X is a main antagonist of the series and the supplier of both Dice and quests. Acting as a Game Master, he decides quest content, which quests will be given to whom and how many, when and to whom Golden Die quests will be given, and the rules of the game. A mysterious entity with abilities that seem supernatural, X spends his time amusing himself with Dicers and their constant pursuit of Dice.
Even he have to follow the rules, though. X can only dispense quests to people who have desires to fuel them, the number and content being determined by the intensity and nature of said desires.
Appearance[]
Enjoying the rat race
In the beginning of the story, X's true appearance was unknown, and he was only distinguished by the kaomojis he uses when he types. He is a skinny little boy with curly brown hair that mostly covers his gray eyes. He is shown wearing a baggy white shirt, blue shorts, and pink sneakers.
Beta Sketches of X
Personality[]
Dongtae: "We, humans, will cooperate, share and be happy together."
Most of the time, X is a little like a child or mischievous youth. He teases Dongtae constantly and is very dismissive of other people's feelings. He seems content to give people amazing skills just for the fun of seeing them pursue quests, much as a boy watches mice playing in a wheel or maze.
Looking more closely, he turns out to be quite cunning. He can disguise vicious intent behind seemingly innocent or just dubious quests, and uses that strategy to corner Byungchul. He also is very good at overcoming Dicers' misgivings about dangerous quests by means of extenuating language, like saying that during a fight between Dicers, they will get Dice when onlookers get hurt "by accident". His intelligence is also demonstrated when he makes a very apt Bible quotation to describe the situation after Byungchul's death and his own role in the story, despite having read the book just recently.
His temperament is very stable. Most of the time, his careless, happy-go-lucky attitude doesn't change, and he can be flippant even while Dongtae is mourning Byungchul. Although he was temporarily surprised - and even sulked a little - by Dongtae's one-sided decision to give Byungchul a Die, the only person to really annoy him was Eunjoo.
Morally, X is neither here nor there. He is indifferent to whichever way of life his Dicers choose, be it upright like Dongtae's, dubious like Taebin's or outright vicious like some other Dicers'. His tasks are also, strictly speaking, amoral, although most of them contain some malice, given that this is the best way for X to enjoy humans fight among themselves and entertain him. His view of humans is very cynical, as confirmed by his reaction to Dongtae's decision to form a cooperative guild of Dicers.
History[]
The prologue introduced X as a child living in a slum, presumably in South Korea. He was apparently motherless and under constant physical violence from an alcoholic father. One night, while trying to escape another round of brutality, and wishing upon a shooting star to escape that life, he witnessed the actual impact of the shooting star with the Earth. He hastened to the spot and the prologue ends with his finding of a huge pile of Dice of all sizes. In Chapter 121, an extended version of the prologue, it was revealed that the meteor was the Final Die. And when asked by the Die what is his wish, X replied, "I want someone who will play with me forever" triggering the events that lead up to the current Die Battle.
X as a child
When Taebin (and by extension, X) arrive at Taebin's school, X is the first one to notice Dongtae's crush on Eunjoo and jealousy towards Taebin. He takes an interest in Dongtae and at first gives Taebin a quest to make Dongtae into an ally. When that fails, and Taebin is busy trying to make Eunjoo his own girlfriend, X notices Dongtae stalking the pair and decides on a clever scheme to give him a chance of obtaining a Die. It works: after a brief struggle with Taebin, he rolls the Die and becomes connected to X as a Dicer.
X proceeds to try and ensnare Dongtae further into Dicership. At first he gives him simple, harmless quests to encourage him. However, when he first gives Dongtae a morally objectionable quest, Dongtae balks and afterwards, ashamed of himself, he decides to "change while remaining kinder than Taebin". X doesn't object, and in the next weeks Dongtae is seen carrying out mostly pranks and chores that don't involve other people directly.
However, as a consequence of one of these pranks, Dongtae ends up having to save Byungchul from bullying and gives him a Die. X is surprised but goes along, but the story ends with Byungchul becoming unhinged and dangerous. X remains in an observing position, but when Byungchul succeeds in hacking into X's server, he decides to finish him off by giving him a series of tasks that ends up with his falling from the school building to his death and scattering all the unused Dice he had collected over the school grounds.
