Chapter 1

Chapter 1
Chapter: 1

Chapter Title: Prologue

—

A glowing doorway shimmered at the far edge of the murky, shadowed void. The man focused on the text etched above the portal.

⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙
【 New Game 】

The absurdity of the situation gnawed at him the more he dwelled on it. His day had been perfectly mundane: finishing work, popping a cold beer, a bit of gaming, and then sleep. How had that led to this obsidian abyss? What was the meaning of these floating words and the radiant gateway?

He had no alternative. This was the only route available in the nothingness. Steeling his resolve, the man took a heavy breath and crossed the threshold.

On the other side of the brilliant flare lay a desolate, medieval world that struck a chord of recognition deep within him.

Just like that, he had been pulled into the digital realm of the game.

He was no longer himself; he inhabited the frame of a tribal fighter from the harsh territories past the mountain peaks.

‘What is this nightmare…’

As a veteran player who had dedicated countless nights to this specific title, a single glance at his reflection in a rainwater pool confirmed his new identity.

‘…Kadim?’

Kadim. The fierce child of the wilderness, a legendary combatant of Atala who feared nothing. He was a pillar of the hero’s inner circle—one of the central figures of the story.

The physical form of Kadim was a marvel of biological power compared to his previous office-worker body. His skin was bronzed by the sun and radiated vitality, his frame possessed the mass of a grizzly, and his muscles were lean, hard, and devoid of any softness. His forearms looked sturdy enough to snap iron bars.

Back in his old life, his grueling schedule left no room for exercise, leaving him soft and out of shape. For a fleeting moment, the man let go of his confusion and felt a surge of adrenaline. That high, however, was short-lived.

As the reality of his new existence set in, he plummeted into a pit of misery.

Kindness was a rare currency for a barbarian. The wilderness was crawling with predators and outlaws, making a peaceful rest an impossible luxury. Every meal tasted like dregs from a communal trough. The general lack of hygiene made the most destitute people of the modern era look like royalty. Pain was visceral and agonizing, and the “healing items” like fruit or basic greenery did absolutely nothing to dull the sting of a wound.

Furthermore, despite his terrifying appearance, Kadim was objectively the weakest link among the five main protagonists.

Each member of the party possessed a “Unique Trait” that defined their utility.

Kadim’s specific trait was fundamentally flawed and inferior to his peers. If the party was a social hierarchy of elites, Kadim was the low-born grunt at the bottom.

“…”.

Regardless, the man refused to succumb to despair.

It was still a better fate than being some nameless peasant destined to die in the mud of this cruel world.

He weaponized his encyclopedic knowledge of the game, drilled the barbarian’s martial arts through brutal experience, traveled across the realm to find the other core companions, and pushed the narrative forward.

The core objective of the game was straightforward: A hero receives a holy command to eradicate the archdemon, assembles a team, invades the dark realms, and slays the beast.

The actual experience differed slightly from the game script. To maximize efficiency, he gathered the other allies first before linking up with the hero. However, the ultimate goal—the death of the archdemon—remained the focus.

While traversing the continent toward the demon lands, the group reached the climax of their journey. At that juncture, the man had to make a definitive choice.

He had to decide which conclusion to pursue.

In-game, the hero’s moral choices accumulated karma that dictated the final cinematic. Virtue led to the “True Ending,” while cruelty triggered the “Bad Ending.”

He had no proof that finishing the game would return him to his own world. But he reasoned that if some cosmic entity had trapped him here to beat the game, the “True Ending” was his most logical ticket home.

The issue was that this world, once made flesh and blood, was far too brutal to survive through kindness alone. If you rescued someone from thieves, they’d likely slit your throat for your boots—maintaining a saintly reputation was a fool’s errand.

Ultimately, he devised a strategy.

‘The ending is dictated only by the hero’s karma. My soul is clean.’

He would become the hero’s shadow, doing the necessary evils so the hero didn’t have to.

He broke the jaws of those who spoke ill of the protagonist. He buried his hatchet in the skull of a tavern keeper who tried to poison their meal. He tracked down the bandits the hero had mercifully released and ended them to ensure they never returned. He gutted defeated beasts and crushed their offspring in the nest.

He lived a life where his blade was perpetually stained—a literal demon of vengeance. No modern man, who had never even harmed a stray animal, could maintain his grip on reality through such carnage.

‘This isn’t me. This is just the beast, Kadim.’

He constructed a fragile mental wall. By attributing every atrocity to “Kadim” and not himself, he survived the gore.

But his psyche could only take so much. He couldn’t fully distance himself from the persona he inhabited. He was still human, yet his first instinct upon meeting anyone was to calculate how to kill them—a realization that terrified him.

The situation worsened when they reached the demonic borders and he began to rely on Kadim’s specific ability.

Kadim’s Unique Trait: “Blood Berserker.”

By consuming the blood of demons, he gained a massive surge in power—at the cost of his sanity. In the game, it was a simple icon on a screen. In reality, it was a psychic assault of pure madness.

He would open a demon’s vein with a blade and swallow the ichor as if it were water. Before the high faded, he would butcher the next foe. Once it fell, he drank again to sustain the frenzy.

The mental rot began to take hold of him—of Kadim.

The line between the modern office worker and the primal warrior dissolved. Insanity began to take root.

The holy cleansing of the priestess, the high-tier spells of the prodigy mage, the ancient hexes of the shaman—none could cure him. To keep his bloodlust in check during his rest, he had to be bound in heavy iron chains and restricted by magical wards every night, sleeping in a shallow trench in the earth.

It was a journey that ground both his physical form and his spirit to dust.

