---Logan's POV---

  "icles of Aeltia uploaded two promotional images?"

  I was both shocked and delighted. It turned out that even the game pany knew how to properly promote a serious game.

  Previously, without even a promotional video, they had boldly announced a beta test—it was dht absurd.

  With a "since I'm here, I might as well check it out" attitude, I decisively clicked on the blurry images in the pop-up window.

  "Alright, show me what you've wasted your marketing budget on," I muttered, settling into my chair.

  The first image depicted a gray-toned wastend. Dark gray gravel swirled in the air, and the pnts on the ground hunched over like old women, their brawisted.

  Uhe crooked patches of grass, the skeletons of uified creatures y exposed, weathered by the wind aion.

  "What an impressive realistic art style!"

  In most games, no matter how much they boast about realism, a wind-swept se always relies on auxiliary lines or post-produ. But this promotional image was pletely different.

  I zoomed in to the maximum, and even the sand grains occupying just a couple of pixels in the background were distinct from each other.

  "Hold on... these aren't just generic particle effects. Each grain is uniquely rendered?"

  It was just like a real photograph. This was the essence of a virtual reality game.

  A fully immersive sed world.

  Moreover, the bts in the fround each had their unique shape. On the foundation of harmonious color tones, I carefully ted—there were seven ht different types inal pnts.

  I analyzed the promotional image repeatedly and found it increasingly captivating. It was clearly just a ndscape shot without any characters or special buildings. Yet it mao vey, at first ghat this world carried a supernatural power.

  It felt like a fantastical and bloody alternate world draped in a thin veil, vague yet alluring, making people itch with curiosity.

  "This must be a boss map in the game—damn, bones everywhere, that's intriguing."

  I immediately clicked on the sed image.

  pared to the barren wastend of the first image, this one included a character.

  A knight silver-white armor stood at the ter of the image, his sharp gaze mixed with fusion. In his hand, he held a muddy, broken hoe. Beside him was half of a shattered altar covered in white runes, ao that was a mountain of monster and human corpses.

  "A knight with a broken hoe... Now that's enviroal storytelling dht," I murmured, taking notes.

  I couldn't help but praise, "Whoever desighis image must be a master. The armor's weathering patterns actually match the enviro. Someone really thought this through."

  This image was full of tradis. A knight in ornate armor holding a near-broken axe. A sacred altar destroyed, with corpses piled up beside it.

  Just looking at it made me want to know more.

  Why was the knight there? What had he entered? What was the altar's purpose? Was the ritual oar successful?

  My excitement burned brightly.

  The icles of Aeltia webpage might have been poorly made, but its promotional images were rich with details.

  Suddenly, I regained faith in the game. Maybe the game pany had just funneled all the money for building the website into the game's development. After all, virtual reality games were notoriously expeo make.

  I suddenly remembered that I had quit the site too quickly during the day and hadn't evehe game description. These two images reignited my i.

  I quickly closed the images and clicked on the game description, which had been reduced to three ellipses.

  "Who desighis UI?" I grumbled, clig through the pages. "Basiality is literally in the name—basic. How do you mess that up?"

  ames at least dispyed a few lines of their descriptions—but not icles of Aeltia, whose description was entirely colpsed. If I didn't already know about the game's extensive marketing campaigns, I might have thought the site was built by a novice programmer.

  After reading the brief three-line description, my excitement was doused with a bucket of cold water, instantly calming me down.

  I was incredulous: "You're tellihis is the description fame?"

  I let out a dry ugh, scrolling through the text. "Great, they've just crammed in every gehey could think of."

  "Hardcore sandbox struultipyer online MM card roguelike farming city-building ma game. What's , are they going to add dating sim and battle royale too? Did they just throw darts at a genre board?"

  The description had so many problems that I didn't even know where to start pining. It seemed like they had just copied every existing game geo attract pyers. If I hadn't pyed these types of games before, I wouldn't have been able to parse that sente all!

  As for the actual game tent, there was just one line: "It's roughly a Western fantasy magical world with a slightly backward feudal setting."

  "%#@!"

  I was so stunned I couldn't even speak. "Which game uses 'roughly' to describe its world-building?!"

  The images showed triple-A quality. The website looked like it was made in an hour. Either they spent their entire budget on two images, or something was very wrong here.

  The scam-alert bells, honed by years of avoiding online fraud, rang wildly in my mind. It felt like the description was being deliberately vague to hide something.

  But knowing that hype-driven trash games were all about deception, I wasn't surprised.

  I scratched my head, gng between the description and the two promotional images, visibly torn. My rational side told me that the differen style between the promotional images and the description was too big to ig was clearly a reskinned cash-grab online game.

