The Lost World.

It was an early access simulation game Choi Sung-Woon liked. Not only did he like it, but he was also good at it. In ‘The Lost World’, up to thirty-two players participated as gods to develop various races such as humans, elves, and orcs to modern civilization and fight each other for success.

Last year, Sung-Woon had been in first place every now and then, but this year he was on a streak and had been in first place for eleven months. If he maintained his rank till the end of today, he would be champion for twelve consecutive months.

As Sung-Woon was playing the last game of the day, a system message appeared on his screen.

[Will you approve the nuclear attack in God Nebula’s name?]

[Yes/No]

Sung-Woon pressed ‘Yes.’ On the screen, he could see ICBMs[1] loaded with dozens of nuclear warheads from his nuclear missile base raised their heads all at once.

After playing for several hours, Sung-Woon and his opponent were the only two players remaining.

The nuclear missiles were launched all at once and flew over to the enemy state.

Several ABMs[2] were launched from the enemy state and successfully intercepted some of Sung-Woon’s nuclear missiles, but that was within his calculations. The enemy’s missile interception system couldn’t keep up with him.

Using the eyes of his incarnation, Sung-Woon headed to the enemy’s imperial palace. When the Orc Emperor heard the news of the nuclear missiles launched toward his country, he prayed at the temple in an underground bunker.

This was something Sung-Woon was concerned about. In a non-hierarchical society in real life, a ruler praying to a god could be seen as ridiculous or pitiful, but that was not the case in “The Lost World.”

‘My opponent would have accumulated as much Faith as they could instead of investing in skills while I was developing my nuclear build.’

In The Lost World, players were gods. They could intervene to some extent in the affairs of the race or nation under their rule, and through that intervention, their goal was to make their power well known to the rest of the beings of The Lost World and gain followers. That belief then became a resource called Faith, which would enable players to create Miracles to protect their followers and keep them safe.

‘My opponent initially selected Orcs as their main race, but that’s only because they could quickly increase the population that way.’

Sung-Woon watched the nuclear attack through his incarnations that were spread out all over the world. The nuclear missiles not intercepted by the ABM soared through the air. A great amount of power was required to deflect a flying missile that was generating so much heat, and soon, the nature of that power was revealed.

Overall, it resembled the silhouette of a bipedal creature but was hundreds of meters in height. Amid a great dark cloud entwined with raging wind, thunderbolts crackled continuously. It was the opponent’s incarnation of wind.

Soon, the air became so compressed that the missiles were caught and swept vigorously to a height where they were no longer visible. The sky was the opponent’s realm. Defying the will of the god of the heavens, the power of the sky manifested as a Miracle as it pulled up the flying missiles.

The nuclear missiles rose high enough that creatures living on the surface wouldn’t be affected, and as the missiles exploded, light spheres appeared all over The Lost World. The prematurely rising artificial suns dispersed the darkness and obscured the stars, revealing a blue sky.

‘It’s the Holy Orc again.’

Sung-Woon was well aware of this strategy. Only Orcs were selected as the main race to quickly increase population, and as the number of believers increased, Faith resources were also quickly acquired. Science, technology, and culture were then gained through invasion. This was a good strategy that constantly received good reviews because the great amount of Faith accumulated and the large number of Orcs resulted in an advantage in war.

The fact that the opponent chose the sky as their realm meant that they were aware of and took into account Sung-Woon’s choice of skill—Science Development. Their choice of realm prevented Sung-Woon from employing his anti-air strategy in the later half of the war. If aircraft-related technology had been used without much interference, the war could have been easily won by using nuclear missiles.

But he already knew. The opponent was probably thinking of gathering a little more Faith after blocking all the nuclear missiles and counter-attacking with natural disasters such as lightning, tornadoes, and typhoons.

Recently, Holy Orc had been the meta with the highest win rate. That was how Sung-Woon had been able to easily remain in first place: he was good at counter-building. He had also used Holy Orc after the meta version was released, and if he had thought that there were no flaws to the strategy, he likely would have used it now as well.

Sung-Woon moved ‘the thing’ in the highest possible place, above everything else, more than two thousand kilometers above the surface, to be exact. ‘The thing’ was one of Sung-Woon's incarnations that used an AI-operated military satellite made from ancient relics.

Even if a god had obtained a large realm of the sky, one could not claim all of it.

‘At most they can claim the sky right above their head.’

Outer space did not belong to the realms of the gods, and that was exactly where the satellite was placed. The sky, after all, was still within the atmosphere.

The god in the sky was sternly looking down below and didn’t notice what was above them. Sung-Woon moved his incarnation and aimed at the head of the enemy’s emperor.

Even though it was a military satellite, not a single projectile weapon was loaded onto it. Just a few tungsten rods, but that was more than enough. One of the enormous tungsten rods, weighing up to ten tons, began to fall. At first, it was so slow that one couldn’t tell if it was even moving or not, but soon after, it grew red and tore through the sky.

The opponent was unlikely to notice the rod falling while focusing on dealing with the nuclear missiles, and even if they did, a Miracle from the heavens could at most knock the rod slightly askew.

