Ch. 001: A Niche Way to Screw Over Oneself
Silence pressed in from everywhere—the only sensation stubborn enough to exist here. No weight. No body.
'Feels nice, almost like am floating.'
He awoke to pale nothing, suspended in impossible comfort.
Dssal chose not to move, quietly savoring it.
Worn down by clock-in, clock-out monotony—existing without his back complaining was nothing short of miraculous.
Of course, there was the emptiness that swallowed sound.
Dssal clung to it anyway, in faint desperation. Only this time he was wrong—staying idle gave his intrusive thoughts leeway.
A moment later, they invaded.
His eyes snapped open.
'....Is this minimalist art?'
He cursed under his breath and shot to his feet.
A vast void sprawled around him while his thoughts scrambled to keep up—intimidating in scale, but somehow it failed to scare him.
Calm.
Apart from the initial shock there was nothing. It made him wonder: what was he, some kind of adaptive wanderer?
His body hadn't registered danger either. And even if it had, it didn't seem to care.
'No. What is the point, it's just a lucid dream.'
Dssal slowly flexed his fingers twice, studying them with clinical detachment. The motion was automatic. It had to be a dream.
"…Huh? I'm actually awake."
Only now did it really hit him.
It was real.
A ripple of unease moved through him—and with it, Pantheon's development surfaced unbidden.
Dssal's intrusive thoughts continued; after the emergence of Arcane, a cult purge scene he'd approved for the Ashenmaw questline flashed in memory: a dark altar lit by greasy candles, a victim bound and gasping through a gag. The high priest taking his time with the blunt blade, sawing methodically across her throat while chanting prayers to their forgotten god.
Dssal pressed a hand to his face, trying to steady himself, but calm wouldn't come. His breathing shortened. Shallow. Wrong. He'd signed off on that scene—hell, he'd written the dialogue too—but he'd never been able to stomach gore in reality.
He pressed harder against his face, forcing the images back. He might be physically at peace, but he'd read enough manhwa to recognize the pattern.
Transmigration. The thought stalled halfway.
How? What if he—
Drawing in slow, deliberate breaths, he squeezed his eyes shut to think.
"I swear I was at home just a moment ago."
---
HOURS EARLIER
[New System Path Detected.]
[Would You Dutifully Comply?] [Yes / No]
'So sleepy.'
Dssal lay slumped against the door of his apartment, phone in hand.
His surroundings were his room. Mundane. Uninspiring.
One look would tell anyone Dssal rarely cleaned it.
However, it couldn't say the full story.
He could have some mental condition, or maybe he cared more about his workplace—League—than hygiene.
Which if they said the latter, they would be spot on—exactly his philosophy.
Beyond the overtime stress, Dssal liked to play politics. He often wore what he privately called a different personality archetype at League.
His coping mechanism, with simple reasoning: even a small mistake could be weaponized against you in League.
In some ways he was right.
Such a large organisation was often complained about as toxic.
But his actions told a different story. Deep down, while others hated it, Dssal enjoyed it.
Sure, life was genuinely hard—everyone constantly trying to one-up one another. But he thrived on office politics. That dystopian friction was what kept his confidence steady, a quiet certainty he'd never be pushed out.
BLARR. BLARR.
If he had a choice, that is.
His phone blared, dragging him out of his reverie.
Dssal glanced at it. His brow pulled together.
"Oh my."
He glanced at the "System Path" notification, which kept showing up.
Ting.
And in his rush to doze off, tapped "Yes" without reading it. The panel flashed elegant gold before dissolving.
RIIIIINNNG.
But almost instantly, a call came through.
Fate made it so.
Caller ID: Blondie from League.
In other words, Alice Seorin.
"Our lively major shareholder. Co-creator of Pantheon alongside those twin brothers. Damned assholes."
She was someone he didn't get along with—the one person at League he despised most, and he'd never bothered hiding it.
However, she was far more than what meets the eye in this world.
Only Dssal was yet to know that. His expression twisted like someone who'd stepped in something foul.
Often idolized like a goddess—polished, composed and holding the same position—it made him look worse by comparison.
Was it annoyance? He didn't know, but he didn't even want to be spoken of in the same sentence as her.
"I'll let it ring."
Hence his decision.
His eyes glinted. Dssal pulled his finger back from the button, watching.
Aggressive. Continuous.
Almost desperate.
More calls came the longer it went unanswered, while he simply stared at her name on the screen—genuinely puzzled.
When had she ever called him this directly?
\>\> Alice
---
But in the same breath—
A whole different vibe came from Alice's particularly extravagant residence. She stood frozen, expression caught somewhere between fury and despair.
A huge contrast.
Her pink hair swirled around her shoulders, stark against the cool night, as she clutched a black book to her chest like a grieving mother.
"How did I die?" she asked the empty air.
Such a question made no sense on its surface. She was standing. Breathing. Very much alive.
But with it—the memories were already flooding back in.
One would understand.
Every single one. The weight of ninety-nine lifetimes pressing down all at once, fracturing the present moment into something barely recognizable.
That was what regression did to her.
'Literally over. Ninety-nine times, and still—Dssal—no. No. No!'
Alice dialed Dssal's number, beads of sweat forming at her brow.
A regressor's pain digs deep.
Her thumb moved before her thoughts fully formed—muscle memory by now, the same desperate reach across the same failing distance.
Fear. Disappointment. Frustration.
The book in her arms was the reason for all three.
Named User's Manual.
It appeared in her purse once per regression—always the same black cover, the same weight. The moment she found it, she couldn't resist, and upon finishing it every memory returned in full. Ninety-nine lifetimes of watching the same thing happen. Ninety-nine chances that had ended the same way.
