My Platoon is Fucking Hopeless – Chapter 1

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Wjin
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The music swells, and the ending credits roll.

“Phew.”

I exhaled and stretched.

After playing a single game for nine hours, it was only natural to feel stiff all over.

Hearts of General.

A masterpiece strategy simulation game released over five years ago.

Its main objective was to achieve victory in a war that unfolded on the fictional continent of Pantera, and it boasted excellent graphics, historical accuracy, sound, and various other systems.

Despite being a simulation game, a genre with a notoriously high barrier to entry, it swept all the game awards in its release year, which spoke for itself.

And I was a hardcore player who had enjoyed this game for about 10,000 hours.

“Let’s see my game record.”

“Oh, I’ve reached 1,000 victories with this.”

It felt new, somehow.

Playing Hearts of General for nearly 12 hours a day, I hadn’t realized I had accumulated a thousand wins.

‘If I post this on the community, it’ll definitely hit the top.’

For the record, I’d already posted my 10,000-hour playtime as proof, and it had reached the real-time best.

Just as I was grinning and about to take a screenshot of the game screen, a system message popped up.

A new difficulty?

Hearts of General had difficulty levels ranging from Beginner to God, and I had been playing on God difficulty ever since the game’s release.

I had wished for a more challenging difficulty, and it turned out it was unlocked by achieving 1,000 victories?

“I knew it. They kept releasing DLCs every year but not adding a new difficulty. So it was hidden like this?”

I had never heard of content beyond God difficulty being unlocked.

So I was the first?

This was beyond just a top post; it could be something even greater.

It would surely become a hot topic in overseas forums as well.

The title of world’s first! Wasn’t that what gamers always craved?

I meticulously captured each screen and started a new game on the newly unlocked difficulty level.

Just posting a single screenshot would definitely lead to accusations of manipulation, so I needed to upload the gameplay footage as well.

After God, it was Reality.

That meant it was incredibly realistic, right?

Being a new difficulty, it might even have added gameplay mechanics never seen before.

I selected Reality difficulty and started a new game.

The familiar nation selection screen appeared.

The game was about choosing a nation belonging to either the Free Allied Forces or the Imperial Alliance and leading that faction and nation to victory.

The gameplay style and advantages and disadvantages differed drastically depending on which faction and nation you chose.

But for some reason, I couldn’t select a nation.

I wondered if it was a bug, but it seemed that wasn’t the case.

“Ah, right, something like this is necessary to make it harder than God difficulty.”

I readily agreed.

The Principality of Ukraine.

It was a nation that appeared in the game, but it was permanently neutral, not belonging to any faction.

And to make matters worse, it was located between the Allied and Alliance front lines, so no matter which side you chose, its territory would be split in half at the start of the war.

In short, it was a punching bag and a pushover.

Winning the war by choosing this nation?

That fact alone could be considered as raising the game’s difficulty to the extreme.

Hearts of General was a ‘strategy’ simulation game, unlike other games where a single character could dominate.

“This will be interesting.”

Unable to contain my excitement, I immediately pressed the next button.

Character customization.

I quickly put together a decent appearance and opened the most crucial part of customization, the traits window.

As the name suggested, these were the traits possessed by the character, and the stats were determined based on the chosen traits.

I usually used a preset, but this time, since it was completely new, I wanted to try selecting entirely new traits.

“But… what is this?”

Countless traits lined the screen. Among them, one in particular caught my eye.

“I’ve never seen this trait before. But why does a single trait cost 3,000 points?”

The trait system was simple.

The initial points given totaled 1,000.

Selecting good traits reduced the points, while bad traits increased them.

So what kind of trait was this, costing three times the base points?

The 3,000-point restriction was enough to pique my curiosity.

It was my style to try something out if I was curious.

I started adding various bad traits to generate the additional 2,000 points.

First were the Impression traits.

As the name suggested, these traits determined how others perceived the character’s impression.

“I can raise Charisma slowly, so… Cold, Stiff… and add Aloof.”

Next were the Physical traits.

I wanted to develop this character into a mage class rather than infantry, cavalry, or artillery, so I added traits that wouldn’t interfere with using magic.

