“No, cut the bullshit.”

After slapping myself for ten minutes straight, I had to accept reality.

“Of all things, I get possessed as a Crafter… No, no, calm down. It’s a broken class.”

It’s overpowered late game.

Early game dangers? A nightmare. The tutorial alone required sheer luck to survive.

A class with garbage-tier health, strength, and stamina—so weak that even holding a weapon felt like a struggle.

Even if I were lucky enough to find a gun, my aim would be so terrible I’d have to spend half the tutorial just disassembling and reassembling it to improve my accuracy.

“Fuck!”

God, was it really such a crime to trick a newbie?

Come on, once you get past the brutal early game, everything opens up.

Sure, the early game was miserable, but was recommending a character with a tough start really deserving of divine punishment?

“No, I can do this. I can do this. As long as I can craft…”

The tutorial was the real problem.

Every character had the same starting stats, and all I had to do was complete a few specific objectives.

Let’s think.

Find three resource items.

Find and equip a melee weapon.

Find and equip a ranged weapon.

Find and equip armor.

Kill five giant spiders and harvest their corpses.

Kill five zombies.

And take down the mini-boss, Hammerhead… right.

“This is bullshit.”

There was no way.

If I had a class that started with a weapon, maybe.

But a Crafter’s starting inventory had…

“A flashlight, spare batteries, an improvised crafting kit—oh, come on. No weapon?!”

Technically, there was a tiny chance of spawning with a pistol.

If I had that pistol, I might have a shot.

Giant spiders weren’t too bad with a torch, zombies were manageable with an axe, and if—if—the pistol used .45 caliber ammo, I could take down Hammerhead.

“This is it?”

No food.

No medical supplies.

Just a flashlight, some batteries, and a crafting kit.

“Come on! Please!”

I emptied my entire bag, turned it inside out—nothing. Not even a crumb.

Without food, even basic exploration was a risk.

Sure, I could starve for a while, but without a weapon and no food?

“AAAHHHH!!!”

Under normal circumstances, I’d just yeet myself into a zombie horde and restart.

Or maybe let a swarm of rats have their fun.

…Wait.

“The crafting kit.”

The Improvised Crafting Kit was a Crafter-exclusive item.

With it, I could craft anything on the spot—from bullets to guns to entire magazines.

As long as I had the materials.

I couldn’t make a pistol, but I could craft a “One-Shot”—a single-shot shotgun.

One shell at a time, painfully slow to reload—but hey, it was something.

So, all I had to do was—

“Why won’t this open?”

I pulled, twisted, yanked with all my strength.

Nothing.

The only thing that moved was me, rolling on the floor.

…Wait a second.

Class abilities only unlock after completing the tutorial.

Which meant—

“So you’re telling me… I have to scavenge three resources, find a melee weapon, a ranged weapon, and armor, then kill five giant spiders, five zombies, and a mini-boss… with this?”

My bag felt light.

Too light.

If it were heavy, I’d be complaining about slow movement speed.

If I had more stamina, I’d be whining about how weak my attacks were.

Even for a Crafter, this was too light.

“Fuck…”

What the hell did I do to deserve this?

“At least… the survivor base isn’t far.”

There were survivor settlements.

And, thankfully, during the tutorial, all factions welcomed players.

Even the lunatics at “Rebirth Church.”

Even the “Zero Empire,” a bunch of neo-Nazis who somehow got their hands on military gear.

Every faction marked its territory with symbols, barricades, or even booby traps.

As for me—

“I don’t recognize this mark.”

Sometimes, new factions emerged.

Small families or survivor groups could band together and, with enough luck, grow into major factions.

There was that one forum post that got over a thousand upvotes—the one about a faction called “Banana Gang.”

Apparently, they encountered the Zero Empire early, wiped them out, and stole all their tech.

Maybe this group had similar luck…

“Oh?”

A shotgun tripwire trap.

Jackpot.

If I disarmed it, I’d get a free gun—and the fact that it was here meant that whoever set it up was skilled enough to use booby traps effectively.

Even better, they left a survivor marker before setting the trap.

That meant, “We don’t want a fight, but if you come at us, we will defend ourselves.”

A good sign.

Not some naïve, utopian commune.

Problem was—

“…How do I disarm this?”

In-game, I just pressed a button, and the animation played automatically.

But now? I had to do it.

…No, wait. I could do it.

I've seen the animation thousands of times.

After 2,000 hours of gameplay, this was nothing.

“…There it is.”

I patted myself down and found a pair of pliers.

Of course I had them. The animation always used pliers.

…Honestly, I had my doubts. Crafters really did get the short end of the stick.

I traced the wire with my fingers.

