He didn't know whether his body had tilted and collided, or if the other person had bumped into him. His body was already losing sensation.
"Is this bastard fucking crazy?"
He heard rough profanity. That same voice from just before.
Machil? That was his first thought.
Thwack, thwack.
In an instant, three or four blows struck Sosam's abdomen.
"Urk!"
It hurt. It hurt like he was dying.
Only after tasting those fists did Sosam realize it wasn't Machil. Machil's fists couldn't be this sharp, as if they were tearing his belly apart.
Saliva dripped from his mouth, and tears burst forth from his eyes. Not from sadness. From pain. He'd thought he'd built up a tolerance to being beaten, but it hurt—it hurt far too much. The only consolation was that his vision, which had been blurred from the pain, was recovering somewhat.
"Huh... urk. Kuh... urk..."
Unable to breathe properly, he gasped and fell to his knees. Even in that state, he used all his strength to lift his head.
He saw a familiar face. He didn't really know the name, but it was one of the Danri Family's warriors.
Thwack. Another impact struck Sosam's face.
"S-spare..."
Sosam took a kick infused with internal energy and couldn't even finish asking to be spared.
'Why? Why? Why...? Why is this happening...? What did I do wrong?'
'Am I not even allowed to live like an insect, holding my breath?'
But the answer to his solitary thoughts was all too clear.
This situation was that answer, and the martial world had always been like this. It wasn't a world forgiving enough for lowly herbivorous insects like him to survive.
"What's this bastard mumbling about? Speak clearly, you horse-shit trash."
Along with the curses, endless kicks began.
Even so, Sosam no longer felt any pain. He was dying. He realized he now had one foot halfway into the Underworld.
It was unfair. He'd only wanted to survive somehow, but why was the world doing this to him? He couldn't understand it.
He wanted to kill Machil, who'd provided the catalyst for this whole affair. He wanted to kill this warrior bastard who was trampling him now. He wanted to kill all the Danri Family people who'd ignored, looked down on, and toyed with him.
Just.
He wanted to kill them all. He wanted to smash the world to pieces.
But,
The words that came from his mouth were different.
"...Sp...are... me..."
The words that flowed from his mouth could only be those.
Thwack.
That was the last word he uttered in this world.
Though it had been a hell-like world, he'd wanted to survive until the very end.
And so Sosam, owner of soul number 3789028376 from the 112th Dimensional Realm, who'd wanted so desperately to live, ended his wretched life.
And then....
***
Thunk.
"Kaaack!"
With a soulless scream, 'Street Thug Elite' died.
Dong Bong-su's spear didn't stop there. Each time he swung his spear, a street thug—whether Elite or Normal—laid their body on the ground. Naturally, no matter how many he killed, the number of street thugs didn't decrease. They regenerated as many as were eliminated. Not just him, but everyone else here was indiscriminately killing street thugs, yet the street thugs were regenerating infinitely.
And that wasn't all.
Despite using his body for so long, he wasn't even tired.
Though he'd barely been logged in, Dong Bong-su had already lost interest in 'Murim Online.'
'Is this what caused claims that the game's harmful effects increased murder cases?'
'Completely below expectations. I thought I'd found a new hunting ground…'
This wasn't a hunting ground but a playground.
The blood street thugs spilled when they died only resembled real blood in color.
It lacked the heat and moistness of real blood, and that uniquely stimulating stickiness. He couldn't feel any sensation. The heavy 'feel' that should register in his hands was completely absent. Even the faces of players killed by street thugs' counterattacks bore smiles.
Dying wasn't really dying. Killing wasn't really killing. The killing and dying here was mere play, not slaughter.
Most of all, what halved Dong Bong-su's interest was that there wasn't a single 'carnivore' here. The creatures here were either toys or herbivorous insects.
He hadn't placed much expectation in this 'Murim' virtual reality game to begin with. No matter how similar to reality they made it, how could it feel exactly like reality? Even so, this fell far too short of expectations. He'd thought it would at least be a fishing spot where he could feel that 'sensation' occasionally, if not a full hobby.
This wasn't it.
Dong Bong-su smashed the head of another street thug rushing at him and reached his conclusion.
This can't be a hobby at all. Of course, his level was still low, and he knew nothing about the game's mechanics, but continued leveling wouldn't change the texture of blood or make absent carnivores suddenly appear here, would it?
