Hot blood splattered across my face.
I blinked, dazed. I shifted my gaze downward and stared at my hands and feet — they felt like they didn’t belong to me. My hand, clad in a black glove, was wrapped around the hilt of a sword, and the blade was buried deep in the man before me.
I knew that man.
Lihen. A beautiful priest with long, lustrous white hair and clear blue eyes. A healer of great renown, more often called a saint than anything else. When playing the good route, he had been the playable character I used most often. But why was Lihen here? He was supposed to be a character within the game.
My hand moved without my consent. It drove the sword in deeper — then yanked it free in one clean motion. The blood that had been dammed up burst free, and Lihen crumpled to the floor. Red blood stained the priest’s white vestments without mercy.
Ah. Right.
I know this scene.
The opening scene that triggers when you choose Shane on the evil route. The event where Shane kills Lihen — a priest held in high regard throughout the human world. And of all places, on a makeshift dueling stage arranged for the demons’ amusement. Lihen, the saint who had been captured while trying to rescue a prisoner held captive in the demon realm, met his end there — for nothing more than a demon’s entertainment.
“Woaaah!”
A thunderous roar of cheers and applause erupted. The emotion behind it was anything but pure admiration.
“He actually killed Lihen!”
“Not bad for a half-breed.”
The demons jeered. I stood there blankly, sword still in hand.
Through the crowd of demons buzzing with the thrill of bloodshed, the 1st Legion Commander, Kairos, came striding forward. Pointed ears, a black tongue, teeth sharp as a shark’s — these were the hallmarks of demonkind. Markedly different from Shane’s appearance: rounded ears, a peachy tongue, a human’s set of teeth. Shane had been born to a human father and a demon mother, which made him a half-breed.
“Cutting down a priest celebrated throughout the human world. You’re more useful than I expected.”
He said it with a sneer.
“A promise is a promise. I hereby appoint you as the new Legion Commander.”
Kairos reached into his pocket and produced a small box. Inside sat a pendant set with a deep crimson gem. The stone resembled a ruby at first glance, and it was the symbol of a Legion Commander. He fastened the brooch to my left chest.
“Shane. As of today, you are the 13th Legion Commander. And….”
Thud.
A heavy fist slammed into my abdomen before I had any chance to dodge. A strangled grunt escaped my lips. I doubled over, clutching my stomach, and dropped to the floor. Dust billowed up in a thick cloud. I lay there gasping, eyes screwed shut.
“Don’t expect to be treated like a real Legion Commander. You have no soldiers to command.”
Kairos looked down at me as he spoke. One corner of his mouth curled up.
“Who would want a Legion Commander with worthless human blood mixed in.”
Being hit that hard was something I had never experienced in my life. My eyes went hot on their own. I forced my frozen mind to work and tried desperately to recall what line Shane was supposed to deliver next. But nothing came. I had only played the evil route once, so it made sense that the memory was hazy.
Setting aside the bewildering reality of being possessed by a game character, I quickly sorted through my thoughts. Survival instinct had overridden everything else — if I didn’t, my life would be in immediate danger.
Shane was a slit-eyed character. Someone suspicious by appearance alone, looked down on for being a half-breed between human and demon, and yet always smirking regardless. The type that grated on pureblooded demons all the more because of it. If that’s what Shane was like — what would he say in a situation like this?
I staggered to my feet. I gave up trying to remember and started improvising a line on the spot.
“Not that I ever expected otherwise… but thank you for even offering that much advice. Does that mean you’re counting the half-breed as a little brother, too? Truly, there’s no one like you, hyung.”
I softened the corners of my eyes and offered a sly smile.
“You crazy bastard….”
Kairos’s face twisted. Judging by how thoroughly disgusted he looked, I’d apparently said something very Shane-like. His half-brother Kairos had always bristled at the mere sight of Shane. A little brother with human blood was a disgrace to the family.
“Regardless, I have your first mission as Legion Commander. Destroy the statue of Repinal standing before the Temple of Dawn.”
The moment Kairos finished speaking, a message nearly identical to his words materialized in the air.
<Main Quest>
Destroy the statue of Repinal
Time limit: Within 72 hours
Success: Infamy points +200p
Failure: No penalty
Repinal….
Seeing that name stirred something unexpectedly tender in me. Repinal was the god that Lihen — well, the character I used most — had served. The Goddess of Dawn, Repinal. The one who had so generously bestowed countless blessings upon Lihen, along with skills useful in battle. As a player, I owed that deity quite a lot.
As it was, my heart was already a wreck just from having killed Lihen, a character I’d grown so fond of. Being transmigrated into the game without any explanation was disorienting enough — but the murder I had committed without even realizing it was dragging my mind down into a much darker place. Even telling myself that this couldn’t be reality, that it hadn’t been my intention — the unease refused to disappear.
And now, on top of all that, I was being told to personally destroy the statue of the god he had served. Even if this reality I’d been thrown into was nothing more than a dream, that was something I genuinely did not want to do. If there was no penalty for failing anyway, there was no reason to commit an evil act. If this truly was the game world I knew, gathering infamy points to grow stronger was certainly possible — but for all I knew, I’d wake up tomorrow and find myself back in my own world as if nothing had happened. What would be the point of doing any of this then.
Besides, no matter what Shane did, the demons were never going to like him. They openly looked down on him for being a half-breed, and the title of Legion Commander was nothing more than a name. If — truly, if — it turned out that I was stuck in this world with no way back to my own… it might honestly be better to find the right moment, declare that I was stepping down as Legion Commander, toss the pendant aside, and disappear somewhere in the human world. Pick a quiet rural village and live out a peaceful, hidden life. That was actually a reasonable option.
