Psyco in Ancient World - I

Prologue

“The incident involving the disappearance of Mr. Noh, CEO of Daedo Trading, occurred on X day of X month, 20XX ……”

Dong Bong-su, as usual, was cleaning up after finishing his hobby.

The whooosh of running water, the whirring of the vacuum cleaner, and the scrape-scrape of sweeping didn’t last long. Lastly, he rolled up the special vinyl sheet he had spread across the floor to keep blood from soaking in, and tossed it into the trash.

Thud.

What remained was the result of his hobby, lying there all alone. Unlike the bodies he had handled until now, this one was enormous. Even so, Dong Bong-su effortlessly hoisted it onto his back and headed for the freezer.

Creeeak—

With an unpleasant noise, the large hinged door opened.

He went to the corner of the freezer and neatly arranged the still-warm corpse.

Inside, the earlier “veterans” were already lined up, leaning against the wall. Of course, though this one was a freshly arrived rookie for now, before long it too would become a veteran.

“The police are continuing to track down Mr. Noh’s whereabouts while also investigating the company funds he embezzled ……”

The news playing from his smartphone was about the fat man who had just become a new member of the freezer.

Why had Mr. Noh been targeted?

There was nothing special about it. Simply because this fat man was a carnivore.

Most humans are herbivores. Even when their territory is invaded, they laugh it off. Even when subjected to violence, if the other party is stronger, they endure it and move on. Endurance is their everyday state.

But carnivores actively hunt. They attack, kill, and devour their prey. When another competitor challenges them, they bite and tear until the opponent’s throat is crushed—just like lions or tigers that stand atop the living pyramid.

Dong Bong-su enjoyed killing those carnivores. As an apex predator himself, it was his sole reason for living, and his hobby.

“During the investigation, police discovered more than a dozen people bound with chains in the basement of Mr. Noh’s home. All of them were women, and at the time of discovery, their tongues had been cut out, rendering them unable to speak.… The National Forensic Service… confirmed that they were all girls who had gone missing several years ago……”

Rattle—bang.

With the freezer’s steel door closing, the cleanup was complete.

Still listening to the news streaming from his smartphone, Dong Bong-su leisurely exited the storage room.

“Next news. Claims have been raised that a recently developed virtual reality game has led to an increase in murder cases, drawing the attention of the academic community……”

As was typical of the news, once the report about the recently killed fat rookie, Mr. Noh, ended, a new story immediately followed.

“……”

Tap.

Dong Bong-su’s steps halted on the stairs.

The interview was being passed from the anchor to a reporter, and then from the reporter to an expert.

“Murim Online must immediately suspend its service or be patched so that its excessive synchronization with reality becomes impossible. By indiscriminately and vividly depicting scenes of bloodshed and the severing of limbs and heads, it stimulates murderous impulses in young students and immature adults. This has a very high likelihood of being linked to real murder cases……”

It wasn’t unusual for the news to inform him of new prey.

But—

“Murim Online, huh.”

Being told about an entirely new hunting ground was a first.

Dong Bong-su stood there for a long time, staring intently at his smartphone until the news ended. After it was over, he returned to his room and ordered a single item online.

“This should be fun.”

A Murim Online–exclusive capsule.

A new hunting ground.

***

Chapter 1. Reincarnation

Abandon all hope, ye who enter this gate.

***

The Soul Reaper Belteruk was bored.

It wasn’t that he had nothing to do—there was more work than he could handle. Even now, tasks were piled up like a mountain. He was merely indulging in a brief moment of leisure.

The primary duty of Soul Reapers was to collect the souls of those whose lifespans had ended.

Finding the dead, the dying, or those who must die, and severing the tether of the soul—that was their job.

He didn’t particularly dislike the work. It was simply the monotony of doing the same thing every day that bored him. Gods weren’t fundamentally different from humans. They felt most of the same emotions humans did. The only difference was that, depending on their duties, they might be unable to feel certain emotions, or feel others far more intensely.

The unique creator god or a perfect god that humans imagined?

That didn’t exist. Or perhaps it did in some world somewhere. But at least as far as Belteruk knew, no such being existed in this universe.

The difference between humans and gods—at least in Belteruk’s understanding—was merely lifespan and occupation. If one had to add something else, perhaps a difference in strength.

Even that wasn’t absolute. Occasionally, among humans, some trained to the point of encroaching upon the realm of the gods. Their lifespans could be enormous, and their power could rival that of deities. Collecting the souls of such beings wasn’t easy for Soul Reapers.

Generally, when that happened, the reapers would be plagued with headaches. In extreme cases, the entire underworld would be put on emergency alert.

‘Me?’

Belteruk shook his head, snapping himself out of his thoughts.

Like that motion, he was an exception. If only he could get rid of this eternal, snowfield-like boredom, he would actually welcome such incidents happening en masse.

But such events occurred once every tens of thousands of years, if at all.

‘Nothing like that will happen today either.’

As always, Belteruk took out the Reaper’s Register. The moment he faced the sea of text, a yawn spilled out. It really was unbearably dull.

Creeeak—

Still, he couldn’t neglect his duties as a Soul Reaper. Being annihilated for dereliction of duty would be far too absurd. Yawning widely, he stood up from his chair and glanced over the very top entry in the register.

3789028376.

The first reaper number. Today’s first customer.

Since he had previously collected a soul from the 110th-dimensional world, this one would definitely be from the 111th. Cycling through dimensions in order was a long-standing rule among Soul Reapers, taught by their predecessors to prevent them from being tainted by lingering too long in one dimension.

Ignoring the dimensional number, he checked the entry once more.

3789028376.

Belteruk stored the register in a divine subspace and pulled out his reaper-exclusive terminal. Made of black crystal, the palm-sized device was a powerful tool capable of connecting to countless dimensions.

Beep-beep—

With a few light movements of his fingers, the surrounding scenery changed in an instant. The gray mist and cold air of the underworld vanished, replaced by the warm, humid atmosphere unique to the 111th dimension. He had teleported directly from the underworld.

Belteruk manipulated the terminal again, searching for the location of soul number 3789028376.

