Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

Baek Jinwoo paced forward for several minutes before halting his steps.

It was an isolated patch of land tucked away from the main walking paths.

A sudden shudder traveled through his body, making the hairs on his arms stand up.

“Haah.”

The reality of the situation still refused to sink in.

The universe had literally transformed into the mobile application he used to spend all his time on.

The original program had completely vanished. It was totally wiped from his phone, leaving no trace behind.

“Hoo.”

How could something like this happen?

Beating the final stage of the Tower of Trials must have triggered some sort of cosmic shift.

Damn it.

He felt like he was the victim of a massive hidden camera setup. Either that, or he was experiencing some bizarre post-accident delusion.

Yet the sensation of the breeze brushing past his skin offered immediate proof.

This environment, without question, was completely real.

Gulp.

Taking a heavy breath, Jinwoo pulled a pair of summoning scrolls out from his pocket.

These were the exact items he had clicked on thousands, if not tens of thousands of times over the previous decade.

Alright.

Maybe this wasn’t the worst thing that could happen.

To be fair, his father’s words had been entirely accurate.

His prospects for the future had been practically nonexistent anyway.

Was it really so wrong for the universe to bend in his favor, just this once?

Naturally.

That all depended on pulling a decent creature from these papers.

The probability layout for a standard low-grade summoning scroll looked like this:

[F-Rank: 94%]

[E-Rank: 5%]

[D-Rank: 1%]

This precise mechanic was why Battle of Summoners had earned its reputation as a brutally unforgiving, luck-dependent nightmare.

The draw percentages were notoriously unforgiving.

Please give me at least an E-rank.

Here goes nothing!

Riiip!

He tore the paper down the middle without a second thought.

BWOOOOM!

A violent burst of electricity erupted from the shredded parchment with a deafening boom.

“Whoa!”

He stumbled backward, caught entirely off guard, as a series of system alerts flashed before his eyes—

[You have activated a ‘Low-Grade Summoning Scroll’!]

[Player ‘Baek Jinwoo’ has successfully called forth ‘Wind Fairy’ (EX-Rank)!]

Wait, what?

“……”

The Wind Fairy?

The exact same one he remembered?

No, hold on a second.

What did that tier say?

Jinwoo knit his brows together.

Squinting through the brightness, he focused on the brilliant, platinum-colored text.

An EX-Rank?

Holy hell.

What did that even mean?

The creature tier system in Battle of Summoners followed a strict progression from F-Rank up to S-Rank.

F, E, D, C, B, A, S.

Seven distinct levels.

As expected, the higher tiers offered incredibly overpowered abilities, coupled with a practically impossible drop rate.

An S-Rank?

You had a better chance of winning the lottery.

Over ten full years of dedicated play, Jinwoo had managed to secure exactly one.

Among the famous Five Emperors, Rachel was the standout player who had successfully drawn an S-rank.

An A-Rank?

Experienced players with a decade of playtime might possess a small handful. They hadn’t even been introduced until the title reached its third year.

They became slightly more accessible as time went on, of course.

A B-Rank was realistically the absolute pinnacle of what a normal player could hope to obtain at this current stage of the world.

That required beating a 1% probability on a high-grade scroll, right?

It was the kind of drop that would make a player fall to their knees in pure appreciation.

But an EX-Rank?

He had never encountered such a classification in all his years.

Furthermore, a basic low-grade scroll was supposed to cap out at D-rank max……

• Yaaawn, what’s all the noise about?

Right at that moment, a voice broke the silence.

A tiny female figure, no larger than his forearm, materialized in front of him, stretching her limbs and rubbing sleep from her eyes.

Suddenly, her vision cleared, and her jaw dropped.

• Oh my gosh, seriously?! No way! Have I actually been called out? Are you for real?

She held a miniature staff and wore a delicate green outfit.

The floating creature, equipped with a pair of translucent wings, was unmistakably the ‘Wind Fairy.’

Jinwoo recognized her instantly.

There was no way he could forget.

Way back during the game’s initial release—when he was still in middle school.

She was the specific E-rank companion he had poured countless hours into optimizing.

Why she was currently labeled with an EX tier, however, remained a total mystery.

“……Ramba?”

• Yeah, Ramb—! Wait, no, I’m the Wind Fairy! Hold on, you……!

The Wind Fairy—or rather, Ramba—froze in utter shock.

• The only human who ever called me by that name is my JinuGod……! You, you, you! Who exactly are you?!

……

I was about to ask you the same thing.

How is any of this possible?

And more importantly, since when can Ramba speak?

In the original mechanics, companion creatures never uttered a single word.

The name “Ramba” had only originated because the game featured primitive AI chat triggers—he had used a specific text command, and the title just stuck over time.

“You literally just gave away the answer.”

• Gave away what!

“That only one specific person uses that name for you.”

• Then… then that means…

Ramba looked completely flabbergasted.

• You’re actually trying to tell me that you’re JinuGod?

Yes. I am JinuGod.

