Chapter 1 - The Rat in the Ruin

"I wish this world would just burn."

The words slipped from Riven's lips almost unconsciously, like a curse escaping from a crack deep within his soul. White mist rose from his breath, fading slowly into the biting cold air. Around him, tall grass swayed in the wind, wet with dew and the remnants of last night's rain.

He lay prone on the damp ground, his body smeared with mud and dust. His left arm pressed into the cold grass, while his right hand clutched an old brass spyglass, a battered piece he'd bargained for in a back-alley market. His fingers trembled, either from the chill or the tension.

He was only twenty, but his face looked like it had weathered far more than two decades of pain. His skin was olive-toned, slightly pale. Black hair stuck in messy clumps to his sweat-slicked forehead. His eyes, red and puffy, squinted as he tried to make out something in the distance.

Below the cliff where he hid, a vast battlefield stretched out. The terrain was uneven, carved by hooves and churned mud. Smoke rose in pillars from dozens of places, mingling with ash and drifting fog.

Chaos had erupted there.

Thousands of soldiers in black armor rode downhill on horseback, their war cries echoing like a storm. They chanted spells and shouted commands in a tongue Riven couldn't understand. Swords and spears glinted under the rising sun. Colorful magic burst from staffs and open palms, forming waves of lethal force.

Yet their enemy… was only one man.

The figure was nearly invisible, a blur amidst the flames and explosions. Each time Riven tried to focus the spyglass, another blast obscured his view. Black light cleaved through the earth. Hot wind slapped his face even from this distance. The ground trembled with each magical impact.

"What the hell…?" he whispered, barely audible even to himself. He held his breath. "Is he… human?"

Bodies flew. The earth tore open. Blood sprayed high into the air, staining the sky. Screams and howls wove into a twisted symphony of death, only to be drowned out by another series of explosions.

Riven lowered the spyglass and slammed his palm against the ground. Wet soil splashed between his fingers. His face tensed, his gaze locked on the nightmare unfolding below.

"This damned world…" he muttered. "What's the point of being reborn if all I get is another miserable life? If I'm just going to freeze or starve to death on the side of the road? Why give me memories of my past life if they only make everything feel worse?"

Tears welled up—not from smoke or wind, but from frustration that had been building for too long. In the face of a power that could slaughter an entire army, he felt like an ant. Powerless. Insignificant.

"Shit!" he growled, half-choking on the word. He grabbed a handful of grass and yanked hard. "I just wanted a normal life. Playing games, watching anime, listening to K-pop… Damn it, I haven't even seen how *** Piece ends!"

He bit his lip, the bitterness in his chest rising like bile. In his old life, he had been just an ordinary man. A part-time worker who died from exhaustion. Born in a crowded tropical country, poor from the start, he had once dreamed of becoming a swimmer. But life was too cruel to make room for dreams.

His father was paralyzed in a work accident when Riven was fourteen. His mother disappeared and never came back. He became the head of a household of seven younger siblings, forced to drop out of school and take any job he could find: pool cleaner, café waiter, food courier, construction laborer. His life had been spent just trying to survive.

Until one night, his body gave out. On his way home from work, he collapsed from a nosebleed, hit the pavement, and died. No one noticed. No one cared.

But he woke up again. In a different world.

Here, he was reborn as a poor child on the outskirts of the Belmore Kingdom, a land filled with magic and monsters. His parents had been killed by beasts when he was twelve. Since then, he lived only with his little sister, Mira. A small girl with big eyes that always looked at him with hope.

To survive, Riven did the only thing he could: scavenging battlefields. He looted corpses, dug through rubble, and sold broken weapons on the black market. Disgusting. Dangerous. But better than starving.

"When you have nothing, the only thing you can do is take risks," he once told Mira while rubbing cheap ointment into a wound on his hand.

That was the first law for people like him.

Even poor and alone, Riven still dreamed. He saved what little money he earned, hoping one day he could give Mira a better life.

Today, he carried a blunt sword he'd stolen two weeks ago. With that weapon, he'd climbed the hill north of the village, slipped past the guard post, and hidden among the tall grass. Last night, in a tavern, a drunken old knight had let slip that a major battle would break out this morning.

And now, he saw the hell that knight meant.

"Who the hell is that…?" Riven murmured, turning his gaze back to the war zone now engulfed in fire and smoke.

Thick fog and dust blurred everything. But now and then, black light sliced through the crowd. The sky shuddered. The thunderous booms didn't stop, as if the world itself rejected the figure's existence but couldn't drive him away.

"An archmage? A god? Or a demon?"

The ground trembled again.

A wave of magic exploded from the center of the battlefield, sending heat rippling all the way up to where Riven lay hidden. The spyglass nearly slipped from his grip.

Then he heard it.

Footsteps.

Light. Slow. But unmistakably close. The sound of grass brushing and breath being held.

Riven froze. His heartbeat thudded in his chest. He lowered the spyglass and reached for the hilt of the sword at his hip. His body tensed, every sense on high alert.

The steps came from behind him.

He tried to turn, as slowly as he could. The wind had stopped. Even the explosions below seemed to vanish into silence.