  Could make a good video series. 'Inside Gaming's Biggest Mystery' has a nice ring to it. I paused, sidering. But if it's a scam, do I want my name anywhere his?

  But emotionally… I really liked the game's artistic style in the images!

  "Fet it, since I'm here anyway, reserving a spot isn't a big deal. It's just a beta test—I might not eve selected!"

  I clicked on the reservation page. The page was just as crude as the homepage. There were only a few fields asking for pyer information, following the standard beta-test routine.

  Then came a payment portal for the 10 dolrs beta-test fee. Only those who paid would secure their reservation.

  I froze mid-a. "You're kiddihey're already trying to milk pyers for money?"

  "Ten dolrs for a full-dive VR headset? That's not just suspicious, that's impossible." I pulled up a calcutor. Even the manufacturing cost would be... No, this 't be legitimate.

  I could uand why virtual reality games required pyer payments. After all, this era-defining teology demanded extremely high teical expertise. And everyone khat high-tech products required massive funding. Just the braieg game headsets alone were astronomically expensive.

  Game panies wouldn't give them away for free.

  But. Wasn't this price a bit too low? Who had ever heard of a full-dive gaming headset for just 10 dolrs? Even top-tier VR panies like Skyrain hadn't perfected such bck-tech devices, a here it was for a two-digit price?

  "Anyone who believes this is a fool!"

  I cursed, angrily closing the page. I almost wao sp the hopeful version of myself from half an ho. The pany might as well have written "scam" across their foreheads.

  I turned off the lights and climbed into bed.

  ---

  The day, after waking up, I gathered materials and created the third installment of my herworld Revolution roasting video. Thanks to icles of Aeltia stealing the spotlight, people no longer hated herworld Revolution as much.

  Cheg my analytics, I nodded with satisfa.

  As a result, the data for my third video was cut in half. That's the nature of hot topics. Ohe initial frenzy fades, they die down as quickly as the tide.

  I, however, remained optimistic.

  Even though the third herworld Revolution video's data dropped, the revenue was still double my previous gamepy videos. Moreover, I had gaiens of thousands of new followers through the videos—it was already a win!

  In my free time, I couldn't help but think about icles of Aeltia again.

  Browsing through eions, it seemed that the game's marketing bots were still rampant. But after visiting the official site, many people had realized what kind of scam it was and couldn't be bothered to engage anymore.

  Those images though... I still want to know who made them.

  Having nothier to do, I decided to waste three preinutes and visited the official website of icles of Aeltia again.

  The website looked even more refihis time. What kind of game dev updated their website this frequently?

  To be ho, the speed at which the website updated felt almost like watg a cyber pet-simution game evolve.

  I still liked the two promotional images of the game. As a tent creator, I'd seen my fair share of game assets. However, after that initial daze of excitement the night before, my passion had dimmed signifitly.

  "It's probably just photos from some film set. Nowadays, what game could achieve 100% photorealistic visuals anyway?"

  After gng at the site, I closed the webpage without a sed thought.

  A few hours ter.

  I opehe icles of Aeltia website again, then closed it.

  And again, a few hours after that. Open, close.

  Open, close.

  In the middle of the night, uo sleep, I got up again.

  With a messy bedhead and a bnk expression, I grumbled to myself, "Unbelievable. Logan, you're definitely going to fall hard for some VR game trap sooner or ter!"

  Let's be logical about this. Unique assets, impossible prig, sketchy website... I checked my bank bahen again, what's ten dolrs pared to a potential viral video?

  Cursing myself under my breath, I decisively turned on my puter, filled out the beta test application, and sed the code to pay.

  Seeing the popup notification [Preorder Successful: 3 Partits], I let out a long sigh of relief.

  This was because icles of Aeltia had included a wide-angle promotional image.

  During the day, I had specifically researched whether any film crews had used simir terrains for shooting fantasy movies or series.

  I firmed that I couldn't find any ses that matched the promotional images from icles of Aeltia. After all, when people think of fantasy worlds, it's always about vibrant ndscapes filled with swords and sorcery.

  Who would bother filming a desote gray wastend without dramatic battlefields or uerrain?

  I forted myself, thinking at least the two promotional images must have beeed by the game pany. They did show some effort.

  At only 10 dolrs, it wasn't too expensive.

  Since my ret vides were det, sparing a bit of money for a beta test slot wasn't an issue.

  Initially, I thought I was the only fool doing this.

  But knowing there were two other fools just as impulsive, who also paid the 10 distration fee, made me feel less like a sucker.

  Finally, after taking an the registration deadline—just one day away—I went to bed in high spirits.

  Either this became 'I Exposed Gaming's Biggest Scam' or 'I Discaming's Revolution.' Win-win.

  And for once, I had a good dream that night.

