Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Have you ever stood to the side and watched yourself cough up blood?

I mean the sort of spiritual experience where you become a wandering soul and observe yourself...... something like that.

It sounded strange even as I thought it, but that was the only way to explain my current situation.

“What is this?”

A neatly ordered hospital room.

A gaunt man leaning against a hospital bed and coughing up blood, and a laptop in front of him with a game still running.

In a world preserved in gray as though time itself had stopped, I had become a ghost, watching it all unfold.

“You are less surprised than I expected.”

“You startled me.”

From one corner of the room, a suspicious figure in a robe appeared out of nowhere.

The hood, mask, robe, and gloves wrapped the person up so completely that I could not even guess their gender, much less their age.

“Did I die? Are you the grim reaper here to take me...... something like that?”

“You have not died yet. And I am no grim reaper.”

Then who was he?

As I stared blankly at him, he extended a hand first.

“My name is ‘Herman.’ You are Lee Sunan, correct? Your game nickname is ‘Sunan.’”

“Yes, I am Lee Sunan...... wait, my nickname?”

The man who introduced himself as Herman pointed at the laptop on the bed.

It was the laptop I had been using right up until the moment I coughed up blood.

“Ethrana Exodus. I came from the world that served as the ‘original’ for the game you were playing.”

“......”

......He came from the original version of that wretched trash game?

For a moment, my mind failed to catch up.

“So this kind of thing really does happen.”

“I felt this earlier as well, but you do not seem all that surprised. Are you accustomed to such things?”

“I am plenty surprised.”

I was not lying. I really was surprised. The only reason my reaction seemed subdued was because I had long since grown used to keeping my emotions flat.

I had suffered from an incurable disease since childhood.

My heart was apparently slowly hardening. Any movement even slightly too vigorous brought immediate backlash, so ever since I was young, I had not been able to do much of anything properly, not even laugh or cry, let alone exercise.

“So why did you come to me? Are you here to shove me into another body?”

“You catch on quickly. I appreciate not having to waste time on tedious explanations.”

I had only blurted that out at random, but what a ridiculous answer.

With a sigh, I looked at the laptop.

On the screen, alongside the ending, the words ‘GAME OVER’ were displayed in enormous letters.

A legendary trash game commonly known as ‘Is It You Again, J.O.A.T?’

No one even knew when it had been released, and its infamy was immense.

A savage difficulty that made you question whether it had ever been designed to be cleared.

A miraculous level of terrible optimization that kept producing new bugs even years after release.

And on top of that, a forced permadeath mode that sent you all the way back to the beginning every time you died.

Five years ago, while I was bedridden and had little else to do, I happened upon this trash game.

Quite unfortunately for me, I fell completely into it.

“I want you to save the original world as well, just as you did in the game.”

“......A world exactly like the game?”

“Exactly.”

That really did sound like the opening premise of one of those possession stories.

Did he really need to entrust something like that to a patient like me?

When I asked, Herman shook his head.

My health was not an issue, and it seemed there were quite a few possessors besides me.

The condition was simple: reach the ending of the game.

Ethrana Exodus had a wide variety of characters, and for each one, the first person to clear that character’s ending became the one who possessed them.

“In that sense, you are the last possessor.”

“I am the last?”

“Indeed. There was only one of your main characters left.”

Ethrana Exodus had dozens of characters, and their difficulty levels varied wildly.

Among them, the one I had played most was famous for being the hardest of them all.

‘The one locked to his starting weapon.’

The most important elements in the game were skills and weapons.

If skills formed the core of a build, weapons determined the damage.

My character had been designed as an overwhelming prodigy capable of learning every skill, but as a penalty, she could equip only the 'starting weapon' given in the tutorial.

And how good could a beginner weapon really be?

Once you cleared the tutorial, it was basically the same as having no weapon at all.

“I am a little curious. Was there a reason you chose that character?”

“I liked the lore.”

The reason I had not abandoned the character despite that massive penalty was simple.

I just liked the setup.

The so-called ‘protagonist’ drawn on the game’s cover.

And on top of that, she had a story about suffering from an incurable disease, much like I did.

That was right.

I had gotten too emotionally invested in the fact that he was in circumstances similar to mine, and that was why I made that hopeless character my main.

Unlike me, whose full recovery was impossible, she could leave her illness behind once she cleared the tutorial and, depending on how he lived afterward, even enjoy wealth and glory.

The character could do the things I never could.

