TW-Chapter 1

The Abyss of the Labyrinth

There’s a saying that all real-time games are actually turn-based games.

If you think of ‘doing nothing during an infinitely small unit of time’ as completing one turn, that is.

Sophistry?

I thought so too.

Until I got possessed by this crazy game and became a turn-based wizard.

***

<The Abyss of the Labyrinth>

That game was a traditional D&D-style turn-based strategy RPG. A roguelike single-player game where you descend to the deepest part of a labyrinth.

You organize a 4-person party to uncover secrets, adventure, and engage in turn-based combat with enemies you encounter.

I’m given 60 seconds per turn. To win in battle, I have to thoroughly strategize within that time.

According to the rotating order of party members.

[Shadow Leap]

If I use my rogue’s movement skill to position them next to an enemy archer.

[Guard Repositioning]

The archer finds close combat with the rogue burdensome, so they use a movement skill to retreat to high ground.

I was waiting for that.

[Position Swapping]

Then, on my wizard’s next turn, I swap the positions of my allied archer and the enemy archer.

Now my archer has moved to the high ground, and the enemy archer is placed next to our warrior with their movement skill on cooldown.

[Dragon Strike]

On the warrior’s next turn, I destroy the enemy archer with a powerful physical attack.

This is how you strategically fight battles like playing chess, predicting enemy moves and distributing each party member’s actions one by one.

Utilizing all sorts of elements like flanking attacks, area control, mines, traps, ropes, hills, cliffs, rivers, snares, bushes, trees, sticky substances, neutral monsters, poison gas, oil barrels, magic arrows, bombs, summons, potions, and more.

That was fun.

Others seemed to find it fun too, as the game ‘The Abyss of the Labyrinth’ became quite popular for a while.

The problem was…

-No way, this game is fucking hard

-Is there anyone who actually sees the ending?

-It’s the final stage, but what the hell is this Labyrinth Master bastard? Everyone just dies in one hit from the volcano magic?

-The bastards that come out as Labyrinth Master’s subordinates are also fucking strong?

This game was so difficult that no one could see the ending.

I was the first in the world to figure out how to clear it.

The key to the strategy was to cram the Labyrinth Master’s subordinates into the range of the Labyrinth Master’s volcano magic and annihilate them all.

And in my party, I keep only the ‘wizard’ alive.

I cast the Last Resistance blessing on the wizard to survive with 1 health point.

[Raise Up Dead Body]

Then I use necromancy magic to revive my companions.

[Clockwork of Natural Order]

Then the Labyrinth Master activates dispel magic. To kill the undead.

At this point, the Labyrinth Master’s own ‘Status Abnormality Resistance’ blessing also disappears, which was the goal from the beginning.

Now it’s a duel between the wizard and the Labyrinth Master.

I persistently beat them by throwing various status abnormality spells and CC items.

That’s how I cleared it.

The strategy I devised became a kind of official guideline, and countless players followed my method afterward.

Then I started increasing the game’s difficulty.

After clearing classic difficulty, a ‘hard’ difficulty opened up for second playthrough players.

After months of struggle, I cleared the hard difficulty too.

Difficulty: Strategist

The next difficulty opened up.

From then on, I couldn’t stop.

Like a madman, I became addicted and repeatedly cleared the game with all sorts of extraordinary methods and strategies.

Difficulty: Master Strategist

Difficulty: Endless Battle

Difficulty: True Leader

Difficulty: Hall of Fame

Difficulty: Beginning of Legend

Difficulty: Asceticism

Difficulty: Desperate Struggle

Difficulty: Endless Challenge

Difficulty: Indomitable Spirit

Difficulty: Enlightenment

Difficulty: Great Wisdom

Difficulty: Absolute Strategy

Difficulty: End of Strategy

Difficulty: Transcendence of Humanity

Difficulty: God of Strategy

…

For a while, there were players who followed me and challenged high difficulties together, but at some point, they all disappeared.

So I also stopped sharing clear strategies through YouTube. That was around ‘Hall of Fame’, I think?

But I continued repeating this because I found strategic combat itself fun, and then one day.

[Difficulty: Developer]

I reached a difficulty with a peculiar name.

“Developer?”

