The Academy Geniuses I Raised and Dressed

“We're here… This is the final battle.”

I muttered to myself, eyes wide open.

If I looked in a mirror right now, I’d probably see a bloodshot-eyed wreck with a scruffy beard staring back at me.

But that didn’t matter.

What mattered was that this long journey was finally coming to an end.

I stared into the screen of the game I was playing.

Latessai.

An RPG set in a near-future version of Seoul.

It had a few mixed elements from other genres, but at its core, it was a hack-and-slash game.

In other words, an action game where you beat down hordes of enemies, collect loot, and make your character stronger.

Latessai allowed you to build characters with a wide range of concepts, depending on weapons, skills, and traits. The build I was playing was the “Craftsman.”

Because I poured all my skill points into crafting instead of combat, fighting monsters was a nightmare at the beginning. The early game was pure suffering.

But once the overpowered crafting skills unlocked in mid-game, things got easier.

And in the late game… it turned into a completely different experience.

I checked my character's inventory.

Weapons, armor, accessories—every piece of equipment was stacked with effects you’d never get from drops. They were so broken you could only call them busted.

On top of that, I’d activated every buff I could from consumable items.

Then I moved my character into the pit ahead.

The darkness lifted, and a massive monster appeared. A long HP bar stretched across the top of the screen.

This was Latessai’s hidden boss, only available on Hardcore difficulty.

I’d tried everything: a glass-cannon mage with maxed-out damage, an unkillable cockroach-like tank build, and plenty of others.

None of them had managed to clear this boss. Thirteen characters had died trying.

But this time, I was sure I had the answer.

I moved my avatar toward the boss.

“Mortal being. What do you seek here? Your world has already…”

I ignored the dialogue and launched my attack.

In response, the boss followed its AI pattern and summoned meteors from the sky.

A max-level mage would be instantly killed. A tank might survive with half HP.

But my character took no damage.

Instead, the boss’s health dropped significantly.

Thanks to my insanely high evasion and damage reflection stats, I was turning the tables.

I focused and poured on the damage.

Compared to my previous characters, the boss's health melted away at lightning speed.

Phase 1 cleared. Then Phase 2.

Finally, when the boss had just a sliver of health left—one more hit away from dying—Phase 3 began.

Wrapped in a glowing blue shield, the hidden boss began charging up.

In ten seconds, it would unleash a one-hit kill move that ignored both evasion and reflection.

The only way to win was to break the shield and land the final blow before that happened.

If you came with a damage-focused build, you’d die before Phase 3.

If you came with a survival build, you wouldn’t have enough damage to finish the job.

But with my Craftsman build, a perfect balance of both damage and survivability—it was possible.

I swung my enchanted weapon at the shield.

Flashes of every elemental effect and critical hit indicator burst across the screen.

Time ticked away as I kept hammering the barrier.

“Even if your light shines bright now…”

The boss conjured a black orb between its hands.

I gritted my teeth.

I’d lost six Hardcore characters to that orb.

“...it is but dust in the span of ten thousand eons…”

The black sphere grew larger. I kept slashing at the shield.

Cold sweat ran down my entire body.

“...in the great cycle of all existence—”

Crack!

A sound effect I had never heard before echoed out.

“Yes!!”

I shouted out loud.

The shield shattered.

There was no time to hesitate. The boss was still reciting its final lines.

I rushed forward. I saw its arms reaching out.

“Let this reveal the futility of all—”

Ping!!

A critical hit exploded on impact, and the boss froze.

The orb in its hands vanished.

“...this is… the end. At last… I…”

Words I had never heard before came from the boss’s mouth.

“…at long last, my…”

Then its body cracked and began glowing.

The screen went completely white.

I stared at the monitor, forgetting to breathe, watching as the epilogue video played.

I had done it.

I had cleared the game.

The thrill was incredible.

It felt like all the time I had poured into this game had finally paid off.

“Whew…”

I let out a long sigh.

The Craftsman build had been the right choice after all.

‘Now that I’ve beaten the hidden boss, I guess it’s finally time to quit and get back to real life.’

