In this world, being weak is a crime.
From the moment you are born, your status is decided, and your life is set.
A life where you don’t even know your parents’ faces, and have to scavenge through garbage in back alleys.
The boy thought that was just the way things were.
He never wondered why he couldn’t wear clean clothes like other children, or why he never had a full meal like them.
Such thoughts were nothing but greed.
There were many children who died from being beaten to death after stealing because they couldn’t endure hunger, and many who simply starved.
The boy survived, somehow.
He didn’t know the reason. He just didn’t want to die in this filthy place.
With a dirty appearance, he searched for odd jobs, and was turned away again and again. But he met a kind person and found a job.
Of course, the world wasn’t so easy. The shopkeeper who seemed kind was a truly vicious employer.
The boy was abused, beaten mercilessly. The abuse didn’t last long.
He slit the owner’s throat while he slept.
He felt no revulsion at his first murder. Survival of the fittest. The boy knew this was the truth of the world.
He was dragged off for murder. But by a stroke of luck, he was conscripted into the army.
In the Kingdom, wars were frequent, and soldier training was harsh.
Still, to the boy, it was a decent life.
He could finally eat, and even receive proper pay.
Death always seemed to beckon from just ahead, but it wasn’t as dangerous as he thought. Even just moving as a cog in the machine, he could survive.
But that was only as long as the war was between humans.
One day, a war broke out against monsters, not humans.
The Demon King’s Army.
Ferocious Orcs led the vanguard, and an army of undying soldiers, unafraid of death, swept over the Kingdom.
The royal army, which seemed invincible, was annihilated. The solid defensive lines at the front crumbled, and everyone struggled to survive on their own.
The boy sensed his death approaching.
The battlefield, transformed into a vast dining table, was overrun by monsters. Behind the collapsing front, even the Fortress City began to fall.
The walls broke, the gates fell. Inside, a feast and banquet began for monsters alone.
For humanity, this seemed like the end. There was nothing that could stop the Demon King’s Army, which was moving to conquer the continent.
Or rather, that’s what everyone thought.
At that moment, something extraordinary happened.
The monsters, who had been slaughtering mercilessly, began to fall rapidly.
Barely a hundred Knights rescued the people in peril.
The boy watched the miracle in a daze.
At the front of the miracle-working Knights was a man wielding golden flames.
He led a small, elite force of Knights, slaughtering the monsters ruthlessly.
Wherever he went, a path opened.
The people who witnessed the miracle chanted the name of the Hero who descended upon the Kingdom.
The young Hero, covered in blood, received the cheers of the people with a somber expression.
The boy thought he understood why.
Though many had been saved, just as many had died.
The boy wanted to become like that young Hero. For the first time, he wanted to become something, for the first time, he longed for something.
The young Hero, with sorrowful eyes, opened his mouth.
“You crazy bastard.”
A harsh curse cut through the center of past and present.
The boy—no, the office worker—was deeply amused. He hadn’t seen wrong.
It was the Hero.
The Hero who had saved the continent, whose name was carved deeply in the hearts of all.
“Everywhere you go, you leave a damn mess like this.”
Anger rose in the Hero’s face. It seemed he was blaming what he had made.
He was overly sensitive about the deaths of people unrelated to himself. As if he had a mission to protect everyone.
“They have nothing to do with you.”
Now, the two stood inside the Seoul Station Dungeon, a place saturated with gruesome death. It could be called a massacre. But what was unusual was that quiet moans still came from here and there.
Sacrifice.
An act to rouse the appetite of a monster sleeping deep within.
Even if you could kill them, you didn’t. Not death in a moment or an instant, but so that the desperate desire to live and thick despair could rise and fester.
“I was thinking of collecting another bounty, but I’ve changed my mind.”
The Hero muttered softly and drew his sword from his Inventory.
“You need to die.”
The office worker felt his heart pound.
The Hero he thought was dead was right before his eyes. Within reach, if he stretched out his hand.
The shadows hiding in his embrace seemed to be screaming to burst out.
When I first came to the place that the Demon King bastard told me about, I doubted a Villain would really be here. But the office worker bastard truly is here.
Near Seoul Station, now like a land of death, people move around to mine Magic Stones.
Like zombies. Wearing tattered clothes, with sunken eyes, feeling around for Magic Stones that might have fallen on the ground—they don’t even seem human anymore.
Well, who in their right mind would live in a place filled with so much Magic?
What’s the government doing, leaving people to live in a place like this?
First, let’s solve the problem in front of me.
The Villain stands before me as if waiting.
But his expression is strange. I thought he’d charge in for revenge after getting beaten and thrown in prison last time.
Now that I think about it, the last Dungeon was a narrow cave. It was bad for him, and here he’s got the advantage.
‘Insight’
I activated the Legendary Skill I obtained from Magic.
Depending on the skill level, I can observe my opponent. At my current level, I can only read their emotions.
- Shadow Summoner Yoo Ji-tae
Status: Excitement, delight, joy
‘What is with this guy?’
At least I know how insane he is.
He’s delighted after breaking people apart like Lego toys.
There’s no value in letting someone like this live.
He must die.
“I have something to ask before I kill you.”
“Who? Me asking you? Or you asking me?”
This guy still hasn’t come to his senses after that beating. Is he feeling so bold because we’re in this open area?
Well, the previous Dungeon was a tight cave. It was bad for him, and here he’s got the advantage—
“How did you cross dimensions?”
I kept thinking about it the whole way here.
I just don’t get it.