For reference, the difficulty right before that was ‘Turn-Based Master’.

After a series of plausible words as difficulty names, suddenly ‘Developer’.

It felt deflating, yet at the same time, I had an intuition that this was the end.

‘What will I do now that I have reached Developer level?’

I had that thought as I started Developer difficulty.

At some point, the ending had become not my goal but my daily routine.

The thought that this game was ending left me feeling bittersweet.

[Caleb]

I set my nickname and created a new character for Developer difficulty.

This time it was also a wizard.

While my party members’ positions had changed several times, my main character was always a wizard.

Because the wizard is usually the core of most strategies.

[Distribute 10 ability points]

I allocated them like this:

[Strength(0), Agility(0), Wisdom(10), Health(0), Dexterity(0)]

The higher the wisdom, the stronger the magic’s power.

In the past, there was a meta where wizards would put a few points into strength, health, etc., in the early game to increase early survival with strong armor.

But in my experience, from ‘Absolute Strategy’ difficulty onwards, that doesn’t work either. No matter what you do early on, you die in one hit.

So the new method I developed was to dump everything into wisdom. If you’re going to be fragile anyway, the mindset is to kill before getting hit.

[Select a special ability]

Special abilities are character-specific talents distinct from skills.

Things like ‘Corpse Eating’, where you eat corpses to recover health, or ‘Perfectionist’, where your attack power increases when health is full.

‘I’ll start like the previous difficulty again… Huh?’

While looking through the special abilities tab, I discovered an unexpected option, and my eyes widened.

[Select a special ability.]

…

-Turn-Based Hourglass: Unlocked by clearing ‘Turn-Based Master’ difficulty.

“What’s this?”

The difficulty right before Developer was ‘Turn-Based Master’. This special ability didn’t exist when I played that.

“Should I try it once?”

If it’s not good, I can delete and restart. I don’t expect to clear the final ‘Developer’ difficulty in one go anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

I selected the special ability and moved to the next screen.

[Would you like to enter the Abyss of the Labyrinth? Y/N]

The moment I pressed the Y button.

I lost consciousness just like that.

When I opened my eyes again, I was inside the game.

I had become a wizard.

***

I’m fucked.

I’m not someone who swears much, but there’s no more appropriate word than this.

‘I’m really fucked.’

More than when that useless junior in the army fired artillery northward and North Korea responded with a broadcast.

The place I was in was a Magic University.

I found the scenery here familiar because I had seen it countless times.

It was that scene that appears when you start the game as a wizard.

The difference is the timing.

Instead of the quarter-view looking down diagonally from above, it was a first-person view. I could see people’s terrified expressions.

About 20 people.

We were slaves of the Magic University. The university had bought us from slave traders last night.

“Today, you will enter the labyrinth. If you come out alive, you can become students of the Magic University. If you earn money directly in the labyrinth and pay off your own ransom, you can also escape slave status.”

An old professor came out to explain.

I tried to set up various hypotheses to understand this situation, then quickly gave up.

First of all, the body I was inhabiting wasn’t my body. It was my character Caleb that I had customized at the beginning. No common-sense reasoning was meaningful in this clearly anti-physical situation.

I had no choice but to just accept it as it was.

“The labyrinth is dangerous, of course, but if you’re careful, you can survive.”

And I didn’t have time to ponder over unanswerable worries. This game rushes you frantically from the very beginning.

“Everyone, come forward and pick up one magic wand each.”

The slaves came forward one by one and picked up wands.

I also picked one up.

“Form groups of 4. Then follow the instructor and enter the labyrinth.”

People immediately lined up in separate groups.

My team’s composition was one elf woman and three human men. I was also one of those three human men.

The elf woman was so terrified she was about to foam at the mouth, and one fat human man was extremely nervous, sweating profusely.

And the last one was…

“Doom Jilaakaya Sarabitanya Wa Abrāpsaro Kirimantaya…”

He was desperately muttering prayer words with his hands clasped together. Judging from this game’s worldview, he was someone from the distant southern desert region. As a bonus, he was lame.

The content of the prayer he was reciting was roughly ‘If I die, please take me to heaven’.

‘This is bad.’

