[Total Clear Count: 999 times.]
[Ending Achievements: 99.99%.]
“Crazy game.”
Once again, I cleared the game today.
But the final piece of the ending remained incomplete.
“This is so frustrating, seriously.”
I threw the joystick connected to my PC aside and grabbed the mouse, checking the records of the clear data on the monitor screen.
“What the hell is the true ending, seriously?”
The first time I cleared the game, I was moved by seeing what kind of future my characters faced, but now, it’s just a boring verification process to see if there’s any ‘variable’ left.
“This one’s route is a given in the main story, I killed this one this time, and I couldn’t see the ending in the previous route where I saved this one, so I killed them instead…”
I quickly scanned through the characters’ endings.
The characters who were comrades of the protagonist had happy endings.
The characters who were once comrades but died had bitter endings.
And the characters who could have been recruited as comrades but became enemies met tragic ends.
“Is it a heroine issue? Or a side character problem? Damn, what the hell is it?”
I’ve pursued a different heroine in each of the 16 playthroughs.
I’ve taken the 1:1 pure love route, and I’ve even seen the harem ending with all 16 of them.
I even let all the heroines be brainwashed in the main story development where they get kidnapped.
Failure, failure, and more failure.
Out of the countless variables in the endings, I failed to find that one true ending.
Even speedrunning it takes at least 10 hours, and I’ve already seen the 999 endings, but I still couldn’t find that last main ending.
“…”
I took a sip of iced coffee from a disposable plastic cup, the ice still clinging to it, trying to quench my thirst.
Even though I tried to refresh my frustration with the cold iced coffee, it had already become lukewarm brown liquid from the roasted coffee beans, heated by the scorching summer weather.
Despite playing with such focus, I couldn’t reach the ending.
I opened STEIM to check my playtime, and by now, my total playtime had exceeded 50,000 hours.
50,000 hours.
If I had spent that time working a part-time job instead, I would have earned an unbelievable amount of money, even at minimum wage.
If anyone heard, they’d probably laugh at me, calling it a ‘waste of 50,000 hours’, but to me, these 50,000 hours are a matter of pride and a form of investment.
“Making money from gaming is ridiculously hard.”
Click.
I opened the game company’s website.
And I clicked on the boldly displayed banner on their homepage.
[100% Endings Completion Rewards: 200 Billion Won!]
200 billion won.
People might ask why a game company would offer a 200 billion won prize, but this company actually has that kind of money.
‘After hitting it big with their gacha games, they made a story game.’
A company that earns trillions of won every year from character gacha.
Maybe the CEO’s crazy, or maybe it’s just to promote their new game, but he put up a 200 billion won bounty.
Ten years ago.
And still, no one has achieved a 100% clear in this game.
-This isn’t a scam, right?
Many people said that.
But the CEO uploaded a video on YouTube Live, showing 200 billion won in cash being stored in the company’s vault.
In that vault, along with the money, was a storage device containing all the data related to achieving 100% completion. The CEO even brought in a notary to make a statement: “If this is a scam, I’ll donate all my assets to society.”
Maybe it’s because of such a bold move.
Despite being a visual novel RPG, the game achieved record-breaking sales.
It’s estimated that the revenue from the past ten years exceeds 200 billion won, and now, instead of controversy, there’s professional analysis being done on the CEO’s viral marketing.
But I don’t care about that.
What I care about is the 200 billion won.
‘What’s the latest on Reddit?’
I logged into the site with the most traffic related to the game.
Logging in with the account linked to the game, I checked the banner displayed on the site.
[Endings Collection Ranking.]
- BB. [99.99%] (-0.00%)
- StrawberryAddict [98.81%] (+0.81% !!)
- ThisGameSucksDontPlay [96.30%] (-0.00%)
- 200BillIsMine [95.32%] (+0.04% !!)
…
“Oh, crap.”
While I was grinding through my 999th playthrough, someone chasing from behind had suddenly caught up to me.
‘At that percentage, they’re just two endings behind me.’
98.81%.
‘I was stuck at that exact percentage around my 960th playthrough.’
After getting past that hurdle and discovering a new route, I finally reached 99.99%, so it seems the second-place player has almost caught up to me.
Yeah.
If I were just a nobody, I might have given up like others, thinking, ‘Screw this stupid game,’ but as of now, I’m ranked first on the public leaderboard.
There’s just one ending left.
If I can find that one final ending, the one that no one in the world has discovered, the 200 billion won will be mine.
The problem is time.
Even though I tried to ignore it, there it was, glaring at me on the community homepage—an annoying reminder of the countdown that even the official site couldn’t keep from displaying.
[D-Day: 25 days 23 hours 45 minutes.]
D-Day.
This miserable race has a deadline.
The deadline set by the company is approaching fast, and now there are less than four weeks left.
Many around the world have attempted this challenge, but most have given up, leaving only a handful of us—those of us who are ‘in too deep’—still running ourselves ragged.
