chapter 2

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a stone ceiling. Moisture and cold simultaneously seeped into my back from the floor. I sat up, trying to calm the goosebumps that were forming on my arms.

I was in a prison cell surrounded by stone on all sides.

In that all too familiar scenery, my mind quickly finished understanding the situation. It was a space that I could not possibly not know, and it was a space that I could not not know.

'This is ridiculous.'

I clicked on the link to sign up for the beta tester for Episode 5 of Blizzard and then I remembered myself being sucked into the monitor with a bright halo of light. That was my last memory from reality.

The first feeling I had was one of bewilderment. These crazy guys were now luring people into believing that they had been selected as beta testers for a new game.

Even if it wasn't me, it was definitely a trap that anyone who had played a bit of B4 would have fallen for. I thought that this level of creativity was needed to fool people.

The next emotion that came to mind was regret.

'Am I crazy? Why am I doing things like clearing enemy enhancement mode and being number one in the world?'

Yeah, what a world it is these days.

If you become possessed by a novel that you followed all the way through, or if the only reader who followed your work all the way through becomes possessed by the author, then you could say that it is fundamental.

These days, the world is a place where you can be possessed by novels you haven't read, by novels you've only read, by novels you've read, by novels you've never read, by novels you've never commented on, by novels you've only read the cover, by novels you've filtered, by novels you've criticized, by novels you've criticized, by novels you've been dragged into, by novels you've been taken to, and by novels you've been taken to again. It's a very dangerous world.

In such a world, a veteran with 30,000 hours of playtime? He was the perfect prey for those terrifying beings who were desperate to achieve success as a human.

But what can I do? I've already done it, and I've actually been marked and dragged here.

I got up from my seat. The floor was too cold to sit down any longer with my bare body. Besides, in just a little while, the first event in this tutorial area will start.

A plan automatically came to mind. This was a section I had already passed thousands of times. I knew exactly how to move and act here.

-Save me! Aaaah!

As soon as the thought finished, the sound of people running away and terrible screams could be heard from over there.

'It has begun.'

I took a deep breath and took a seat on the wall furthest from the prison bars. Outside the bars, people were pushing and shoving each other, trying their best to escape.

The prisoners on the other side approached the iron bars with bewildered faces and looked around outside. With people running away in groups, you wondered what on earth was happening outside.

-Thud… …Thud… …

The ground began to shake slightly in the distance. As the shaking grew closer, the prisoners looked at each other with eyes that seemed completely bewildered.

Finally, the thumping of the ground was felt right next to him, and at that very moment, one of the prisoners, who had been pressing his face against the iron bars to look outside, collapsed in panic as if he had seen something.

-Koooooooooo!

A hideous monster appeared across the left corridor.

The body was so fat that it almost filled the hallway, and hideously distorted scales covered the skin all over its body.

Hir legs and thighs were much thicker than the average person's torso, but her torso was even fatter, so he appeared to be proportionate.

His arms were less than half as long as his legs. In one hand, he held a wooden club that was almost as tall as he was. The club was already covered in blood.

His face was distorted as much as it could be, and his mouth, which was torn almost to the level of his ears, had unkempt teeth protruding out in a jagged manner.

The boss of the tutorial area, a human slaughterer.

The prisoners in the opposite cell screamed at the sight of the bastard, demanding that the prison be taken away. Perhaps the aggro was drawn to the sound, and the human slaughterer stopped coming towards me and headed towards the opposite cell.

A massive body, bending the iron bars like a pair of taffy sticks, entered the prison. Immediately afterwards, a desperate scream was heard, along with the sound of a human body being crushed.

Blood splattered all over the prison walls. Up until this point, everything was just as it should have been in the game. Compared to the graphics of Blizzard 4, which weren't all that great, the slashed flesh was so vivid that it was a bit nauseating.

Living up to his name, the human butcher walked out of the prison, literally butchering prisoners. Fresh blood dripped from his club over the dried blood.

