Chapter 1 - Thirty Years Have Passed Since the Prologue

“Ah, an unfamiliar ceiling...”

Kim Seonwoo murmured in a composed voice.

No, he was not particularly composed. He was so excited that his hands were trembling.

How long had he waited for this moment? An unfamiliar ceiling, an unfamiliar world. Yes. Possession, transportation, reincarnation into another world—whatever it was!

In fact, he had spent a very long time preparing for this moment. The important word here was “preparing.”

Any South Korean citizen would already know the basic requirements for reincarnating in another world: “submit a 5,700-character critical review of thanks” and “read carefully all the way to the end.”

Take that idea one step further, and you would understand Kim Seonwoo’s “preparation process.”

Every novel and webtoon he read, every game he played. Anything he liked. In other words, he submitted a “5,700-character critical review” to every work he wanted to be transported into.

Day after day, with gratitude in his heart. Tirelessly, meticulously, painstakingly, with a different repertoire every time.

Naturally, since he intended to enter those worlds, he memorized their stories, settings, possible hidden secrets and artifacts, even the relationships between major characters.

He wrote 5,700 characters for the sole purpose of breaking the creators’ spirits, until they said, “Then let’s see you do it.”

Of course, most cases ended with spineless authors quitting, or with him being publicly pilloried and banned by various online communities. But in the end, he had won.

He had finally possessed someone in another world.

Now only one question remained: Which story was this? That was all!

“Status window!”

No colorful blue augmented-reality display appeared.

But that was fine. He was not disappointed. Plenty of the works he had left hate comments on had no status windows. If anything, he had gained a clue to help narrow down his list.

Besides, he was in the body of a child who looked barely four or five. Time and potential were practically on his side.

Even the worn, threadbare clothes and shabby ceiling were a plus.

'A genius of this caliber, in a place like this?!'

'A truly great man!!'

'I’ll give you my throne and all my riches! Just spare me!!'

After all, every kind of media on Earth had already proven that the more miserable the childhood, the more impressive the success.

Kim Seonwoo rose with a faint smile.

Well then. Why not start with something simple, like making soap?

* * *

Age four. Week one since possession.

Kim Seonwoo discovers that his body belongs to someone named “Ivan Petrovich.”

He is dismayed to learn that his parents are tenant farmers, ignorant peasants who cannot even read, let alone name their own country.

After failing to make soap, he gets a stern scolding for playing with lye.

He also learns that soap already exists in this world.

Age four. Week six since possession.

At last, egg-delivery errands allowed Kim Seonwoo to explore the village.

The moment he spotted a newspaper lying on the ground, he began to sense that something was off.

“If this society can print newspapers and distribute them even to a rural village like this, it’s definitely not medieval.”

Most of his “list of possible possession settings” was crossed out that day.

Age four. Week fifteen since possession.

Kim Seonwoo finally learned the name of the country he lived in.

After also hearing the name of the king, whom everyone had only vaguely referred to as “His Majesty,” he went straight home and threw the precious “list of possible possession settings” he had enshrined in a corner of his room into the fire.

He had never heard of the country, its ruler, or any of the neighboring kingdoms.

The important question was no longer “Which story have I possessed someone in?”

It was “What the hell genre is this?”

Please, anything but dark fantasy. The survival rate of a modern South Korean tenant farmer with neither a status window nor possession perks generally tended toward less than five percent.

Age eight. Year four since possession.

In an astonishing development, a Demon King had apparently appeared out of nowhere.

The war was still something happening in distant lands, but the newspaper extras distributed every day carried nothing but grim news.

Winter, age eight.

Kim Seonwoo’s—no, “Ivan’s” father was taken away by a conscription officer.

“Ivan’s” mother began doing work in exchange for others’ labor to keep young “Ivan” fed.

This was where Kim Seonwoo’s sense of self began to slip slightly out of alignment.

Age ten. Year six since possession.

By now, Kim Seonwoo could help his mother with those labor-exchange jobs quite competently.

Age twelve. Year eight since possession.

Kim Seonwoo finally learned to read and write. It was his reward for sneaking eggs to the village chief’s house for six years.

Age fourteen. Year ten since possession.

News of his father’s death reached the village.

The funny part was that the official notice had been issued two years earlier.

Accepting a few coins as the price of his father’s life, he looked at his sobbing mother and thought of two things.