Since I already had the Frail trait, I also added Slow Recovery and Sickly, which had a similar effect.

They might overlap, but I could milk the extra points.

The character would be the one suffering from illness, not me.

But I was still short about 400 points.

“If I add any more here, he’ll just be a walking corpse.”

I tried to refrain from Mental traits as much as possible since they were extremely important in this game…

In the end, the only solution was to add Mental traits.

After carefully selecting the ones with the least side effects, I was finally able to add the Savior of a Ruined Nation trait.

It was better than a serious mental illness, right?

“If it’s a crap trait, I’ll just restart the game.”

Simple. I could always change the traits just by going back and forth in the menu.

After finishing the setup, I boldly clicked the start game button.

Along with a message I had never seen before, the monitor screen brightened.

At that moment, all the introductions of web novels, anime, and games that I had consumed during my shut-in life flashed through my mind.

I instinctively felt a sense of foreboding.

“Hey! Don’t tell me this is that cli…!!”

Regretting it was already too late.

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Yes, I had to admit it now.

The fact that I had fallen into the damn game.

I looked at the full-length mirror in the room.

Neat blonde hair and green eyes. There was no trace of Kim Jin-hyuk, the native Korean, left in this near-white skin.

“I’m really screwed.”

My head throbbed.

When I saw settings in novels where people got trapped in systems and possessed characters, I found it absurd and laughable.

So it was all about plausibility?

I started the game without a second thought, and the monitor flashed. Then I was possessed in the game world.

How was I supposed to react to this? Was this for real?

I felt like I was going crazy.

And of all things, Hearts of General.

It was a world with no dreams or hope, where soldiers, not to mention low-ranking officers, were slaughtered by the dozens, hundreds, every day.

Wouldn’t it be better to be possessed in a sexy game where you die if you don’t capture the heroine or a fantasy game set in a hopeful academy?

Being possessed in a hardcore war simulation game? Seriously?

I had already confirmed that this wasn’t a dream or an illusion.

I had banged my head against the wall, and it hurt so much that I passed out and just woke up.

Well, what could I do?

The last message was wishing me luck, so the way out of this world was probably ‘victory in war.’ Whining wasn’t going to get me back to my original world.

I quickly resigned myself and resolved to focus on the game strategy.

“If they have any conscience, they would’ve given me this.”

I took a deep breath and carefully said,

“Status window.”

As I uttered the magic words, a window popped up before my eyes.

“Yes!!!!”

I cheered, clenching my fist.

The status window! Wasn’t it a privilege always granted to those who were possessed?

However…

“What the f**k?”

I felt like I had been hit in the back of the head.

I couldn’t possibly forget what had happened just a few minutes ago.

That I had utterly destroyed my character’s traits to add the ‘Savior of a Ruined Nation’ trait.

-If it’s a crap trait, I’ll just restart the game.

I shouldn’t have done that.

No wonder I had passed out just from banging my head against the wall once. This soldier’s durability was way too low.

I would’ve never added this trait if I knew I would be possessed.

“W, well, the traits are one thing, but… what about the stats, the ability window?”

I swiped my hand across the status window, and the screen flipped like a touchscreen.

The stat window appeared next.

However, unlike the disastrous traits window, the content was markedly different.

And for good reason.

All stats were maxed out.

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“Uh… hmm.”

No wonder the Savior of a Ruined Nation trait consumed so many points.

If it was a trait that granted max stats in everything, it made sense.

It was strange that it only cost 3,000.

Even with my usual preset traits, I couldn’t max out all six stats.

Maybe two or three at most? And even then, I had to play a distorted style where I had to drastically give up other stats.

All stats maxed?

It seemed this body wasn’t completely useless.

Realizing this, hope for overcoming this situation began to sprout.

In Hearts of General, every single stat was precious.

Since it was a strategy simulation game, there was no way for the player to arbitrarily increase stats within the game like in RPGs or other games.

Stats could only be increased by achieving military exploits to get promoted, managing subordinates well to receive stat bonuses, or belonging to a special group.

Furthermore, from the latter half of the game, the stats of the player character’s comrades, their subordinates, became more important.

