.｡.:✧ Chapter 1 ✧:.｡.

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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The first thing I saw as soon as I opened my eyes was a stone ceiling. Moisture and cold simultaneously seeped into my back from the floor. Suppressing the goosebumps that had risen on my arms, I sat up.

I was in a prison made entirely of stone.

With that all too familiar scenery, my mind quickly grasped the situation. It was a space I couldn’t possibly not recognize, a space I couldn’t afford not to know.

‘This is absurd.’

The image of myself being sucked into the monitor in a flash of light after clicking on the beta tester application link for Brightest Darkness 5 popped into my head. That was my last memory from reality.

The first emotion that arose was disbelief. These crazy bastards were now even resorting to scamming people with the bait of being selected as a beta tester for a new game in order to possess them.

Even if it hadn’t been me, it was clearly a trap that would have spectacularly hooked anyone who had played a fair amount of Brightest Darkness 4. I wondered if this level of creativity was necessary to go around possessing people.

The next emotion that surfaced was regret.

‘I must have been out of my mind. Why did I go and achieve something like the world’s first clear of the enemy enhancement mod?’

That’s right, what kind of world was it these days?

If it were a case of being possessed into a novel that one had followed through to the end alone, or an author being possessed by the only reader who had followed their work to the end, it could at least be considered to have some backbone.

These days, it was a world where you could get possessed into a novel you hadn’t read, a novel you had only skimmed through, even if you didn’t leave a comment, just by looking at the cover, by filtering out works, by criticizing a novel, by criticizing an author, and even after being dragged away once and returning, a truly unparalleled treacherous world.

In such a world, being a hardcore player with 30,000 hours of playtime? I was the perfect prey to be eyed by some terrifying entities desperate to achieve results as humans.

But what could I do? I had already done it, and I had actually been dragged here after being marked.

I got up from my spot. The floor was too cold to sit on with my bare body any longer. Besides, in a little more time, the first event of this tutorial area would begin.

A plan automatically popped into my head. It was a section I had already passed through thousands of times. I knew exactly how to move and act here.

ㅡHelp me! Aaaagh!

As if on cue, the sound of people running away and terrible screams came from somewhere in the distance.

‘It has begun.’

Taking a deep breath, I took a position against the wall furthest from the prison bars. Outside the bars, people were pushing and shoving each other, running away with all their might.

The prisoners across from me approached the bars with puzzled faces and peeked outside to see what was happening. With people fleeing in droves, they must have been wondering what on earth was going on outside.

ㅡThud… Thud…

The ground shook slightly in the distance. As the tremors grew closer, the prisoners looked at each other, clearly having no clue what was happening.

Finally, as the thudding tremors were felt right next to us, and a prisoner who had pressed his face against the bars to look outside seemed to have noticed something, collapsing in shock, that was the very moment.

ㅡRoaaar!

From beyond the left corridor, a hideous monster revealed itself.

Its body was so enormously fat from side to side that it nearly filled the entire corridor, and grotesquely distorted scales covered its entire skin.

Its legs and thighs were much thicker than an average person’s torso, but its body was even fatter, making it look proportional in reverse.

Its arms were less than half the size of its legs. Despite that, it wielded a wooden club in one hand that was almost as tall as itself. The club was already covered in blood.

Its face was distorted to the extreme, and misaligned teeth protruded from its mouth that was ripped almost to its ears.

The boss of the tutorial area, the Human Butcher.

The prisoners across from me who saw the monster screamed at the top of their lungs. Perhaps drawn by the sound, the Human Butcher turned away from me and headed towards the opposite cell.

Its immensely heavy body bent the metal bars like taffy as it entered the prison. Soon, along with terrible screams, the sound of human bodies being crushed could be heard.

Blood splattered all over the prison walls. Everything up to this point was exactly as it was in the game. Although the crushed flesh was a bit too vivid compared to the graphics of Brightest Darkness 4, which weren’t all that great.

Living up to its name, the Human Butcher, who had literally butchered the prisoners, walked out of the cell. Fresh blood dripped from the club, layered over the dried blood.