That trivial reason alone had been enough.

“It was hard...... but somehow, if I kept at it, it worked out.”

Skills. Mechanics. Items. Even bugs, when necessary.

I memorized and exploited every last element in the game.

Because the penalty was so severe, everyone said it was impossible to see the ending with the ‘protagonist,’ but I never gave up.

And so, five years passed.

After well over thousands of attempts, I finally reached the ending.

“I am not asking for your help for nothing. If you accept my proposal and complete the mission, I shall grant you a ‘wish’ in return.”

“A wish?”

He nodded.

“You will not live long in this world. After coughing up blood like that, you will fall into a coma, and before a month passes, you will die.”

I nodded as well. It sounded plausible enough.

The time I had been given was nearly up already.

I felt sorry for my parents, who had done everything they could to save me, but I already knew there was no hope left for me.

“To put it simply, this is the arrangement. If you wish to survive, I shall see that your illness is cured. If there is some talent you desire, I shall grant that as well.”

So in exchange for saving the world, he would set me up for life?

It was a remarkably generous offer.

“You cannot just cure me now? Think of it as an advance payment.”

“I am sorry, but that lies beyond my power.”

He shook his head in an almost regretful voice.

“For me, merely crossing worlds and standing before you like this is already the limit. Any miracle beyond this belongs to the domain of a god.”

“Then does that not mean you cannot grant wishes either?”

“Did I not say so? Miracles beyond my power belong to the domain of a god. We must borrow divine power.”

“......?”

So he was not a god himself?

At this point, I had assumed he was one.

As I stared at him, he gave a dry “Ahem!” and suddenly spread both arms wide.

“You know of the Golden Rule as well, do you not?”

“I do.”

The great providence, the Golden Rule.

That was the name of the one true god who appeared in Ethrana Exodus.

In truth, it was closer to a law of nature than a god, but within the story, the Golden Rule had already broken down long ago for reasons unknown and could no longer perform its function.

“Long ago, after the Golden Rule collapsed, a calamity called the ‘Downfall’ came upon the world. Every land except the last city became a wasteland where life could not survive, and only a handful of humanity remained, barely clinging to existence.”

That was lore I already knew. You could learn that much just by watching the trailer without even playing the game.

The main story of the game unfolded in the final city and the ‘Dungeon’ rooted within it.

The central narrative was about descending that dungeon all the way to its deepest point and repairing the Golden Rule sleeping there.

Why the Golden Rule was there, I did not know either.

The storytelling was so unhelpful that it never bothered explaining things like that.

“Once the Golden Rule is restored, I shall borrow that power and grant your wish. That much is possible.”

It was a grand explanation, but in the end, was this not just leverage?

Fix the Golden Rule through me, then use the restored Golden Rule to grant my wish.

It was not exactly a method that inspired instant confidence.

“You remember the ending of the game, do you not?”

“Of course.”

The dungeon that served as the main setting of the game.

At its lowest level stood a massive ‘Door,’ and the ‘Gatekeeper’ there was the final boss.

‘But even after defeating the boss, the Door did not open.’

The moment you defeated the boss and interacted with the Door, the screen turned gray and ‘GAME OVER’ appeared.

It simply had not been implemented.

“That is how it was in the game, but reality is different. Not only can the Door be opened, one can also see what lies beyond it.”

“What are the others doing, then? You said I was the last.”

“They have, of course, made their own efforts, but no one has succeeded yet.”

“...Then if I go in there, can I meet them too?”

“You may be able to meet some of them, but not all. They possessed their bodies in different eras.”

“Ah.”

Come to think of it, I had forgotten.

In this game, every character’s playable era was different.

By the Genesis Calendar used in the game, one character might be in the year 433, another in 572, and so on.

My character’s story took place in the farthest future of them all, so aside from a few whose eras overlapped, meeting the others would be difficult.

“Given the circumstances, there will in reality be quite a few differences in history as well. It is fine to use the knowledge from the game as reference, but you must not trust it blindly.”

“I understand that, but if no one has succeeded, that means no one has come back either, right?”

“That is right.”

What did he mean, that is right? Was he a psychopath?

As far as I knew, the first possession had happened a thousand years before my character’s era. That was enough time not only for someone to die, but for even their bones to have long since crumbled away.

“In any case, my expectations for you are quite high. I hesitate to say this, but personally, I had been looking forward to the moment you reached the ending.”

“Me?”

