Prologue

“Alright then… what kind of character should I create this time?”

He ran a hand through his messy hair and sat down in front of his computer.

After tapping away at the keyboard a few times, a familiar interface appeared on the monitor.

He entered his ID and password. The words WORLD ver. 3.0 flashed across the screen before fading away, revealing two figures.

One was a young man dozing with his head resting against a thick log

The other was a marksman holding a rifle that glowed with an eerie blue light.

A slightly worn gauntlet rested beside the sleeping young man, while a magic circle revolved above the rifle’s muzzle.

He let go of his mouse and fell into thought as he gazed at the young man and the marksman.

They were both characters he had personally created and raised.

The game WORLD was famous for being an open-world single-player RPG that continuously expanded its setting and timeline through regular updates.

Each time a major update was released, he would start over with a brand-new character.

Having thoroughly enjoyed version 1.0 and 2.0, he needed a fresh start for 3.0.

After only a brief moment of hesitation, he grabbed the mouse and clicked Create Character.

Truth be told, he had already decided what he wanted to make.

For his third character, he intended to create someone entirely specialized in magic. He wanted to experience the pure, raw satisfaction of magic that he had caught a glimpse of while playing his second character, a Magic Gunner.

The brilliant magic circles.

The overwhelming destructive power.

The sheer versatility that no other class or skill tree in WORLD could match.

Even within WORLD’s vast open world, magic remained one of the most attractive paths.

In fact, he’d become so obsessed with magic while playing the gunslinger that he’d invested far too heavily into spellcasting, turning a balanced build into the textbook definition of a ruined character.

Having learned firsthand that the line between being a jack-of-all-trades and being utterly useless was razor thin, he decided that this time he’d go all the way and create a pure mage.

If he invested every point of his starting talents into magic, there was no chance of ending up with another awkward hybrid build.

“Let’s get started.”

After making up his mind, he quickly customized the character’s appearance and age before moving on to the talent allocation screen.

Without hesitation, he dumped every single point of potential into magic-related attributes.

“Mana capacity… control… calculation ability… and I can’t forget mana affinity.”
After slamming all his initial allocation points into magic-related abilities, the completed character was almost comical.
Out of a maximum of thirty points, his magic-related stats hovered around 25 to 27, while his physical abilities barely reached 3 or 4. What he had created was practically a walking corpse.
The character’s sickly pale complexion and hospital gown probably weren’t his imagination.

Even then, he still wasn’t satisfied.

After staring at the screen for a while longer, he grabbed the mouse again.

He scrolled down to the Traits section and clicked the arrow to bring up the full list.

This section allowed players to grant their characters innate constitutions, talents, or special abilities. However, adding positive traits required a significant amount of stat points. Because of that, most players usually added one or two generally useful traits and moved on.

He, however, didn’t even glance at those traits and kept scrolling down.

After a while, useful traits like Martial Prodigy and Blue Blood disappeared, replaced by traits written in glaring red text.

Chronic Headache, Mana Depletion, Holy Power Rejection—all kinds of negative traits that imposed penalties on the character.

Someone unfamiliar with the game might easily mistake them for useless features meant only for concept builds.

With a serious expression, he began selecting various negative traits and adding them to his character.

“Scarecrow, Insomnia, Mana Addict, Life Draining Talent…and Ill-Fated Genius…”

It was an incomprehensible act: deliberately adding negative traits to a character he was going to play himself.

Surprisingly, however, every time he added one of the bright-red traits, the character points he had already spent began to increase.

It was the effect of WORLD’s unique Karma System, a mechanic that only activated during character creation.

The harsher the penalties placed upon the character, the greater the compensation the system provided.

Because of it, players weren’t limited by ordinary stat caps.

By accepting severe disadvantages, they could obtain talents and abilities that would normally be impossible.

He had never seriously taken advantage of the Karma System before.

But this time was different.

If he was going to commit to the concept of a pure mage, then he intended to see it through to the very end.

After piling countless penalties onto his character, he used every remaining ability point they granted to raise all magic-related stats to the maximum score of 30. Only then did he press the Complete Creation button with a satisfied expression.

Sure, the character had abysmal stamina by nature, suffered from insomnia, would develop withdrawal symptoms if he used mana for too long, had his lifespan cut in half because of his overwhelming talent, and creaked from head to toe every time he moved.

But so what?

It was only a game character.

For enjoying magic, there simply wasn’t a more perfect build.

“This is going to be fun.”

With talent on this level, no matter what spell he learned, it was bound to perform beyond expectations.

Just thinking about which spells to study first was enough to fill him with excitement.

After randomly generating the character’s name and background and finishing the final edits, the monitor faded to a black loading screen.

“…”

As he idly waited for the loading to finish, his gaze drifted to the bottom of the screen.

The loading tip displayed in the corner—meant to relieve players’ boredom—caught his eye for some reason.

[The first was chance.]

[The second was inevitability.]

[The third is destiny.]

[All three updates were recorded for this very moment.]

[Accept your destiny.]

“What the…”

The tone was remarkably aggressive for a loading screen tip.

The instant he muttered those words, the darkness flashed.

In a single moment, it swallowed everything inside the room.

Only after devouring every last trace of the life the man had lived did the darkness vanish, letting out a satisfied burp.

As if nothing had ever existed there in the first place, a thick layer of dust quietly settled over the empty room.
***
“Lennoch! Get up!”

Despite the deafening shout that shook his eardrums, he merely rubbed his unwilling eyes and rolled over.

It was an unconscious reaction, but the voice did not repeat itself.

Smack!

A powerful impact struck him, hard enough to make him feel as though his jaw might be torn off. He rolled off the bed, and his eyes snapped open.

A massive, burly man with a thick beard loomed over him, his bloodshot eyes glaring down with murderous intent.

Planting a heavy boot on his face, the man growled.

“It’s shift time. Get your ass to the parts assembly room. Right now. Understood?”

“…Understood.”

Even he was startled by how hoarse his own voice sounded.

After hearing his reply, the giant man strode out of the room. Only then did the young man regain enough composure to look around, one hand still clutching his stinging cheek.

The narrow room was crammed with basic cots and filth-stained sheets. About ten people stared at him with pitying, pathetic looks.

“Stupid bastard. Sleeping through the supervisor’s inspection…”

“Leave him be. You know he’s got one foot in the grave anyway. The supervisor knows it too, which is why he let him off with just a slap.”

“Yeah. If he’d beaten him any harder, the bastard might’ve actually died.”

After whispering amongst themselves, they sprang to their feet and disappeared, leaving him behind.

Still dazed by what he had heard, Lenoch slowly raised both hands and felt over his own body.

A scrawny body where he could feel every rib. Arms as thin as branches. Calves so emaciated that the veins stood out beneath the skin.

Below his head was the body of a sickly man who looked as though he could collapse at any moment—a body completely different from the one he had known his entire life.
…

Staggering to his feet, he made his way to a small mirror hanging in the corner of the musty room.

The young man in the cracked mirror looked far too similar to the third character he had created on his computer screen.

“Lennoch… that’s what they called me.”

A character he had created for no particular reason, with no value or meaning, simply to enjoy a game.

That worthless body, one he had not even bothered to give a proper name because it had been too much trouble, was now everything he had.

And so, Lennoch was thrown into a new world without even being able to utter a single complaint.