Massacre
There's no way I could be mistaken. I'm not so far gone that I'd confuse a dream with reality.
It's real. A monster from Pangaenia has really appeared in reality.
Bang! Bang!
The police from the station right in front rushed out and responded with pistol fire, but it didn't even scratch it. Without leaving so much as a nick on its hard skin, they became prey for the Giant Mantis.
"Save me······ Argh!"
"Emergency, emergency!"
The officers were facing it while shouting into their radios. Most civilians were running away, but plenty couldn't.
They were stuck inside buildings, stomping their feet, only watching the situation. A few, not grasping how serious this was, were taking photos or videos.
Biiiiiiiiing—!
An air-raid siren started blaring, cranking up the decibels.
Phones did too.
Just like in a disaster alert, a loud sound rang out, and text popped up across the screen.
〔14:32, unidentified attacks occurring. Seoul, Busan, Daegu, all of Gyeonggi Province.
*Evacuate to the nearest underground shelter, and listen to broadcasts〕
····· So it wasn't just here. Attacks had started simultaneously across all of Korea, by unidentified lifeforms.
But I know what that thing is.
A field boss monster you're guaranteed to meet if you play Pangaenia.
A level 4 Giant Mantis!
With its distinctive antenna attacks, and the vivid crimson flower on its back, there was no way to mistake it.
'What do I do?'
My heart felt like it would burst. In the game, I'm a flexible, capable, all-round player, but in reality I'm just an ordinary small-time citizen.
My head hurt. My heart rate only kept climbing.
"Aaaah! Mom! Mooom!"
The moment I heard a child crying, I snapped back to my senses.
I turned my head at once.
I brought every reward I'd gained in Pangaenia into reality.
If the game's monsters were walking around in reality like this, then couldn't those items be used in reality too?
'Hydragon's Soul!'
I grabbed the rune-carved stone.
Hydragon, a monster that can't even be compared to some field boss like a Giant Mantis.
I only killed it easily because I knew the strategy, normally it was a trial that required twelve people to clear.
Rub rub rub!
"Why isn't this working?"
I frowned.
In the game all you do is double-click. Then your character pulls the stone out, makes a wiping motion with their hand, and the summon completes.
I scrubbed it hard, but it didn't do a damn thing.
I looked back again.
'Fragment of the Broken Golden Rule.'
They said it synchronizes reality and the game.
Clutching it like I was snatching away a Golden Rule coin.
"On."
In an instant a goddess appeared before me.
The twin goddesses of Pangaenia. The goddess I always saw on login kissed my cheek.
<<<
<<<
<<<
····· The pounding in my chest that felt ready to explode settled down.
The trembling in my body, the chaos in my head, all cleared cleanly.
I opened my hand. A thick hand. I had become Randolph.
I took up Michella's Sword. The heavy two-handed greatsword fit snugly into my grip.
I clenched Hydragon's Soul, walked straight to the window.
Thud!
I stepped on the sill and jumped down to the ground.
An old five-story villa. A height that would kill a normal person instantly, but I didn't care.
Floating in midair, feeling the resistance of the wind, I rubbed Hydragon's Soul.
Guuooong!
Hydragon's true body was summoned onto the main road.
I rode Hydragon's back and charged at the mantis.
***
'A scoop!'
Intern reporter Kim Hana thought of a scoop the instant the monster attacked.
A gigantic mantis was ravaging the city.
If she captured this moment properly, the Pulitzer this year was basically hers.
Click! Click!
She got as close as she could and raised her phone to take photos.
"Jackpot."
Not a movie prop or CG, but a real monster with crushing reality.
A scoop. Her miserable intern life was over now. The moment she thought that,
"Aaaah! Mom! Mooom!"
Not far away a child who looked about five was crying miserably.
A shopping basket. A woman pinned under rubble.
The giant mantis turned its eyes.
A storm of emotions hit her.
Do I really have to film that brutal monster destroying a family, is that what the seniors call real journalistic spirit?
Damn it. Kim Hana threw off her heels, grit her teeth, and ran.
She'd been on her way back from a blind date a friend had begged her into, and she couldn't believe this lightning-out-of-nowhere day, but there was no time to weigh any of that.
Kim Hana practically dove in like a bungee jump and wrapped her body around the child.