Republic of Korea, Seoul Special City, Gangnam District, XX-dong, XX Villa.

He flew straight to the indicated location. Weaving between buildings dense with greedy emotions, he soon arrived. Though humans couldn’t see it, to a reaper’s eyes, murky smoke-like auras of desire and obsession rose from every building. This was especially intense in an area like Gangnam.

Today’s first customer lived in a neatly kept villa.

“Yaaawn—.”

Belteruk poked his drowsy eyes once with his reaper’s scythe. Letting the scythe’s chilling aura seep into them was his personal habit for driving away sleep.

Having shaken off his drowsiness, he entered the villa. The interior was just as clean as the exterior. Despite the villa’s size, there was no sign of any other soul’s presence—it seemed the owner lived alone.

He headed to the fifth floor, where the soul’s vibrations were strongest. Passing through the wall and entering, he saw the presumed owner of soul number 3789028376 sitting in a strangely shaped chair.

‘Another one of those, huh?’

Belteruk knew exactly what the sealed black chair was. It was a virtual reality game capsule.

He didn’t know how humans had developed such capabilities, but they had created a new dimensional realm known as virtual reality. Of course, it was a subordinate concept, distinct from true dimensions, but it was impressive nonetheless.

Virtual reality.

True to its name, it was a virtual world, meaning souls couldn’t truly belong to it. Even so, souls from true dimensions could enter and exit it via those capsules. Humans themselves weren’t aware of this, but Soul Reapers knew well that their souls were repeatedly passing through.

Because of that, some high-ranking reapers took the matter quite seriously.

It might still have the label of “virtual,” but if it continued to develop like this, could it not evolve into a genuine “realm” within a few dozen generations? Perhaps even within one or two?

…An absurd, overcautious worry.

Humans were variables that were difficult to control, but still.

‘That’s going too far.’

Snorting lightly as he dismissed the old high-ranking reapers’ concerns, Belteruk passed through the capsule wall and entered. Inside lay an utterly ordinary man, with an average face and build, wearing a headset for connecting to the virtual reality server.

Belteruk glanced at him once, then, without the slightest hesitation, raised his scythe high and severed the neck of the owner of soul number 3789028376.

There was no blood, nor was the physical neck actually cut.

A reaper’s scythe didn’t cut matter—it severed only the tether of the soul. To the eye, it seemed as though nothing had happened, but the body of soul number 3789028376 was already dead.

Chapter 2. No. 3789028376

In Belteruk’s eyes, the severed soul tether could be seen poking out from outside the virtual reality server-connection helmet, swaying as it dangled. Normally, the soul’s main body would’ve come out attached to that tether, but not this time.

That was because soul no. 3789028376 was currently inside the virtual reality world, enjoying a game. This was exactly why soul reapers could tell a soul was inside virtual reality without even logging in.

Virtual reality games were quite an annoying existence for soul reapers’ work. If someone died, they should be able to come out quickly so they could be taken away right then and there… but humans who died while still connected like that continued rampaging around inside the server, not even realizing they were dead. Like bugs with heads, thrashing for hours even though they had no consciousness.

In cases like this, soul reapers had no choice but to wait until the soul they were supposed to take to the underworld logged out.

Of course, a weirdo soul reaper like Belteruk didn’t have much complaint about it. Because what he had in excess was time—time that was all connected to the terrible thing called boredom.

Belteruk found this virtual reality business a bit of a nuisance, but in some ways he was actually grateful for it. Because it let him kill, even if only a little, the dull and endlessly long time he’d been given.

Ssshk.

Belteruk, who had tucked his reaper’s scythe back into his chest, swept his gaze through the room. This was him examining what kind of human the soul of no. 3789028376 had been while waiting for it to come out. He wasn’t doing it out of interest in soul no. 3789028376. It was just a habit he’d picked up over an immeasurably long time, like a reflex. It had no meaning.

The room clearly showed the personality of the owner of soul no. 3789028376.

A sparse set of basic furniture and electronics. A desk and a bookshelf placed on top of it. A few books stuck into it and a bed. Also a small trash can beside it, and finally, the virtual reality capsule where the body of soul no. 3789028376 lay. Everything was so clean it looked newly bought, without a speck of dust.

Clean freak.

Soul no. 3789028376 seemed like a perfectionist who didn’t allow even the tiniest dust mote in their space. Belteruk had seen plenty of people like that, but a case this severe was rare.

‘Obsessive compulsive cleanliness? Or else…’

Belteruk’s piercing vision went past the room and stabbed into the living room and even the bathroom. Just like this room, it was hard to find even a single speck of dust. But that wasn’t what Belteruk had been expecting.

Sniff, sniff.

What stimulated his senses wasn’t his eyes, but his nose. From somewhere, he caught a familiar yet peculiar smell. Acrid, yet a unique fragrance that pleased the noses of soul reapers—blood, and the stench of rotting corpses. It was so faint that even a soul reaper like him could barely notice it. Only now, with his nerves sharpened, could he properly feel it. That was probably why he hadn’t sensed it when he first entered the villa.

Belteruk’s nostrils flared. He was tracking the source of the smell. It was rising from below.

He lowered his head.

Even as his naturally downward gaze passed through the floor of the 5th level, the 4th, the 3rd, the 2nd, the 1st, he couldn’t find the source. Belteruk’s pitch-black eyes turned white. It was a phenomenon that appeared when he pushed his piercing vision to the limit.

Soon, he detected a secret space underground.

‘Hm!?’

There were no corpses there either. His field of vision sank further down. Only after passing three more such hidden spaces did he finally find the source of the smell.

This customer really is a meticulous bastard.

“Kekeke.”

Belteruk grumbled low. The reason was that he’d confirmed the owner of soul no. 3789028376 was the kind of human who created extra work for soul reapers. He didn’t know what the man’s job was, but his “hobby” seemed closely tied to soul reapers’ work.

In a communal cavity hidden deep underground, the corpses of humans—dozens, or hundreds, hard to tell at a glance—were sleeping inside an enormous freezer. Judging by the fact that there were fresh bodies that weren’t fully frozen yet, the owner of soul no. 3789028376 had clearly enjoyed his hobby just a few days ago—maybe yesterday, maybe even today.

