It was, without a doubt, that thing.
"Ehh-ho, ehh-ho!"
In the desolate wilderness surrounding Secandil, Pepper sprinted at full speed, glancing at the map in hand. He scarfed down simple rations to keep his hunger gauge above half, charging straight toward the city.
"Just a little farther…! It's right there, practically under my nose!"
If he could just reach Secandil, he'd update his respawn point, enabling nighttime exploration and battles with nocturnal monsters. Thanks to the game's mechanics, death meant respawning without data loss, as long as he followed the rules.
Long ago, on an old desktop—now considered a retro game—Pepper had played an open-world title where he became an SD-sized crow, traversing a meticulously crafted night world. The intricate "darkness" of that game's nights had left him awestruck.
Shangri-La Frontier's nights were no different in their haunting "darkness," but they went further. The April breeze, a mix of warmth and chill, brushed against his skin. Moonlight bathed the earth in a faint, ethereal glow. It was a reality so vivid, it felt like the developers had distilled human sensation into the game, creating a next-level immersion.
"Man, Shangri-La Frontier is something else…" Pepper marveled. "The interplay of light and shadow in the dark, the attention to detail—it's like the creators and staff poured their hearts into this. You can feel their passion radiating through every pixel."
The evolution of gaming, the relentless effort of creators to bring such quality to life—this was what made Shangri-La Frontier a god-tier game, Pepper thought.
And then, it happened.
A sensation like the grim reaper's scythe hooking around his neck.
"!? What the—!?"
His mind conjured a visceral image, every nerve and sense screaming to dodge an unknown threat. Instinct took over. In a split second, the spot where he'd just been standing erupted in a blast of force and wind, as if a bomb had detonated, shoving him forward.
Pepper stumbled hard, smashing his face into the ground. His HP dropped to five—half gone—but he was alive. Scrambling, he yanked a healing herb from his inventory, munching it with one hand while equipping the Lock-On Breaker with the other. He assumed the same hyper-vigilant stance he'd taken when he first encountered the Rock-Eating Garock Worm.
Dust swirled like a theater curtain parting, revealing… black. Not just black—an abyss darker than pitch, a bottomless void.
A massive beast strode forward, its four legs cracking the earth under the faint moonlight. Pointed ears, black fur flickering like flames in the breeze, and claws and fangs that could shred and tear with terrifying ease.
He had come face-to-face with it.
The true form of Shangri-La Frontier.
An incarnation of darkness in the shape of a wolf.
Unique Monster Encountered: Lycaon of the Night Raid
"Unique… monster…"
Under a crescent moon casting an eerie, ochre glow, a single beast cloaked in the night growled low, its eyes locked on Pepper.
Lycaon of the Night Raid.
The name of the monster before him. Nine times out of ten, it was here to hunt its prey—him.
"…This is bad."
Years of playing RPGs and retro games had honed Pepper's ability to gauge the gap in strength between himself and his foe. He'd faced unwinnable events in blind playthroughs before, instinctively recognizing scripted losses. He'd throw every skill, item, and ounce of cunning into defying the odds, only to fall short—but he'd always go down satisfied, knowing he'd given it everything.
That experience let him understand—no, forced him to understand.
No matter what I do, I can't see a future where I beat this thing…!
Weapons, skills, items—everything he had wouldn't be enough against Lycaon. His gamer instincts, forged through countless battles, rang the loudest alarm he'd ever felt. Fleeing? Lycaon would crush that option in an instant, killing him as easily as swatting a fly. To this beast, he was nothing more than an appetizer.
"…Haha. This is so bad it's almost funny."
Pepper laughed.
Not because he'd accepted his doomed fate.
Not because he felt powerless against this unfair twist.
Not because he hated Shangri-La Frontier.
No.
"Hell yeah, let's do this! I'm coming at you with everything I've got, Lycaon of the Night Raid!"
If the outcome was inevitable, so be it. Pepper embraced it. If he couldn't escape, he'd carve his existence into Lycaon's memory before going down. He'd burn through every weapon, item, and skill—every resource he had—without a second thought. He'd pour everything into this fight.
Lycaon's massive form shifted, its right foreleg slamming down with a speed far surpassing any attack Pepper had faced in action games. The ground exploded, the shockwave tearing through the earth.
