Chapter 1
The world was simple back then.
No dungeons, no glowing blue windows, no "rankers" or "system updates."
Just good old-fashioned swords, shields, and the occasional fireball to the face.
Me? I was a soldier. Not a knight, not a noble hero chosen by destiny. Just a guy with a decent sword arm and the bad habit of not dying when I probably should have.
"Oi, you still alive?"
That was Captain Daewon, my squad leader. Big beard, bigger belly. He swung an axe like it owed him money.
"I've seen you take three arrows and walk it off. You some kind of cockroach?"
"Better than being a pig like you, Captain," I shot back.
The others laughed. There weren't many of us left—just a ragtag squad of grumpy men who hadn't yet been stabbed, crushed, or set on fire. That was basically the definition of "elite" in our army.
I wasn't a knight, or a noble, or some hero out of a bard's tale.
Just Jin Ryu, an ordinary soldier with a knack for surviving things I shouldn't.
Poison? Didn't work.
Curses? They slipped right off me.
Even when a healer priest declared I had "an unnatural resistance," all it earned me was more work on the frontlines.
Not that it mattered. War didn't care if you had blessings or not—it killed everyone equally.
If only we knew what was coming.
The day when the sky would split open, when "dungeons" would rise, when words like Rank, Skill, and Level Up would mean more than crowns or kingdoms.
But back then, we were just soldiers.
Just people.
And me? I was just the unlucky bastard named Jin Ryu—
the one who was about to die… and find out death wasn't the end.