This planet called Earth in the 111th dimensional world had always been more brutal than other places. Recently, it has grown a little more distant from soul reapers, but essence doesn’t change so easily. Before the academic field humans called science developed this far, scenes like that could be found easily anywhere on this planet. Of course, when war broke out, things even worse than this happened all the time.

So to soul reaper Belteruk, this wasn’t anything special. The reason he found it interesting lay somewhere completely different.

A corpse carries the color of the killer’s soul and their killing intent. Even if the corpse is already an empty vessel with its soul gone.

From the corpses in that underground freezer, he felt purity. There wasn’t a trace of killing intent. How should he describe that purity?

Pure murderous madness. That was probably the right way to put it.

A soul with that kind of sensibility—something hard to encounter anymore in the 111th dimensional world of today, which emphasized human rights and civilization—was exactly soul no. 3789028376. Not nonexistent, but rare.

It was because Belteruk hadn’t come across a soul like this in a long time that a smile formed at the corner of his mouth.

“A pure killer starving for blood. In Earth’s words… a psychopath, was it?”

That was Belteruk’s assessment of soul no. 3789028376 of the 111th dimensional world. At that level, wouldn’t it be hard for him to come back out of the Eight Hells before being properly purified? Maybe he could rot in the Eight Hells for ten million years. If he was unlucky, the soul might even be annihilated before those ten million years passed…

Of course, that wasn’t Belteruk’s problem.

After confirming that far, Belteruk completely lost interest in soul no. 3789028376. Whether 3789028376 was the worst murderer in cosmic history or not had nothing to do with him. As a soul reaper, his job ended once he escorted that soul to the underworld. Whether soul reaper Yama turned that soul into a rag or erased it from existence wasn’t within Belteruk’s jurisdiction.

It was just when Belteruk was about to scratch his eyes with his scythe again out of boredom.

The reaper device let out a beeping chime—an alarm. It meant the time had come to collect the soul, so he should hurry up and do his job.

Belteruk didn’t think much of it since he was already done and waiting, but to double-check anyway, he took out the reaper registry and opened it. Just like before, he yawned as he checked the target soul number.

3789028376.

It matched.

“No problems.”

Just as he relaxed—

“Hm!? This is…?”

He found the problem! A fatal one!

The dimensional world number written under the soul number wasn’t 111th, but 112th! This customer wasn’t the 3789028376 soul of the 111th dimensional world, but the 3789028376 soul of the 112th dimensional world.

Something impossible had happened.

It was a simple mistake, but in the world of soul reapers, mistakes were often directly connected to annihilation. If soul reaper Yama found out about this, it would be the end. If he was unlucky, the pain of ten million years in the Eight Hells he’d mentioned earlier might not be for that soul, but for him instead. And of course, the outcome would, nine times out of ten, be annihilation.

Belteruk’s mind spun rapidly. He’d performed reaper duties for tens of millions of years. He’d never made a single mistake. He’d trusted that too much—so today, it finally exploded in his face.

‘Because of this one error, I can’t lose everything I suffered through for tens of millions of years! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it…! Ah!’

At some point, as he silently spat out damn it over and over in his mind, he recalled “that incident” that had shaken the underworld hundreds of millions of years ago.

‘Soul grafting.’

A grotesque case where a deranged soul reaper tried to artificially create soul conjoined twins. That reaper conducted an experiment to see whether it was possible to put two souls into one body. The method was very simple: attach the severed soul tether onto the tether of another living soul and solder it together. It was an unforgivable sin that blatantly violated the rules of reaper service.

Every action a soul reaper took was tied to the order of the dimensional worlds. And he’d done that to a soul that was supposed to be alive, so the ending was obvious. In the end, the reaper was discovered and annihilated.

Whether the experiment succeeded or failed, and what happened to the dimensional worlds because of it, was never revealed. Soul reaper Yama had imposed a gag order on everyone involved.

One thing, though.

Among soul reapers, the belief that it was probably possible had carried weight—enough that there were still soul reapers who told the story whenever they were bored.

So then.

‘Would it work?’

What if he tried it right now? What would happen?

He saw the soul tether dangling outside the virtual reality capsule. There was still time. 3789028376 still hadn’t logged out.

If, in this situation, that soul logged out—

Belteruk would be annihilated. But if he attempted soul grafting, he might gain a chance to cover up his mistake. After grafting the 111th dimensional world’s soul no. 3789028376 onto the body that should’ve died—soul no. 3789028376 of the 112th dimensional world—and then severing only the tether of the 112th dimensional world’s soul no. 3789028376 and guiding it to the underworld, all the dimensional worlds would proceed exactly as originally planned! If it worked like that, no one would ever learn of his mistake!

Even if a soul from the 111th dimensional world ended up going to the 112th dimensional world, the total quantity of souls in the underworld would be preserved. With that, Belteruk could at least breathe easier.

It didn’t take long to decide. Belteruk grabbed the tip of the tether of the 111th dimensional world’s soul no. 3789028376. Then, without even a moment of hesitation, he pulled out the reaper device.

Beep-beep—.

On the device, the reaper number 112th lit up. With a light vibration, Belteruk vanished from the spot.

It was the moment soul grafting was realized for the first time in hundreds of millions of years.

Chapter 3. Horse Stable Hireling Sosam

Hireling.

It referred to someone who, unable to keep themselves fed, had no choice but to live off another household and take orders under an employer.

Simply put, a hired hand.

A hireling and an employer were bound by contract, but most contracts were either useless—or became the start of a shackle instead.

That was because the contract wasn’t managed by the authorities; it was managed by the employer.

The employer could tear up the contract and write a new one whenever it suited them.

In particular, hirelings who belonged to murim sects were closer to slaves than servants.

Under the principle of “officials and murim do not interfere”, the authorities, unless something special happened, showed no interest in the hireling of murim sects.

They knew those people were being exploited, but by then it was no longer considered the authorities’ domain.

***

Sosam was the Danri Family’s horse stable hireling.