"Whoa—take this!"
Amid flying clods of dirt and rock, Pepper swung the Lock-On Breaker, landing a hammer strike. A metallic clang echoed as if steel had clashed head-on. The sheer hardness of Lycaon reverberated through his arm, searing its strength into his mind.
"It's tough!? What the hell is this thing!?"
Lycaon countered with a swift upward slash of its right foreleg, aiming for Pepper's head. He dodged by a hair's breadth, using his agility-boosting skill, Accel, to create distance and process the situation.
"That was close…! One moment of hesitation, one wrong call, and I'm done—not just from a direct hit, but even the shockwave could kill me!"
Assessing his HP, Pepper settled on a strategy.
"If that's how it's gonna be… it's time for the Hit-and-Run Tactic!"
The Hit-and-Run Tactic was Pepper's go-to for fighting overpowered enemies in action games. It relied on countering—waiting for the enemy to attack, then exploiting the brief window of vulnerability, the stagger or gap, to strike. Like a fighter taking the "second initiative" in martial arts.
Memorizing Lycaon's attack patterns, skill durations, and cooldowns as if scribbling them into a mental notebook, Pepper wielded the Lock-On Breaker and faced the beast.
Even if defeat was inevitable—
"Hah…! Hah…! Damn, this is brutal…!"
Ten minutes into the Hit-and-Run Tactic, maintaining a careful distance from Lycaon, Pepper was still standing. Despite the Lock-On Breaker's damage-boosting ability, countless strikes hadn't dented Lycaon's HP. Worse, the weapon—crafted from the Rock-Eating Garock Worm's materials—flashed a durability warning on his HUD.
But I've figured something out. Its fur is so tough it blocks damage, but blunt impact gets through. This thing isn't invincible!
Even though his instincts screamed that Lycaon was unbeatable, Pepper was slowly piecing together its weaknesses. Damage is getting through. If I could just restore the Lock-On Breaker's durability, there's a chance! But…!
Lycaon didn't let up. Its relentless, rapid attacks gave Pepper no time to recover or think, forcing him to burn resources on evasion.
This speed, this power…! It won't even give me a second to heal!
He parried a diagonal strike from Lycaon's right foreleg, getting knocked back but holding his ground. Then, the Lock-On Breaker's durability hit critical, its warning screen and blaring alarm signaling imminent destruction.
"…Time to switch players! Let's go, Vorpal Edge, the Lethal Hammer!"
He couldn't let the efforts of Fasteia's blacksmith, who'd been kind to him, end here. Stowing the breaking Lock-On Breaker, Pepper swapped to the Vorpal Edge from his inventory. Dodging Lycaon's right foreleg stomp and left foreleg sweep, he struck the beast's ankle joint and immediately disengaged.
Pepper had a plan. In humans and animals, repeated impacts to joints cause numbness. If Lycaon was a beast, it should follow the same rules—no exceptions.
He endured. He persevered. Lycaon was more than he'd imagined, but this battle was a balance. Offense and defense clashed in a high-stakes duel of wits, and until now, they'd been evenly matched.
But balances tip.
As Pepper dodged another attack and lunged for a counterstrike, the ground beneath him crumbled. His stance faltered, his hammer strike veering off, hitting Lycaon's paw instead of its ankle.
The balance shifted.
"Damn—!"
Desperate to recover, he leaped sideways with the One-Step Vault skill. But Lycaon's fangs loomed before him, as if it had been waiting for this exact moment to strike.
"Not a chance—!"
Switching the Vorpal Edge to a reverse grip in his left hand, Pepper activated Swing Strike and swung at Lycaon's face. But the beast's head morphed, turning black and fluid like slime. The hammer's full swing sliced through empty air.
"…Huh?"
A stunned sound escaped Pepper's lips as Lycaon's fangs sank into his right arm.
Crunch.
His arm, from the shoulder down, was torn away, flesh ripped apart.
Was this fate's decree, or a cruel jest of the gods?
Lycaon of the Night Raid: A familiar name from the source material, a wolf that races through the night. Among unique monsters, it's the most infamous. Lycaon and its fellow unique monsters are designed not for overpowered players to steamroll but to crush them with unrelenting unfairness. For a beginner, encountering one means being obliterated by an overwhelming force, no exceptions.