"Ohh…"
I giggled as I scrolled through the game on my screen.
[Fate]
It was an interactive fantasy game where every choice shaped your fate.
Every tap. Every dialogue option. Every tiny decision.
But unlike most fantasy worlds filled with hope and adventure—
this one was cruel.
Brutal.
Unforgiving to the core.
A world where even breathing wrong could kill your character.
Its popularity skyrocketed the moment it was released.
People spammed screenshots, theories, character builds.
Everyone was bragging.
But months later…
the SAME people who worshipped it abandoned it.
The difficulty was insane.
Progress felt like crawling through hell barefoot.
Hope? A luxury no one had.
Even so, it still earned a GOTY nomination—
Top 10 Hardest Games Ever Made.
Ever. In the entire industry.
Only 50,045 out of 1,000,000 players actually completed it.
And me?
Just a 17-year-old loner who loved games more than social interaction.
Someone who wanted—no, needed—to join the elite few who beat it.
So I tried.
And tried.
And tried.
Death after death after death.
Characters lost.
Story resets.
Heartbreak after heartbreak.
Until finally—
I reached my ending.
{Congratulations: Game Complete}
My vision blurred instantly.
My tears welled up and fell before I could stop them.
I raised my trembling hands into the air, half laughing, half sobbing like some sleep‑deprived maniac.
[Achievements]
• Unyielding Soul— Cleared the game after 1,247 deaths
• Ten Thousand Faces — Lived through 38 different characters
• True Ending — Witnessed the world's final truth
• etc...
"I… I actually did it…"
I whispered to myself.
For a moment, everything around me faded out.
The dim glow of my tiny room.
The familiar hum of my aging PC.
The cold instant coffee I never finished.
All gone.
Only the bright screen existed.
The same one I'd been staring at for months.
I leaned back in my chair, releasing a shaky laugh that sounded more like a sob.
All those sleepless nights…
All the resets…
All the rage‑quits and moments I almost uninstalled it…
It was finally over.
Or… so I thought.
Because then—
the screen glitched.
Just a flicker at first.
Then the display went pitch black.
A new window appeared, typing out text I had NEVER seen mentioned anywhere.
Not in forums, not in reviews, not in guides, nowhere.
{Special Notice: Player reward}
{Eligibility confirmed.}
{Do you wish to claim the TRUE reward?}
|Yes
|No
I froze.
"…What?"
My cursor hovered over Yes.
My heartbeat throbbed in my ears like a drum.
What kind of reward…
could a game like THIS possibly give?
I didn't think.
I just pressed Yes.
|Yes <
|No
The moment I clicked, a blinding light exploded out of the screen.
It wasn't just a flash—it hit me.
Like something grabbed me by the chest and pulled.
Hard.
My vision turned white.
My ears rang painfully.
My body felt like it dissolved into static.
For a moment, I genuinely thought:
Wow. Did my PC just kill me?
And then—
BAM.
I landed on something solid.
A wooden chair.
I blinked.
Then blinked again.
My eyes struggled to adjust.
A classroom.
I was sitting in a freaking classroom.
"…What the heck was that!?"
I yelled, voice cracking as I nearly fell off the seat.
Students turned toward me, faces full of confusion and disgust.
Like I was some wild animal that got loose.
A man in white robes—teacher-looking, very strict—stood at the front.
He slammed his hand on a desk, making the whole class jump.
"Damian! What is with the foul language and commotion?"
He glared.
"Did you just wake up from a dream!?"
Damian…?
Who the hell is Damian!?
More whispers followed, like little knives stabbing me.
"Typical commoner behavior…"
"So rude."
"He's so slow."
"He looks completely lost."
"Can he even read?"
Their judgment hit harder than I wanted to admit.
My face heated up.
Not anger—just embarrassment.
And confusion.
A lot of confusion.
This wasn't my room.
This wasn't Earth.
This wasn't ANYTHING I knew.
The chair was real beneath me.
The air smelled different—cleaner, but strange.
Their uniforms weren't normal school uniforms.
The architecture was medieval-academy vibes.
The teacher? Straight out of a fantasy manga.
I swallowed hard.
"…Wait…"
Ding.
A soft digital sound rang beside my ear.
A blue glowing panel appeared right in front of me.
[Welcome, Player.]
My heart stopped.
"H‑Huh…?"
I waved my hand through the air to swipe it away.
The class burst into laughter.
"Is he doing some commoner ritual?"
"Maybe he's crazy."
"Look at him, waving at nothing."
I ignored all of them.
Because the glowing screen in front of me…
was the EXACT SAME UI as the game.
A system.
A panel.
Floating text.
A blinding light.
A sudden classroom.
Strangers calling me Damian.
This was literally the whole checklist of transmigration stories I've wasted entire nights reading.
