His movements were a "ragtag stealth" that involved him crawling on his stomach and occasionally hiding behind shrubs that were half his size, his black leather armor making him look like a charcoal smudge on a wedding dress.
High above, nestled in the shadow of a frost-covered crag, Koren adjusted his recording crystal. The elite assassin, tasked by Earl Ashur to monitor the "courier," had seen it all.
He had seen Grid die forty-five times. He had watched him eat bread that was more of a penicillin than flour. He had reached a state of "transcendental amusement" where he no longer viewed Grid as a mission, but as a long-running comedy series that he got to watch live.
"What is he doing now?" Koren whispered into his comms, his voice trembling with suppressed laughter. "Is he... is he trying to camouflage himself with snow? He's literally just rubbing snow on his shoulders. Does he think the monsters can't see the giant vibrating black lump in the middle of a white field?"
Grid rounded a bend in the canyon and froze. His heart, usually heavy with the dread of impending death, gave a violent leap. There, lying in a hollow of shattered stone and frozen meltwater, was a One-Horned Griffin.
It was a magnificent beast, a creature that normally sat at Level 250, a king of the skies that could tear a platoon of knights into confetti of blood and gore. But this specimen was a pathetic sight.
Its golden feathers were molting and dull, one massive wing was snapped at a sickening, jagged angle, and its namesake horn—a catalyst for high-tier magic—was cracked and leaking faint, blue mana rich serum.
It was an old chief, beaten by a younger, more vicious rival and exiled from the pack to die in the lonely cold. It was at 1% health, its breathing a wet, rhythmic, rattling wheeze.
Grid's eyes widened. His pupils dilated until they were nearly all black, reflecting a predatory greed that bordered on the psychotic. He didn't see a majestic, dying creature; he saw a mountain of experience points and a golden ticket out of the gutter.
"Luck!" Grid hissed, his voice cracking with a mixture of disbelief and manic joy. "Finally! The devs forgot to nerf my luck today! The game is finally getting normal!"
He crept forward, his rusted iron dagger—a weapon that looked like it had been used to open barrels—trembling in his hand. With a desperate, uncoordinated lunge that was more of a decorative stumble, he plunged the blade into the Griffin's exposed throat.
The beast didn't even have the strength to shriek. It gave one final, shuddering heave, its ancient eyes closing for the last time, and dissolved into a spectacular explosion of grey and silver light shards.
[You have defeated the Exiled One-Horned Griffin!]
[An overwhelming level difference has been detected!]
[Experience Gained: 21,450,200!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Your Level has risen from 74 to 93!]
Grid stood in the center of the clearing, bathed in the cascading gold light of consecutive level-ups. The warmth of the stat increases washed over him like a holy baptism. He threw his head back and laughed—a jagged, manic, terrifying sound that sent a literal shiver down Koren's spine.
"Ninety-three! I'm ninety-three!" Grid screamed at the empty, indifferent sky. "Who's the loser now, Arthur?! I'm almost a high-ranker! I'm a god among men! Level 93 in a month! I'm a genius! A natural-born predator!"
He scrambled to grab the loot, his fingers clawing at the snow as if afraid the items would evaporate. His hands shook as he shoveled the treasures into his inventory:
* Feather of a One-Horned Griffin: A shimmering, razor-sharp quill worth a fortune to scribes.
* Beak of a One-Horned Griffin: A heavy, serrated trophy used in high-level smithing.
* Blue Griffin Leather: High-grade, mana-resistant hide.
* Griffin Tendon & Bones: Elite crafting materials.
Fueled by the raw adrenaline of his "all-time high," Grid turned and began to sprint back toward the city of Patrain.
Grid didn't use stealth. He didn't check his corners. He didn't even look at the mini-map. He ran like a man who believed the world had finally accepted him as its primary protagonist, his chest puffed out so far he was practically leaning backward.
"I'll buy better bread!" he shouted to the wind. "I'll buy a sword that isn't made of tin! I'll find ten girls more beautiful than those stuck-up bitches of Arthur! I'll make them watch me spend gold until their eyes pop out!"
CRACK.
Grid didn't fall into a pit. He did something much worse. In his blind euphoria, he ran directly into a Spider Horde nesting in a narrow, shadowed ravine. These weren't low-level pests; they were Level 110 Cave Spiders, and they were very, very hungry.
Hundreds of them dropped from the ceiling in a silent, terrifying rain of chitin and fangs. Their silk was thick as cable, and their fangs dripped with a glowing, paralytic green venom.
"GET OFF ME! I'M LEVEL NINETY-THREE! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!" Grid shrieked, flailing his arms like a windmill in a hurricane.