"Are you okay, are you okay?"
"Mom is······."
"Mi, miss. Please, my child······."
The woman under the debris came to, and barely opened her mouth.
A mother's plea to save her child.
Those who can live must live.
But there was something Kim Hana overlooked.
The monster's antennae were faster than she imagined.
She turned her head, saw the tentacle rushing in, and shoved the child aside.
'Ah.'
Her body felt like it was being flung away.
The next thing in front of her eyes was the huge mantis's face.
A reel of memories flashed through her head.
So this is how I die. Dying in the prime of my life without even dating properly once.
—Our hospital's young director, he begged me so much to introduce you. Please, just meet him once, Hana?
—He's seriously a great guy. He was the campus star in college, super handsome, tall, and his face is unreal. You'll regret it if you miss this chance.
Shouldn't I have gone on that blind date.
Like my friend said he was a good person, but I didn't even want to date in the first place, I was just going to kill time and come back.
'How did it end up like this?'
Kim Hana squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't have the courage to face the giant mantis's mouth and the countless teeth jutting out like spikes.
Shraack!
That instant.
Along with the sensation of her body lifting again, she felt someone's warmth.
She opened her eyes a crack.
"Who—"
"······."
A man with a wild edge to him.
He tossed Kim Hana aside like throwing her away.
With an "ugh," she landed atop the back of some unknown monster.
'W, what is this?'
There wasn't just one monster?
Is this a dragon? But for a dragon its heads are too many. A monster of monsters made of nine heads, something that can't even be compared to a giant mantis.
"Hic!"
"Hold on tight."
It was Korean. Kim Hana gripped the monster's back hard.
The man holding a gigantic greatsword leapt up.
Kyaaaargh!
The nine-headed dragon began tearing into the mantis like it was crazed.
The giant mantis shrieked and howled in agony.
The scene looked like something from legend or myth.
Kim Hana stood there, dazed, only watching.
Each time the man swung the greatsword like it was a toy, green blood poured down like a waterfall. Bitten by nine heads, the mantis couldn't move an inch.
Violence. Kim Hana had never once in her life seen a site of violence so cruel, so desperate. The level you feel in movies or dramas was child's play.
Is this what a hero from myth looks like.
A raw, feral masculinity she'd never felt even once before.
Before that overwhelming spectacle, Kim Hana,
"Ah······."
Shivered. Her whole body trembled, not from fear, but from meeting a presence she couldn't explain, couldn't put into words.
Boom!
In the end, the giant mantis toppled without managing a single proper counterattack, its sickles and neck severed, its eyes going slack.
Then its corpse crumbled like dust. It turned gray, then vanished.
The nine-headed dragon did the same.
Kim Hana started dropping down.
"S, save me······!"
She flailed her arms and legs, then suddenly found herself in someone's embrace again.
The man who killed the monster.
He caught Kim Hana as she fell, and set her down safely.
"Th, thank you."
"······."
Their eyes met.
Without a word, he turned away.
Watching him walk off, Kim Hana raised her phone.
Click.
"Ah."
Right after, as if she realized something, Kim Hana turned her head.
People were already working together to pull the child's mother out from under the rubble.
Kim Hana ran over too, adding her strength to lift the debris.
***
The world was in chaos.
Monsters had burst out simultaneously not only in Korea, but all over the globe.
The moment they appeared they killed people and shattered human civilization.
But it wasn't only monsters that appeared.
Warriors who sliced through monsters that even bullets couldn't touch, like chopping radishes. They wore medieval-like armor, swords, spears, bows, and they butchered the monsters without mercy.
"Don't worry! I will protect your safety!"
"An age of monsters is coming. We must all join forces!"
Some of them, speaking their own languages, promised people safety.
Even more shocking was their "transformation."
Those who existed as warriors reverted to ordinary people, and poured out words like that.
Of course not everyone did.
"At best the duration is about an hour. They all want to save time, I guess."
A man muttered while watching the flood of articles and videos.
All the warriors who appeared now were rankers who could "log out."
If you place on the leaderboard for each main quest, you're allowed to log out.
'Because they need to conserve the remaining time on the Fragment of the Broken Golden Rule as much as possible.'
But the 'Fragment of the Broken Golden Rule' that synchronizes reality with a character is a consumable. It lasts only about a minute at shortest, maybe an hour at longest.
