"Just one"
One of the most untrustworthy phrases in the world, this saying exists in various variations.
From "Did you make sandwich? Just one bite" to "I'll catch just one more and go," to "I'll smoke just one more and quit cigarettes."
It was a magical phrase that destroyed trust to the point where if Jesus had said "Just trust me once," people wouldn't have followed him.
"Just one more."
In that sense, Lucian didn't believe Wolfgar's words either. He was crazy about fishing, so there was no way he'd really catch just one more and stop, right?
So he let him catch to his heart's content.
"You crazy bastard!"
But this guy took it way too far.
"It's already been six months! How long are you gonna just fish!"
"Just one more."
"You're seriously insane! You're gonna die at this rate!"
Wolfgar connected to Yggdrasil every single day without a break.
At first, he lived in the game all day. He spent 21 hours a day in the game, eating energy bars to satisfy his hunger and sleeping for 3 hours—living the life of a gaming addict.
Then three months ago, he even passed out for a bit.
"It's fine. I cut it down to 12 hours now. And I started working out."
Right after passing out and waking up, Wolfgar immediately signed up for a gym. It was to take care of his health, though the game was great.
You had to be healthy to fish more. Thanks to that, recently even playing for 12 hours didn't feel like it would kill him, and he'd been able to continue this lifestyle for six months.
"Haah. Crazy bastard..."
It was good that he'd regained his will to live, but Lucian worried about Wolfgar since he never expected him to get this absorbed.
'Is this kid gonna end up like his father?'
A crazy bastard who gave up everything and just enjoyed fishing.
Lucian didn't want his friend to become that.
'Should I sneak in soon and break his Valhalla?'
Like true childhood friends, he even knew Wolfgar's door code.
But that method wouldn't be a fundamental cure. If it were Wolfgar, he'd either buy another Valhalla or go to Valhalla cafes.
'What should I do with this guy?'
Lucian watching Wolfgar with such worry.
The worry wasn't stopping.
'Ugh. I should do it moderately and level up. I'm playing this game to make money!'
Wolfgar also knew his current state well.
Through the internet, he learned many people made Yggdrasil their profession, and he wanted to do the same.
But whenever he connected to the game, he ended up fishing without realizing it.
'Money... I need to make money...'
Like the self-control part of his brain was broken, his body couldn't handle not fishing.
He told himself he had to give up fishing and level up to make money, but the path to the field required crossing the bridge over that river where people fished.
He could never cross the bridge and always came down to fish.
"Are you seriously just gonna fish? You gotta make money too."
"Yeah. Really, I'll only fish until today. Trust me."
"Haah... Alright. I trust you."
Of course, he'd just say that and fish again.
'I should really call an ambulance soon. What hospital do you call for fishing addiction?'
Letting out a long, heavy sigh, Lucian crouched down next to his friend. The fish Wolfgar had caught were swimming in a bucket.
"Why aren't you putting this in your inventory?"
"It feels more like fishing this way."
"Is that so? But did you finish the tutorial?"
"Didn't need to. Just touching stuff a few times while fishing, I figured it out."
As soon as he finished speaking, Wolfgar opened his inventory. Just thinking "inventory," a semi-transparent hologram window visible only to him appeared.
When he thought of skills and stats in order, two more windows appeared.
[Wolfgar]
+Level: 1
+Title: None
+Stats: Strength (1), Agility (1), Stamina (1), Intelligence (1)
[Skills]
+None
The window that appeared lightly had nothing much written in it.
Natural, of course. His level was still 1, having not hunted even once in six months.
"Dude, don't do this. Let's take it step by step. First, we hunt and move to the next village to fish."
Lucian carefully coaxed Wolfgar. Of course, helping him regain his will to live was the main goal, but this wasn't the picture he'd wanted.
Among fishermen crazy about fishing, many had experienced Yggdrasil. Naturally, they too lived absorbed in fishing at first, like Wolfgar.
But as they gradually killed monsters, leveled up, and enjoyed the game, they stopped obsessing over fishing.