“Indeed. You were the only player of the most difficult protagonist character. I was a fan.”

What did it even feel like to have a fan not in another country, but in another world?

I could say with certainty that it was a feeling no one would understand unless they experienced it themselves.

“So then, are you willing to accept my proposal?”

“......I do not really have a choice, do I?”

If I refused, I died.

Of course, there was no guarantee I would not die in the world I possessed into either, but it was still better than remaining here.

He called it a proposal, but if I wanted to live, it was practically coercion.

“Just tell me one thing. If you are not a god, how do you know all this? And how did you make the game in the first place?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because it would be a spoiler.”

He raised a finger and made a shushing gesture.

“As you travel through the Golden Land, you will naturally come to understand.”

“......”

“Oh, right. I nearly forgot to mention this.”

Striking his fist into his palm, he spoke.

“You may have guessed from the word ‘possession,’ but I cannot create a new body for you. Ordinarily, one enters the very character one once played.”

So they had been real people?

Aside from my character, all of them were even customizable, so I had naturally assumed they were fictional.

“Then what happens to the original owner of that body?”

“I do not know. Even I have no way of knowing what becomes of the soul that is pushed out.”

Herman shrugged.

He said he did not know, but that was as good as saying the person died.

“The act of possession itself is a sort of SOS sent by the Golden Rule. It is cruel, but it cannot be helped.”

“So it was not something you were doing?”

“As I said, I am no god. You are the only one I have visited like this. Usually, the will of the Golden Rule guides them.”

“......Why did you come to me personally?”

“Well......”

A faint smile slipped across his face, and he spoke in a meaningful tone.

“I made a small promise.”

“......?”

Herman said nothing more than that.

“In any case, you are already far better off than most, since you at least get an explanation. Ordinarily, people are dragged away without knowing what is happening.”

“......”

So people just got abducted, like the beginning of some typical possession story.

To think that because I had gotten hooked on the wrong game, I was about to be possessed into another world out of nowhere......

When I thought that I would have suffered exactly that fate if I had chosen a different character, a chill ran down my spine.

“However...... your character is a little special. Possession does not work on him.”

“?”

Now what was that supposed to mean?

If I had to possess something, then how could possession not work?

“So for now, you will possess a ‘temporary vessel.’ Of course, you will use it only until you obtain your true body, so there is no need to worry.”

“And how do I obtain that true body?”

“You will naturally come to understand that as well.”

No, was there anything he was actually going to explain properly?

Instead of giving me a clear answer, Herman continued as though offering a hint.

“You know the game is full of bugs, do you not?”

“I do. That is one of the reasons it is famous.”

“They were never bugs. They were merely implementations of things that were actually happening.”

“Pardon......?”

They were not bugs......?

Things like people passing through walls and swimming through empty air were actual events?

“It was the aftermath of the Golden Rule shattering. Once the Downfall began, such grotesque abnormalities started to occur.”

“Then the reason new bugs keep getting discovered is......”

“Because they are not bugs, but errors in the laws of reality themselves.”

This was enough to drive a man insane.

“In any case, keep that in mind. It will help when the time comes for you to reclaim your body.”

“So what exactly is this temporary vessel? It is not something nonhuman, is it?”

“......”

Herman did not answer.

......Cold.

It felt as though a dagger had flown in and buried itself in my chest.

“It is human, right?”

“You will know when you get there.”

“I asked whether it is human!”

There was no conversation after that.

The moment he snapped his fingers, I lost consciousness.

***

When I opened my eyes, I found myself in a strange place.

A quiet, secluded chamber softly lit by the glow of an oil lamp.

It was unfamiliar, and yet somehow familiar at the same time.

This was the ‘Altar of Waiting,’ the starting location of Ethrana Exodus.

[No way, he really did send me into another body?]

A strange flash of insight crossed my mind, making me realize what state I was in without needing to look.

My body does not hurt. The pain that had always seemed to wring the life out of my chest is gone without a trace.

[This actually works...... huh?]

But why has my body not been moving this whole time?

After straining for a while, I soon realized the truth.

It was not that I would not move. I could not move. The body I had just perceived was not human in shape to begin with.

[No.]

A leather-wrapped hilt.

A silver crossguard.

A straight, slender blade.

The shape of what people commonly called a ‘longsword.’

[Herman, you bastard.]

I......

had possessed the sword, the starting weapon.

To be more precise......

I had become the ‘Tutorial Fairy’ dwelling inside the sword......