“This should be enough, right?”
Gauging the distance to the outer gate, Dang Seo-gyeom clapped his hands together and swallowed hard. His tone was calm, but the cold sweat soaking every joint revealed just how nervous he truly was. Wiping it roughly on the hem of his robe, Dang Seo-gyeom took a slow, deep breath to steady himself.
“Phew…”
After lightly clenching his fists and readying himself to run, he kicked off the ground. It was a swift speed for the third young master of the Dang Clan, who was said to be bedridden due to being born with the Yin-Yin Meridians. The more his feet moved, the shorter his breath became, and expectation filled both of his eyes.
Finally, the moment he was about to pass through the grand outer gate—
Thump.
Dang Seo-gyeom’s body was violently flung backward. It was as if he had slammed into something solid.
“…Failed again?”
Having fallen flat on his rear, Dang Seo-gyeom grumbled while rubbing the forehead he had just bumped. As if mocking him, a semi-transparent window popped up before his eyes.
[!Warning!] [NPCs cannot leave their spawn area.] [Current spawn area for Dang Seo-gyeom: Sichuan Dang Clan Outer Castle]
It was roughly the size of an A5 paper. The somewhat modest window carried a pale yellow hue, looking as though it had faded with age. A red exclamation mark stamped over a texture reminiscent of an ancient book stood out prominently. Beneath it followed a caution notice he had only ever seen in games.
“Why the hell me?”
Frustrated, Dang Seo-gyeom huffed and asked back, but no answer returned. Only the bright red warning text flashed, as if reminding him of his current predicament.
“Oh dear… Young Master!”
Instead, a worried voice was heard nearby. Beyond the semi-transparent warning window, a wheat-colored shirt fluttered. He looked as if he had rushed over in the middle of work, with his sleeves rolled up all the way, exposing truly burly forearms.
It was an incongruous appearance for a servant of the Dang Clan, a family that mainly dealt with poison and hidden weapons. However, if that massive body was meant for hauling around the third young master who fainted constantly, it wasn’t so strange after all.
“Your ankle bone… It’s already turning red, so if left as is, it will swell up completely.”
In the meantime, the servant, who had approached within arm’s reach, squatted down at Dang Seo-gyeom’s feet. Hovering his hands over the ankle area without quite touching it, a tone of deep distress laced his voice. Dang Seo-gyeom, who had unconsciously averted his gaze, was forced to lift his head a moment later against his will.
The thick arm muscles twitched, and in an instant, his eye level shifted completely. Dang Seo-gyeom, now hanging over the servant’s shoulder like a small child, could only blink in speechlessness.
His fluster was brief. Having spent the last few days in this body, he had already learned full well that struggling was useless. Dang Seo-gyeom consciously relaxed his body. If he was going to be moved anyway, he wanted to travel a bit more comfortably.
“Is this how someone whose body hasn’t even recovered yet should be acting? I heard you didn’t even drink your decoction today, did you?”
Perhaps sensing the tense body relaxing, the servant began to scold Dang Seo-gyeom as well. Dang Seo-gyeom knitted his brows as he recalled the medicinal brew the servant girls pushed on him at every mealtime.
He had naturally turned a blind eye to that thing, which reeked of a foul stench. It felt as though taking just one sip would send him straight to the yellow springs. Who on earth would willingly gulp that down?
‘Besides, I don’t even get hurt anywhere.’
Dang Seo-gyeom grumbled only in his mind and lowered his gaze. A slender, fair forearm swayed along the line of the servant’s back. It matched the green robe he was currently wearing wonderfully, but it was far too frail to belong to an adult male body.
‘It’s because this body is so weak that they’re shoving that garbage at me as medicine.’
Even though it was his own body, Dang Seo-gyeom’s evaluation was harsh. It couldn’t be helped. Because right now, Seo-gyeom was trapped inside the body of an NPC who merely shared the same name as him.
“Tsk.”
Clicking his tongue softly, Seo-gyeom intentionally turned his head away. As he did, a full view of the outer castle came into sight. A stone wall ran continuously around the outer gate he had slammed into earlier, and inside the wall, quarters with rounded tile roofs stood sparsely here and there.
Strangely, no signs of human presence could be felt. Instead, faint battle cries echoed from very far away. Dang Seo-gyeom estimated the origin of the sound before quickly organizing his thoughts. Since he had moved early in the morning, the inner castle disciples would likely be starting their training around this time.
Normally, Dang Seo-gyeom, as the grandson of the Dang Family Head, would have occupied a spot among them. However, it had already been over a dozen years since he was driven out for some reason. Even if it were the real Dang Seo-gyeom, no memories of staying in the inner castle would remain.
“Young Master… Once your ankle heals… I will somehow take you outside.”
He had only briefly recalled Dang Seo-gyeom’s backstory, but the servant hesitated and offered words of comfort. If it were the original Dang Seo-gyeom, he would have lost his temper, demanding how he dared to pity him, but Seo-gyeom was different.