So after a certain point, it was standard to focus on developing subordinates rather than the player character’s own stats.

But to have maxed-out stats from the beginning?

This meant I wouldn’t have to invest a tremendous amount of time in my personal training.

I could use that time to better train my subordinates, right?

Right, subordinates.

The important thing was my current subordinates.

What good were maxed-out stats if I had no troops under my command? I couldn’t do anything on the battlefield.

Since my affiliation and position were clearly defined in the status window, I must have a platoon to manage right now.

Especially since the mage corps, my assigned branch, was drastically affected by the type of subordinates under my command.

Quickly grasping my subordinates’ abilities was the top priority for planning ahead.

“Let’s see… would this also be displayed in the status window?”

Just like before, I swiped my hand, and the status window flipped to the next screen.

Unit Management.

The screen displaying the flower and main content of Hearts of General appeared.

“But nothing’s displayed. Is it locked?”

Markers for the unit members were present in the unit management window, but viewing their stats or faces was impossible.

It seemed I had to meet them in person to unlock them.

Just then, a single document envelope lying on the desk caught my eye.

As if possessed, I tore open the seal and looked inside.

There were four white sheets of paper.

The words written at the top were…

“Of course.”

I emptied the envelope and quickly checked the documents scattered on the desk.

Usually, the starting point of ‘HOG’ (Hearts of General) was five years before the outbreak of the full-scale world war.

That remained the same regardless of which nation or faction you chose.

The Reinhardt Empire, which created all sorts of new weapons with advanced technology.

The Amerian Federal Republic, which poured out an insane amount of resources based on its powerful industrial capacity and population.

And the Ukraine Principality, crushed between the fighting whales.

In the end, the time frame was the same. I had to start from here.

‘Five years, I need to reach at least Captain within five years. Only then can I try something.’

And for that, the existence of excellent platoon members was essential.

“Well, what are my first platoon members like?”

Since I had overwhelming stats, even if they were just average, I could train them into incredible assets within two years, let alone five.

Strong comrades! The elite army of Ukraine!

Filled with anticipation, I started reading the first document I picked up.

The name was Lumia Blyue, 23 years old. Rank: Sergeant.

She had snow-white hair, tied to one side in a thick braid.

Even in the drab, dark brown uniform in the photo, her beauty couldn’t be hidden. She was a stunning beauty.

“Oh.”

Her beauty was enough to make me gasp involuntarily.

Since the Hearts of General setting still had an aristocratic class, she might have a trait like ‘Fallen Noble.’

Fallen Noble gave a bonus to Political Power, making it quite a good trait.

I couldn’t see Lumia’s appearance anymore.

Beauty aside, stats were the most important thing right now.

It seemed she hadn’t received any medals or achieved any military exploits.

Perhaps because it was the beginning, they had matched me with someone of average ability.

Then, as I checked the last part of the document, the Remarks section, I couldn’t help but doubt my eyes.

“?????”

This was definitely not good.

And there was one more sentence that drove the nail in the coffin.

“…Ah.”

A dud. The worst kind.

Judging from her background and family, the chances of her being a noble were surprisingly low.

The Fallen Noble trait was out the window, so there wasn’t much reason to keep her.

Of all people, why did I get stuck with someone like this? Next!

I tossed Lumia’s document carelessly onto the desk and checked another one.

“Next is Sergeant Roxana Elim, twenty years old… and the remarks are?”

This one was even worse than the last.

Why was someone with a heart condition even in the military?

“This is bad.”

I flipped through the documents once again.

The third platoon member was Sergeant Belle Meyer, 26 years old.

Next was Sergeant Claude Rain, 31 years old.

Requires special attention.

May have a detrimental effect.

Requires special attention.

Caution is advised.

Sentences that shouldn’t appear in the Remarks section were all present, without exception.

My head, which I had barely managed to calm down, began throbbing again, and I felt a fever rising.

“Seriously, this difficulty adjustment is too much.”

This personnel selection could only be interpreted as the system having pure malice towards me.

In other words, the current situation could be summarized as…

‘This platoon is utterly useless.’

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