“25 days… Is it worth burning myself out until the end?”
I checked the time.
It’s 3 AM on a Sunday.
Luckily, today isn’t a workday, but if I review all the variables from my 999th playthrough and start again, the weekend will be over in no time.
Then it’s back to the grind as a corporate drone.
Like a hamster on a wheel—waking up in the morning, getting on the subway, spending an hour and a half commuting to work, and then returning home after dark. The same cycle, day in and day out.
‘Should I just quit my job and grind for the next 25 days?’
If I could be certain of winning the 200 billion, I’m sure everyone would drop whatever they’re doing and sit in front of their monitors right now.
“I still have time to relax… Wait, damn it.”
I was thinking I could take it easy and make another serious attempt in 15 days, maybe taking a long weekend or some leave to focus—
[StrawberryAddict: Sorry, I’m giving up.]
The second-place player just quit the 200 billion race.
This happens often enough.
Even before I joined the race, people who had started a year before me gradually began to drop out.
[Quitting the game. Giving away my items.]
The problem is, this second-place player didn’t just give up.
[I’m posting my walkthrough data here.]
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The words slipped out on their own, but I couldn’t stop a crazy person from posting their data.
It’s not a save file.
But if people play according to the walkthrough, anyone could easily reach second place within the time limit.
Even those who’ve played before could erase the cases of their previous clear data and reach the goal even faster.
– Hey, couldn’t a newbie even now have about three days of leeway to make it?
– My vacation for 200 billion won!
– This is a scam by the game company. Bet they paid the second-place guy to leak the walkthrough lol
– What if the second-place guy was actually a company employee?
“Hah, seriously.”
People are laughing, thinking they’ve finally got a chance, but others are directing their sneering ‘lols’ elsewhere.
– That BB b*stard didn’t share any info and ran solo in first place, serves them right lol
Mockery aimed at me.
– BB, release the last ending too!
Just because the second-place player did it, now they’re demanding that I do the same.
“…”
Soon, everyone on the internet will know thanks to cyber vultures, and millions of gamers—maybe even people who’ve never touched a game—will start trying their luck at this 200 billion-won lottery.
– Hiring anyone who’s played this game before.
There are already posts on the community from people trying to hire players for money, so that says it all.
“…”
Should I quit?
Maybe I should just think of this as having enjoyed the game and move on, chalking it up to the game company’s event.
“…Screw it.”
The remaining time is the same for everyone.
“I’ll play one more round the way I want, and then I’ll start the real grind from the 1001st playthrough.”
The second-place player might have been pretending to give up while actually trying to find big data, but even if they were chasing me, there are still two endings left to discover.
‘But it’s the 1000th playthrough.’
When I first started the game, it wasn’t because of the 200 billion won.
I just wanted to kill time.
After work, I was looking for something to do, and out of curiosity, I decided to play.
‘I’ll just do whatever.’
Not caring about the endings, I played freely and without concern.
[Game Start.]
….
….
….
“…Huh?”
A new route.
“Huh?”
A new ending.
“…Wait, what?”
A new, completely new ending.
[Total Clear Count: 1,000 times.]
[Endings Achievement: 100%.]
“…?”
I saw the ending.
A completely new ending that I had never seen before.
Beep.
An alert rang on my smartphone.
“Channel… Emergency Live?”
An alert popped up saying that a live stream had suddenly started on the game company’s channel.
The alert’s title read “100% Clear Player Emerges!”—just like announcing a winner for an event.
But while it meant one thing to me, it likely had another meaning to everyone else.
– The new owner of 200 billion won winner show up!!
Click, click.
[Hello, players.]
The CEO himself appeared.
Just as he was ten years ago, bald and standing in front of the vault, he looked directly at the camera with a gentle smile.
[A player who has achieved the final ending has appeared. As promised, we will award this player 200 billion won.]
“…No way.”
It must be a lie.
[The name of the player who first reached 100% completion is… ‘Bir.D.Blue’.]
“Are you kidding me.”
BB.
Not a pseudonym I used for Reddit or the community, but my STEIM account’s linked nickname.
[For the player who enjoyed all the endings we prepared, we have one more gift.]
With a kind smile, the CEO twisted his lips and extended one hand forward.
[We hope you have an even more enjoyable experience.]
Snap.
[Divine, Pure Firebrand.]
At the moment he snapped his fingers,
“…?”
The world felt like it was engulfed in blue flames, and I lost consciousness.
[We hope you enjoy the DLC.]
* * *
So,
There’s so much I want to say, but to summarize in three lines:
I cleared a visual novel RPG game that promised 200 billion won for a 100% clear.
The moment I saw the ending, the company CEO snapped his fingers on a live stream directed at me.
I got transmigrated.
“…Just three more lines.”
I’m neither the protagonist nor a heroine or supporting character.
I’m the mid-boss who kidnaps and brainwashes the heroine, only to be killed in the process.
That’s me. Damn it.