The virtual reality of a fantasy world was more fun than fishing. Natural, since it was a new world you couldn't experience in reality.
A game that cured fishing addiction. Having heard that rumor, Lucian had brought Wolfgar here. The plan was to help him regain his will to live while gradually curing his fishing addiction and making Yggdrasil his profession.
'This bastard will get cured too once he goes to the field and gets a taste of hunting. I'll just leave him alone until then.'
Of course, it was just a rumor. Lucian didn't know, but people who got absorbed in the game like that naturally fished in reality when the game ended.
The fish you could catch in Yggdrasil had few varieties and weren't even 10cm long, let alone 20cm, so catching big ones in reality was way more enjoyable.
Doubly addicted to gaming and fishing.
In a sense, wasn't Wolfgar a tiny bit better since he was only addicted to the game?
"I thought about that too, but other villages are similar levels. And you can't fish in the field. That's why I can't get past here."
"Well, that's true but..."
Why couldn't you fish in the field? Couldn't you just cast your rod?
But you couldn't cast your rod outside. If you threw your fishing rod, the following message appeared.
[Fishing license required.]
With this message, the rod auto-retracted.
A mysterious message that clearly seemed like something was there. Many users got absorbed in fishing, searching for the hidden system.
From the early days of Yggdrasil's opening until now, years later, continuously.
And one conclusion came out.
"Giving up!!! Can't find it no matter what!!!"
Even raising favorability with fishing-related NPCs, catching a thousand fish—no hidden system appeared, not even an achievement.
There was even a hardcore fisherman who caught 10,000, but he didn't get any reward either.
"Damn! I caught all three types evenly and got nothing."
There were a total of three fish you could catch in the village.
Trash fish, minnow, killifish.
Fish with no bite feel that could only be used for cooking were just baggage taking up inventory space, and everyone recoiled and left at the system that gave no experience.
So this phrase was born.
"Fishing is Yggdrasil's only flaw!"
People had expected fishing to have hundreds, thousands of fish species, but unfortunately, it didn't.
All kinds of speculation circulated. Rumors that they'd poured all their strength elsewhere and exhausted, fishing was the last thing they made, and hypotheses that the developers hated fishing so they made it half-assed.
The most credible hypothesis was that the bigwig overseeing development had been ruined by fishing and barely succeeded in making a comeback with Yggdrasil.
"And the other village fish come out here too."
Even the fish from other villages that Lucian mentioned could be caught here. They said you had to go to other villages for different fish, but that just meant the main species changed—you could catch them here too.
Splash!
Even now, though there were only two or three, minnows and killifish were swimming in his bucket. The item descriptions were identical to trash fish.
"Dude. But how'd you buy bait?"
Bait cost money too. The price of about 100 servings of bait was 10 gold. A very cheap price, but Wolfgar, who didn't hunt, had no way to get it.
"Just sell the fish. They buy them for 10 gold each."
"Ah..."
"And now quiet down a bit. You're scaring the fish."
"What are you talking about? Fish running away, my ass. They're swarming in front of you."
"The little guys are like that. The big ones won't come if it's noisy."
"Fine. Do whatever you want."
Fed up, Lucian left. He worried about Wolfgar, who had to make real money as well as game money, but seeing his friend enjoying himself, he couldn't say anything more.
"Lucian."
"What."
"Thanks."
"...You bastard. Just fish hard. I'm going hunting."
"Okay. Get good loot."
Sending off his friend like that, Wolfgar kept focusing on fishing. There were a total of 9 fish in his bucket. Since about 10 fit in one bucket, it was time to change them out.
"Time to let them go soon."
Selling fish to use for bait—just selling about ten a day was enough for several days.
So he released most of the fish. No need to make grilled fish. Though it tasted exactly like reality, he didn't eat it.
Wolfgar liked fishing but didn't eat fish much.
'I don't fish because I want to eat fish. I just want to catch them.'
Having released the fish like that, Wolfgar stood up. It was about time.
