Hardcore Leveling Warrior
is an action webcomic drawn and written by Sehun Kimset, and ran for two seasons from November 7th, 2017 to April 28th, 2022. A third season titled Hardcore Leveling Warrior: Earth Game that acts as a sequel series began on September 21st, 2023. The series takes place in a real world that has become revolved around playing within the virtual game-world of Lucid Adventure.
The story centers around Gong Won-Ho (translated as Ethan on Webtoon), a Korean boy who's been stuck in the unfortunate situation of being in debt and held prisoner to a man named President Kim. Ethan goes about paying off the debt through Lucid Adventure where his efforts as a solo player led to him eventually becoming the undisputed #1 ranked player in the game as the Hardcore Leveling Warrior. With maxed out levels and stats to match, there's no one alive that posed a challenge to Ethan. That is until a mysterious woman from inside the game manages to kill him; resulting in Hardcore Leveling Warrior losing his gear, and dropping back down to level one. At that same time in real life, Ethan was living in one of Kim's high-end jail suites thanks to his reputation as the Hardcore Leveling Warrior, but as a result of his game character dying, Ethan gets thrown back into the lowest dungeon until he's worked his way back up again.
From here, Ethan begins a new adventure to one day escape his real world imprisonment, and to reclaim his title as the #1 player of Lucid Adventure. Only this time around, the Hardcore Leveling Warrior is hired to join a team with two other players looking to get stronger, Dark and Sora.
Hardcore Leveling Warrior contains examples of:
- Absurd Cutting Power: More than one sword in this world is capable of splitting mountains, given the right skill.
- Absurdly High-Stakes Game: If Hardcore Leveling Warrior can't pay back his debt in time by collecting money in-game, he'll have his organs removed.
- If Hardcore Leveling Warrior dies in-game for any reason, including in what is effectively a mini-game with multiple lives, his stats and level are reset to 1. Considering that Death Is a Slap on the Wrist for all other players we've seen...
- Alternate Universe: A spin-of is made that follows up to Chapter 50, but then diverges to one where the game involves tanks instead during the Combat Tournament. Known as Hardcore Leveling Warrior : World of Tanks.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: All higher-ups at Giga are explicitly good in a fight.
- Badass Boast: Hardcore Leveling Warrior tends to do this when he's in a fight, or after he's just won.
- Brought Down to Badass: Hardcore Leveling Warrior in episode 5. He used to be ranked no. 1 for a reason. It’s shown that he’s got Awesomeness by Analysis, and is able to kick major ass despite being underlevelled.
- Dragon Knight: Heart Heater is one of these.
- Dub Name Change: Gong Won-Ho is referred to as Ethan on the offical English translation of the webcomic that's hosted on Webtoon.
- Evil Former Friend: Constant and Hardcore Leveling Warrior used to be friends, and work in the same guild, before Constant betrayed them for Giga.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Unintentional Pun on the trope name’s part, but Constant becomes this from being a support character in the Zara Guild to being a Giga team member with one of the most powerful attributes of the game starting from his exposure to Nightmare.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The Witch, who is behind the existence of Lucid Adventure, and whose motives remain largely unknown except for her vague interest in seeing how things turn out. In season 2, she seems to be aware that her actions will have consequences that could potentially destroy both worlds, the game one and the real one.
- Heads or Tails?: Hardcore Leveling Warrior has a skill which lets him flip a coin for the chance to get a stat boost to any stat of his choice.
- Posthumous Character: Armes, who was Hardcore Leveling Warrior’s crush and guild leader. She appears in a lot of flashbacks and is an integral part of his backstory, as she was his kind and inspiring guild leader whose death was led to the guild breaking apart and tragedy for most characters involved. Possibly Zigzagged as of Season 2, it’s confirmed that Noname has 'some' part of Armes’ soul in her, and her consciousness may still reside in Noname.
- Protagonist Title: The webcomic is named after Hardcore Leveling Warrior, the Lucid Adventure character of the webcomic's protagonist, Ethan.
- Time Skip: Happens at the beginning of Season 2, where we get to see a grown up Dark and Sora, both of which has Taken A Level In Badass.
- Winds of Destiny, Change!: Hardcore Leveling Warrior's personal attribute is Absolute Luck, he is nearly guaranteed to win in any game of chance.
