“Hm, hm-hm hmmm… hm hm hmmm…”
“Thank you for your patronage.” The dwarven blacksmith nodded politely as he handed unto me a weapon of purest black.
Admiring the cutting edge, and the sheen of the vantablack blade, I hold the sword to the air as I exit the building, breathing in deeply as I steel my nerves…
“...Appraise.”
+99 Edge of Annihilation
The absolute maximum enchantment value, the peak of this game's meta…
Holy shit, finally!
Achievement unlocked!
Wielder of God’s Weaponry
0.000078% of players have acquired this achievement!
Only took me like three, straight months, good lord! That’s an entire UB season passed… yeesh! Grindy, grindy achievement… but, made it! Despite the best effort of some goobers, the abysmal rng, the horrible grind, here we are! Filling my dopamine with an achievement well earned.
An achievement system is admittedly somewhat outdated… but that’s a huge part of the game's appeal to me anyways! It’s charming, nostalgic even. Ragnarok certainly doesn’t have the most massive following, but it had a modest audience. Two billion total players was nothing to scoff at, after all.
And speaking of that achievement system… That’s it. I’m done.
100%. That’s… everything. Wow, I might be getting a little misty eyed! How much gold did I pour into that number? Trillions? Quadrillions? Hell I wasn’t even aiming for it and I hit top five thousand on the global level leaderboard! That grind wasn’t even optimized for exp! It was a mimic farm, loot until my inventory was full, sell, sell, sell… Ah, good times. Maxed out my merchants reputation too… Coincided nicely with my achievement hunting.
Well, in recognition of the good times, might as well take this baby out for a test drive before I log off. You can one shot practically anything at this stage of power, besides tanker builds and most of the end game bosses… but hey, that’s fun in its own right! Besides, the game's movement is good enough to warrant one last joy ride. I could also try to climb up the leaderboard but… There’s not really much of a point to it. That’s only really for clout? And what’s the point of clout in a game that’s frankly, not really living much longer?
It hasn’t been updated for months now… this last achievement was just my little send off.
It was a good run, but it’s about time to let the sun set on Ragnarok. There’s no special award for 100%ing it, no acknowledgement, I’m certainly not the first guy to do it… Can’t say it was really all THAT fun, but even if this game is a little dead now… I don’t regret it either… it was a good time.
“Thanks for the help!” I called out to the npc I’d frequented for this one upgrade before walking away. They didn’t respond, they weren’t programmed to, but I feel I owed it to them at least. For months, this guy’s been the one to take my gold… actually, why do I feel grateful? This gremlin messed up my reforge at least a thousand times… Ah, you know what? Too late to take back the gratitude now, the npc can have it.
Tapping my foot rhythmically, I eye up my surroundings one last time. An endgame city, surrounded by a volcanic environment. The buildings are blackened, and nobody walks the streets, but I’ve spent a long while here. It’s not exactly a sight worth seeing, but it’s a sight that’ll certainly stay burned into my memory. And, you know what? I don’t really mind that.
On a whim, I held my newly minted PUHLUS-NINE-TEE-NINE Edge of Annihilation to the open air, slashing a pattern into a wall to my right. Of course, it didn’t collapse, it wasn’t as if Ragnarok had the support for that, but the EoA certainly carved through it like it was butter.
Boom…
Hm?
Bang…
Do my ears deceive me? Is that combat I hear off in the far far distance?
Bam…
And it sounds kinda like… [Cataclysm]...? Oh… oh wait… I know JUST how to end my time here! My favorite group of gooberets giving me a grand ol 'sendoff…
Spinning my EoA around by the handle, with expert finesse crafted over hours of practicing this particular party-trick, I perfectly sheathe my blade and part the air in the movement.
“Come on then! Make this a great last day!”
---
“God… damnit Koth…”
“God damn what now?”
“Can’t you just let us farm in peace!?”
“Dude… on this game? I know you’re not going for achievements, this is obviously optimized for experience. Come on, live a little.” I pointedly ended that one with a kick to my downed opponent's side.
It’s not like you really feel pain without turning the setting for it up, but it sure is disrespectful. But whatever, this guy’s an ass. So is his guild.
“I mean, what’s the point in trying to get a few levels higher if you can’t even take one guy on. Like, how many people are in your guild?”
“...Fourteen.” OneToRule begrudgingly answered after another go at his side.
“Fourteen on one.” I nodded. “Besides, I’m done after today anyways.”
Good riddance really, these guys have single handedly cost me like… I dunno, at least 20 or so hours worth of farming? The more I think about it the more I wonder why I kept playing this…
“...Wait, wait wait wait, what!?”
“Yup! One, hundred, percent, completion. Take a look at this bad boy!” I chuckle as I stab my brilliantly black blade into the ashen earth right before his eyes, sitting down on his back in the same motion, eliciting a quiet “oof” as I compress his lungs under my weight.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Plus, ninety, nine, Edge of Annihilation, right there.”
“You… cannot be serious! You’re just gonna quit, because you finished all the achievements? Like, what? you’re literally on the top few thousand for the leaderboard already! There’s so much more for you to do!”
