Mostly, common protagonists insist goodness at the side of the justice. They are also mostly nosy guys who helps people when they see an injustice. These days we have less of such protagonists and more human protagonists rather than crying out the absolute justice, maybe because the criterion of good and evil is vague. Honestly, no one would immerse in the protagonist who only does nasty things and is an irreversibly bad man. Recently, however, we’re seeing more protagonists who are like villains with own stories, despite doing only nasty things. Here’s the webtoon I’m going to introduce, where the protagonist only doing nasty things because he has a pitiable story on it: Hardcore Leveling Warrior.

As you notice from the title Hardcore Leveling Warrior, the world in the work is mostly not of the reality. It’s inside a game, implementing a virtual reality. There’s no virtual reality game in this world, but the materials similar with it are widely used maybe for games of that kind will take place soon, and in Hardcore Leveling Warrior, it’s called Lucid Adventure. 

Lucid Adventure in Hardcore Leveling Warrior seems to have much effect on the actual life. We can see how much the effect is by looking at that people can exchange their game currency to the currency in real life. The protagonist, Hardcore Leveling Warrior, is the first character who completed levels of all stats. But, maybe it’s because of that the stats and actual capability have a relationship of inverse proportion.

From the beginning, the protagonist is revealed as a human trash. He’s infamous in the game from the early stages for he likes to see himself high and for he’s merciless. You can easily notice how the protagonist is a human trash, as you see when people looking at him they talk with themselves that he’s a shit to be avoided. If you’ve played a game, then you would know that no one kills newbies and in the most cases they get help from the other players. But he kills a newbie without a valid reason, hinders other players’ quest, and does other very evil things in the work. 

As the protagonist has such a personality, it would be good for the readers who are fed up with good protagonists, to enjoy such situations with a box of popcorn. But the character who has the power strong and harmful to the others passes away soon. As he lives in that bad way he has been piling his enemies, and the event takes place that brings the downfall of Hardcore Leveling Warrior.

 

He borrowed money from a private lender to buy the only armor, a super rare item, and the event takes place when he went to clear a SS-grade quest to clear the debt. Hundreds of players gathered in the place of his quest, to have revenge on him. But no matter how many they gather, they couldn’t beat the No.1 guy in the game. But like the saying ‘every accident comes from carelessness’, in the carelessness he falls.

A knife blow, seemingly from a newbie, which was to be blocked by his armor, scores a direct hit. After that, Hardcore Leveling Warrior gets beaten without a chance to raise a finger.

 

Moreover, he gets looted and all of his items are gone. Like he gets naked and abandoned. If that’s all of this, the people who have played a game would think that he could have revenge later. Honestly, one who is on the first place in the game and has the completed levels on all stats would do that. However, Hardcore Leveling Warrior is, generally, not an overpower work. 

 

As the protagonist says, when he dies all of his stats go down to 1. In other words, he become a newbie to start over. Of course, as he has been on the first place, it won’t be too hard to make a new character to start again. But falling down to level 1 from the completed level is a big difference.

 

Moreover, as he has been doing evil things before, he gets harassed and beaten badly by people. They almost treat him like a sandbag, beating him while casting healing on him. One may think he should quit playing the game as the situation became that worse, but he can’t quit the game. It is linked with the reason he started the game in the first place.

 

Because he is getting chased from a money lender in the reality, too. Because he’s forced to start the game Lucid Adventure to grind at a gambling place. Moreover, after he became a newbie, the gamblers bet on him for a gamble which will take place soon, so Hardcore Leveling Warrior can’t quit the game and he must level up fast.

 

As he’s been there already, he makes up his mind to level up hard. Some people gather near him. One of them is Sora, the only one he did a good thing to save her. Sora protects him, because she became stronger as he told her to be stronger before.

 

The second one is a grandson of an owner of a large corporation. He says his grandfather’s will is in Lucid Adventure and he has to level up to get it. He says, though the protagonist is a newbie now, he would know how to level as he’s been there once, so asks him to help leveling. Thus, their adventure begins, and this is the overall story of Hardcore Leveling Warrior. 

However, such a superficial story is not all of the story of Hardcore Leveling Warrior. As you may notice from Lucid Adventure, hidden hints are quite many. Particularly the creator of the game is not a human, but it’s God, so the story doesn’t stay on the inside of the game. It’s a webtoon adding a lot of fun with the story inside and the story getting bigger.