That was the thought I had as I absentmindedly watched the end credits roll.

But then—

A message popped up that I had never seen before.

[Congratulations. You are the first player in the world to defeat the hidden boss.]

“First…?”

That didn’t make sense.

This was a single-player game. There shouldn’t be any way to compare my data with anyone else’s.

[A new difficulty mode has been unlocked for top-tier players.]

“A new difficulty? What? There was another one besides Hardcore?”

Any suspicion I had vanished as my heart raced with excitement at the words “new difficulty.”

I figured I’d keep playing a little longer before retiring from the game.

But then, the screen went dark.

“Huh? What the hell?”

I looked toward the monitor’s power button.

“What? The monitor’s still on. Is it a loose connection?”

I reached for the cable to unplug and reinsert it—

And the screen suddenly lit up, flashing wildly.

“!!”

The moment I saw it, my whole body froze. My mind went blank.

The last thing I felt was the sensation of my body floating upward.

“You idiot! Don’t just stand there! Get lost! You’re in the way!”

Someone shoved me hard.

I stumbled and rolled across the floor.

The cold, rough surface of the stone ground pressed uncomfortably against my skin.

Boom!!

The guy who had just shoved me charged forward with a massive shield and slammed straight into a monster that looked like a wild boar.

I say “looked like” a wild boar for a reason, because no wild boar I’ve ever seen had a huge, pointed horn or spikes covering its entire body.

“What is this? A dream?”

There was no way something like that could exist unless this was a dream. Just moments ago, I was in my bedroom.

Now I was sitting on a cold, uneven stone floor, not my usual warm floorboards, and I looked around.

Teenagers, probably around the same age, were all wearing matching combat uniforms and fighting off monsters with various weapons.

Their outfits were tight, navy-blue suits reinforced with metal greaves and elbow guards.

“I know those uniforms… Where have I seen them before?”

A flash of memory streaked across my mind.

The moment I remembered, a chill ran down my spine.

I looked down at myself.

“No way…”

My worst suspicion was starting to come true.

I was wearing the same outfit as the others. In my hand was a double-edged sword, about 35 centimeters long.

When I caught a glimpse of my reflection on the blade, I flinched.

Silver hair. A face that looked like it belonged to someone in their late teens.

It was vaguely familiar, but it wasn’t the face I’d been seeing in the mirror all my life.

Then—

“Nam Yein! Get out of the way!”

My name isn’t Nam Yein. It’s Hong Heechul.

I turned my head toward the voice and saw a giant moth—its body as thick as my forearm—flying straight at me.

“Wah!”

I swung my arm in a panic. My sword did hit the moth, but it didn’t seem to do any real damage. In fact, my arm hurt more from the impact.

Thankfully, the moth didn’t latch onto me. It flew off elsewhere.

After that encounter with the giant moth, reality came crashing down on me.

Monster Moths with huge wingspans, Giant Spikewilds with quills all over their bodies…

And those students in odd uniforms fighting off the monsters…

This was undeniably the opening scenario from one of the storylines in Latessai.

“What the hell? Did I… get pulled into the game world?”

I was completely stunned, but I had no time to dwell on it.

The monsters nearby were circling like they could rush me at any moment.

Instinctively, I looked down at the weapon in my hand.

Then I felt a strange sensation around my eyes.

[Ability ‘Craftsman’ has activated.]

[You can now see the traits of an item.]

A message sounded in my head, and a status window appeared before me.

[Inferior Demonsteel Twinblade]

A twin-edged sword made from demonsteel, a common metal found in the demon realm. Hastily crafted without making use of its properties.

Attack +2

Defense +1

“Garbage…”

Seeing text floating in midair was weird, sure. But what shocked me more were the item stats.

It was a bottom-tier item, the kind you get when you first create a character.

No wonder it hadn’t left a scratch on the moth.

I looked around and frowned even more.

Swords, spears, bows, shields, armor—you name it, all the equipment everyone else was using was just as garbage as mine.

A dozen kids were barely holding their own, struggling against monsters that outnumbered them at least two to one.

Several students were already lying unconscious on the ground.

Then I noticed something strange a bit farther off.