In that regard, Shane’s body wasn’t so bad. He was a half-breed whose appearance wasn’t too far removed from a human’s, and even the demonic aura that any full-blooded demon would constantly radiate was unusually faint in him. Even most priests would likely be unable to identify Shane’s true nature.
Resign as Legion Commander. Live a cozy life in the countryside.
I hastily sketched out that contingency plan — for the scenario where I couldn’t return to my original world — then turned and headed for my quarters. I was still just as disoriented as before, but I had at minimum accepted the fact that I had become “Shane.” Even so, that acceptance had only come because the alternative was immediate death, so I’d simply cleared away other thoughts as quickly as I could. I had pushed my survival instinct to its absolute limit to assess the situation with cold clarity, but what I truly needed was time alone — in front of a mirror — to steady myself.
The room was neither spacious nor lavish. The space was so excessively orderly that it felt devoid of any trace of life being lived. A hollow bedroom, barely distinguishable from an empty room. It seemed to perfectly mirror Shane’s interior.
I stood before a full-length mirror. Ash-gray hair, vivid red eyes. Narrowed, half-lidded eyes and an expressionless face. Skin so pale it was bloodless. I tilted up the corners of my eyes to their limit and tried out a suspicious smile. It was a face I had seen countless times in the game.
Only then did it finally sink in. This was no longer a world beyond a screen. The visceral realness seeping through my skin confirmed it wasn’t a dream either. I truly, actually, had to live in this body.
I turned my head. A clock on the desk caught my eye. It looked nothing like the clocks from the world I’d lived in. It was a mechanism where interlocking stars rotated slowly — a device that could read not only the time but the passage of days. I stared blankly, my gaze drifting along the movement of the miniature galaxy.
This game used the same concept of dates as the modern world, for the player’s convenience.
Today was the 24th of January, Imperial Year 677. The current time was 9 o’clock at night.
Why had Shane, of all things, put a clock from the human world — calibrated to the Imperial calendar — in this room? Had he missed his human father? I now occupied Shane’s body, but his heart was still something I could not yet understand.
I looked at the clock again. The combination of numbers was not unfamiliar.
January 24th, Year 677.
Oh.
It hit me belatedly — the significance of this date. It was the day Lihen’s companion-raising event was set to begin.
On this day, Lihen discovers a child buried in the snow. A twelve-year-old boy on the verge of freezing to death — Theo. He appeared to be an ordinary child, but his true identity was that of a twenty-seven-year-old imperial hero and the greatest Sword Master of the age.
During a battle against the demons, he had taken a fatal blow that stripped him of his memories and abilities, and reverted his body to that of his childhood. Under normal circumstances, the self would have been completely annihilated — but Theo was such an extraordinarily powerful being that he simply stopped at being made young.
When I had played through the game as Lihen, I had designated him as my companion. I poured the points I’d gathered through quests into developing Theo. After investing more than ten thousand points, Theo returned to being twenty-seven years old.
But now —
Lihen is dead.
Which meant there was no one to find Theo. In the first place, Theo doesn’t even appear in the story when you choose Shane as your PC. The Shane storyline begins with killing Lihen.
The empire’s hero — the world’s greatest hope — was just going to die buried in the snow, and that would be the end of it. A conclusion so bleak and empty as that was something I absolutely could not allow.
I shot to my feet. I stripped off the combat uniform stained with Lihen’s blood and changed into something light and casual. There was no time to hesitate.
In Lihen’s place, I had to be the one to save Theo.
* * *
The snow was deeper than I’d expected. Deep enough to swallow a person whole without a sound.
I tore through the blizzard for what felt like a long time, and only when the feeling in my fingers had begun to vanish did I find a small shape. A child half-buried in the snow. So utterly still that I couldn’t even be sure whether he was still breathing.
It was Theo.
I didn’t hesitate. I scooped the child up into my arms. He was incredibly light. I channeled strength into my trained muscles, and even over the deep snow, my body glided forward. I pulled off my robe and wrapped it around him, then ran with everything I had toward the shelter I’d prepared in the human world. My breath burned in my lungs. But stopping wasn’t an option. Having demon blood mixed in actually came in handy at times like this. A demon’s body was tens of times stronger and faster than a human’s.
When I pushed the door open and stepped inside, cold air flooded into the room. I immediately laid Theo down on the bed and pulled the blankets up over him. His entire body was ice cold. He felt like a corpse. I threw logs into the fireplace and lit them, but it didn’t seem anywhere near enough. His breathing was shallow, and his body temperature showed no sign of rising.
In this scene, Lihen should have been here. Lihen was a healer. Someone who could restore warmth and hold on to life with nothing more than a touch of his hands. But the only one in this room right now was Shane. A half-demon Legion Commander with no ability to heal.
At this rate, Theo might actually die.
I grabbed my own head and groaned. My breathing grew ragged. What do I do. What can I even do right now.
Right — items!
“Shop!”
I shouted out loud. Accompanied by a familiar shimmer of light, a window materialized in the air. The shop screen I had seen countless times during my days playing the game. I asked urgently:
“Is there any item that can fix the situation right now?”
After a few seconds of loading, a recommended listing appeared.
<Begone, Cold! Potion>
Restores a state of hypothermia to normal.
Price: 200 points
I stared at that number with unblinking eyes. A hollow laugh escaped me on its own.
200 points.
Exactly the score I would receive for destroying the statue of Repinal standing before the Temple of Dawn.
