I Became the Academy’s Piercing Spearmaster- Chapter 0

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Xrecker
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There was a game called Lucadia Fantasm.

It was an open-world action game where you fought by directly controlling high-quality, cel-shaded characters that looked as if their weeb-style 2D illustrations had been brought directly into 3D.

At the time of its release, it was a game that captivated users not only with its high-quality visuals compared to other games but also with its vast story and characters.

It was a game I started in my late teens and poured the entire youth of my twenties into.

Lucadia Fantasm.

Lu-Fan, for short, was what I thought to be the best game to enjoy as a hobby, posting praise, complaints, playful jokes, and trivial nonsense about its content on the community forums.

Most of the users on the community forums probably felt the same way I did.

“You’ve got to be joking!”

That was, until the event for the boss known as the final boss.

The game had been running for over 10 years.

Since the game had been a massive hit, the company tried to stretch out the main story as long as possible.

The users didn’t really complain about that.

A continuing story meant more content to enjoy, and even if it wasn’t the main story, event stories and sub-stories were periodically added in between to relieve any boredom.

Besides, since the main character of an event story would be released through the gacha, time flew by while researching strategies to build and raise that character.

On top of that, the event stories themselves were fun, and the main character of that fun story was being released in the gacha?

How could anyone just sit still for that?

The game was so highly praised that it became a common saying on the community forums that the company always held the story hostage to make people buy the characters.

However, a decade was a long time.

No matter how much they stretched it out and expanded the scale, the main story ultimately had an end.

Unlike games that failed without even concluding their stories due to low sales, Lucadia Fantasm was a long-running game, even though its popularity had waned compared to its heyday.

And yet.

When it came to the grand finale of the main story….

“Why would they pull this kind of bullshit!”

In Lucadia Fantasm, there was a being called the Demon King of Chaos, who had been teased from the very beginning of the game.

According to the lore, it was an evil being that spread the power of chaos and sought to lead the world to ruin.

A being that sometimes corrupted people with its powerful presence and strength, turning them into its subordinates.

A being that was constantly foreshadowed, to the point where entities called the Apostles of Chaos would occasionally appear as bosses in the main story.

And the boss of this final main story, the Demon King of Chaos Subjugation Battle, was the Demon King himself.

The Demon King of Chaos Subjugation Battle, held as a two-week event for the final main story.

Thirteen days had passed since the event began.

No one had managed to defeat the Demon King.

Not even me, a whale of a player.

Not even I, who had pulled every character, completed their end-game builds, reached the max level, maxed out every skill, and who could normally assemble a team to take down other event bosses in three seconds flat.

I had failed to defeat the Demon King of Chaos, the boss of the main story.

“Aaaaaaaargh!”

Even after trying hundreds of times that day, my characters were wiped out without depleting even a tenth of the Demon King of Chaos’s health.

I failed when I tried to go for a quick fight with a team composition that maximized damage, only to be hit by an unavoidable attack pattern.

Even if I managed to survive the patterns by building a sturdy, defense-oriented team, we would be wiped out by an instant-kill move once the 20-minute time limit for the boss fight was up.

I kept trying various combinations, mixing and matching different characters, but it was all useless.

Unable to contain my anger, I opened the community forum and wrote a post.

[What is this fucking trash game.]

-Fuck, I can’t beat it no matter what team I use. Is there something wrong with the developers’ heads?

ㄴ Yo, whale. Still trying?

ㄴ Seriously, fucking trash game lol Is this even a game? lol

ㄴ A trash game company that was called a god-tier game until now, only to crash and burn with a single event.

ㄴ Seriously, you can’t beat it either? Didn’t you dump a shit-ton of money into this?

The forums were already flooded with posts full of the same anger as mine.

Of course they were.

After running the game so well until now, for them to do this on the monumental final boss event, it was only natural for everyone to be furious.

ㄴ Aren’t you the guy who always posts videos of killing bosses in a few seconds? Why can’t you beat it?