So almost no one used synchronization in reality.
The man was the same. In Korea there were currently eight known people who could log out.
Among them, he was a powerhouse who held the ranker character called "Massacre."
To read the situation, Massacre held back a step in this incident.
If he stepped out carelessly and his Pangaenia character's appearance became known, there was a real chance he'd be threatened in both game and reality.
And that made sense, because Massacre was a notorious bad-mannered player everyone acknowledged.
'Still.'
Massacre rubbed his chin.
'I thought Phantom would show up. There's no one who looks like Phantom.'
Phantom, or Ghost.
Pangaenia's undisputed number one player.
No one knows their real name, so everyone calls them that.
People guessed Phantom possessed hundreds of characters, and rumors flew that the one who recently attempted the 'Demon Realm Grand Expedition' was Phantom.
But the expedition failed under countless acts of sabotage, and Phantom died, having their character deleted.
'Is Phantom really an operator? That would mean they were still playing as a game.'
Massacre had been a pure game player too.
But two years ago, after his Massacre character died, he was summoned to Pangaenia.
Everyone else was the same.
Only Phantom, only the one presumed to be Phantom, kept inhabiting the game.
To find the cause, people searched for Phantom everywhere.
If someone looked like Phantom, they interfered or betrayed them, killed them, and deleted the character.
Because usually, when someone's character is deleted, they get summoned to Pangaenia.
'No. He would have been summoned in that character. When the strongest character you own dies, you get summoned.'
A five-star character armed with eight unique-grade items, every treasure and talent you could imagine.
He'd gone past level 10 and fed it five stars, an unscalable wall.
That had to be Phantom's strongest character.
If Phantom wasn't an operator, he would definitely have been summoned.
And if you're summoned to Pangaenia, you reset, but the talent of your strongest character carries over intact.
Your appearance changes, you become like an NPC, all contact points with others vanish, but by progressing the main quests you can get chances to grow stronger again.
'······ Randolph. Is this guy Phantom?'
After being summoned two years ago, Massacre had placed on the rankings of many main quests.
Massacre was level 10. Like other rankers, he even had a hidden trait.
But a recent change appeared in the rankings that barely ever moved.
In the very first main quest, 'Survival.'
'Two hundred twenty points.'
Was that even possible?
Even if he went back two years and did it again, he wasn't confident he could score 220.
If that was possible, then it was definitely Phantom.
The other rankers would have checked too, so it was only a matter of time before Randolph became a target.
Eliminate competitors. And if it was Phantom, killing him would net an enormous amount of 'Fragments of the Broken Golden Rule.'
It was confirmed that Pangaenia and reality were beginning to "infiltrate" in earnest. Competition to obtain Fragments of the Broken Golden Rule would intensify as well.
Eventually, Pangaenia and reality might fully merge.
Pangaenia's NPCs could appear in reality, or······ the Demon King might truly descend.
Before that, he had to secure his position. From now on, it was obvious that the stronger one, the one with more fragments of the Broken Golden Rule, would be the protagonist of this era.
"······ Hydragon? Who the hell is this?"
Then, watching a video, Massacre frowned.
Hydragon.
A warrior who appeared with a monster that had never officially been revealed, no, only one had ever been revealed.
It was an appearance he'd never seen before.
Massacre etched that warrior's look into his eyes.
He also memorized the looks of the other warriors who appeared across Korea.
They're all competitors.
Because in the age of chaos to come, the protagonist had to be him.
***
"Let you into the Holy Land? Are you insane?"
····· The Snake Princess Isabella gasped.
Because of my request.
To let me into the Desert Holy Land.
'If the first main quest is Survival.'
But I had to go to the Holy Land no matter what.
'The second main quest is to obtain a class.'
A class. Because that is where the method to become stronger lies, as you progress the main quests.
And that's not all.
"There's a star there."
"What······?"
Isabella's eyelids trembled.
A star. She must be shocked to hear there's a way to receive a star's blessing there.
It was something I'd learned recently while playing again, after giving up before.
There is a star in the Desert Holy Land. A way to lift the Queen's curse.
However, it was hidden.
'A star that sits in the lowest place, yet can shine brighter than any other star.'
And the class I desire too, I would be able to obtain from that star.