These Dice are collected by other students and X seems to enjoy the situation. In the next weeks, X gives them all sorts of violent and vicious quests. He, in an amuse manner, watches the show until something unexpected happens: Eunjoo, after picking three Dice intended for Dongtae and Taebin, and aware of the awful things that have been happening, decides not to use them. X is dumbstruck.
He decides to test Eunjoo's limits and turns all Dicers against her by means of a mass quest. In the meanwhile, he has a conversation with her and becomes even more interested in her reasons when she asks whether Die points can be used to "change others". However, she refuses to decline her reasons and again rejects Dicership; in the end, Dongtae and Taebin save Eunjoo. Dongtae becomes an A ranker in the process.
Later, X starts giving out Golden Die quests to a few Dicers in Dongtae's school. At the same time, the number of quests to most other Dicers falls to a trickle, the reason being that their desires, which Dongtae correctly stipulates to fuel Die generation, are mostly satisfied. Eventually, though, X invites all of them but the two A rankers to gather in the school grounds (Mio stays back discussing the matter with Dongtae and Taebin) and triggers a vicious fight of friend on friend by offering Dice to whomever beats up a fellow student. This continues on until Dongtae makes a bet against him, in which he loses- X then temporarily withdraws from the game as Dongtae and his affiliated allies are put on a permanent Targeting.
Time passes by, and when the targeting ends, even more dicers are eliminated by other means before the main A-Rankers face off each other again, in a Battle Royale set by X. When the battle dies down, X betrays Hyeon Choi and leaves him be, in which Dongtae is forced to take action, making a bet with X one last time to obtain the final Dice. That game in particular is hide and seek.
Due to Dongtae's refusal to enable his desire to prolong the game, he wavers and eventually gives in to defeat. His status as GM stripped from him.
During the finale he fulfills his desire of having escaped his drunkard father by killing him, along with the destruction of the final dice.
Abilities[]
To normal humans, X is nearly omniscient. Once they become Dicers, X can use the Dice in their possession to read the environment around them completely, to the extent that he can point Dongtae to a quotation in his own encyclopedia of science, page and line numbers included. He also becomes able to access their mobile phones freely, but apparently this is only if their Dice are activated, since he needs another Dicer's phone to talk to Eunjoo.
He is also nearly omnipotent. He can change Dicers' appearances, physical and intellectual attributes and even personal charisma. He can also give them supernatural skills that even interfere with laws of Physics, like stopping time. Despite all that, X is quick to say that "he is not a god".
However, even he follows rules. He apparently can only give quests and Dice to people who nurture strong unfulfilled desires. The less desirous of change the person is, the fewer Dice they get.
When Dongtae and X fight, he is seen using extreme illusion magic and can also create copies of people with his mind. He can also split multiple copies of himself.
Relationships[]
Dongtae[]
X seems to like Dongtae. He taunts him a lot, and has had the longest conversations shown in the story with him. He also enjoys watching Dongtae struggle to remain a good person even as a Dicer. In later chapters, it is seen that X gains interest in Dongtae. When X and Dongtae fight, he is caught by surprise with time cutter. Time cutter is the ability to create a "time" sword using your own life source, gained from sokseon and developed it to where it uses dice instead of life force. X barely escapes Dongtae's overaging power with time and teleportation.
Taebin[]
X teases Taebin all the time, even more so because he can see Taebin doesn't like it. But as one of the oldest Dicers and one of a few that he has met personally, X remains interested in him.
Eunjoo[]
Not so indifferent after all
She is the only one that could be called X's true antagonist in the start of the story. Ostensibly he claims not to care much which way she goes and when she flatly rejects Dicership a second time, he shrugs it off with a "Meh". His cavalier attitude notwithstanding, he is much more interested in her than in anyone else, to the point of unleashing all Dicers in Dongtae's school at her and getting another Dicer to take his phone to her just so the two can have a private conversation. Both have things the other wants to know: Eunjoo wants to know who X really is and whether Die points can be used to change other people, whereas X wants to know why Eunjoo refuses to use Dice and whom she would like to change. Although X has shown anger or annoyance on occasion (for example, when Dongtae "spoiled" to him what happened to Jesus or when there were lots of people crying after Dongtae fought bullies to protect Byungchul), the only time he showed genuine, lasting irritation with someone, that person was Eunjoo. Also, the only time he was really shocked was when she refused to use Dice. He has absolutely no influence on her, but he uses her to influence Dongtae and Taebin.