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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: Eternal Hell of the Sword Hall
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Splat!!
A gruesome sound of flesh tearing echoed as something black and unidentified buried itself into my body.
It was a familiar defeat.
I hadn't expected to win anyway.
This was already my dozens—no, hundreds—of challenge against this gatekeeper-like monster.
No matter how much I racked my brain, I couldn't see any way to take it down at my current level.
How the hell did I end up in this mess?
My vision blurred as death crept closer, but I felt no regrets whatsoever.
In this godforsaken place, I couldn't even die if I wanted to.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [You died] ⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [Your soul and body are being healed.] [Remember: You can never die here permanently.] [You cannot go mad here.]
The text floating in the air greeted me familiarly, snapping my mind back to attention.
Those last two lines were what created this hellish infinite loop.
I had no idea how long I'd been here.
There were no clocks or any products of civilization like that in this world.
Did the sun rise? Did night fall?
Not a chance.
The sky was always red, with only a moon like a crimson eyeball hanging above it.
It felt like this was what a destroyed world might look like.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [Time does not flow in this place.]
Right. No day or night, no biological rhythms in my body—this was a world where time had stopped.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [To complete the Sword Hall, your sword must reach the Pinnacle of the Sword.]
And that last one—the reason I was forced into endless fights against sequentially spawning monsters.
These three notifications kept me from dying or going mad.
They also prevented starvation or sleep.
In short, this wasn't reality.
So where was it?
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [Welcome, Visitor. In the Dream Labyrinth Labyrinthos, you can seize everything you desire with your own hands.]
A prison. A beggar of a dream.
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The first time I was trapped here,
I thought it was just a dream, like always.
Even in my past life, I often had vivid, realistic dreams.
And that continued after I was reborn as the eldest son of House Cascadia, the Border Count family on the Razeros Continent.
After a grueling day, I'd fall asleep and have strange dreams that washed away my fatigue.
That's why I liked dreaming.
Dreaming meant my exhaustion melted away clean.
Anyway,
It started when I dozed off at my desk while investigating the family business.
When I came to, I was already here.
Fell asleep from exhaustion and woke up in this bizarre place.
Then, various images floated before my eyes.
"What's this, some fancy new dream trick?"
Curious, I scanned through the images.
Sword icon, fist icon, skull icon, and so on.
Dozens of them, looking just like game icons from my past life, but their shapes were instantly recognizable.
When I touched the sword icon, a golden light enveloped it.
But humans can't resist when only part of it lights up.
I tapped every damn one like a madman, laughing maniacally only after they all glowed.
Yeah.
If the current me saw that past self from afar, I'd probably act the same.
No—I'd scream and wail to stop that idiot.
"Stop! Don't touch it! You can't press that!!"
"Stay... uh, wrong reference."
Anyway, back then, I had no clue.
Was it a bug?
Or intentional? Who knows.
Only after I pressed them all did the messages appear, opening the gates of hell for me.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [Welcome, Visitor. This is the Dream City Labyrinthos.] [Achievement courses prepared solely for you, our one and only visitor.] [Here, you can obtain everything you desire, pile up trials, tribulations, and achievements.]
Wait, what?
Staring blankly at the text, even an idiot would feel uneasy.
Too late, though.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [Allow me to explain the rules of Labyrinthos.]
And that damned text etched hellish rules onto my retinas.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [You cannot die here.] [You cannot go mad here.] [Time does not flow here.] [Satisfy the conditions required by the Hall and reach its end.] [Time is plentiful. You cannot leave until you stack it all up.]
What the hell? Like a gym you can't leave without 500 squats?
Staring at those chilling warnings, I belatedly realized something was wrong.
The change happened right after.
The landscape shifted in an instant.
To a barren ruin under a blood-red sky with a crimson eyeball moon.
And before me dropped a plain iron sword with a thud.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [Grip the sword.]
As if waiting, lights gathered before me, forming a small creature.
A common little monster: a goblin.
Easy for an expert, but for a talentless guy like me with no martial training, plenty dangerous.
The start was a bloody melee.
Victory? Mine.
But the goblin's survival instinct hit too hard for a combat newbie like me, and its final desperate swing left a nasty gash on my arm.
The key was that I survived.
For a dream, the sensations were too real.
