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Chapter 3

—–CROW—– 

“Ah.”

It’s common for someone just waking up to be disoriented.  That’s why the young man—Choi Kang-seok—blinked with a slightly dazed expression.

“Ugh.”

I didn’t want to get up. But I had to. Even though it was still his break from school, he had a mountain of things to do, from TOEIC classes to his part-time job.

Still, Kang-seok closed his eyes and stretched his arm out. He intended to check the time on his smartphone, which he had placed on the desk right next to his bed.

But he couldn’t reach it.

“Huh?”

It wasn’t even a desk, to begin with. His fingertips touched a hard floor, sand, and pebbles.

It took a while for his sleep-addled body to register the discrepancy.

But once he sensed something was off, he reacted instantly, as if his previous laziness had been a lie.

Kang-seok’s eyes snapped open, and he first looked at the ceiling.  It was dark and hard to see, but it definitely wasn’t the ceiling of his studio apartment.

He suddenly felt his breath hitch with tension.  His eyes darted left and right.  With a speed that surprised even himself, he bolted upright.

It was dark. Torches were placed on the walls, but the darkness was too thick for them to dispel completely.

The floor, the walls, and the very high ceiling all seemed to be made of stone. Their original color appeared to be black or gray, but the torchlight made them look orange.

He seemed to be in the middle of a corridor, open on both sides, but the darkness was so dense that he couldn’t see what was at either end.

Kang-seok swallowed repeatedly.  His heart pounded as if it would burst.

“Hoo, hoo, hoo…”

Only after consciously regulating his breathing did he feel ready to move.

The first thing he did was examine himself.

“Bandages?”

His right arm was wrapped in bandages. They were similar to what boxers wore during practice, except that the bandages covered almost his entire right arm, not just his hand and wrist.

He wore black leather clothing.  It was a tight-fitting, full-body suit, so comfortable that it felt like he wasn’t wearing anything at all.

‘At least my arms and legs are fine.’

He had no trouble moving. No, in fact, he felt much better than usual.  His body felt as light as a feather, like he could take flight at any moment.

But this was definitely not a situation to celebrate. Kang-seok touched the green hair that reached down to his shoulders with his fingertips. It wasn’t a conscious action.  That’s why he recoiled in surprise a moment later.

Green.

And his hair length was different too.

A name suddenly flashed through his mind.

‘Dark Destiny Lord.’

The bandages wrapped tightly around his right arm, the tight-fitting black leather suit, and the green hair were all characteristics of his main character in Fighter Online, “Dark Destiny Lord.”

“Cos…play?”

He gave a shaky smile tinged with unease and shook his head.  Closing his eyes, he consciously regulated his breathing.

How much time passed? When he finally opened his eyes again, he pulled one of the torches from its holder on the wall.

It was the kind of torch and holder you’d see in a typical underground tomb in movies or games.

Ahead and behind, relative to where he now stood with the torch.

Both ends of the corridor were equally obscured by darkness. Kang-seok took a step forward.

A clinking sound echoed from the studded leather boots that seemed designed to enhance combat prowess, and then his footsteps reverberated through the corridor.

What was going on? Was he caught up in some sick prank?

He consciously shut down his thoughts, trying to maintain his composure.

“Ah.”

Walking close to the left wall, Kang-seok stopped abruptly. He saw something beyond the torchlight.

A huge silhouette.

He raised the torch slightly, his gaze naturally following upwards. And then he froze.

It was a monster. A red, vicious, and undeniably huge monster lay before him.

It wasn’t because he was particularly brave that he didn’t scream.  Rather, he was too shocked.

The hand holding the torch trembled slightly, but he didn’t drop it.  He raised it higher and discovered something else besides the monster.

A large sword was embedded in the monster’s chest. A skeleton, clad in impressive armor that looked like it belonged in a game, albeit partially broken, gripped the sword.  It looked as if it had died after thrusting the sword with all its might.

When faced with a situation so absurd, laughter is often the only response.  That was the case for Kang-seok. After a few strained chuckles, he quickly swung the torch around.  Scattered on the floor, alongside what appeared to be the remains of the monster—bones and leather—were various other objects.

Among them, what stood out were nearly ten swords.

Most were broken or shattered, but a few looked intact.

Kang-seok cautiously walked towards the nearest sword.  Still partially focused on the monster’s corpse, he slowly picked up the sword. He wanted to secure something that could serve as a weapon.

But the moment he grasped the sword…

He had to focus all his attention, even the part that had been on the monster, onto the sword.

It wasn’t because the sword felt incredibly real, or because expensive-looking jewels were embedded in the hilt and blade.

It was because of the “string of characters” that appeared in his mind the moment he held it.

←↖↑↓→←↑↓+HS

Supreme King’s Backsword

Kang-seok could only say one thing.

“A special move command?”

* * *

Confusion was the first emotion to fill his mind.