Baek Jinwoo, you little dummy.

The Wind Fairy, Ramba.

She was a wind-attributed supporter focused entirely on stat enhancements—a standard E-rank entity.

She was the core unit that had carried Jinwoo through his early resource-gathering days.

However.

She was also the tragic figure who had been completely deleted due to a system glitch patch during the game’s opening year.

Jinwoo recalled the sheer frustration of that period.

He had been absolutely livid.

What was the official explanation again?

Something about the system flagging an extreme balance anomaly and locking the asset down?

A companion he had meticulously optimized for an entire year was wiped out in an instant.

As for compensation?

Not a single item.

When he filed a direct complaint with user support, they merely responded that internal AI balance deletions were completely automated and irreversible.

They sent over a digital copy of the user agreement to shut him down, which nearly drove him over the edge.

Though he had been furious initially, the resentment eventually cooled down.

Mainly because, realistically speaking, he had exploited her mechanics to an absurd degree. That part was undeniable.

Ramba.

She was officially an E-rank on paper, but if a player unlocked her hidden multipliers and equipped the perfect rune combinations?

She transformed into an absolute game-breaking force.

• JINUGOOOD! Do you have any idea how terribly I missed you? Waaahh……!

The miniature fairy slammed her tiny forehead against Jinwoo’s shirt, sobbing uncontrollably.

Whether real tears were flowing or not, a small wet spot began to spread across his clothes.

• I was suddenly yanked away to this incredibly bizarre void and I couldn’t break free, I was just trapped in darkness forever!

Sniffle, hiccup!

Observing Ramba weep so dramatically while venting was a deeply surreal experience.

He just couldn’t process it normally.

Setting aside the fact that he was seeing her in actual three-dimensional reality rather than through a flat smartphone screen—

It had been nine long years.

This was the absolute first time he had ever heard her vocalize an actual sentence.

Entities in Battle of Summoners simply did not communicate verbally. Period.

Hmm.

Jinwoo felt a wave of curiosity.

Why exactly had she emerged from a common low-grade scroll?

First, he needed data.

“Status window.”

He needed to review her current profile.

[Summoned Entity: Wind Fairy]

[Species: Fairy]

[Tier: EX-Rank (Quarantine Designation)]

• Placed in isolation due to the activation of game-breaking variables under specific parameters.

[Level: 1]

[Attributes]

STR: 1, INT: 1, VIT: 1, AGI: 1

Health: 1,000 / Mana: 0

Critical Chance: 20%

Critical Multiplier: 20%

[Abilities]

• Wind Pressure: Every motion of her staff accelerates a chosen ally’s strike velocity by 3%.

Yep.

Nothing had changed from the old days.

A single, seemingly underwhelming ability.

But that exact underwhelming ability?

Down the line, it had completely shattered the game’s competitive balance.

The higher Ramba’s level rose, the faster her base movements became. Combine that with a full set of Swiftness Runes to push her actions to maximum velocity……

It became flat-out ridiculous.

She would continuously stack an absurd velocity modifier onto whatever creature was fighting alongside her.

Because that 3% increase multiplied exponentially with every single gesture.

If her combat partner happened to be a high-tier A-rank entity?

Their output would instantly eclipse even the strongest S-rank units.

That was the secret behind how he had gathered resources so effortlessly back then.

• Regardles! Now that we’re reunited! We are absolutely never parting ways again! Understood? Right?

“Hold on a second.”

Jinwoo gently detached the weeping Ramba from his chest.

• Huh?

“I need some answers.”

• Fire away! You’re the incredible JinuGod who pulled me right out of that isolation zone! There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you!

“What exactly is this quarantine? Who locked you away in the first place, and how does the summoning mechanic function in this reality?”

• Well……

Ramba stumbled, clearly overwhelmed by the sudden interrogation.

Then, out of nowhere—

• Ngh, OWWW! My head!

“Whoa, what’s wrong with you?”

• My brain feels like it’s exploding! Some jerk must have placed a memory restriction on me!

……A restriction? Just like that?

Her display of agony felt slightly exaggerated, to be honest.

• I’m so sorry, but I really can’t explain much. We were locked away in isolation, and under normal circumstances, no matter how many times a user generated a summon, we were completely inaccessible.

“We? You’re saying there are others trapped like you?”

• Yes. We weren’t kept in the exact same spot, so I can’t be sure who they are, but…… there were definitely others. Probably around ten of us?

Other blacklisted entities.

A group of ten.

Holy crap.

The pieces were finally falling into place.

The exact summons he had utilized that were ultimately deleted for breaking the game’s programming.

Ten distinct creatures, including Ramba.

It appeared every single one of them had been rebranded with an EX classification and sealed away.

• Either way, Jinwoo, you’re obviously operating under different rules than standard users. Whenever you rip a scroll, it seems to open a pathway for us. Even I was shocked. It’s been an eternity since I felt the pull of a basic low-grade parchment.

Ah.