Unlike the NPC who believed he had been cast aside because he was useless, Seo-gyeom knew the hidden backstory tangled behind it. No, in truth, simply accepting the situation he was currently thrown into was overwhelming enough.
The shaggy hair obscuring his sight and the green robe brushing against his fingertips were all unfamiliar to Seo-gyeom. The servant currently worrying about him was no different.
To the servant, this body might be the young master he had served his entire life, but to Seo-gyeom, he was merely an unfamiliar character. Thus, despite the voice full of concern, Seo-gyeom couldn’t help but worry about his own situation first.
“Let us head inside first. I will go bring the physician.”
As if conscious of Dang Seo-gyeom, who had grown strangely listless, the servant spoke much more gently. Then, as he took a step toward Dang Seo-gyeom’s quarters, the flashing warning window vanished. As if its work here was done.
“Ha, seriously…”
“Pardon? Are you feeling uncomfortable somewhere?”
“No. It’s nothing.”
Feeling restless, Seo-gyeom let out a deep sigh and changed the subject. Today was the fifth day he had struggled to escape the Dang Clan. Only after dozens of escape attempts all ended in failure could Seo-gyeom finally accept it.
That he had truly entered inside .
And as an NPC whose life was destined to be terminally ill, no less.
It was a game that appeared about four years ago and shook South Korea to its core. The era was when virtual reality games had just emerged. With the advent of this new technology, the existing gaming market faded completely, and capsule cafes emerged as the new ruling titan.
The proof was that despite the high price exceeding 30,000 won per hour, capsule cafes were always packed to the brim. And there was a game that occupied a whopping 98% market share in such capsule cafes.
It was none other than , whose goal was to make the protagonist, Namgung Yoon, the undisputed greatest master under the heavens.
Players could choose a character at the start of the game, but most picked Namgung Yoon, only to throw up their hands in surrender shortly after. It was an inevitable outcome, given that the very first thing they encountered upon starting was assassins. Even if one barely managed to escape, surviving with a body afflicted by poison was practically impossible.
Enraged players, shouting whether this was meant to be beaten, eventually found another path. It was to utilize the high degree of freedom to play as characters other than the protagonist.
From an ordinary waiter at an inn to the heir of a massive merchant guild, and a rising star of an orthodox sect. One could literally chew, tear, taste, and enjoy everything in the martial world. Though they couldn’t become the greatest under the heavens like the protagonist, each could write their own record in the martial realm. Seo-gyeom, too, had made various titles known to the world, such as Saint of Medicine, Poison King, and King of Medicine.
“So why the hell did it have to be Dang Seo-gyeom?”
Seo-gyeom recalled his personal details, which had been attached to the warning window like a tumor. Honestly, the fact that he was inside a game wasn’t a huge problem in itself.
Even after it degraded into a trash game, Seo-gyeom was the one who stubbornly kept playing only . Over the past four years, Seo-gyeom had strived to see the true ending. Though countable on one hand, he had even succeeded in making Namgung Yoon the Leader of the Martial Alliance or the Family Head of the Namgung Clan. Of course, that didn’t mean he remembered every single one of his hundreds of play records.
However, wasn’t knowledge power? The path Seo-gyeom had walked before would surely help him survive in this place.
“This guy…”
The problem was that Seo-gyeom had never played Dang Seo-gyeom even once.
To be precise, it was more accurate to say he couldn’t play him.
“Dang Seo-gyeom is terminally ill!”
The third young master, born with Yin-Yin Meridians and raised in the outer castle. No matter what character one played as, the fate of the third young master was set in stone. After finishing his role of connecting the protagonist to the Dang Clan, he would die shortly after.
“My status.”
Once the servant left the room saying he would bring the physician, Seo-gyeom softly twitched his lips. However, nothing appeared. The inventory or skills he had so enjoyed using whenever he played were nowhere to be found. Things that used to appear just by thinking about them were completely silent now, even when spoken aloud.
“I’m going outside again, alright?”
[!Warning!] [NPCs cannot perform autonomous actions.]
On the other hand, the moment he extended one leg past the edge of the bed, the warning window popped right back up. A system shouldn’t have emotions, yet somehow it felt as though it was scolding Seo-gyeom. Telling him to stick to his duty as an NPC.
“So you’re saying I’m really Dang Seo-gyeom, huh?”
Seo-gyeom narrowed his eyes, pulling back his foot that had been resting on the edge of the bed. Feeling the sarcasm, the system gave no reaction. Seo-gyeom, who remained silent as if engaging in a battle of nerves, opened his mouth a moment later.
“This place is…”
‘Inside the game I used to play.’
However, the words he tried to say next did not come out of his mouth. This, too, was something he had experienced over the past few days, but he just couldn’t get used to it.
If it didn’t fit the NPC’s settings, he couldn’t even say a single word as he pleased.
“Picky, aren’t we?”
Seo-gyeom grumbled softly and laid his body down. Sprawling out, Dang Seo-gyeom’s room came fully into view.