He had originally been the third son of a slashingly poor hillside farmer.

Life wasn’t abundant, but those were happy days.

Then one day, when he was five, a typhoon struck—his entire family died, and he alone survived.

After that, without a retainer household, Sosam lived by wandering and begging.

Then, for the single reason that he knocked on the Danri Family’s gate to beg, he became the Danri Family’s hireling.

And so, for more than ten years, he had done the work of tending the family’s horses.

Needless to say, as a servant, he was also saddled with all the nasty work inside the household.

Not only cleaning the estate—sometimes he had to do kitchen grunt work, and at times he even had to clean the toilet.

He was called a horse stable hireling, but the only times Sosam could feel he truly was one were when he took the horses for walks morning and evening, and when he slept.

His bed was the stable.

Living in the stable, his body naturally absorbed the horses’ stench—the rank animal smell, the rot of old hay, and the stink of manure.

On top of his low status, that reek made even other lowborn people shun him.

For those reasons, people in the household called him not by his real name, Sosam, but Mabyeonsam.

“Ma” from horse stable hireling, “byeon” because he smelled like horse dung, and “sam” from Sosam’s sam.

Twist those three together, and you got Mabyeonsam.

To Sosam—no, to Mabyeonsam—the Danri Family was home, but on the other hand, it was also Fengdu Prison.

***

As usual, Mabyeonsam was enduring another grueling day today.

One of the military hirelings, Machil, had drafted Mabyeonsam for his own personal errands and worked him like a dog—and it was possible because it happened often and nobody paid Mabyeonsam any attention.

Mabyeonsam was at the very bottom, even among the bottom-tier hirelings.

The two of them had come to a weapons shop in Bongyang to receive the made-to-order weapons commissioned for the Danri Family’s warriors.

“Machil, you came?”

The shop owner came out and greeted Machil first.

Because the Danri Family was the biggest sect in Bongyang, no matter where you went in Bongyang, they were the top customer at any weapons shop.

Naturally, this shop owner also supplied many weapons to the Danri Family, and he was on familiar terms with Machil, a military hireling of the Danri Family.

“We’re here to pick up everything from the spear-and-sword lot we ordered a month ago.”

“Ah, you came at just the right time. For a whole month I couldn’t even sleep properly—only yesterday did I finally finish them.”

The weapons shop owner complained in the way merchants always did, and brought out the finished goods.

There were so many that only after going back and forth to the storeroom several times did he manage to pile all the weapons in front of Machil.

Machil gave them a quick once-over and paid the fee.

Since he wasn’t going to use them himself, as long as they looked fine on the outside, he didn’t care.

“But only the two of you came? I don’t see a cart—will you be alright carrying all this back to the Danri Family? It’s quite far.”

“What’s there to worry about? Look, we’ve got a splendid horse right here.”

Machil curled his lips into a grin and slammed a fist hard into the chest of Mabyeonsam standing beside him.

Thud—.

Mabyeonsam, gaunt and nothing but bone, crumpled helplessly onto the weapons shop floor from Machil’s punch.

Even though he’d watched it happen right in front of him, the shop owner merely shook his head and turned away.

No matter what he said, nobody would listen—and it was an internal matter of the Danri Family.

In Bongyang, there was no one who didn’t know Mabyeonsam’s situation, but no one stepped forward for him.

People like him existed anywhere in the Central Plains.

“Hey, Mabyeonsam. What are you doing? Get up right now and start moving the weapons. Unless you want to die like that.”

“..........”

Without a single groan, Mabyeonsam got up and shouldered as many weapons as he could carry.

At this rate, he would probably spend the whole day just hauling these into the household.

“I’ve got business at the Bongyang Inn, so I’ll be there. When you’re done moving everything, come there. Got it?”

“...........”

Mabyeonsam only nodded without answering.

His nutrition was so poor that even speaking was something he tried to conserve, in its own way.

But not answering wasn’t a good survival tactic.

Thwack.

Machil punched Mabyeonsam in the face.

Mabyeonsam fell to the floor again.

A faint smear of blood appeared at his mouth—his lip had split.

“Hey, you bastard. Answer me. Answer. You think you can ignore me because we’re both Ma surname?”

“N-no, sir ……”

Only then did Mabyeonsam finally speak.

Like his shriveled body, his voice was bone-dry and poor as sand, and as he spoke, blood trickled out of his mouth.

It wasn’t just his lip—his tongue and the roof of his mouth had also been torn badly.

Thwack.

Seeing Mabyeonsam bleeding, Machil kicked him in the face again.

This time the impact was worse—Mabyeonsam rolled and rolled until he crashed into the corner of the shop.

Even with barely any strength, he lifted his head with everything he had and stared at Machil.

The whites of his eyes were webbed with burst vessels, and his bloodshot gaze said this:

Why? Why? Why ……?

“Ah, because of that damn bastard, blood splattered all over the weapons. What rotten luck. Useless piece of trash—no matter what you do, you’re no help.”

Just for that ……?

Mabyeonsam—no, Sosam—was truly miserable.

Living day to day was so hard, and he wanted nothing more than to die.

But even mustering the courage to die wasn’t easy.

Every time he tried, fear made him give up.

Each time, he would tell himself: with the courage it takes to die, try living hard one more time……

But before long, he’d want to die again.

After repeating that cycle so many times, even the will to keep living had mostly run out.

Unable to die, and yet unable to live,

Sosam hated himself for being such a coward, neither one thing nor the other.

Feeling along the wall, he barely managed to push himself upright.

Stagger, stagger.

Even while tottering, he approached Machil.

Tap tap—Machil lightly poked Sosam’s forehead with a finger.

Then came the sneering tone.

“Move all the weapons, and wipe every last drop of that splattered blood clean. I’ll check later—if there’s even one drop left, you’d better be ready to cough up a bucket of blood from your mouth for every single drop. Got it?”

“Yes ……”

With that threat, Machil left the weapons shop.

As he’d said, he was heading to the Bongyang Inn.

Sosam knew well why Machil was going there.

Nine times out of ten, he was going to see Aeng-aeng.