Now the next target was me. The heavy body thumped and moved again. The iron bars of the prison door buckled helplessly, unable to hold out even for a second.

The human butcher, half-hidden inside the prison, took the next step and raised his blunt arm toward me.

-What the heck!

Just before his arm was about to be slashed down, a large crack appeared in the floor where his foot had landed. The man was so surprised that he stopped himself from swinging his club and stepped back.

But the cracks continued without stopping, and soon the entire prison floor was split open. It was a precarious sight, as if it would collapse at any moment.

'It's just beginning.'

The human slaughterer sniffed and turned around, as if he thought I would fall to my death. It was true that I would fall down with the crumbling floor.

But you won't die, though.

I closed my eyes and braced myself for the impact. The floor soon reached its limit, unable to support my weight, and collapsed. At the same time, my body fell deep underground along with the collapsing pile of rocks.

"Coolook, coolook."

I started coughing because I inhaled so much dust.

I raised my arm and pushed away a rock right in front of me, and then moved the pile of rocks that had piled up on top of me. After repeating this for a while, I was finally able to crawl out.

The place I fell was the lowest level of the prison.

From here, it could be said that the real start of Blizzard 4 was just the beginning. Before falling down here, what happened in the upper prison was nothing more than an intro to the game.

I roughly pulled myself together and escaped the prison through the twisted iron bars. Everything was quiet. It was exactly like the scenery I had seen in the game.

I never imagined I would experience this myself. I had mixed feelings.

'I wonder what his past actions were chosen for.'

He looked down at his body. It was a muscular body with only a single piece of cloth covering it. Unfortunately, his past actions and body type were separate, so he could not make any guesses based on this.

Honestly, for a moment I thought it was fortunate that it wasn't a female character.

'There's no point in thinking about it here since I can check it right away anyway.'

I walked towards the nearby stairs. As soon as I climbed these stairs, the first battle with the mobs in the tutorial area would occur, and I could check what the player had chosen as their past actions.

He picked up the crude wooden club that was lying on the landing and climbed the stairs carefully, making as little noise as possible, while listening to the conversation upstairs.

"...."

There was no sound.

'You're done.'

As soon as he realized that fact, his face suddenly distorted.

If you walk up the stairs without making a sound, you will hear enemies talking about halfway through. It is a conversation about how to distribute the loot.

If you mention armor, a longsword, and a shield, your past actions are that of a knight. If you mention a dagger and a magic scroll, your past actions are that of a thief. If you mention a staff and a robe, your past actions are that of a wizard. It was like that.

But if you don't hear anything, it means that the player character's past actions were 'abandoned'. When you realize that, a feeling of sadness wells up inside you for a moment.

'There are ten past actions to choose from, why that one?'

The Abandoned One was a uniquely weak character among the past actions that the player could choose. Not only does he start at level 1, all his stats are also 1, and he is not given any items, weapons, or armor.

Although it was the character with the best stat efficiency at the appropriate PvP level because all stats were 1, that was the extent of its advantage.

Besides, getting there was a challenge. My health was low, my stamina was trash, my attack power was a mess, and I had no items or armor.

As the saying goes, the past actions that the old-timers choose when they want their own hard mode are those of the abandoned ones.

In a game, if you choose someone who was abandoned by their past actions, you can just clear it with infinite reset, but right now, I was sucked into the game. What guarantee is there that I will be resurrected after I die?

I took a deep breath and picked up my club. Whatever it was, it was better than nothing. I gripped the wooden club tightly and slowly walked up the stairs. The view from the upper floor gradually came into view.

'As expected.'

As I had expected, the space where the items showing past activities should have been was empty. Roughly dressed prisoners were walking around carelessly, carrying clubs.

It was exactly the same scenery I was tired of seeing in games.

If that's the case, then what I have to do will be the same boring things I used to do in the game.

I took a deep breath and went upstairs.