First, this world’s genre was probably strategy simulation.

He had thought it was strangely detailed. An RPG would not usually feature this many countries. Wasn’t it normal to leave most settings a player could never experience unimplemented?

Still, it probably was not a novel or webtoon, either.

The proof lay in this world itself: a setting far too peculiar for an ordinary otherworld story, where simple gunpowder weapons and steam engines coexisted with knights, mages, a Demon King, and nonhuman races.

Write a novel in a setting like this, and the outcome was obvious. Readers would say, “What the fuck is that supposed to be, you nerd?” and “There he goes again, talking about stuff only he understands.” Then it would be abandoned before ever making it past free serialization.

In that case, he obviously had to go to the front. If he lived and died as a tenant farmer in this backward countryside, he would never so much as set foot in the main story.

Strategy simulations usually ended in world conquest. Surely he ought to avoid an ending where the Demon King’s army conquered him while he remained utterly clueless.

And his second thought was...

“Don’t worry, Mother.”

He stroked his mother’s hair after she cried herself to sleep, then submitted his enlistment application to a recruiting officer. His annual pay would be fifteen copper coins. He signed an agreement to have every last one sent to his mother.

“Ivan Petrovich” wanted this woman’s hands to stop blistering.

It was not some sudden surge of filial devotion. It was pity for a remarkable woman who gave everything she had for him, a complete stranger.

And it was guilt: by taking over the body of a young boy named “Ivan,” he had effectively killed her only blood relative.

Age eighteen. Year fourteen since possession. Year four of military service.

Thanks to a modest military achievement and a small stroke of luck, Ivan’s status changed from “conscript” to “regular soldier.”

He realized that Ivan’s body had more aptitude for fighting than he had expected.

Age twenty-two. Year eighteen since possession. Year eight of military service.

When the front had been pushed back to a critical point and half the allied nations were burning, a hero appeared.

At this point, Ivan finally understood this world’s genre.

This was a hero story. In other words, a classic RPG.

But the hero was merely news from a distant country, and the front where Ivan served was still being driven back disastrously.

Age twenty-eight. Year twenty-four since possession. Year fourteen of military service.

The tide of war turns as the Hero’s Party picks off the Demon King’s commanders.

Ivan now serves in the “Unit for Securing Reclaimed Territory and Rooting Out Hostile Forces.”

That long name had a simple abbreviation.

The “Extermination Unit.”

It was a special-operations unit deployed when the Hero’s Party killed an enemy commander and the enemy lines collapsed into chaos.

For roughly a year from this point onward, Ivan travels with the Hero’s Party, sharing their military camps.

Age thirty. Year twenty-six since possession. Year sixteen of military service.

The Hero’s Party killed the Demon King.

Ivan decided to wait for the ending now.

All he wanted was to escape this godforsaken world.

Age thirty-two. Year twenty-eight since possession.

Even two years after the Demon King’s death, there had been no ending.

In the meantime, the Extermination Unit had dwindled to one-fifth of its former strength.

When no new recruits arrived to replenish their numbers, Ivan realized that the higher-ups were trying to disband them.

After completing a final mission that was all but a death sentence, Ivan decides this must be a long epilogue and applies for discharge.

His mother back home had already died ten years earlier, leaving him utterly alone.

He established an orphanage near the capital and took in war orphans.

It was a small act of hypocrisy.

Age thirty-four. Year thirty since possession.

Still, even now, even after all this time.

The end credits are nowhere in sight.

* * *

The thought that perhaps this had never been an RPG turns to certainty thanks to a visitor at the orphanage.

“Fuck.”

“Pardon?”

“Fuck. This was an academy story?”

“Sir...?”

The visitor smiled awkwardly at the orphanage director (war hero, eighteen years of military service, former Extermination Unit member, on friendly terms with the Hero’s Party), who had suddenly started swearing.

Dispatched from the royal court, the visitor broke into a cold sweat while recalling the director’s many nicknames.

The Great King’s Executioner. The Logging Machine. The Man Who Slaughtered the Seven Dragon Generals. The Immortal. The Reserve. A living legend among conscripts.

Such a fearsome man now looked ready to bury an axe in the visitor at a single misspoken word. Wearing a strained smile, the visitor held very still and quiet, waiting for the orphanage director’s anger to subside.