One of the Giant Spikewilds was swelling up like a balloon.

“!!”

I remembered what that meant from the game and immediately dropped to the ground.

BOOM!!

Something shot past over my head like a missile and slammed into a wall, leaving a huge crack.

“Argh!!”

“The Giant Spikewild exploded!”

When I looked up again, I saw that about half of the students fighting had collapsed, their bodies impaled with quills. That included the guy who shoved me earlier.

“Healer! Where’s the healer?!”

“Use potions! The healer went down ages ago!”

“We’re out of potions, that’s why I said find the healer!”

It was total chaos.

“If this keeps up, everyone’s going to die…”

A wave of cold rushed through my body, but at the same time, my mind began racing.

The weapons and armor were junk.

The monsters here, especially the Giant Spikewild should only be manageable with a character or gear around level 10.

So what do we need right now?

I remembered the message I saw earlier.

“Ability ‘Craftsman’ has activated.”

Craftsman.

That was the last character build I played before ending the game.

If my instincts were right, identifying item traits wasn’t the full extent of this ability.

“Is there a way to see more detailed information?”

Right then, a new status window popped up.

[Craftsman]

Crafting consumables and dismantling low-level items.

As soon as I read that, my mind accelerated even more.

No time for doubt.

First, I needed to survive this hell.

I grabbed the sword I’d been holding and picked up a few unclaimed weapons lying around.

“How do I dismantle items…?”

As soon as I thought that, I felt something flow out of my body. My hand lit up.

A translucent hammer of light appeared in my grip.

“It’s exactly like the button icon from the game!”

Without hesitation, I started hammering the weapons.

[You gained 10 Craftsman EXP from dismantling.]

[Acquired: x5 Inferior Demonsteel, x1 Inferior Leather, x3 Twine.]

Simplified icons of materials appeared in my hand, just like in the game.

I ran toward the wall.

Then I jumped and grabbed onto one of the Spikewild’s quills lodged in the stone.

But it was stuck too deep to pull out.

“Come on! Get out, damn it!”

I thrashed around, trying to loosen it. I ended up slipping and landing hard on my rear.

The pain was intense—like something had torn down there—but I had no time to dwell on it.

All around me, the monsters were still knocking down more students.

I looked at my hand.

[Giant Spikewild Quill x1]

The massive quill had transformed into an icon.

“One more to go…”

There had to be one more.

There had to be.

Frantically searching the battlefield, I spotted a bluish crystal jutting out of the ground in the distance.

It was right in the middle of where the monsters and student hunters were still clashing.

No time to hesitate. I ran straight for it.

“Just buy me a little more time.”

As the monsters were distracted by the others, I tried to extract the crystal, but then froze.

I had dismantled all my weapons. I had nothing to mine it with.

“Damn it! I should’ve kept one!”

Just then, I noticed the Spikewild Quill icon.

If I could convert it into an icon, then I should be able to revert it too.

I gripped the icon tight.

As expected, it turned back into the quill I’d just pulled out of the wall.

I used it to strike the crystal with all my strength.

After three solid hits, a chunk of it cracked off and fell to the ground.

I quickly grabbed it.

[Inferior Mana Crystal x1]

“That’s everything…!”

I held the Mana Crystal, Demonsteel, and Spikewild Quill icons in my hand.

Then I brought down the glowing hammer onto them.

A soft glow surrounded the icons, and they fused together into a new item.

[Inferior Spike Bomb x5]

Suddenly, the ground shook beneath me.

Three Giant Spikewilds were charging right at me.

All the students who had been fighting them were now lying on the ground.

Without hesitation, I materialized one of the spike bombs and rolled it like a bowling ball.

It rolled across the ground, stopped right under the belly of one of the Spikewilds—and I shouted,

“Everyone, hit the ground! Now!!”

Then I threw myself flat against the floor.

BOOM!!

The spike bomb exploded under the creature’s belly, instantly killing it. And just like before, the Spikewild’s corpse began to swell.

KA-BOOM!

The explosion launched quills in all directions, skewering the other two Spikewilds beside it.

(End of Chapter)