Machil would spend the time there fondling Aeng-aeng’s soft flesh until Sosam finished hauling all the weapons.

Wipe, wipe.

With a scrap of old cloth the shop owner handed him, Sosam wiped the blood at his mouth.

It was the only help the shop owner could offer.

It was nothing, really—but Sosam’s eyes stung with tears.

Inside the Danri Family, there wasn’t even anyone who would do this much for him.

He was nothing but the most useless, foul-smelling hireling in the household—worse than a bug.

He handed the bloodstained cloth scrap back to the shop owner and thanked him.

Then, shouldering two spears with great effort, he left the weapons shop.

***

Huff, huff.

Ragged breaths poured out.

Drip, drip.

Hot sweat kept streaming down without pause.

Near evening, Sosam—completely spent—finally finished moving all the weapons.

Seeing him like that, the shop owner said,

“How about you rest a bit? Your face doesn’t look good. Like you’re…….”

The shop owner swallowed the rest—like someone about to die.

He felt that saying something unlucky might make it come true.

“I’m fine ……”

Sosam said that and moved again.

Every bone in his body creaked, and his muscles screamed for him to rest, but he had to keep moving.

Leaving the shop owner’s pitiful gaze behind, Sosam stepped out of the weapons shop.

Even while wobbling as if he might die, he trudged, one step at a time, toward the Bongyang Inn.

Maybe because he’d pushed himself too hard, his breathing was turning rough, like it might cut out, and sweat poured down in streams.

If he pushed even a little more in this state, it felt like he might truly die.

Even so, somehow he didn’t collapse, and he managed to reach the Bongyang Inn.

“Stop.”

“Why…… are you stopping me?”

“Why? You fucking idiot—if you were me, would you let something like you in there?”

“...........”

The inn’s attendant looked Sosam’s filthy body up and down, pinched his nose between two fingers, and refused him entry.

He’d always been dirty, but right now Sosam’s state was truly beyond words.

The blood he’d spilled from Machil’s beating earlier and the sweat from hauling weapons had mixed with grime and sweat-stain runoff until he looked like a complete vagrant.

In the end, he asked the attendant to tell Machil that the job was done, then turned away.

It was obvious Machil would later grill him—why didn’t you tell me yourself, why did you make the attendant do it?

But Sosam had no choice.

If he didn’t hurry back and rest, it felt like his breath would truly stop.

“……It’s hard. I just…… want to rest………”

His heart was running toward the Danri Family stable—shabby, but his own nest—

but his body wouldn’t listen.

He was so exhausted he wanted to lie down right on the road.

At this point, it felt like if he collapsed from exhaustion and died, it might even be a relief.

Damn it, damn it.

Yet despite those thoughts, maybe he still wanted to live.

Even more unsteadily than before, his two feet carried him across Bongyang’s bustling streets, dyed red by the setting sun, toward the household.

Heh…… ha, ha.

A twisted laugh leaked out between his split lips without him meaning to.

Sosam… Sosam… do you want to keep dragging out a bug’s life like this, even if it’s only like this?

He asked himself again and again.

“Yeah…… yes. Even like this…….”

I don’t want to die.

Let’s live. Yeah, let’s live.

If you live long enough, someday a good day will come.

“Hey, Mabyeonsam.”

He was dying of exhaustion, and someone called him.

Sosam forced open his heavy-lidding eyes to find the owner of the voice.

His vision was blurry, so it wasn’t easy to tell who it was, but he still lifted his head fully.

Bump.

He felt himself collide with someone he thought was the owner of the voice.

Chapter 4. Log Out

He didn’t know whether he’d collided because his body tilted, or whether someone had slammed into him from the other side. Sensation was already leaving his body.

“Has this bastard lost his mind?”

A rough curse rang out. It was that voice from a moment ago. Machil? That was what he thought at first.

Thud, thud-thud.

In an instant, three or four blows landed on Sosam’s abdomen.

“Ugh!”

It hurt. It hurt like he was dying.

Only after tasting the fist did Sosam realize it wasn’t Machil. Machil’s punches couldn’t be this vicious—like his gut was about to split open.

Drool streamed from his mouth, and tears burst from his eyes. Not because he was sad. Because it hurt.

He’d thought he was used to getting beaten by now, but this was too painful—way too painful.

If there was any silver lining, it was that the blurred vision from the pain was recovering, if only a little.

“Huh ...... ngh. Keo-eo ...... ngh ... ”

He couldn’t breathe properly, so he panted and dropped to his knees. Even like that, he lifted his head with all the strength he had.

An unfamiliar-yet-familiar face came into view. He didn’t know the name, but it was one of the warriors of the Danri Family.

Thud. Another impact crashed into Sosam’s face.

“S-spare……..”

A kick infused with internal energy struck him, and Sosam couldn’t even finish the words “spare me.”

Why? Why? Why......? Why the hell are you doing this......? What did I do wrong?

Am I not even allowed to live like a bug, holding my breath and keeping my head down?

But the answer in his head was painfully clear.

This situation was the answer, and Murim was originally that kind of place. It wasn’t a world gentle enough for a bottom-feeding herbivorous insect like him to survive.

“What the hell is this bastard babbling about? Speak clearly, you horse-shit trash.”

With the curse came endless kicks.

And yet Sosam couldn’t feel any pain anymore. He was dying. He even realized he had one foot halfway into the underworld.

It was unfair. He’d only wanted to live somehow, any way he could, but he couldn’t understand why the world was doing this to him.

He wanted to kill Machil, the one who’d provided the spark that led to all this. He wanted to kill the warrior bastard stomping on him right now. He wanted to kill every single person from the Danri Family who had ignored him, looked down on him, and toyed with him.

Just.

He wanted to kill them all. He wanted to smash the world to pieces.

But.

The words that came out of his mouth were different.

“............ Sp ...... are ...... me ....... ”

What spilled from his mouth could only be that, after all.

Thud.

Those were the last words he spoke in this world.

Even though it was a hellish world, he wanted to survive to the very end.

And so Sosam—the owner of soul number 3789028376 in the 112th dimensional world—brought his wretched life to an end.

