CH 1

I worked really hard for a year playing the game [Arcadia]. I paid 1.5 million won a month (you can think of it as just pouring out my salary), and by allowing no room for carelessness, I pushed my character up to 5th in the rankings. 

And I formed a clan and went to sieges, and luckily was able to occupy a castle. In real life, I lived a hopeless cyber-yolo life, but in the game, I was an undisputed ruler and a powerful lord with a castle.

A master mage that all users want to add as friend at least once. That was me. Although my house in reality was a studio with a deposit of 3 million and a monthly rent of 300k, as soon as I logged in, I was greeted by the office of the permanent residence with a red carpet.

Naturally, I forgot about the earthy reality and immersed myself in the game like a drug. When I thought I would live happily ever after in the game… A nightmare called Shin Heejae appeared in my game life.

[Heejae: lolol did you buy an account? you’re so bad at this] 

At first, I got involved with Shin Heejae because of a very minor dispute.

In [Arcadia], the clan that occupied a territory usually monopolized the best dungeon around the territory.

It wasn’t that our clan was particularly vicious and crazy about money, it was something that any clan would do if they occupied a castle, but a madman who rebelled against the norm appeared.

It was Shin Heejae.

This bastard Heejae tried to enter the dungeon that only clan members could use, saying there were items he needed.

And the 20 clan members and the guild master who tried to prevent it were ‘chopped up’.

Shin Heejae’s occupation was [Night Walker].

It was an occupation that was considered by users to be of little value other than quick attack power, but that fellow Heejae slaughtered max level clan members, including ‘Spirit Master’ and ‘Hunter’, who were known to have the best PVP performance at the time. 

Then it was uploaded to his YouTube channel (the video had been viewed by over a million people to date).

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However, in the battle for the fate of the clan, I was left devastated by Shin Heejae. 

On top of that, I accidentally (fuck! accidentally!!!) dropped the best weapon I had called [Signiel of Blue Flame] at that time.

It was the most expensive item I had gotten from hunting, and it was the first contribution that made me a castle lord… That day, it was taken away by Shin Heejae.

And Shin Heejae put it up for auction and sold it.

The final winning bid was 16 million won. 

For me, barely earning 2 million a month, it felt like my blood was pumping backwards.

But no one really recognized this injustice. It was because public opinion was not good.

I hadn’t known, but it seemed that low-level users had been dissatisfied with the ‘custom’ of having to curry favor with the clan or pay an entrance fee to enter. Before I knew it, my image had become a villain due to being washed out by Heejae and the tension from low-level players.

Our clan, which was destroyed by a single player, became a target of ridicule here and there. The clan members who could not stand the stigma of public opinion began to leave one by one. Naturally, our clan was defeated in the next siege due to a lack of manpower to protect the castle. 

Heejae was the one who stole the castle. He created a clan called [Malicious], took the castle, and then raised the tax by 1,000% to destroy the territory I had worked hard to develop and sold it without any regrets.

Fuck… Like an apostle of justice, he sold our clan as garbage, and as soon as he became the lord of the castle, he raised the tax to the maximum in just one month and wrung the players dry.

However, players did not curse Shin Heejae. Rather, they were busy sucking up to the guy, saying that his terrible management was refreshing.

And I… 

“Shin Heejae… Die, die, die!”

Every day, I remembered the PVP I had with Shin Heejae and grinded my teeth.

However, the opportunity for revenge never came. Shin Heejae had already become the head of a huge clan, and I lost my weapon to him so even my occupation was ruined and I was nerfed frequently so I couldn’t even defend my ranking.

In addition, even if I tried to join a clan as large as Shin Heejae’s [Malicious], I had nowhere to go because my image was terrible. 

In the end, I sold my entire account in a panic. Of course, it was a huge loss. I had spent millions of won, but only got back 5 million won.

So I quit [Arcadia] for a year.

———

[Hyejin: oppa, I] 

[Hyejin: let’s play Arca again lolol]

It was around that time that Hyejin contacted me, who was the boss of the clan and the manager of my account.

It wasn’t awkward because I was in contact with Hyejin often even if we didn’t play games together, but the content was quite surprising.

[Me: are you crazy?] 

[Hyejin: lolololol]

[Hyejin: It’s fun since it’s been a while]

[Me: lol]

[Hyejin: it’s new, I raised it again from lvl 1] 

[Hyejin: it’s the burning period right now, so the clan master is doing it too.

[Me: gg]

When I left [Arcadia], I said that I would never look at this game again because I went through all sorts of things…

Hyejin was rambling that the newly released character had hit her and she sent me several screenshots. 

And…

[Do you want to choose the nickname ‘Sesam’?]

———

It was exhausting, but I had no work to do during the holidays, so I also created a new character in [Arcadia]. A few days ago, Hyejin sarcastically asked if I had a change of mind, so I eventually returned without telling anyone. 

Instead, I made up my mind that this time, I would never play the game while spending 1.5 million won as ignorantly as before.

“The battle mages are money eaters… What could be done without spending money…”

I felt somewhat lost when I tried to play without paying, so I rejoined the [Arcadia Official Cafe], which I had withdrawn from before, and searched for the latest trends diligently.

As a result of searching, it seems that a popular occupation that could be raised without money these days was a healer spirit who could do buffing as a part-time job. The character I had originally raised was also a wizard-type battle mage, so the skill composition and most of the skills were also similar. 

I voluntarily chose the spirit.

And…

“After all, wizards are female.”

Like the character I had raised before, I made a female character with long, flowing blonde hair.