An elf woman on the verge of fainting, a scared fatty, a fanatic cripple.

None of the three looked suitable for labyrinth combat. This game is one where the team luck randomly generated at the start is also important.

I was confident I could devise strategies suitable for whatever idiots ended up on my team, but that was when it was a turn-based game with 60 seconds given per turn.

“Team 3. Follow me.”

We were team 3. The expressions following the instructor’s instructions were no different from bulls being dragged to a slaughterhouse.

***

“The entry position automatically changes in units of four people, so when you enter, only four of you will be there. The other teams will be randomly somewhere on the 1st floor of the labyrinth.”

The instructor explained.

He remained outside, and the four of us crossed the labyrinth gate.

The whole world instantly went dark. The gate disappeared immediately. Now we had to find the exit gate. In the pitch-black darkness, the sound of water dripping from stalactites echoed drip drip, and from deep inside, the voices of monsters could be heard.

–Hehe! Hehehehe! Hehe!

Laughter.

Thud!

The elf woman collapsed to the floor.

She trembled while holding her wand.

“I can’t do it.”

Tears began to well up in her eyes.

“I can’t do it.”

“Huff… Huff…”

The fatty was also having trouble breathing properly due to fear.

“Jarvankaya Wa Elostande Kromi Ajjarāptami Wa Ttyalakkro…”

Surprisingly, the fanatic looked the most normal. He muttered a few more words of prayer, then his expression brightened.

“It’s done! Don’t worry too much now. Since I’ve finished praying, even if we die, the Lord will guide us to heaven. Don’t be afraid, it’s fine to die! Hahaha!“

I take back what I just said.

This bastard was definitely the craziest.

Anyway, sitting around sprawled like this was problematic. Unless it’s a safe zone, you never know what kind of accident might happen inside the labyrinth.

“We can’t just stay here. We need to move…”

Just as I was about to encourage people, a surreal scene entered my vision.

Slowly, as if played by a high-speed camera, a hideous green monster with a vicious expression leaped toward us from the darkness.

What the game calls a Goblin.

If this were a game, the message ‘Ambushed!’ would appear, and turn-based combat would begin with the enemies getting an initiative bonus.

But fuck, obviously.

‘That’s not how it works.’

Thwack!

A crude spear tip pierced through the fatty’s back and protruded from his chest.

Pouring hot blood all over my face.

“Hehe! Hehehehe!“

Two Goblins were laughing wickedly behind the fatty.

“Kyaaaah!“

The elf woman screamed and jumped up.

“Oh! Death! Come to me quickly! My master in heaven! Open wide the gates of your kingdom…”

Thwack!

Another spear flew and severed the fanatic’s neck.

‘Crazy.’

My body stiffened.

All stories about modern people getting possessed by games or novels and going on rampages are complete verisimilitude errors.

Modern people can’t do that.

Maybe if you were a US special forces veteran from the Iraq War.

From my perspective, having taken bubble baths until yesterday and eaten grilled beef bought from the mart, it was just complete brain freeze.

Modern people don’t get to see people stabbed by spears with blood spurting in front of their eyes during their lifetime. My head went completely white, and my body stiffened rigidly.

“Hehehehe!“

Even as the Goblin jumped toward me with a sword raised.

[Turn-Based Hourglass Activated]

Even until this message appeared.

I thought I was frozen in shock and couldn’t move, but it was slightly different.

[It is your turn.]

The entire world, including myself, had stopped.

[60]

[59]

[58]

An hourglass appeared before my eyes and was counting down. Three seconds had passed like that, but the Goblin’s sword still hadn’t struck my neck.

“What… What is this?”

The corners of the Goblin’s mouth torn to the ears, the blood spurting like a fountain from the fanatic’s neck, the blade just 20 centimeters away from my neck.

Nothing in the world except the hourglass moved even slightly.

***

All real-time games are actually turn-based.

If you consider infinitely small units of time as one turn each.

I was destined to do nothing during the given turn of those 0.0-something seconds when the Goblin would strike my neck, ending my turn and losing my head.

In that fleeting moment, gaining 60 seconds of time. Being able to strategize during those 60 seconds.

That was the special ability, ‘Turn-Based Hourglass’.