  ---Viktor's POV---

  After two days and nights of travel, hindered by monsters and pursuing enemies along the way, I finally arrived with Edgar at the Great Oak Forest.

  "Another patrol of churights to the east," I muttered, sing the horizon. "They're getting predictable."

  Sihe Divine War six hundred years ago, the gods had perished, and the world's ws had bee chaotic.

  Monsters with immense power and driven by pure instinct emerged, gradually encroag oerritories of various races.

  The Great Oak Forest, a sprawling wilderness of forests, marshes, and hills stretg a thousand miles, was one such area pletely overtaken by monsters.

  In respohe Kingdom of Yoan and the Principality of Elise built t walls around the forest to fend off the occasional "rampages" of the monsters.

  As for the forest's interior, it had bee an untamed wilderness, entered only by adventurers and the occasional na?ve noble.

  Only in such pces could one find uncimed magical energy nodes.

  After another half day of searg, Edgar finally found a location on the forest's outskirts that met my requirements.

  In the dim forest stood dozens of dipidated houses, made of wood and mud. Trees growing through colpsed walls, dry wells filled with dirt, streets buried under yers of earth…

  This was a city that had been pletely destroyed by a magic surge.

  Hundreds of years ago, the Great Oak Forest was much smaller than it is now.

  As monsters expaheir range of activity and unchecked trees spread outward, the towns in their path were iably "swallowed."

  About four turies ago, I had been here.

  Back then, it was a bustling town, not even sidered a border city of the Kingdom of Yoan.

  I vaguely recalled the town being called Honeyvale Town.

  The name came from the fruit trees in the Wol Mountains. Every autumn, ripe fruit would fall into the Duskwind River, and by the time the river flowed to Honeyvale Town, its waters were sweet.

  Lying on Edgar's back, I looked around and nodded approvingly.

  Not bad. A river, fields, erees—perfect for a pyer starting area.

  Moreover, the flow of magiearby was calm, a clear sign that a magiode was close by.

  "The magiode's proximity is ideal," I noted. "Strong enough for stability, weak enough to avoid attention."

  "And the ruins there?" Edgar asked.

  "Free building materials. One person's apocalyptic wastend is another's resource-rich starting area."

  This would also help solve my injury problem.

  Rubbing my , I mused, "But the houses here are a bit rundown, though. We'd have to tear them down and rebuild…"

  "Oh well, they don't actually sleep iia. A little invenience isn't a big deal."

  I seemed quite satisfied.

  Edgar, carrying me on his back, sighed in exasperation.

  "You do realize you're heavier than a cart of iron ore?"

  "I'll take that as a pliment to my boy. Premium quality, you—"

  "Now that we've found the magiode, you walk on your own?"

  I looked at him, shocked. "You're telling a severely injured patient who's this close to death to walk on their own? Have some passion! Unbelievable! The former Knight of Dawn, now a heretic, is this heartless!"

  A vein popped on Edgar's forehead. "You should really be aware of your ow."

  Though skeletal, I had bones enhanced by alchemical modification, dehan mithril. Carrying me was like carrying ten fully armored knights.

  After hauling me for two days, he had already gone above and beyond.

  Not to mention, he knew undead well enough to realize that, near a magiode, my injuries could at least be temporarily stabilized. And without paiors, undead could absolutely walk on their own.

  Realizing I couldn't talk my way out of it, my soul fire flickered in slight disappoi.

  The veransport service had reached its expiration.

  Slowly, I climbed down and began expl Honeyvale Town with him.

  The town had been in ruins for quite some time. Every house we passed was more than halfway destroyed. Any building with eveact wall was sidered well-preserved. The only structure still standing with a roof was the church at the tower.

  When I saw the weathered yet still sacred-looking church, I clicked my tongue.

  "Want to bet how many vilgers starved to pay for those gold-leaf decorations?"

  Edgar frowned. "Some matters shouldn't be joked about."

  "Who's joking? I was here when they built it."

  Edgar didn't respond.

  He had grown up in the Radiant Churd knew all too well the lengths to which devout followers would go. It wasn't unon for them to bankrupt themselves with donations just to add one molden spire to a church.

  I stretched zily.

  "Ah, nothing says 'holy ground' quite like the smell of four-tury-old sanctity."

  "Your irreverenows no bounds, does it?"

  "Years of persecution tends to have that effect. Let's go see which lucky god mao gather such loyal followers—ones who'd rather die fighting mohahem eheir church."

  Creaaak—

  The long-sealed doors opened, sending down a cloud of dust.

  At the ter of the hall stood an ivory-white goddess statue, illuminated by a kaleidoscope of light streaming through a broken stained gss window above.

  I stared in surprise at the symbol iatue's hand.

  "Oh, an old acquaintance."

  Edgar's expression darkened. "The God of Light..."