Now its next target was me. That massive body moved again with heavy thuds. The bars of the cell door bent weakly without resisting for even a second.

With half its body inside the cell, the Human Butcher took its next step and raised its club-wielding arm towards me.

ㅡCrack!

Just before the arm swung down, starting from where it had stepped, large cracks began to form, and the floor started to split apart. Startled, the monster stopped its downward swing and stepped back.

However, the cracks continued to spread, and soon the entire prison floor was cracking apart. It looked precarious as if it would collapse at any moment.

‘Now it begins.’

The Human Butcher seemed to think I would fall to my death, snorting once before turning around. It was true that I would plummet with the collapsing floor after this.

But I wouldn’t die.

I closed my eyes and braced for the impact. It didn’t take long for the floor to reach its limit and crumble under its own weight. At the same time, my body also fell deep underground along with the crumbling pile of stones.

“Cough, cough.”

Coughs burst out from having inhaled the dust properly.

I raised my arm to push away a stone right in front of me and cleared away the pile of stones heaped on my body. Only after repeating that action for a while was I finally able to crawl out.

The place I had fallen was the lowest level of the prison.

This was where Brightest Darkness 4 truly began. Everything that had happened in the prison above before falling here was merely at the level of an intro in terms of the game.

I roughly composed myself and escaped the prison through the bent bars. Everything was quiet. It was truly the exact scenery I had seen in the game.

I never imagined I would experience this myself. A complex feeling arose.

‘I wonder what my class was chosen as.’

I looked down at my body. A considerably muscular physique wearing only a loincloth. Unfortunately, the class and body type were separate, so I couldn’t deduce it from this.

Honestly, I had a fleeting thought of relief that it wasn’t a female character.

‘There’s no point in thinking about it here since I can confirm it right away anyway.’

I walked towards the nearby stairs. Just by climbing these stairs, I would encounter the tutorial area’s mobs for the first time in combat, and at the same time, I could confirm what the player had chosen as their class.

Picking up the crude wooden club placed in front of the landing, I carefully climbed the stairs, trying to make as little noise as possible, and listened to the conversation on the upper floor.

“……”

I couldn’t hear anything.

‘Damn it.’

As soon as I realized that fact, my face contorted.

If you walked up the stairs without making a sound, halfway up, you would hear a conversation among the enemies. It was a dispute over how to distribute the loot.

If they mentioned armor, a longsword, and a shield, the class was a Knight; if they mentioned daggers and magic scrolls, the class was a Thief; and if they mentioned a staff and robes, the class was a Mage. Something like that.

However, if nothing could be heard, it meant that the player character’s class was “The Forsaken.” Realizing that, a surging emotion briefly welled up inside me.

‘There are 10 classs to choose from, but why that one?’

The Forsaken was an incomparably weak character among the classs the player could select. Not only did it start at level 1, but all stats were also 1, and no items, weapons, or armor were provided.

Due to all stats being 1, it was the character with the best stat efficiency at the appropriate level range for PvP, but that was the extent of its advantages.

Moreover, just reaching that point was a challenge. Health was low, stamina was garbage, attack power was a mess, and there were no items or worn armor.

It could be said that the Forsaken was the class chosen by hardcore players when they wanted a self-imposed hard mode.

In the game, even if you chose the Forsaken as your class, you could just clear it with infinite retries, but I was currently in a situation where I had been sucked into the game. Where was the guarantee that I would resurrect after dying?

Sighing deeply inwardly, I picked up the club. Whatever it was, it was better than having nothing. Gripping the wooden club tightly, I slowly walked up the stairs. The upper floor gradually came into view.

‘As expected.’

Just as I had anticipated, the spot where the items indicating the class should have been was empty. Prisoners in crude clothing loitered around aimlessly next to it, holding clubs.

It was the exact same scene I had seen in the game ad nauseam.

If so, what I had to do would also be the same thing I had done in the game ad nauseam.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped onto the upper floor.

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