Chapter Text
There were a total of seven Halos or Gods that watched over the world from the beginning of the ‘game’. Each one picked one person to begin with the day the world became a game.
And despite their titles and the ways players fitted their roles, there were some simpler parallels between RPGs and those halos.
For example, the well-known Lee Se Jun’s Halo is the Executioner of Holy Light. Though no one knew the Messiah’s skill scope, others using such a Halo preferred strong constitution and attack, and could tank in a pinch. Add on some of their light-based skills suited for undead, they were paladins.
The most common Halo, the Fighter of a Tenacious Life would be the warrior class. The best users of shields with high health. Many good tanks came from this class, but they would be the minority among the masses. Other Fighters, threw aside health to focus on stamina, becoming like Berserkers. Otherwise, they might become crafters, who produced equipment like weapons – since the strength needed for monster materials was no joke.
Then Silent Hunter of the Forest, users with high stamina – like the archers and assassins. The Bow God of Japan, Heijiro Noda, has the same halo as the invaluable scout. Other users might use knives or other thrown weapons, but it would be the same principle. Ranged damage, sometimes improved by the use of poison.
For classes using magic, there was more variety, but less utility.
Those with the Listener to All Creation were called Spiritualists since they summoned spirits. They would be summoners, if in any game they could only pick one element by default. Ah, wait, they were in such a game. Being not a particularly versatile class that also depended on the user’s compatibility to the spirit they ended up summoning, it was hard. Two elements were as rare as getting the option to choose your halo. Trinity of America’s Great One, who has three elements may be the only such in the world.
More versatile, but with a slower power growth rate were the normal RPGs’ mages, who followed the halo of the Controller of the Fountain of Wisdom. Ironically, because of that, mages faced a similar problem to the warriors. There was very little way of differentiating themselves – their halo was too content with the top players. Someone like Park Shin Hye, with her Seven Coloured Dokkaebi, was a great display of elements.
Those who had the unlucky fortune of being with the Emissary of the Underworld would have a hard slog at the beginning of every dungeon. Though they were necromancers, they would have to collect their own ‘materials’. Unlike games, there was no summoning of skeletons as a spell. Like asking a mage to defeat a goblin with physical attacks – they would need some support. Johann Georg overcame this limitation thanks to his monopoly of his Halo’s attention. Every other Emissary fell by the wayside.
In contrast, with the best chances of being carried by a team would be those who had the halo of the Saint of Recovery and Prayer. Since no one expected such people to deal damage, they would level up quite safely, albeit in smaller numbers since there was more demand for damage than healing. Depending on how they chose skills, they might specialise in buffs or in healing. Some didn’t traverse dungeons at all, making potions out of monster materials. But they were really nothing special.
In the end game meta, the healers who couldn’t do damage or clear a dungeon without a party were nowhere to be seen. As support staff, yes, and important, yes, but there was no one who was amazing.
They could become amazing, but not for their use of buffs or healing skills – the Saint of Prayer knows that almost bitterly.
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No matter how difficult life was and even if they weren’t the protagonists, they were still living each day earnestly.
Level 187 Lee Shi Jin, halo: Saint of Prayer and Recovery, speciality: buffs. A leader of one of the two dedicated buffing squads that Messiah Guild that would enter the longest dungeons of the year with.
Shi Jin gained levels by existing in the same space that the high rankers were in, while his halo graded him based on his ability to track various things – the well being of the teammates under his care, his directions and strategy when engaging the enemy, and most brutally, the survival rate.
Having a firm grasp of how much, how fast and how often his teammates could buff, debuff and heal their attackers and tanks. This meant he understood everyone’s stats, skills, equipment.
It wasn’t because he was a good priest per se, he was simply fast at calculating. He was a good supporter, but his main utility was that he tried not to let people die.
Perhaps that was also why the Saint was partial to him. She graded him based on how many people survived and died due to his orders.
She also used the blue system boxes far more readily than any other halo he had ever heard being discussed.
Nevertheless, Shi Jin, and all the others under the halo of the Saint, would not get to stand on the same stage as the other monsters of the world.
[That doesn’t matter.] comes the system’s blue box. [That’s not what I’m looking for in a saviour.]
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The seven Gods who oversee their world do not change overnight, though their attentions may be as fleeting as the rise of a new player.
The criteria and desires of the gods are constant as their own powers.
In one world, Kim Woo Jin, the unyielding warrior, Messiah’s Hunting Dog, died unremarked in a dungeon tragedy that Lee Shi Jin didn’t know of at all.
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In one world or another, with Kim Woo Jin, Messiah Guild continued to progress.
A 7-floored dungeon. A- rank. The ‘Desert Under the Sky’, a biome full of sand and horrific sun; then too cold at night, the target for this year, the edge of 7 floors.
Of the players under his buffing team’s protection, seventeen died. Shi Jin already used [Sacrifice] twice and suffered the skill penalty. Once, to protect the Vice-Guildmaster Shin Hye-nim when she pulled too much aggro, another time, unexpectedly, for Hunting Dog Woo Jin-nim who rushed to defend Guildmaster Se Jun-nim when he experienced blowback from a boss.
[That was well done. What would you like?]
A halo who asks for their opinion, Shi Jin is certain the Saint is the only one. “Could I set [Sacrifice] on someone in advance? I almost couldn’t designate Vice-Guildmaster Shin Hye in time. If it were a faster monster, like a Foxfire, she might have been put out of battle for a while.”
His halo agrees to give them, floating down a level upgrade.
[As long as you will not regret it.]
Woo Jin-nim who dealt the final blow on the boss thanked him for his contribution, and Shi Jin only shook his head. “Next time, I will give you the assurance of survival.”