And………..

***

Thunk.

With a soulless scream, the “Neighborhood Thug—Elite” died.

Dong Bong-su’s spear didn’t stop there. Every time he swung it once, a neighborhood thug—whether elite or normal—fell and lay on the ground. Of course, no matter how many he killed, the number of neighborhood thugs didn’t decrease. As many as fell, that many spawned again. Not only him, but other people here were also slaughtering the neighborhood thugs indiscriminately, yet the neighborhood thugs were regenerating infinitely.

And that wasn’t all.

He’d been using his body for so long, yet he wasn’t even getting tired.

He hadn’t even been logged in for that long, but Dong Bong-su had already lost interest in “Murim Online.”

Is this really the kind of game that people claim has increased murders as a side effect?

Completely below expectations. I thought I’d found a new hunting ground ………

This wasn’t a hunting ground. It was a playground.

The blood the Neighborhood Thugs spilled was only similar to real blood in color. It didn’t have the same heat and moistness as real blood, nor that unique, stimulating stickiness. He couldn’t feel anything at all.

There was no heavy “hand-feel” on his hands—none of it. Players who got counterattacked by the neighborhood thugs and died even had smiles on their faces.

Dying wasn’t truly dying. Killing wasn’t truly killing. In this place, killing and being killed was nothing more than a prank, not slaughter.

More than anything, what dulled Dong Bong-su’s interest was the fact that there wasn’t a single “carnivore” here. The animals here were either toys, or else herbivorous insects.

He hadn’t placed huge expectations on this virtual reality game called “Murim” from the very start. No matter how similar they made it to reality, how could it possibly have the same hand-feel as reality?

Even so, this was far below what he’d expected.

Even if it wasn’t a hobby, he’d thought it might at least be like a fishing spot where he could occasionally feel that “hand-feel.”

But this wasn’t it.

After crushing the head of yet another neighborhood thug charging at him, Dong Bong-su reached a conclusion.

This can’t become a hobby at all. Of course, his level was still low, and he didn’t know anything about the rules of the game yet—but even if he kept leveling up, would the texture of blood really change, and would carnivores that don’t exist now suddenly appear here?

A fake was only a fake. It couldn’t become real.

Dong Bong-su turned away without hesitation. Back to reality, overflowing with real prey.

“Log out.”

Dong Bong-su’s low, precise voice.

At the same time, his game character vanished from the virtual reality game Murim, and Dong Bong-su’s consciousness also shut off.

In Korea. No, on Earth. No—within the dimensional world that Earth belonged to.

That moment.

It was the exact moment Belteruk’s soul grafting succeeded.

And so Dong Bong-su, the owner of soul number 3789028376 in the 111th dimensional world, “logged in” to the 112th dimensional world.

***

“Mmm………..”

The instant he regained consciousness, Dong Bong-su felt extreme pain in his chest. It was so painful he could barely breathe.

Not only that—every bone in his body felt like it had shattered, leaving him limp, and his muscles were screaming like they were about to die.

Even his eyes were swollen, barely able to open.

‘What is this? Did the police finally catch me?’

Dong Bong-su thought his past deeds had finally been caught in the net.

332 murders.

He’d thought it was perfect, but maybe it hadn’t been perfect after all.

Heh.

A light chuckle escaped.

Yeah, it really was a dangerous hobby. He’d thought it would end someday, but it ended like this. He didn’t regret it that much. As long as he didn’t die, he could do this hobby anywhere.

Isn’t the Republic of Korea basically a country without the death penalty? Unless they made some special law because of him, even if they demanded a death sentence for a murderer, it wouldn’t actually be carried out.

A human-rights nation, South Korea was the best hunting ground for a predator like Dong Bong-su.

But even setting all that aside……..

Something was off.

Just as he’d thought, South Korea was a country where human rights were guaranteed. No matter how many as 332 people someone had murdered, they couldn’t torture or beat a criminal recklessly without a trial.

Even if they secretly assaulted him to get information, they wouldn’t do it this severely.

Judging from the sensations in his body, the injuries he had would take at least several months of lying completely still just to maybe recover. If things had gone slightly wrong, he might have died.

Not for interrogation, and they beat an unconscious suspect to this extent?

If all of Dong Bong-su’s charges weren’t proven, this would become enormous pressure on the police. If the media and human-rights zealots raised a stink, the ones getting a headache would be the police.

From Dong Bong-su’s perspective, it would’ve been welcome—but unless the police were idiots, there was no way they’d handle things like this.

This ………..

Isn’t this far too strange?

Thinking that far, Dong Bong-su forced his eyes open. A stabbing pain shot through his swollen eyes. They were so swollen that he could only see about one-fifth of what he normally could. Everything around him was a dead angle.

All he could confirm was a very limited part of the surroundings.

Still, faint moonlight seeped in from somewhere, telling him it was evening. The light was blinding, but the fact itself suggested several things to Dong Bong-su.

‘Moonlight.’

Naturally, this wasn’t his room.

Because there was a window. Every light in his room came from lamps.

Dong Bong-su slowly examined the environment where he was lying.

A clattering, creaking neck.

It restricted his already-limited movement even further. Still, he endured the pain and, using his neck as little as possible, rolled his eyes to look around.

Because he could only squint, they weren’t doing their job properly—but it was enough.

The first thing that caught his eye was a set of fairly large animals with long faces. He’d never seen them in person, but he’d seen them countless times on TV.

‘A stable?’

They were horses.

A stifling stench of horse manure and the animal’s own rank odor filled the air. Even if someone secretly brought horses into his room, that smell wouldn’t soak in within a day or two.

This place had originally been a stable, and it was reasonable to assume he’d been moved here.

His eyes swept faster across the scene, and his brain began to writhe. Thrown into an unpredictable situation, his predator’s instincts and intuition were being unleashed without restraint.

And then.

Something incredibly strange ...... grotesque came into Dong Bong-su’s sight.

‘This is!?’

Some translucent letters overlapped the horse’s face. He turned his head. The horse’s face stayed where it was, but the letters followed his gaze.