…So much to do, like, what? To keep stomping this guy and his gaggle of goons? They’re not exactly bad at the game, and if it was me against the entire group, they’d usually have the advantage… I just kind of caught them off guard this time. I MEAN, it was still a 1v14… but y’know. Anyways, as I was saying… it’s either boring to have to ambush them, or I’m not winning, and I’m not really having that much fun if I’m not winning. Or well… usually I guess.
“I mean, look man.” I sighed and kicked one of my legs over the other. “This game was fun while it lasted but… I’m bored now, honest. Running the same route for weeks in a row just to farm billions of gold for a single shot at that 0.03% reforge chance… It's a little repetitive. I’m not looking to do the same thing for experience. Especially not with this game’s dead ass-” I paused for a moment, struggling to contain a yawn, but unable to help myself, I leaned back with a lazy stretch.
“...Where was I? Right, this game's dead competitive scene. I just can’t be bothered, honestly. Seeing that last achievement unlocked really did it for me, honestly. I think I’m just about done with this game, for good.”
“But… Why, why would you… why would you put so much time into getting the busted weapon if you’re not even gonna use it?”
But now that I think about it, was it really even that boring to fight these guys, win or lose? They’re actually… probably the most entertaining part of the game now that I think about it. They kept jumping me for no reason, messing up my progress, wasting my time and ruining my efficiency. They’re kind of a bunch of uh… assholes.
“I like big numbers.” I shrug innocently as I grab the blade once more, tossing it up into the air, and thus my inventory once it was far enough away from me. “So Onesy, I guess this is goodbye.”
…Buuuuut they’re endearing, assholes, to be fair. There wasn’t really much toxicity coming from them, I don’t wanna be, like, some oddball and make assumptions here, but now that I’m actually thinking about it… I think it might’ve just been for the love of the game. I mean what else would it be for, really? You barely get anything for PKing in this game.
So… did I hate them attacking me…? Ehhhh, I guess not. It broke up the monotony. They probably didn’t even mean anything by it. It is just a game after all, is it not? Hell, I might’ve just quit playing altogether if I really sat and did nothing but farm gold for three months straight without any interruption… I guess I could’ve moved onto maining pvp…?
I mean, sure, the competitive scene does exist… It’s always going to for any game with half decent pvp. But the end game level grind for just an extra twenty or so points on top of the thousands you already have… it’s honestly just kind of gross. I’ve already made pretty good headway, and could probably push my way into the front of the scene within a month or two… but, I just don’t really care. Hack n’slash gets boring after a while.
I could just sell my gear to some idiot who’d overpay to skip the obnoxious grind requirement for this game's competitive scene for like, a few hundred dollars… but no… I think I’ll do something else.
“So, tell you what. You guys don’t really farm for gold, right? All your routes are optimized for experience, yeah?”
“Yeah, what about it? And for god's sake, think you could get off me now? Pretty sure we’re done fighting.” OneToRule rolled his eyes as he dropped hostilities, sending his comparatively far lesser blade to his inventory. A… +90 Eden’s Longsword, if my eyes didn’t deceive me. Well, I’m sure he’ll appreciate what I have in store for him.
“Nah, you make for a better seat than molten rock.” I gesture out to the volcanic wasteland around us, the sight that made up the entirety of the end game location. It kind of grew plain, after a while. “But tell you what, howsabout I make it worth your time this time?”
“The hell are you talking about-” And then his eyes, boggled.
Right in front of him, was a dropped item of Mythic quality. The absolute maximum possible stats on a weapon right before his eyes.
+99 Edge Of Annihilation
“Wh-what the hell are you doing!?”
“What does it look like? Giving it to you.” I snrrked as I got up and stretched again. “Not gonna have any use sitting on a rotting account like mine’s soon to be. I’ve got my eye on a new game, so might as well make a flashy exit. Come on, give me your Eden’s Longsword.”
“Wha… huh?” He mumbled as he got up to his feet, dusting his equipment off.
“You know, like, have an epic duel to send me off! One on one, I’ll use your sword, you use mine. Things busted, three hits should kill me. You’re good enough to manage it.”
“...What’s stopping me from just killing you while you have no weapon?” Onesy tilted his head as he picked up the fruit of months of my untiring labor.
“I mean, you’re not that lame are you? You always wanted to fight on even grounds, you almost always came after me while I was running around, rather than when I was in the middle of a fight. No?”
Wordlessly, he reached into his inventory and dropped his own weapon, making me crack a wicked grin as I bent down to grab it.
“See? You’re not a loser like that. I knew you wouldn’t back out.”
“Can I get that back after we’re done here? My guildmates could still use a weapon like that. It’ll save us a lot.”
“Pff, sure.” I smile, before twirling the blade around in a trail of white, much the same way I had when sheathing the EoA. Though this time, I had no such intention, continually spinning the blade around purely to flex my own skill. None of this is through an agility stat baby, this is 100% pure refined technique!
In a display of superhuman strength only possible in this digital world, the weapon in my hands stopped in an instant, blasting debris and rubble away with a pulse of wind. Pointed towards OneToRule as he brandished what basically amounted to the entirety of my existence in this game.
“Well then?” I wave the sword around again, much more gently this time, gesturing for him to approach. “We don’t have all day now, let’s wrap this up!”