Fake was just fake; it could never become real.
Dong Bong-su turned without regret. Toward reality, which overflowed with real prey.
"Log out."
Dong Bong-su's low, precise voice.
Simultaneously, his game character disappeared from the virtual reality game Murim Online, and Dong Bong-su's consciousness also shut off.
In Korea. No, on Earth. No, in the dimensional realm containing Earth.
That moment.
Was the very moment Belteruk's soul grafting succeeded.
And so Dong Bong-su, owner of soul number 3789028376 from the 111th Dimensional Realm, 'logged in' to the 112th Dimensional Realm.
***
"Mmm..."
The moment Dong Bong-su regained consciousness, he felt extreme pain in his chest. It was so agonizing he could barely breathe. Not only that, but every bone in his body felt shattered and limp, and his muscles were screaming in pain like mad.
Even his eyes were so swollen they wouldn't open properly.
'What is this? Did the police finally catch me?'
Dong Bong-su assumed his past actions had finally been caught in the investigative net.
332 murders.
He'd thought it was perfect, but perhaps it wasn't.
Heh.
A light laugh escaped.
Yes, it was a dangerous hobby. He'd thought it would end someday, and it had concluded this way. He wasn't particularly regretful. After all, this hobby could be pursued anywhere as long as he didn't die. South Korea was effectively a country without the death penalty, wasn't it? Unless they created special legislation because of him, even if they sentenced a murderer to death, actual execution wouldn't be carried out.
Human rights nation South Korea was the ultimate hunting ground for predators like Dong Bong-su.
But setting all those issues aside...
Something was strange.
As he'd just thought, South Korea was a country where human rights were guaranteed. No matter how much someone had committed 332 murders, they couldn't torture or beat a criminal arbitrarily without trial. Even if they assaulted someone secretly to obtain information, they wouldn't do it this severely.
Judging from the sensations in his body, the injuries he currently had would require lying still for at least several months to barely recover. He might have died if things went slightly wrong.
Not for interrogation purposes, but beating an unconscious suspect to this degree?
Unless all his charges were proven, such actions would put enormous pressure on the police. The media and human rights activists would rise up, creating headaches for the police.
It would be welcome from Dong Bong-su's perspective, but unless the police were fools, they wouldn't handle things this way.
This...
'Isn't this too strange?'
Thinking that far, Dong Bong-su forced his eyes open. His swollen eyes felt piercing pain. They were so swollen he could only see about one-fifth of what he normally could. Blind spots were everywhere. What he could currently confirm with his eyes was only a very limited portion of his surroundings.
At least some dim moonlight was seeping in from somewhere, informing him it was evening. That light dazzled his eyes, but that fact suggested several things to Dong Bong-su.
'Moonlight.'
Naturally, this wasn't his room.
Because there was a window. All light in his room came from lamps.
Dong Bong-su carefully examined the environment where he lay.
Immediately came the creaking of his stiff neck.
It further restricted his already limited movement. Even so, he suppressed the neck pain and looked around, moving his eyeballs while minimizing neck movement. Though his barely-open eyes weren't functioning properly, that alone was sufficient.
The first thing that caught his eye were fairly large animals with long faces. He'd never seen them directly, but they were animals he'd encountered countless times through TV.
'A stable?'
Horses.
The terrible stench of horse dung and the animals' distinctive smell were vibrating through the air. Even if someone secretly brought horses to his room, such smells wouldn't permeate in just a day or two. This place had originally been a stable, and he had been moved here—that deduction was possible.
His eyes swept the surroundings even faster, and his brain began churning. Placed in an unpredictable situation, his instincts and intuition as a predator were fully activated without restraint.
In that moment.
Dong Bong-su's eyes caught something very strange... grotesque.
'This is!?'
Some semi-transparent text appeared overlaid on the horse's face. He turned his head. Then, while the horse's face stayed in place, the text followed his gaze.
After repeating this several times, Dong Bong-su grasped that the text was always positioned in the center of his vision. And he discovered that the text wasn't the commonly seen two-dimensional form but had a three-dimensional, stereoscopic shape.
'A holographic window?'
He'd seen something like that just recently.
The virtual reality game, Murim Online.
When he'd first logged in, a welcoming message had floated before his eyes in that format for quite a while.
[Welcome to Murim Online, the world of true powerhouses.]