It’s one thing for people from another world to appear as boss monsters in Dungeons, but for this guy to travel across dimensions so easily—makes no sense.
That too, in perfect condition.
Everything.
“The usual answer, but…”
The office worker opened his briefcase.
“If you win, I’ll tell you.”
He grinned from ear to ear and threw out a pile of black folders.
The black folders writhed in midair like living snakes.
I immediately activated Phantom Step.
Everything in my field of vision slowed in an instant.
I dodged the black folders flying at me, and at the same time, chose the closest option and closed in.
The office worker’s face showed surprise at my sudden approach. He snapped his fingers in the air.
I felt an ominous energy rise from beneath my feet.
Rapidly sprouting Shadow Vines.
I slashed away all the branches and, at the same time, drew a dagger and threw it.
He reached out to block my dagger. A dark shroud deflected it. As I closed the distance, I threw a second dagger.
He blocked it again and retreated.
Meanwhile, I closed in right to his face.
He lifted the corner of his mouth. As if he’d been waiting for this.
I pulled back a foot, bouncing away.
Crackle, hiss!
A dark Shadow Flame scorched the spot I’d just been.
“!”
The office worker flinched, as if he hadn’t expected me to dodge. The moment he reached toward me, my sword struck first.
Crack!
His HP Shield sparked as it met my blade.
One hit.
I dodged his Shadow Smoke, spun halfway, and slashed.
Second hit.
Without checking the result, I continued my assault.
Third hit.
Fourth hit.
Reciting my only attack skill, Soul Breaker, I struck the office worker.
His HP system shattered pitifully, collapsing.
Even his Shadow Barrier broke, and he tumbled across the ground.
“How is it? Looks like we finally have time to talk.”
At my words, the office worker cackled, laughing to himself.
Does he like eating dirt? What’s making him so happy?
“We’re not even close.”
“Get up first before you say that.”
“If you were the Hero, I would’ve been flattened with the first blow.”
What a lunatic.
“You’ve grown soft, lost your edge to peaceful living.”
“Oh, did I hit you too hard? Sorry, did you get your head knocked loose?”
As I spoke, I checked the people collapsed nearby.
A person looking up at me seemed to be suffering from a terrible fever, probably due to massive blood loss. The look in their eyes pleaded desperately for help, tears streaming down.
I immediately stored them in my Inventory. Just as I had done the first time I met the office worker in a Dungeon.
“Answer me honestly. How did you guys cross dimensions?”
“Do you want to go back to the other world?”
The office worker’s eyes curved into a smile as he asked. Go back to the other world? Is he nuts? I barely managed to return to modern civilization!
Would I find ramen there, or TV? No cars—just horses for transport. Well, I saw carriages running like taxis, but with two horsepower, they were painfully slow.
“That’s not it, right? You want to send your little Noble back, don’t you?”
He smiled slyly, hitting the mark.
Katrinne.
The place she belongs isn’t this modern world, but the one she originally lived in.
Her birthplace, her home. Not to mention the lordless people left floating in another world.
“You know quite a lot.”
“I do, of cou—argh!”
What are you so proud of, smiling like that?
I drove my knife through the back of his hand.
Blood gushed from the pierced hand like a volcano.
“You don’t need to say anything. We’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other.”
This guy knows a lot. I have no intention of tossing him back in jail for a bounty.
He doesn’t have to talk.
I’ll just wait until he wants to.
“Your Inventory skill. Do you think it’s just a simple Inventory?”
Suddenly, the office worker rambles nonsense.
“There’s no need to cross dimensions. Everything is beginning, as planned.”
“Yeah, I don’t have time to listen to your nonsense. Let’s play some Pokem—”
As I tried to store him in the Inventory, the office worker laughed darkly.
“It’s already too late.”
Even before he finished, the Dungeon began to shake.
“The people offered as Sacrifices are already dead.”
I tried to store the office worker in the Inventory and save the others.
It was as if he could read my mind.
- Shadow Summoner Yoo Ji-tae
Status: Excitement, delight, joy
Even after getting beaten to a pulp, his Status Window still looked like that. Only someone this abnormal would do such a thing.
The Dungeon, which had received Sacrifices, began to collapse. An ominous force surged from deep within.
They had summoned something.
“What did you want to call out by sacrificing them? Don’t tell me you’re trying to call your childhood pet or something?”
“You’ll find out soon. It’ll be good for you, too.”
“Uh-huh. Well, bye now.”
I channeled Magic into my sword.
As I swung it down—
A chilling murderous aura swept in on the wind. An eerie roar echoed all around.
Something that seemed to deny the existence of all life began to smash through the Dungeon, coming fast.
“Cough, kuh…! Let me tell you something….”
Blood dripped from the tip of my sword. The office worker, barely blocking my sword with shadow, had his throat nicked.
“Today, kuh. You didn’t come here for me—I invited you here. And…”
Even with a blade to his throat, there was no fear in his eyes. Rather, his face was filled with ecstasy.
“Now, everything in the direction of that monster will be destroyed.”
From the Dungeon’s entrance, something massive burst out, making it look narrow.
Scales as tough as shields.
Eyes with vertical pupils as big as a human.
A dragon without wings—a monster known as an Earth Dragon—had manifested here.
It opened its giant mouth and roared once more.
As if warning all living things of death.
“Hero.”
The office worker caught his breath, managing a smile.
“How much do you trust the Demon King?”
Even in the other world, this creature was called the strongest on earth—and now it began moving toward the human-made Concrete Jungle.