After repeating that a few times, Dong Bong-su realized the letters were always within his field of view—right in the center.

And he also realized they weren’t the flat, two-dimensional look you’d normally see. They had a three-dimensional, solid form.

‘A hologram window?’

He’d seen something like that just recently.

The virtual reality game, Murim Online.

When he first connected, the welcome message had floated in front of his eyes in that exact form for a long time.

[Welcome to Murim Online, the world of true strong ones.]

Chapter 5. Conception

Could it be that I still hadn’t logged out?

That question flashed through my mind, but it vanished far faster than it had appeared.

This agonizing pain surging through my whole body?

It was a vividness I could never feel inside a game. If sensations like this could be implemented in-game…… Dong Bong-su would never have logged out in the first place. He’d probably still be hunting even now.

He forced his eyes to focus harder to check the hologram letters. With that, the swollen corner of his eye split and blood trickled down. Still, only the pain increased—his vision didn’t improve at all.

‘Then.’

If my eyesight won’t cooperate, I just need to increase the light.

Dong Bong-su turned his gaze toward the window where moonlight poured in. A brilliant full moon came into view and lit his eyes, and the contents of the translucent hologram window stamped a decisive period on this unreal situation.

[The device has malfunctioned abnormally, causing logout to fail. Would you like to attempt disconnection once more? Yes or No]

A device error?

Dong Bong-su was puzzled. This scene that felt so real, the intensely stimulating smell—were all these sensations that tightened around his whole body, sending tingles through it, really just the result of a machine’s error?

He couldn’t understand it.

I should confirm it.

Dong Bong-su raised his hand without hesitation and thrust it into the hologram.

Beep -.

He saw the ‘No’ button warp, and the operator’s flat, emotionless voice carved itself into his brain.

Vrrrrr.

– You have selected ‘No.’ Then, we will return you to Murim Online. One, two, three………

The crackling mechanical noise slammed into Dong Bong-su’s head. At the same time, it felt as if his brain were being torn apart, and he slowly began to lose consciousness.

In his fading awareness, the Murim Online operator’s emotionless voice rang out.

– Then we wish you a pleasant time with Murim Online………

***

Machil hadn’t been in a good mood these past few days—more precisely, for the last two weeks. In crude terms, it was enough to make him go crazy and start jumping off the walls.

He was already busy enough with armory drudgework, and on top of that he’d been saddled with an annoying chore, so how could he not be?

Even now, he was carrying Sosam’s breakfast porridge to the stables.

“Ah, in this big Danri Family, am I the only one who can clean up that bastard’s shit? Why do I always have to do this fucking dogshit work?”

Two weeks ago, on the day Sosam went with him to the weapon shop to pick up equipment, Sosam made a mistake and got seriously injured.

Once the job was done, he should’ve just gone home like a good boy, but no—he wandered around the busy streets in the evening and ended up getting into trouble.

According to something Machil heard from one of the bystanders back then, Sosam suddenly blocked the path of Paeng Do-ryang. Paeng Do-ryang was the bodyguard of Danri Hee, the second daughter of the Danri Family Head. Danri Hee was such a hellion that even the clan lord, Danri Cheon-u, could barely rein her in. If you blocked her bodyguard’s way, you ought to count it a miracle Sosam was still alive.

While Sosam was getting beaten to a pulp by Paeng Do-ryang, Machil was at Bongyang Inn, getting an eyeful—no, a mouthful—of that buzzing bitch’s naked flesh. He’d vented his pent-up lust and, feeling satisfied, was returning to the clan when he found Sosam collapsed in a pool of blood.

He slung him over his back and carried him back.

When he first dumped him in the stable, Machil thought Sosam was dead. In a moment of panic, Machil had simply left him there and walked out.

But when he went to the stable the next day, Sosam was awake.

That’s when Machil thought: This bastard’s really stubborn—disgustingly so. To come back to his senses in just one day, in that state.

But for Machil, that turned out to be bad news.

“If that little shit Mabyeonsam had just died, it would’ve been way better. Fuck.”

Because Sosam was clinging to that pathetic life, Machil was stuck taking over his work until the guy fully recovered.

It only took a few days to find a new Horse Stable Hireling. But looking at the state Sosam was in now, it seemed like it would take at least another month before he’d recover.

Worse, that incident had turned Sosam into an idiot. Not only could he not speak, his memory didn’t seem intact either. When he woke up sometimes and Machil tried talking to him, Sosam didn’t recognize him at all and said nothing. Machil checked, thinking maybe something was wrong with his tongue, but there was nothing abnormal.

Maybe the shock had given him aphasia. Maybe even if he healed up, he’d still be useless.

“Damn it! For me, Lord Machil, to have to wipe the ass of some brain-dead runt!”

Today again, every task Sosam was supposed to do belonged to Machil. And on top of that, the clan had dumped the whole business of treating Sosam on him too.

Stable work is brutal. Machil knew that better than anyone. Until Sosam came here more than ten years ago, Machil himself had been the Horse Stable Hireling.

Walking the horses, cleaning up horse shit, tidying the stable—those were nothing. The hardest job was, from time to time, having to accompany the Danri Family people on outings as a horse attendant.

A horse attendant was, in common slang, “a human footstool.” In other words, when the Danri Family people mounted their horses, you had to crouch beneath them and serve as the step.

It was a truly irritating, infuriating chore.

If you got someone decent, fine. But if you went out as the horse attendant of a human piece of trash like Danri Hee—

If you made one mistake that day, your head might roll.

He hadn’t been forced to go out as a horse attendant yet, but who knew when he’d be summoned? So even if he hated it, Machil had no choice but to serve Sosam diligently until he recovered.

While Machil grumbled for all these reasons, he arrived at the stables on the far eastern edge of the estate. As he reached for the door, a thought suddenly crossed his mind.

‘Should I just kill that bastard?’

Whether Sosam lived or died, no one in the clan would care. If a new Horse Stable Hireling were brought in quickly, it would be far more beneficial to Machil too. Wouldn’t that be the best way to escape this suffering?

Machil’s reptilian eyes fixed on the stable door, flashing red for an instant before calming down.