Shaking his head vigorously to clear his thoughts, he adjusted his grip on the sword. The blade was narrower than what he was used to seeing in games or movies, but otherwise, it looked like a “typical holy sword.”

A jet-black pommel and hilt embedded with jewels, and a pure white blade that looked like it was made of silver.

The command appeared in his mind again.  Even blinking didn’t make it disappear.

“I’m normal.”

Muttering softly to himself, he moved towards another sword.  This one had a red hilt.

“Hoo.”

Swallowing hard, he put down the black sword and picked up the red one.

→↗↑↓←→↓↑+S

Flying Swallow Phoenix Sword

A different special move command than before. It felt like he was recalling a command list from a strategy guide he had read in the past.

“I don’t think I played games *that* much. Is this a dream? A lucid dream, then?”

He spoke aloud deliberately. And because of that, he realized all the more that this wasn’t a dream.

The heat from the torch, the characteristic chill of an underground space, the studded boots that clinked against the floor with every step.

It felt too real to be a dream.  The same was true for the sword he held in his hand. It felt like it would cut him if he touched the blade with his finger.

He counted to himself.

One, two, three.

It was a meaningless action, but it helped to calm him down.  Having regained his composure, the next thing he did was look back at the monster, not the swords.

It had red skin and an abnormally large upper body. Horns protruded from various parts of its body, and its massive hands had long claws that could pass for blades.

‘It’s dead, right?’

His gaze went to the skeleton slumped over the monster’s chest, still clutching the sword, but he couldn’t bring himself to reach out.

He turned away with the torch and quickly distanced himself from the monster’s corpse.

He made one decision.

‘Don’t think about it.’

He wouldn’t think about why he was here, dressed like this.  Thinking about it would only lead to preposterous conclusions, and such speculation wouldn’t help him in his current situation.

‘The wall.’

It was stone. Cold. Torch holders were lined up at regular intervals, slightly above his head.

He lit the unlit torches one by one, slowly moving along the wall.  By the time he had lit nine torches, he had secured a decent amount of light and could roughly make out the scene within the “room.”

A large circular room and a long corridor.

He had come through the corridor, and the monster’s corpse lay near the point where the corridor connected to the room.

Now that he could see properly, it was quite an ornate room.  Intricate carvings adorned the occasional pillars and sarcophagi.

A great battle had clearly taken place here. Cracks ran along the walls, and there were more than a few broken and damaged areas.

‘For now, it’s a dead end. Does the corridor I came from lead to the exit?’

Once his mind started working, calmness replaced the confusion in his chest. This characteristic calmness was one of his strengths.

“Okay, fine. Let’s just say this is the scene where a hero and Diablo killed each other.”

This was his second priority. The first was his own condition.

The attire of his Fighter Online main character, Dark Destiny Lord.

‘He’s shorter than me in the game settings.’

Kang-seok’s actual height was a little over 180cm. But Dark Destiny Lord wasn’t. He had created the character in middle school, and speed-type characters had various penalties if they were too tall.

‘He’s probably around 170cm, right?’

Perhaps because he was conscious of it, he felt a slight違和感 when he walked. He held the sword against his body to estimate his height.

‘I don’t know for sure, but I’ve definitely gotten shorter.’

His clothes and height had been adjusted to match Dark Destiny Lord.  He could accept the former, but the latter was something that shouldn’t be possible.

But it had already happened.  So, what about everything else?

He lightly touched his arm. The muscles he felt beneath the leather suit were no joke. He had worked out quite diligently before being discharged from the military because he had nothing better to do, but even then, he wasn’t this built.

‘Especially the abs.’

They were rock hard.  He experimentally lifted his shirt, and clearly defined, almost three-dimensional six-pack abs came into view.

“Huh?”

Involuntarily admiring himself, he then unbuckled his waistband.  He didn’t dare take his pants off, so he pulled them outwards to check inside.

“Hmm.”

He looked again.

“Hmm hmm.”

The same green as his hair. No, that wasn’t the important part.

“Hmm hmm hmm.”

With a deeply satisfied expression, he put his pants back in place and took another deep breath.  He told himself,

‘Okay, fine.  Let’s just assume, for the sake of argument, that I’ve become Dark Destiny Lord.’

His clothes had changed, his body had changed, everything had changed, so he would just accept it for now.  Figuring out why this had happened was a problem for later, as he had already decided.

He picked up the sword he had placed on the floor.

His body had become Dark Destiny Lord.  Then couldn’t he use special moves too?

‘No, it’s not that I want to try using special moves…’

Making excuses to himself, he steeled his resolve and raised the sword. He focused his mind on the command that naturally came to mind.

→↗↑↓←→↓↑+S

Flying Swallow Phoenix Sword

One.

Two.

He lowered the sword.  Muttering with an awkward expression, as if trying to hide his embarrassment,

“How do I input the command?”

—–CROW—– 

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