But the window before it appeared grew shorter with each life.
This time, she'd been late finding it.
And bad—according to its fifth volume, which traced Dssal through his brutal death in every single ending, things were dire.
Precisely as a prophecy—yes, that was exactly what it was.
Even her death never changed: Earth fell. Country-sized devils poured out of Pantheon—the very game they'd built together—and swallowed everything whole. She had watched, one second before her own death each time, a particularly massive beast consume the Earth entire.
All ninety-nine times.
The only constant was Dssal.
It happened only when he died—hence he held the key to the power that could stop it.
Their fates were bound—his, hers, the Earth's—and every regression made it clearer, even as the window to act kept shrinking.
She couldn't let the Eight High down again. She wouldn't.
Please pick up. Please, if only this once.
It rang.
Her grip tightened on the book.
He probably wasn't going to answer.
In this regression, just like all the others, he was destined to die.
Dssal wasn't aware. Nor would he believe her—he'd essentially built Pantheon himself. What room did that leave for mythical forces he'd invented coming to reality?
---
Thus, in his musty apartment, Dssal's grin stretched wider as he savored his small, petty victory.
'No, I can't laugh yet. Hold it in.'
It came out anyway.
"Ahahahahh....Fuck!"
Only, he remembered he still had work tomorrow.
Begrudgingly, he shifted into a more comfortable position.
He watched thirteen more calls drain out first, of course—then silenced his phone and, finally satisfied, sank into a deep sleep.
Thirteen missed calls became fourteen.
The phone screen glowed in the dark, still buzzing faintly.
Fifteen.
Twenty.
Perhaps, if he'd known those vibrations were tolling his funeral bell, he would've picked up.
But he didn't.
---
BACK TO THE PRESENT
Jolt.
That was the last thing he remembered.
Breathing hard, hand still pressed to his face, Dssal stood once again in the void.
His body steadied—uneasily—as the thought surfaced:
Alice called… did she have something to do with this?
Ting.
And just as unreal—it flickered into existence before him: a gold-and-black system window, softly glowing.
Familiar.
At least to anyone who'd read progression novels. It was like the systems he used to fantasize about—back before he'd traded happiness for a steady paycheck.
A transmigrator's system.
Specifically, one he'd designed for Pantheon.
"No. Of course."
Dssal squinted at the screen, not yet registering its link to Pantheon.
He filed it under isekai and, knowing how those stories usually went, told himself maybe it wasn't entirely bad.
His luck, however, had never been kind.
Even without his glasses, the glowing text was clear as crystal.
---
[Congratulations. Young Acolyte Successfully Processed.]
[Great Luck! Trainee, You've Been Graciously Granted a Chance on the Path of the Divine.]
[But Don't Worry—Your Imminent Death Is Already Accounted For in Pantheon, Where Transcendents Await.]
---
Numbness.
'Pantheon??'
Come again?
Dssal went still.
Out of the billions of worlds he could have been pulled into—why Pantheon, the one he dreaded most.
He'd built it, after all.
A horror hellscape. Supernatural threats at every turn.
"Best worldbuilding ever. 10/10. Would die again."
The most popular game of the era—impossible to find anyone who hadn't heard of it, let alone played it—and every single player gave the same verdict.
Oh, how literal such comments had become, if only to him.
Dssal dragged a hand across his brow.
He gave a sort of numbed reaction to the whole farce. Vomiting blood could have been natural here.
Everything ended in death, sooner or later. The only currency that mattered was power after all.
His eyes darted irritably over the glowing text.
"Fuu… what now? I won't actually die, right?"
He already knew the answer wasn't reassuring.
He shifted his weight, pressing his foot against whatever invisible surface the void was made of.
A hysterical laugh began to crawl up his throat.
---
[Are You Prepared, Child?]
[Yes / No]
Dssal, forcing calm, spammed "No."
He mashed the holographic button—obvious choice, no hesitation.
Maybe it was salvageable, he thought. But that belief was quickly corrected.
[Kidding. Compliance Mandatory.]
There was literally no hope. No say in the matter.
He could only return to questioning.
'Dammit, dammit, damn it.'
'What is this now—getting patched into Pantheon to make amends?'
'That's insane. And if I'm going there—why alone? I shouldn't be going alone. Am I the only sinner? What about that bitch Alice? This world has never felt so empty.'
His thoughts spiraled, each one darker than the last. The Ashenmaw scene clawed its way back to the surface of his mind.
But just as something in him seemed to settle toward acceptance—his expression shifted.
Kukuku.
"Worse—what I can't wrap my head around is this." His right hand rose to cover half his face, a crazed grin pulling at his lips. "I'm just expected to roll over and die like this?"
Does some mythical powerhouse want me dead? Am I really that hated?
His laugh came out sharp.
Bitter.
And of course the system didn't care.
Almost mockingly, it began its procedure.
The void dissolved—replaced by something far worse.
A place he recognized instantly. A testament to the darkness only someone without restraint could build.
Smell hit first.
Distant—but closing in.
The gods' favorite bloodstained playground.
Lilly.
"In Pantheon's starlight—uninhabitable star of three disks. Endlessly plagued by disasters, devils, and monsters, at the pleasure of the Seven High gods themselves."
He cursed bitterly as reality bent around him.
A matter of perspective, really—because somewhere, someone leaned forward in anticipation.
The coming apocalypse was not an ending to them.
It was a performance. And Dssal was merely its opening act.
"…Bastards."
---
(END OF CHAPTER ONE)