"Same as always today."
Looking at the trash scattered around the river, Wolfgar clicked his tongue.
Bait that wasn't fully used dirtied the ground, and caught fish were drying out on top of it. All the doing of users who'd dabbled in fishing out of curiosity.
"If you're gonna do this, don't fish. If you're gonna do it, clean up properly."
He scooped water into the bucket and poured it on the dirtied ground. After repeating it several times, it quickly became clean.
"Wow, this is my first time fishing. Interesting."
The reason it got this dirty was all because of Yggdrasil's realism.
Since many users hadn't fished before, they thought fishing learned through the tutorial would just be fun.
But once they started, they didn't want to touch the fish.
"Ew. Gross. The fishy smell is intense."
Users who just dumped the fish and leftover bait and left. Of course, not everyone did that—one in ten people did such things.
But those one or two people accumulated, and the river quickly became dirty.
"Phew. All done."
Someone had been watching Wolfgar for six months.
"You worked hard again today. Thank you."
The fishing NPC, Ruben. He always came at the tail end of cleaning to praise Wolfgar. Before Wolfgar cleaned, he'd been in charge of all the cleaning.
"Not many people clean. You're a true fisherman."
"It's something fishermen should naturally do."
All manners learned from his father. When going fishing, Wolfgar's father started by cleaning the surroundings first.
Sinkers someone left behind, cut fishing line, fish corpses, or carelessly dumped bait.
His father always cleaned while saying this:
[They say beautiful people leave beautiful places behind. You can tell what kind of person someone is by looking at the traces they leave. If we don't clean, we become the same kind of people.]
"You're an admirable young man. Unlike those other bastards. Those damn punks always coming and making a mess. If I were just ten years younger..."
"Sir, that's your catchphrase."
"Phew. Sorry. Anyway, you really are an admirable young man."
Ruben's praise.
At the same time, a message appeared for Wolfgar.
[Ruben's favorability has greatly increased.]
[Ruben's favorability has increased by 100.]
[Ruben now regards you like a son.]
"Haha. Thank you."
At that moment, another message appeared.
[A hidden quest has appeared.]
The fishing-related hidden system no one had ever achieved.
That system appeared for Wolfgar.
"I'm only telling you, but I'll let you know about a good spot. Here, this is a map. Try going to the marked location."
The quest began with Ruben's map.
[Hidden Quest – Catch the Master of the River]
+Go to the location marked on the map.
+Catch the Master of the River.
The Master of the River. You could feel from that name alone that it was no ordinary fish.
Wolfgar lowered the window and checked the additional text.
[Quest Acceptance Conditions]
+Catch 10,000 fish (regardless of type)
+MAX favorability with fishing-related NPC
+Achieve 1,000 hours of fishing time
The fishing hidden system many users had challenged until now.
Catching 10,000 fish, maxing fishing-related NPC favorability, achieving 1,000 hours of fishing time—many users had achieved these.
But one thing was missing.
[Complete 100 cleanups around the fishing spot]
Cleaning.
The achievement condition was cleaning around the fishing spot until the fishing NPC talked to you and praised you.
No one cared about cleaning. Some users cleaned once or twice, but countless cases gave up caring because it was annoying.
Those searching for the hidden system didn't care since the fishing NPC periodically cleaned anyway, and didn't have time to care.
They were interested only in the hidden system, not fishing.
"What do you think? Want to give it a try?"
But Wolfgar achieved it. Through six months of persistent fishing. By consistently cleaning where Ruben watched.
"Master of the River..."
Wolfgar nodded. He was interested in the Master of the River.
No, even if they'd told him to catch trash fish, he would've accepted.
The hidden quest's reward was too attractive to him.
[Reward: Fisherman (Hidden Class) Class Change]
The hidden class called Fisherman.
Maybe if he got this class, he could properly enjoy the game—that expectation arose.
'Make money and enjoy fishing too!'
With high hopes, Wolfgar spoke to Ruben.
"I'll do it."