“Forget it, forget it.”

Killing someone was easy.

Once, when a begging little bastard kept grabbing at his ankle, he’d stomped him to death—so what?

The problem was that the risk was too high. If he got caught by even one of the clan’s warriors, his own neck could end up severed.

“Lucky bastard. Our Mabyeonsam, you fucking shit.”

In the end, he decided to endure about a month of discomfort.

Killing a guy like Sosam was easier than snapping an ant’s waist—he could do it anytime later.

Creeeak.

When he stepped into the stable, Sosam was sleeping as usual. Wrapped tightly around the chest with filthy twisted rope, he lay there comfortably, resting. The sight made Machil’s temper flare again. Here Machil was suffering because of him, and that bastard was sprawled out, sleeping so peacefully.

“Ugh. You moron! Wouldn’t it have been better if you’d just died then? Why are you alive for no reason, making things this annoying? Ugh!”

Machil tossed the porridge bowl onto Sosam’s chest. The bowl wobbled, and the hot porridge spilled. The dirty rope binding Sosam’s chest became even filthier.

Whether it did or not, Machil figured he’d done his part and walked right back out of the stable.

Even though the hot porridge seeped between the ropes and must have burned the wounds beneath, Sosam didn’t wake up until Machil left.

Was he asleep so deeply he couldn’t feel pain?

No.

Sosam—no, Dong Bong-su—was already awake. The moment Machil left, he quietly raised his upper body.

“Because of that guy, my recovery keeps getting delayed.”

The filthy rope was rubbing against the wounds and making them fester.

It was an infection. Like this, the wounds wouldn’t close quickly. That’s why, whenever he loosened the rope, Machil would come and wrap it back around his chest again. So Dong Bong-su would tie the rope around his chest before Machil arrived, then loosen it again after Machil left.

And it wasn’t just that—Machil, in every way, was not a helpful human being to Dong Bong-su. Even just now, he’d made hot porridge spill onto wounds that hadn’t fully healed, which would slow the healing even more.

“Has it been two weeks as of today?”

It had already been two weeks since Dong Bong-su woke up here. During that time, he gathered information about this place. He still couldn’t fully understand Chinese, and since Machil was his only source, he couldn’t know everything precisely.

The first thing he learned was that he had become someone else, and that name was Sosam—or Mabyeonsam. Not because he understood the language, but because Machil kept calling him that.

Second, though the people here used Chinese and Chinese characters, he realized this place wasn’t China.

Martial arts.

Techniques that were only possible in imagination, in movies, in novels.

Over the last two weeks, Dong Bong-su witnessed martial arts breathing, living, vividly real in this world.

Every morning he would wake to the thunderous sounds of warriors doing something at the training ground far beyond the stables. At first he didn’t know what it was, but later he peeked through a hole in the door and was shocked.

He was a man whose emotions rarely wavered. Even so, what stunned Dong Bong-su was the martial arts of this world.

People flying through the air, moving so fast your eyes could barely track them, swords and sabers cutting with disciplined precision—like a live-action version of Murim Online. If so, then those techniques too must be martial arts.

Lastly, he learned that he hadn’t been able to “log out” completely. No—more precisely, he had logged out, but certain parts of the game system were still being applied.

Even now, far off in his field of view, tiny letters floated.

“Murim Online.”

No—murim.

Real murim.

Heh.

Heheheh.

A world where martial arts truly exist!

And I can’t escape it?

Dong Bong-su laughed from the bottom of his heart for the first time in his life.

In his head, irrepressible laughter burst out without pause.

Because it felt so good.

The ultimate hunting ground he’d always dreamed of—maybe even a battlefield.

And he had suddenly crash-landed into it.

murim.

A world of iron-blood where there is neither blood nor tears.

Hehehehehehahahahaha!

A place with no dreams, no hope.

What a rapturous world this was.

For a long while, Dong Bong-su laughed.

Inside, inside—so no one would ever know.

And so, without anyone in the Central Plains realizing it, an unprecedented demon was being conceived in a shabby stable.

Chapter 6. Half-Human, Half-Character

At first, because things like the existence of martial arts, he even mistook it. He thought maybe, due to a game bug, some strange phenomenon had occurred in murim online.

However.

After observing for several weeks, Dong Bong-su became certain that wasn’t the case.

This place was reality. For sure. There was no longer any room for doubt.

He couldn’t understand the principle of exactly how he had come here, but the fact that this place was reality was something he absolutely could not deny. He could feel pain, and he was vividly alive—moving, breathing out a rough wildness. To the point that every time he faced Machil, it was hard to suppress the urge to kill.

Is Machil a player? Or an NPC (Non Player Character)?

Of course, he was neither.

There were many people he had met here. The first was Machil, and sometimes Machil brought other people with him. They would mount their horses with lightning-like agility and vanish from the stable.

Each time, Dong Bong-su checked people’s eyes. It was work to confirm whether they had emotions or not. Everyone was moving “alive,” each with their own emotions. There was no way those with eyes like that could be NPCs.

Then what about himself? What was he?

Was he human? A player? Was he even alive?

Dong Bong-su didn’t really know either. Only that he was different from the others here—at least that much was certain. He moved like a human just the same, but there was a decisive difference.

That was the hologram letters, “murim online.”

In other words, he—Dong Bong-su—was “half-human, half-character.”

He had the ability to open every window that had been possible in murim online: a status window, a skill window, inventory, map, and so on. However, not every function worked normally. Most windows were displayed as “?” due to errors, and the only window that worked 100% properly was the inventory window.

He still didn’t know how to use anything except the inventory window. He planned to figure that out little by little from now on. As the status window said “Lv.1,” after all, he was still only a level 1 novice.

Swoosh.

Dong Bong-su quietly raised his upper body. The wound on his chest throbbed, but it wasn’t so bad he couldn’t move. He slowly loosened the rope that was pressing down on his chest. Then he wiped off the thin gruel stuck to the rope and put it back into the bowl. It was still hot, hurting his hand and chest, but he didn’t care. Once most of the gruel was back in the bowl, he lifted it and poured it into his mouth in one go.