It was a tightly twisted thread made from repurposed fabric, strong enough not to snap easily.

But the trap itself… wasn’t particularly sensitive. If anything, it felt loose.

Was it not meant for people? Or had it been here for a while? No, the thread was too fresh for that.

The shotgun, though, was old—worn enough to be repurposed into a booby trap.

Whoever set this up clearly knew what they were doing.

The real question was, why was the thread—

“Stay right where you are.”

So this was the real purpose.

It was a trap designed to stall, to give the person who set it time to assess an intruder.

Too lucky. Way too lucky.

And that voice—calm, steady, old.

“I may be up in years, but I’ve still got the strength to pull a trigger.”

“…I mean no harm, sir. I don’t even have a gun.”

“The dark can hide many things. Don’t move carelessly. If you so much as flinch toward a weapon, that wire might go off.”

“You’d shoot me before that happens.”

“My finger’s on the trigger for a reason. Now, raise your hands. Slowly.”

I couldn’t see him.

But he was close.

A hunter? Ex-military?

“Are you alone?”

“I am.”

“You don’t seem to belong to any group.”

I had to choose my words carefully. In the game, dialogue options depended on Charisma, but here, I had no such advantage.

“I’m alone, sir. I didn’t see eye to eye with my old group, so I left.”

“Name your former group.”

“They didn’t have one. A guy named Hamsmill was in charge.”

Completely made-up.

Hamsmill was a name I’d generated two days ago.

I had been rerolling for a Crafter build with decent stats, then promptly sent him bungee-jumping without a rope.

Sorry, Hamsmill.

But hey, in this story, you were a leader.

“…That makes sense. Toss me your bag.”

“I’m taking it off. Please don’t shoot.”

“Don’t try anything funny. Even with my old eyes, I can still see just fine.”

I threw my bag into the darkness, and soon heard him rummaging through it.

“…Hands up.”

Something was off in his tone.

“Turn around.”

Click.

A double-barrel shotgun being cocked.

Wait. Why?

“W-Wait, sir. If I turn around, are you going to shoot me?”

“If you don’t, I will.”

“W-why?! I gave you my bag like you asked!”

“What was inside?”

“…My crafting kit, flashlight, a few spare batteries—”

His gun was fully primed.

This wasn’t just a warning anymore.

“There are monsters and maniacs everywhere. And you expect me to believe you survived with this?”

I caught a glimpse of the barrel in the dim light.

It was a double-barrel shotgun.

If I ran, he might miss the first shot due to poor vision, but the second? It would definitely hit.

Especially if it was loaded with buckshot—at this range, I’d be torn to pieces.

“Be honest. Are you a scout?”

“I’m not, sir. If I were, I would’ve turned back the moment I saw the marker.”

“You realize that one sentence says a lot, don’t you?”

Sharp. As sharp as his age suggested.

Definitely a war veteran.

A real one.

“As I said, I did various tasks for my last group, but we didn’t see eye to eye. I ate the last of my rations on the way here. I was wandering, desperate for food, and found myself here…”

“And the booby trap?”

“If I disarmed it, it would’ve been a free shotgun. And honestly, given the state of things out there, I’d rather take my chances with a gun than end up ripped apart by the walking dead.”

If I had been a Newskin—a "Kimchi," as they were mockingly called—I would’ve been shot on sight, no questions asked.

But even Newskins could talk their way out of situations like this if they knew the right approach.

This was my best shot.

What happened if I did get shot?

Would I really die?

Please…

“Well, I suppose it’s better than getting your guts torn open by those things.”

Good.

He was convinced. The old man slowly emerged from the darkness.

As he stepped into the light, I saw him properly—he was barely managing to stand on his own.

But his grip on the shotgun was steady, and his eyes were sharp.

Long white beard. And on his head… of course.

A beret.

“Don’t let your guard down. The last thing I need is to watch you step on a tripwire and start crawling on the ground. I only have one cane, you know.”

“…Can I step back a little?”

“No need. Your bag is here, isn’t it? Judging by your state, you’ve been wandering without food for a while. Come on, then. My granddaughter’s making soup.”

“…Soup?”

Soup.

That brought back bad memories.

Those friendly, welcoming settlements in the early game—where the villagers turned out to be gourmet cannibals.

Where they’d lace your meal with drugs and butcher you alive.

“We found a good haul of canned beef and tomatoes, so it’s a bit of a feast today. Something wrong?”

“…I’ve seen… some questionable ingredients used before.”

“Well, I won’t ask for details. No point in ruining my appetite. Now, come along.”

As the shotgun slowly lowered, I carefully stepped over the tripwire.

…I will be taking that shotgun later.

Just you wait.