ㄴ OP: Because the company released a completely bullshit boss. Fuck, is one trillion HP for real? I could only deal 99 billion damage.

As if my reply had provided new fodder, a flood of new posts appeared on the community forums.

[Whale deals 99 billion damage lol]

-Wasn’t the last event boss’s HP one billion? Is it even possible to deal 99 billion damage?

ㄴ It’s possible if you have a maxed-out core character and stack a shit-ton of buffs. But you can’t get hit even once, except for the unavoidable attacks.

ㄴ Does that even make sense? The patterns are fucking bullshit.

[Hey, the game company president’s parents died]

-Fuck, why else would they release a motherless boss like this?

ㄴ That’s a messed-up family insult.

ㄴ This fucking game is more messed up.

ㄴ Nah~ Your life for playing a game like this is more messed up~

And just like that, with the community forums ablaze, the event period ended with no one having defeated the Demon King of Chaos.

And then.

[The world was destroyed at the hands of the Demon King of Chaos.]

After those words appeared in white text on a black background, all users were shown a video of the entire in-game world being destroyed.

At the utterly absurd sight, I just…

“This company has really lost its mind.”

Those words came out naturally.

After the video ended, my character alone stood tall in a peaceful meadow, as if nothing had happened.

‘Wait, is that it? Didn’t the world just end? Is the event over just like that? What happens to the main story?’

Just then, the icon leading to the in-game shop page began to glow and chime.

When I clicked it, an even more ridiculous screen unfolded.

[A New Beginning]

[A world that has fallen to ruin. The countless clues you missed. The goddess has answered your earnest wish to save the world once more. Go back in time with the abilities you have chosen, and along with the bonds you will forge anew, save the world from the Demon King of Chaos this time.]

So far, so good.

I could have let it slide, thinking, ‘Wow, so even that shitty event was just preparation for this.’

However.

[Purchase Price: 57,000 Won]

The crazy bastards were actually selling this for money.

“Crazy sons of bitches! Are they really insane! After raking in so much from the gacha, what? They’re charging money for this?!”

I pressed the purchase button.

“I’ve really never seen such crazy bastards in my life. Is this their way of saying ‘sue me’ or what?!”

The skill selection screen appeared.

“A company like this needs to be cursed out and go bankrupt to come to its senses!”

‘Ah, fuck. Which ones should I pick.’

The ones I could choose were all passive skills.

And I could only choose two of them.

After a moment of thought, I chose Penetration and Spearmanship Mastery.

“If this turns out to be nothing special and boring, just you watch! I’ll take the lead and file a lawsuit myself! Huh, they added character customization. Hmmm….”

Usually, they just let you pick between male and female and had you play as a character decided by the company, calling it the player’s avatar, but now there was a new customization feature.

I spent about two hours completing the customization.

Bangs with a slight wave, slightly revealing the left side of the forehead.

A slightly long ponytail was the key feature.

And while the face was fine, I added scars to the torso.

They wouldn’t be visible with clothes on anyway, but the concept was important.

The hair and eyes were black.

This set him apart from the other gacha characters, who mostly had colorful hair and eyes.

If I had had my way, I would have gone for a veteran player style, making the skin purple with an afro and an obese build, but…

Lucadia Fantasm often had story cutscenes featuring the protagonist.

‘I didn’t want to ruin the mood during a serious scene with a ridiculous veteran-player look.’

When I finished all the settings, a ridiculous confirmation window popped up.

[Settings complete. Do you really want to start?]

“Don’t bullshit me!”

Was asking if I really wanted to start after I had already bought it their way of mocking the user to the very end?

I pressed the “Yes” button.

And the next moment, after a white light shot out from the monitor.

I found myself possessing a body in the game’s world.

In the body of the character I had just customized.

On top of that.

As soon as I was transported, I saw the quest window in front of my eyes and my mind went blank.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me….”

I could only return home if I defeated the final boss that I couldn’t beat even with my whale account that I had spent so much money on.

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