It took exactly twelve seconds. The spiders swarmed him, a living carpet of legs and eyes, wrapping him in sticky silk before he could even draw his pathetic dagger. Grid's last sight before the grey screen of death claimed him was a spider the size of a Saint Bernard preparing to feast on his nose.
Two minutes later, Grid respawned at the Patrain plaza. He had lost a level—he was Level 92 now—but he still had a happy, delusional, almost frightening smile on his face.
The "Death Penalty" was a small price to pay, because in the chaotic frenzy of the spider attack, the Griffin loot had remained in his inventory.
He marched straight to a local merchant stall—a shifty-looking man named Midas who specialized in "buying low and selling high."
"Look at this!" Grid slammed the Griffin Beak and the Blue Leather onto the counter, nearly breaking the wood. "High-grade materials from a Level 250 boss! I want a fair price! And don't try to cheat a high-ranker like me!"
Midas peered at the items through a jeweler's loupe. His eyes sparkled with a predatory greed that rivaled Grid's, but his face remained a mask of professional boredom.
"Hmm. Old Griffin. Damaged leather—looks like it was dragged through a spider den. The beak is chipped. It's... niche," Midas lied, his heart hammering at the sight of the mana-infused leather. "I'll give you 30 gold for the lot. That's a generous offer for a traveler in such... distressed armor."
"Thirty gold for this old Griffin?!" Grid gasped, his knees nearly buckling. To a man who had been living on copper and silver, 30 gold was an unimaginable sum. "That's... that's a fortune! I can buy three thousand loaves of bread! If it's the old moldy stuff from the back bin, I can get nine thousand! Deal! Deal before you change your mind!"
Grid snatched the 30 gold coins, cackling like a hyena, and ran off toward the food stalls to begin his "masterful negotiation" for bulk fungus-bread.
Koren, watching from an alleyway, slapped his forehead so hard the sound echoed. "Thirty gold? The leather alone is worth fifty. The beak is a high tier mana catalyst for the Magician's Guild worth at least thirty on its own. He just got robbed of over fifty gold and he's celebrating like he just inherited a kingdom. My soul hurts just watching this."
A few minutes later, Grid was sitting by the Patrain fountain, surrounded by a literal mountain of "discount" moldy bread he had bought with his "riches." He chewed on the grey, fuzzy crust with a blissful expression, a man who felt he had finally conquered the world.
"Arthur... poor, pathetic Arthur," Grid mumbled between bites of fungus. "He's probably still Level 80, struggling to kill ghouls in some dark hole. While I... I am a Level 92 elite. I have 425 gold left in my inventory! I'm a whale!"
He leaned back against the fountain's stone lip, his mind spinning a golden fantasy.
"Soon, I'll be Level 100. I'll go find that pathetic guy in that inn and show those girls—Alfia, Meteria, Nana, Cecil—I'll show them my level and my wealth. They'll regret every word they said. They'll realize they picked the wrong protector."
He closed his eyes, imagining a line of women with "assets" even more mountainous than Arthur's followers, all feeding him grapes while he sat on a throne made of solid gold.
In his dream, Alfia and Meteria were crying at his feet, begging to be his companions, but he shooed them away with a dismissive wave.
"Go back to your loser," he imagined himself saying. "I only accept Legendary-tier beauties now."
Koren leaned against a nearby wall, his shoulders shaking with silent, hysterical laughter.
"He's dreaming of a harem while eating literal fungus in the dirt. Even the city beggars are looking at him with pity. I've never seen a man with so much ego and so little self-awareness."
Grid stood up, feeling emboldened by the bread and his delusions. "Alright! Time to get to Level 100! No more spiders! I'll take the lake route!"
He marched out of the city gates with the confidence of a conqueror. Ten minutes later, Koren watched as Grid tried to take a "tactical shortcut" across a frozen lake. He slipped on a patch of black ice, tumbled like a frantic penguin into a hidden crevasse, and died instantly.
[Your Level has dropped to 91.]
"Ninety-one," Koren wheezed into his recording crystal, wiping tears from his eyes. "He's literally a human yo-yo. My Lord Ashur... I don't think we need to worry about him. He'll be Level 10 again by next Tuesday if he finds another 'shortcut.' This isn't a mission anymore; it's a blessing. I'm getting paid to watch the funniest man in the world commit suicide repeatedly."
But in the far distance, tucked away in the warmth of Khan's Smithy, Arthur was already Level 150. He was surrounded by millions of gold, legendary materials, and a party of loyal, high-level followers. He has quietly prepared the trap that would change Grid's life—and the world of Satisfy—forever.