The excruciating pain and killing intent were too threatening to brush off as "just a dream."
That's when I finally realized something was wrong.
But this damned Sword Hall wouldn't let me go.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [Goblin defeated successfully.] [Summoning next stage: 3 goblins.]
Yeah, that's when I first learned how terrifying it gets when enemies go from one to three.
How many noble young masters get ganged up 3-to-1?
Sword fighting was my little sister's thing, not mine.
So I died bitten by goblins and revived perfectly per the rules.
Cold sweat poured, terror consumed me.
I screamed for mercy, ran around.
Tried everything, but the truth I learned was one:
This wasn't a mere dream—it was a real prison.
Goblins weren't illusions.
And the only tool to save me was a single sword, unfamiliar beyond basic stances.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [Observe your opponent's attacks, dodges, and defenses carefully!] [It will help you!]
The perky floating tips were invisible to me then.
How much perceived time passed?
Dying and fighting until victory made me somewhat accustomed to the sword.
Even a blockhead like me couldn't resist the overwhelming violence of time.
"People can't change?" Adaptation proved otherwise with my own body.
I'm talentless. But excuses don't fly here.
"Damn it, can't you just die pretty? How long you gonna hold out? Every time I see you, my teeth grind."
Crunch!!!
-Kieeeek!!
A massive hobgoblin, pierced through its vitals by my sword, thrashed before collapsing.
I don't know about actual time, but perceived time had already surpassed a human lifetime.
And over that endless stretch...
I reached the Sword Expert realm, which my little sister hit in her teens.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [To aid understanding, displaying your status.]
Beep!
⚔ STATUS ⚔ Name: Leon Cascadia Age: 17 Gender: Male Realm: Sword Expert
Concise, and thus easy to grasp. Proof my perception wasn't delusion—it was real.
"Ha... Sword Master? Mind Master? Grand Master? When the hell do I reach those?"
What even is the Pinnacle?
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Talking to myself became habit in an instant.
Born from delusion I'd forget speech if I didn't.
In reality, no such risk.
Memories were unnaturally sharp here.
Past life memories, pre-trap memories.
So my goal—getting home—remained deeply rooted.
No way I'd forget how to talk.
Still, I kept babbling. Memories fine, but oral muscles might atrophy.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [Congratulations. You hunted the voraciously hungry unidentified entity.] [Summoning next stage foe: Sword-maddened demon, Ghost Sword.]
Soon, a pitch-black ghostly figure appeared, drawing a thin, long longsword.
Damn text named it Ghost Sword.
A bastard who wielded the blade like a ghost.
Dozens of challenges against this one already.
Beat 1, get 2.
Progressive stages, but die at 10 and you restart from 1—not 10 again.
Thus, endless hell.
Anyway, this Ghost Sword was my first wall after sensing aura.
Post-reality, I'd never properly trained swordsmanship, so I forged it in real combat, researched, mastered.
Died tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of times— even a moron grasps something eventually.
On Razeros Continent, sword wielders have stages by common knowledge.
From novice Swordsmen honing skill,
To Aura Users strengthening body with aura,
To Experts maturely wielding aura, coating blades to unleash sword beams.
Most die within these three.
Experts are for the talented anyway.
Sub-stages exist, but key is what follows:
Strategic weapon beyond human.
Blade aura-clad, body transcending mortal limits—true superhuman.
Sword Master.
And rumored Mind Master, Grand Master.
Beyond? Unknown.
I barely knew swords—how could I distinguish?
Mind Masters are barely even rumored.
Others reach in a year what took me tens, hundreds times the effort.
Thus,
I piled effort and asceticism.
Rule one here:
Can't die.
Knowing that, I treated my body like a lab rat.
Tried every trick to sense aura.
Failure = death? Penalty nonexistent.
Deaths don't erase gains.
Through countless deaths and stitched efforts, I grew stronger bit by bit.
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After that, vast time passed.
Or rather, perceived time.
No master, so I self-taught every element, agonized, twisted, broke through.
Drew gains from past-life novel/movie memories too.
Process? Still much to say.
Humans endure countless trial-and-error.
If aura builds wrong—like a flawed foundation—what then?
Can you demolish without regret?
When lifespan limits you, demanding total sacrifice?