‘Have you heard of the God’s Staff?’

The tungsten rod pierced through the roof of the Imperial Palace as well as several floors. Even that couldn’t slow its fall in the slightest. The tungsten rod penetrated the bunker and dropped into the underground temple. Right under it was the emperor who had been praying—now squashed flat and dead. One moment later, the Imperial Palace and the underground temple beneath it began to crumble.

‘I won!’

Sung-Woon had not used the God’s Staff right away because he had been curious about what his opponent had planned. His opponent, using the player name ‘Hegemonia’, was ranked second, and had recently become a famous player after rapidly increasing their rating and score. Since they could often run into each other in the game going forward, it had been necessary for Sung-Woon to figure out what their main builds were.

‘You should surrender before it gets ugly.’

His opponent had lost an incarnation, namely the emperor, and the underground temple likely to have housed the greatest amount of Faith had collapsed. Even though it was not possible to know exactly how much Faith the opponent had lost, it seemed that there wasn’t enough left to maintain the incarnation of wind. It started to lose its shape and eventually vanished. It was evident that Sung-Woon’s nuclear missiles could no longer be stopped.

His opponent was flustered and couldn’t control the Miracle. The apostles of the wind scattered, and the enemy's capital, major cities, and infrastructures started to explode like fireworks.

In the end, his opponent did surrender, but only after things became ugly.

[You have won!]

As Sung-Woon saw the scoreboard, he smiled. Not because of the score differences, but because based on Pacific Standard Time, the next month had already started. He had been ranked first for twelve consecutive months. Not only was it a unique record in the game of “The Lost World,” it was also a record that no one could easily surpass in the future. But what made Sung-Woon happy most of all was that he had obtained all of the achievements in the game.

‘I can’t believe the only way to achieve it is by being in first place for twelve consecutive months.’

The production company had been criticized by achievement maniacs for making such a ridiculous achievement, but since the achievement existed and had been very difficult for Sung-Woon to obtain, he felt that the challenge had been worth it. There had been many failures, and after losing a streak in the fifth month, he had wondered if he could do it again, but he had indeed ended up doing it.

Sung-Woon stretched and looked at his screen to find a message waiting for him.

「Thank you for enjoying The Lost World. The Lost World, which has been in early access until now, is scheduled to be officially released as a full game. Player ‘Nebula’ can enjoy the game before the official release. Would you like to play?」

[Yes/No]

Sung-Woon felt suspicious.

‘Is this just good timing? Or was it planned to be officially released when the achievement was unlocked?’

Sung-Woon glanced at his watch. He had maintained first rank for twelve months in a row and successfully obtained 100% achievement, which put him in an elevated mood. It wasn’t time to sleep yet. His hands had just warmed up and were ready to play more. He clicked ‘Yes.’

***

Sung-Woon’s silhouette flickered.

***

Sung-Woon thought that he had lost consciousness, but that was not the case. Once his vision cleared, what he had thought a pitch-black night sky turned out not to be a complete void. The stars were twinkling, and a familiar-looking blue, glowing planet caught his eye. However, his field of vision was mostly occupied by the sun.

He sat up.

‘Are these temple ruins…?’

Stone columns in a rugged style reminiscent of Greek temples circled the place, and the floor was of the same gray stone. It seemed the building where he had lain down was at a relatively high elevation, and similar architectures lined up beyond the pillars. The strange thing was that the sky was black even though the horizon was visible.

‘There must be no atmosphere.’

With no atmosphere, there was no light transmission, which in turn resulted in a lack of light scattering, making the sky look black even when the sun rose. Obviously, one wouldn’t be able to breathe without an atmosphere, so he got up thinking that it was a vivid dream.

“It’s not a dream.”

Sung-Woon turned towards the voice. A strange man was standing there wearing the kind of robe that medieval monks would wear, his face obscured by the hood. Sung-Woon slightly bent down to check if he could get a peek at the man’s face, but all he saw was darkness.

Sung-Woon asked, “What do you mean it’s not a dream?”

“Sung-Woon, I’m Aldin. You have also been chosen.”

Sung-Woon blinked, and before asking how the man knew his name or what the man meant by ‘chosen,’ something more peculiar piqued his attention.

“Did you just say ‘also’?”

Aldin nodded and raised his arm to gesture at the space around Sung-Woon. Shadows that had been invisible to Sung-Woon appeared before his eyes. He was a little surprised, but he knew the silhouettes of the shadows were those of ordinary people. He knew this because the shadows were also surprised and looking around just like he was.

“You have all come from the same world, Earth. Because there is a chance of you knowing one another, we have covered everyone in shadows for a fair game,” stated Aldin.

“You mean ‘game’ as in…”

Sung-Woon then realized what he had been doing until now. Aldin raised his arm and pointed at the planet above his head. The planet Sung-Woon had thought was Earth was actually another planet he was very familiar with—it was the Lost World.

‘That means the ground under my feet belongs to the moon of the Lost World.’

“Yes, the game you all played, The Lost World, was based on a real world, and those countless matches were all practice games for the one about to start. You will all become real gods in the Lost World.”