Chapter 14
I remembered the post clearly. Must’ve been around my 300th playthrough of Ark.
[Newbie Question]
Posted by: ㅇㅇ
Just started playing Ark for the first time.
Once the Spring Ball event started, some girl named Paula? showed up and challenged my daughter over some authority stuff, so I accepted.
But the difficulty was insane and I lost ;;
Does this mean I can’t enter high society at all now? Ever??
↳ ㅅㅅ: Yep. Classic Q1 Newbie Death Zone.
↳ ㅂㅂ: Check the Q&A board before posting. There are like 500 threads about this.
↳ ㅁㅁ: Of course. Did you even read what that psycho was saying?
↳ OP: Uh… I kinda skipped because it was too long. Was it important?
↳ ㅁㅁ: The authority thing is just bait. You’re not supposed to accept that quest. Your playthrough’s basically dead now. Start over.
↳ ㄹㄹ: (Deleted comment)
↳ ㅁㅁ: Stop teaching newbies useless stuff.
…If this were just a game, starting over wouldn’t be a big deal.
Sure, the penalties for canceling a forced quest were annoying, but still manageable.
But…
“I’M NOT PLAYING A GAME!!!”
Once I realized what I’d just gotten roped into—and what this cursed system had done to me—I mentally collapsed.
Watching me in stunned fascination, Paula let out a smug laugh.
“Oh, now it hits you? But it’s too late to back out now. Good luck~ Hohoho! Hohohohohohoho~!”
With that shrill, villainess-laugh echoing behind her, Paula swept out of the dance hall.
Silence returned to the room, full of mirrors but empty of mercy.
Lying there, I suddenly felt a wave of fatigue.
Maybe I should just give up.
The Chronicle of Adelheid players referred to each in-game year—spanning March 1 to the following February 28—as split into four quarters:
Q1: Spring Ball
Q2: Fountain Festival
Q3: Harvest Festival
Q4: Winter Solstice
And in the very first quarter, when all I wanted was a chill start… I got slammed with this quest?
“Ughhh, I hate this!!”
Thrashing around in silent rage, I suddenly bolted upright.
“No. I can’t.”
Who was I?
In real life, maybe I was the queen of pushovers—but in Ark, I was a veteran. A well-known grinder. The kind of player called “swamp water,” “sewer sludge,” or even “crude oil” for how deeply entrenched I was.
I never touched the social routes, true. They weren’t my thing. But if there was one truth I’d learned through hundreds of playthroughs, it was this:
Persistence and stamina always paid off.
Okay, yes, I was terrified of triggering some hidden bad ending. But still.
What if I could win?
I wasn’t some newbie. I’d been grinding Ark for years.
Knock, knock.
The knock was so politely restrained, I knew it had to be Sophie.
“Come in.”
Maybe because I’d steeled my heart, but my voice came out stronger than expected.
“M-Milady… The dance class ended, and you didn’t return…”
Was her voice trembling, or was it just the clenched rage in my fists?
Hard to say. But I took a deep breath and calmly replied,
“No, Sophie. The class isn’t over yet.”
“E-Excuse me? W-What do you mean…?”
Pushing through my trembling body using the Core Power I’d built from daily quests, I slowly stood.
Facing Sophie—who looked like she was seeing a demon reincarnate—I declared,
“Sophie.”
“Y-Yes, ma’am?!”
“Go inform Lady Doringer that she won’t be returning home today.”
“…Pardon?”
Sophie turned sheet-white.
And then, the system kindly explained what she was thinking:
[SYSTEM] ‘Maid Sophie’ is overwhelmed with terror. She is currently brainstorming corpse disposal methods.
Infamy +5
…Looks like there was a huge misunderstanding.
She probably thought I’d turned into a serial killer or something, but I didn’t have the energy to correct her.
“Fufufu…”
Fine, you twisted game. Let’s see who wins this time.
Time to show you what a hard-core grinder can do.
Mana stones? Forget them for now.
For the moment, I would devote myself entirely to this godawful surprise quest.
✦✦✦
Five days had passed since Paula’s challenge.
And now… I had hit a massive wall.
Who said grit and endurance were the most important things in Ark?
I was ready to take it back. No, I wanted to spit on my past self.
Because here, the one thing that mattered most was—
“Um… Lady Ulmer?”
At the hesitant voice, I looked up from my soup bowl.
Across from me sat a middle-aged woman with unusually small eyes, offering a nervous smile.
“When eating soup, which direction should you tilt the bowl?”
“Outward, away from the body.”
“And why is that?”
“Because…”
Uh-oh. Wait.
What was it again? I knew this… I learned this… I’d repeated it…
So why couldn’t I remember?
My brain froze again, a sharp, prickling sensation crawling over my skull.
“Ugh… ughh…”
I had no choice but to admit it:
In this cursed game, the thing 100 times more important than persistence or stamina…
Was Intelligence.
“You’ve already been taught this five times, Lady Ulmer…!”
Lady Karin—Lady Doringer’s sister-in-law and now my etiquette tutor—was clearly at her limit.
And rightly so. I must’ve been the most hopeless student she’d ever met.
But still… I was suffering too, okay?!
I met her the day after accepting Paula’s challenge.
Lady Doringer had helped arrange the introduction.
[SYSTEM] ‘Lady Doringer’ is debating which of her sworn enemies to hire as your tutor!
Infamy +5
…Let’s just pretend we never saw that system message.
In any case, Lady Doringer introduced her sister-in-law, and to her credit, Lady Karin took her job seriously and treated me with professional respect.
Unfortunately for her, she’d fallen into sister-in-law hell without even realizing it.
But it wasn’t because I was being a lazy student.
“Even after five days of cramming, my Intelligence stat won’t go above 10! What do you want from me?!”
Damn it.
In-game, a full day passed in like five minutes. So I never felt the sting of slow stat growth.
But now, earning +1 or +2 Intelligence per day felt like squeezing water from a rock.
For the first time, I realized just how generous the game used to be to me.
“Huuup!”
Did I just accidentally glare at her?
Lady Karin immediately bowed her head, scrambling to smooth things over.
“O-Of course, Lady Ulmer has shown exceptional effort throughout this process.”
“……”
“It must be my failing as a teacher. I deeply apologize for not explaining things better, milady.”
Part of me wanted to stop her, to admit it was my fault for being an idiot—but maintaining my Infamy rating meant keeping silent.
Still, pretending to accept apologies I didn’t deserve wasn’t exactly comfortable.
Sigh.
I had to admit it now.
Physical stuff? I could handle it. I’d been dancing 6 to 8 hours a day. My dance skill was nearly at “Veteran Performer.”
But intellectual tasks?
Trying to master Noble Virtue, the essential etiquette textbook, with the brainpower of a moth?
Totally impossible.
“If I had to take an IQ test against a dolphin right now, I’d lose.”
…And honestly, I still wasn’t sure I could beat that dolphin.