"…Did I actually… transmigrate?"
I muttered under my breath.
Nothing else made sense.
Literally nothing.
The panel flickered again, like it was impatient.
[Initializing…]
[System Sync in progress…]
[Status: confuse]
[Name: Damian Antares]
[Condition: Overhaul Mana Syndrome]
"Confused!? Hey! Who's writing this!?"
I hissed quietly.
The panel ignored me completely.
Then—
"DAMIAN!"
The teacher's voice cracked like a whip.
"Are you awake or not!?"
I straightened up instantly, almost jumping in my seat.
"Y‑Yes! I mean— I think so!? I mean— I'm awake!"
Now I sounded even more insane.
The class chuckled again.
Someone whispered, "What an idiot…"
I clenched my fists.
My heart wouldn't stop racing.
The teacher sigh."Since your already standing can you tell me what's in the textbook no. 43..read it loud please"
I then look at the desk Infront of me trying to find the textbook but I was soon meet with a big problem.
Fantastic.
I can't read it.
Of course I can't read it.
I then tried to think a way out of it when a sound..
..ding..
A panel window of blue color Infront of me appeared again.
________
{System:Translating the text}
Text book No. 43
Mana is something that existed in all things across sthe world.
A mana is a energy that can create countless possibilities.
The flow of mana is unique each person creating a unique mana pattern on each individual circle.
____________
I then read it out loud.. as I read it.
what got my attention is how my way of speaking.
Which is English was able to be understandable by the people around me.
It seems it's one of those system perks.
The teacher then spoke " that's correct..as expected from a scholar"
That word hit me like a rock me?
A scholar
"As expected of you Damian now you may sit"
Now I've realised one thing damian or the real Damian was a scholar at the academy.
Way too real.
And whether I liked it or not…
I'm already here.
Time passed by.
I tried—seriously tried—to read the texts on the paper the teacher gave us, but it was all gibberish.
Not just a foreign language.
Like someone mashed a bunch of symbols together and called it "writing."
I stared at the paper for a good five minutes like an idiot.
"…What language is this!? Alien? Elvish? Demon scribbles?"
Luckily the system got my back.
A faint chime echoed.
[System: Auto-Translation Enabled.]
Just like that, the letters shifted.
Rearranged.
Formed actual words I could understand.
"Finally…"
I exhaled.
Through the translations, I learned something huge.
This world?
Yeah. It was inside the game.
The lore, the continents, the monsters, the magic system, the society—
all exactly the same.
Even the prominent characters I hated—
the overpowered nobles, the smug antagonists, the tragic heroes—
they all existed here.
And me?
My name is Damian Antares.
I was at Great Sage Academy, one of the top magical academies in the entire world.
Which sounded cool…
until I learned the specifics.
I was a commoner.
A scholarship student.
A nobody.
A perfect punching bag for nobles.
"Wow," I muttered to myself.
"A great start. Amazing. Fantastic. Beautiful. I love suffering."
Apparently, I got here because of my "mana theories" being accepted.
Well—not mine.
The original Damian's.
The REAL owner of this body.
Which means I get all the consequences without the effort.
Thanks, Damian.
But what annoyed me most?
The system panel wasn't like the usual stat screen cheat systems other transmigrators get.
No HP.
No MP.
No skills.
No power-ups.
Nothing.
It just opened when it wanted to and acted like a passive-aggressive guide.
Basically:
A useless floating annoyance.
Not entirely at least the system can translate textbooks and the literature of this world.
And then… I noticed something worse.
The body I was in—
it had a condition.
Overhaul Mana Syndrome.
A rare mana illness.
Lots of mana.
TONS of mana.
More than normal people.
BUT—
Completely unusable.
Like having the best gaming PC but no power cord.
Like having a car with no wheels.
Like having lungs but you're allergic to oxygen.
I stared blankly at the wall for a good two seconds.
"…Excuse me? What do you MEAN I can't use mana?"
Mana.
The basic energy of this world.
Literally the entire reason magic exists.
The thing EVERYONE uses.
And I can't?
In the laws of fantasy transmigration, I swear my rights are being violated.
I was still mentally screaming when a new panel popped up.
[System: Notice]
– If the player dies, the original body will also die.
I froze.
Blinking.
"Great… GREAT. Another notification."
So the system wasn't just useless.
It was THREATENING ME.
Literally holding me by the neck.
Forcing me to participate in this cruel story.
No escape.
No retries.
No save points.
But…
there was one thing this confirmed for me.
I have a goal.
Survive.
At all costs.
The only problem?
I can't use magic.
I'm a commoner.
I'm a target.
And I got thrown into one of the hardest worlds ever made.
"…Great start.
Amazing.
I love this.
Truly peak game design."
I sighed.
"What the hell am I supposed to do now?"