The logic made sense now.

In this transformed reality, he was uniquely capable of pulling EX-rank entities.

And Ramba had responded to a common scroll because her baseline identity was rooted in the E-rank category.

This was an unbelievable advantage.

“But what’s the underlying reason for this?”

• That part is completely beyond me.

Hmm.

Could this be a unique clearance benefit for conquering the 100th floor of the Tower of Trials?

Riiiiip!

Jinwoo tore the second low-grade scroll he held.

Immediately—

[Player ‘Baek Jinwoo’ has successfully called forth ‘Fur Gorilla’ (F-Rank)!]

Ah.

The Fur Gorilla.

He was incredibly familiar with this one.

Completely worthless regardless of how you built it—the exact type of trash unit meant solely to be sacrificed for experience points.

This provided his confirmation.

Tearing a piece of parchment didn’t guarantee a flawless EX-rank result every single time.

Meaning, if he intended to recover all the unique creatures he had lost in the digital version……

He would need to go through an astronomical volume of scrolls.

But if he actually managed to collect and deploy every single one of them?

Wouldn’t that make him a force far superior to someone like Ilcheon?

THUD, THUD-THUD!

• Ugghhh……

The massive ape lumbered forward, planting its heavy knuckles into the soil, and dropped to its knees in a bowing posture.

What was this?

Some kind of formal submission?

“Ramba.”

• Yes! JinuGod!

“Drop that title. From now on, just call me Jinwoo.”

• Ehhh? What for?

The name JinuGod was already legendary across the globe.

The Five Emperors.

Those top-tier players had spent the last three years ensuring that specific alias was known by everyone everywhere.

Right now, drawing attention to himself was the worst move possible.

While it was true that Jinwoo possessed an overwhelming amount of strategy data and practical knowledge, the actual level gap between himself and the top rankers had widened by over three years.

Furthermore—

Based on what I’ve seen, I’m likely the sole individual capable of wielding EX-rank assets……

In a scenario where he was still largely operating in the dark, nothing posed a greater threat than becoming an object of global jealousy.

If he was ever going to paint a target on his back?

It needed to happen after he had securely established himself at the absolute peak.

“Just follow my instructions.”

• Hmph, fine. Still acting all cold and mysterious as usual. Heheh! I’m getting super excited just thinking about conquering the Tower of Trials with you again, Jinwoo! We managed to hit the 10th floor back then, didn’t we? That was incredibly brutal.

“The Tower of Trials?”

• Uh-huh!

“I’ve already cleared the entire thing up to the 100th floor.”

• WHAAAAT? Are you serious? That insane tower with the impossible scaling?

“Yeah, I absolutely beat it.”

In the digital application, at least.

The physical version in reality might pose a different challenge entirely.

• Well, a massive amount of time has passed since we last ran together……

Still harboring a bit of skepticism, Ramba glanced up at Jinwoo with a doubtful pout.

Her slightly round, soft face looked exponentially more endearing in reality than it ever had on a phone interface.

“And you’re fully aware of your current state, right? With your current attributes, forget about the 10th floor—you won’t even survive the 1st.”

• I know, I know. Ugh. Everything got wiped back to base numbers. Zero runes, level 1.

“Which means our immediate priority is leveling up…… Direct me toward the fusion facility.”

He pointed toward the Fur Gorilla waiting nearby.

He was going to feed it to Ramba to boost her level immediately.

• Wait, Jinwoo!

“What?”

• How on earth would I know where that’s located!

“Excuse me?”

• This is my very first time standing in this environment too! This is your world now, so you are supposed to be showing me around!

Are you kidding me?

Right as the words left her mouth, a new alert triggered.

[Player has successfully acquired a companion entity.]

[Advancing to the subsequent phase.]

A notification tracking his tutorial progress manifested in midair.

KRRRUMBLE!

A brilliant azure radiance tore through the ground of the clearing with an earth-shattering tremor.

[A Beginner’s Standard Dungeon has materialized.]

[Please cross the threshold.]

A dungeon environment.

Jinwoo swallowed hard, his throat dry.

He had cleared an infinite number of these instances inside the application and pushed all the way to the 100th floor of the monolith, but—

Confronting an actual, physical dungeon in real life was a completely untried experience.

Was this really happening?

They genuinely expected him to step inside that portal?

Damn it.

Naturally, a wave of anxiety washed over him.

The introductory adversary inside the tutorial instance was supposed to be the Gray Wolf (F-Rank), if he remembered correctly.

An absolute joke in the digital version, sure, but how many regular citizens have had to face down a predatory, snarling beast in the flesh?

Then again, analyzing the situation logically, there was no objective reason to panic.

The summoned creatures handled the actual physical combat anyway, didn’t they?

The world had fundamentally shifted.

It was time to get used to the new rules.

Hoo, hooo!

After spending roughly ten seconds centering his breathing, Jinwoo closed his eyes tightly and took a decisive step forward.

He initiated his very first dungeon raid.