The man who once found joy in simple video games was gone. Only the berserker, haunted by his own mind and the weight of his sins, remained. Each time his true consciousness flickered back to life, it brought only the terrifying thought that this purgatory was eternal.

Yet, even the longest night eventually meets the dawn.

Finally, the agonizing quest reached its climax.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Squelch—!

The hero drove the sacred blade into the final heart of the archdemon and wrenched the metal.

—Kehahaha! You think you insects can end me with th—

Whoosh—thunk!

Kadim didn’t hesitate, swinging his massive axe to separate the archdemon’s head from its shoulders. He ground the head into the dirt with his heel, ensuring its mocking voice was silenced forever.

“Huff… huff…”

“Hoo…”

“…”.

The party stood in a heavy silence. The conclusion of the nightmare felt surreal. On that gray, toxic plain, the only sound was the rhythm of their labored breathing.

Finally, a voice cracked the stillness, raspy from hours of incantations.

“Is… is it over? Did we actually win?”

The mage leaned heavily on her staff, her hands shaking uncontrollably.

Her eyes were sunken and dark, her face hollowing out. The naive girl who started this journey was long gone.

“…By the grace of Elga, the evil is vanished,” the priestess answered, making a holy gesture.

Her once-pure white vestments were now a mosaic of dried gore. Half of it belonged to the monsters they had slain, and the other half was her own blood.

“…Lord Kadim? Are you with us? Are you hurt? Is the madness… receding?”

The shaman reached out, her hands searching the air.

Having sacrificed her sight to a demon, she was more concerned with Kadim’s mental state than her own blindness. She claimed it was due to their shared faith, but her devotion went deeper than that.

“…”.

Lastly, there was the hero.

The hero remained quiet for a long time, his eyes fixed on Kadim, who had performed the final execution without a word.

Kadim didn’t care about the hero’s gaze.

His throat was bone-dry. A mix of dread and a lingering craving for archdemon blood filled him—what if there was no “home” waiting for him?

The silence was stifling. Time seemed to stretch into an infinite loop.

Only when the thick clouds began to break did the hero finally find his voice.

“Hey, Ka—”

But in that split second.

Crack-rrrack—

The fabric of reality tore open like parchment being shredded.

Kadim’s eyes widened. The stoic warrior, usually unshakeable, trembled with an electric anticipation.

He didn’t waste a second. He bolted toward the tear. The party gasped at the anomaly, then shouted in confusion as Kadim dropped his legendary axe and sprinted away.

“H-hey!”

“Lord Kadim!”

“What’s going on? Has he finally lost his mind…?”

He ignored their pleas. His entire being was focused on one thing: reality. Home.

But a figure moved to intercept him. The hero stood in his path, arms outstretched.

“Wait, Kadim! You can’t just jump into a spatial rift!”

“…Get out of my way. I don’t have time to talk.”

“Do you know what that thing is? I’m not letting you through until you explain. We’re brothers-in-arms—I won’t let you throw your life away!”

“If you keep blocking me and that rift closes, I will gorge myself on the archdemon’s remains and pull your spine out. Move if you want to live.”

The threat was ice-cold and utterly serious. Veins throbbed on the barbarian’s brow. The hero recoiled in shock. It was the first time Kadim had ever directed such pure, lucid malice toward him.

For a moment, they stared each other down. The barbarian was a volcano on the verge of eruption; the hero’s resolve began to crumble. The power dynamic was absolute.

The hero stepped aside, his expression frozen. Feeling a sudden pang of remorse, Kadim looked back one last time.

“I can’t give you a proper goodbye. That spark in you, the desire to save people? Don’t let it die. It’s going to be a hell of a lot harder without me, but stay true to yourself. And…”

“…”.

“…It was an honor to actually fight by your side, instead of just controlling you from a distance.”

“…What?”

Crack-rrrack—

The hero never got an answer to those final, confusing words. The rift snapped shut the instant Kadim leaped inside.

“…”.

“…”.

“…”.

Despite their victory over the ultimate evil, the party felt no joy.

“Lord Kadim…? Lord Kadim? LORD KADIM!!!”

As the blind shaman screamed his name into the wind, the rest of them could only stare at the spot where their friend had vanished into nothingness.

—

The dark, quiet space returned.

It was his second time here, but the atmosphere felt entirely different.

Kadim—the man—walked forward. With every stride, the primal urges of the barbarian faded, and his modern personality re-emerged.

He made a silent vow: if he got back, he was done with fantasy. No games, no movies, no books. Nothing.

He was finished with worlds that lacked running water and laws, finished with the metallic smell of demon blood. His first priority was a cold, canned beer and a bed with clean sheets where he could sleep for a week.

‘I feel bad about leaving them like that…’

His connection to his party members was messy. They had bled together, yet he knew that in his world, they were merely lines of code.

The friction between his memories and his current needs created a sharp ache in his chest.

‘…I have to move on. I’ll never see them again.’

The man gave a sad, small smile. He felt a hint of regret—if he had known that was the final moment, he might have been a bit kinder.

The exit appeared at the end of the void. It looked identical to the first time: the gateway back to his life. As he approached, the light intensified. His heart raced with hope.

But at the very edge of the exit, the man stopped dead.

His eyes stretched wide, his feet refusing to move.

His features contorted into a mask of horror. His pulse thundered in his ears. His breath hitched, and his blood felt like ice. His stomach turned, and a wave of nausea hit him.

‘…This has to be a dream.’

He prayed for it to be a hallucination. He couldn’t accept this.

But no matter how hard he blinked, the text above the exit remained the same.

⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙
【 New Game + 】

He stared at the words until his vision blurred.

Finally, a visceral, hate-filled scream tore from his throat.

“No… fuck…”