Chapter 4: Justice, Lag, and the Grind That Never Ends

YGGDRASIL had been out for a few months now.

In game terms? A lifetime.

For casuals, that meant barely scratching past their third job class. For hardcore players? Their builds were already finalized, gear optimized, loadouts customized for PvP, PvE, or fashion parades depending on their religion.

For Absolute Sin?

He was still grinding.

Why?

Because his build was stupidly high investment.

Sin didn't just pick a class combo and go for it. No, his race path alone was like diving face-first into a dev-created rabbit hole from hell. Each tier of his Celestial → Archon → Archangel → Archangel of Judgment evolution tree required not only rare materials and time-gated events, but entire chains of hidden quests locked behind obscure lore, puzzle dungeons, and in one case… making friends with a depressed NPC who would only talk to you if your karma was above +450 and you played a specific harp on a hilltop at sunset.

It was the kind of nonsense even sweaty gamers wouldn't attempt unless they were being paid.

Which, to be fair, Sin was.

Still, it was exhausting.

And sometimes he questioned his life choices.

But then he remembered "One Who Lived A Thousand Lives"—the final racial ability of Archangel of Judgment. A broken, god-tier passive that let him build and swap between multiple avatars on the same account, each with a full level 100 loadout.

And Sin, who'd always wanted to make meme builds and tournament builds and sexy builds and trolling builds, knew he could not live without it.

It was the holy grail of customization.

And like any good paladin, he would suffer for his holy grail.

Touch Me, meanwhile, had finished his build three weeks ago.

He had a job. A girlfriend. A conscience.

And still somehow managed to make it to level 100 before Sin.

When asked how, he shrugged. "I just picked something normal."

Touch Me had gone with the Half-Insect → Knight path, stacked with defensive aura classes and buff passives. It wasn't glamorous, but it was clean. And efficient. And his girlfriend only yelled at him once for picking an armored beetle aesthetic.

"I told her it had the best stats," he said proudly. "She said I looked like a boss fight from an educational game."

He wore it like a badge of honor.

The two of them had started running with a semi-regular party: Ancient One—a low-voiced, terrifyingly deadpan spellcaster with a build optimized for damage-over-time effects and horrifying AoE snares—and Nishikienrai, a flashy ninja class player with a speed-focused kit and a crippling addiction to fishing and food buffs.

Neither of them knew who Sin really was.

To them, he was just another hardcore weirdo who spent too much time on the forums and knew way too much about obscure item drop percentages.

And Sin? Sin liked it that way.

For once, he didn't have to be Absolute Sin, The Legend.

He could just be "Sin," that faceless glowing monster with a disturbing lack of social presence and a suspiciously optimized build.

Ancient One once commented: "He gives off... 'fan with no life' energy."

Sin almost cried.

In relief.

They had just wrapped up a raid for a rare ascension material that Touch Me needed. It had taken two hours, three deaths, and one incident where Nishikienrai accidentally aggro'd every mob in the dungeon because he "wanted to test his new smoke bomb."

Touch Me had barely survived the final phase with 2% HP, yelling JUSTICE NEVER FALLS! like an anime protagonist.

And now—back at the party hub—he was showing off the spoils of his victory:

A cosmetic aura effect titled "Justice Has Arrived!"

When equipped, it spawned four enormous glowing kanji behind him every time he entered a new zone. They hovered dramatically in the sky, backlit by radiant rays of holy light and accompanied by a triumphant trumpet fanfare.

It was... a lot.

Sin stared at it blankly.

Ancient One blinked. "That's... extremely bright."

Nishikienrai choked on his ale. "I—why does it have a soundtrack? WHY DOES IT HAVE A SOUNDTRACK?!"

Touch Me beamed. "I think it's tasteful."

"You're glowing like a final boss announcement screen," Sin muttered.

Touch Me flexed.

Sin took psychic damage.

The mood stayed light, but underneath, everyone knew things had shifted in the game's community.

It had started a few weeks ago. Just whispers at first.

Then open hostility.

Anti-heteromorphic sentiment.

Human players—especially the casuals—started seeing non-human avatars as freaks, cheaters, or "unfair stat monsters." The game's open PvP system made it easy for them to take out their resentment with ambushes, PK hunts, and hate-filled forums.

Whole guilds were formed around the idea of purging the monsters.

They called it "Lore-Based Roleplay." But everyone knew it was just thinly veiled racism.

Heteromorphs lost gear. Lost levels. Some quit. Some started traveling in packs. Safe zones weren't safe.

So Sin, Touch Me, Ancient One, and Nishikienrai?

They started sticking together.

Not out of principle.

Out of survival.

You grouped, or you got griefed.

Their party moved to a quiet ridge near a sunset grove—one of the few spots in YGGDRASIL with genuinely breathtaking views.

Touch Me, still glowing with JUSTICE, flopped onto a rock.

"That was a good run."

Nishikienrai nodded, munching on an overpriced fish skewer buff. "That drop rate was cursed, though."

Ancient One sat cross-legged, sorting her inventory. "Did you see that Holy Burn debuff the boss left behind? Stacks linger even post-death. I lost 1.8% XP even after rez."

Sin floated nearby in his glowing, faceless form. He didn't speak. Just slowly rotated in the air like a judgmental screensaver.

Nishikienrai squinted up at him. "Sin, you good?"

"…Thinking."

"Oh no. Is he theorycrafting again?"

"His halo's spinning faster," Touch Me said.

Sin turned slowly. "What if we used the boss's Holy Debuff against the raid mobs in the Temple of Binding?"

There was a long pause.

"...God help us," Ancient One muttered.

"He's min-maxing mid-vacation," Nishikienrai whispered.