Chapter 2: The Beginning is Always Peaceful

—Clang!

With a dull thud, the pain of landing on my butt spread throughout my body. It seemed I had rolled off the creaky old wooden bed.

“Ugh…” A groan escaped me involuntarily. Clutching my back, I rolled on the floor. The stone floor was endlessly hard and cold.

“…Was it a dream?” I recalled the dream I had just experienced. Unfamiliar sights had unfolded before my eyes.

The modern era, computers, games… these were things that I, Ian Darkest, certainly did not know. But they felt familiar. Eerily so. Maybe the stress has been so bad lately that I’ve developed some kind of mental illness.

My head throbbed as I thought of the taxes I had to pay to the family tomorrow. But that wasn’t what was important right now.

“I should wash my face.” Heading to the washroom, I let out a sigh of relief. Dark black hair. Pale skin. And a skinny body. It was the same Ian Darkest I had known for over 20 years.

“Kim Ian.” My name from the dream. A shiver ran down my spine as I repeated it. A language that should have been utterly awkward—Korean—sounded so natural, both in pronunciation and comprehension.

It was as if my more than 20 years of living as Ian Darkest, the illegitimate son of the Darkest family, meant nothing, as the name Kim Ian rolled off my tongue with ease.

“Have I gone mad?” There were two possibilities. First. The possibility that, for some reason, I have gone mad. Actually, this wasn’t even worth considering.

In this world, all the mentally ill are locked away in an institution called the ‘Mental Treatment Center.’ The reason it boasts a 100% cure rate is likely because no one ever comes out alive. Therefore, I decided to believe in the second possibility.

“…Have I regained memories of a past life?”

The memory of Kim Ian sitting in front of a computer in his room just moments ago, deleting the abandoned game of seven years, Tales of Legend. The hypothesis that this was, in fact, my past life.

Perhaps I was transmigrated into the game while deleting TeLe, was born into this world as Ian Darkest, and had forgotten that fact for over 20 years, only to remember it now. The memory of being a ‘modern person’ that had settled in at some point made this understanding easy.

“This path seems to lead to a witch trial ending, though.”

Honestly, being discovered as a ‘transmigrator’ is more dangerous than being seen as a ‘madman’. After all, this world is full of people who get their dopamine fix from watching witch fireworks (where the witch becomes the firework). Still, I preferred this possibility. As long as I hide it well, the fact that I’m a transmigrator won’t be discovered.

“Anyway.” I looked around. This was my—that is, Ian Darkest’s—room. A cold stone floor. A shoddy wooden window frame that let in drafts. A dusty old rug. And the table I was leaning against, which creaked with a particular loudness.

Though shabby, I liked this place. It was a hard-won sanctuary away from the Darkest family, where I was always being tormented. But the aftereffects of downing a large red pill of reality hit me.

“Why is this place so rundown?” From Kim Ian’s perspective, this was the reception hall of TeLe.

Is this the result of spending thousands of dollars?

It looked better on a monitor, but feeling it with all five senses doubled the damage. Besides, this was also the place where the heroes would normally gather. Though now, not even a trace of a hero could be seen.

I’m sure my past self poured all his time and money into them. Even the territory I managed was all for the sake of maintaining the heroes.

Raising heroes required a lot of resources, and only by managing a large territory could I cover the costs. But now, there are no heroes and no territory left, huh?

The experience of having struggled thousands of times for someone else, only for it to become nothing, was, as expected, bitter.

“……..”

No. I don’t have the luxury to dwell on these depressing thoughts. Whether I’ve gone mad or truly regained my past life’s memories, I had to find the reason for this sudden event.

***

The best way to organize one’s thoughts is, of course, to walk. The scenery outside the house is both unfamiliar and familiar.A desolate hill with a few bare trees scattered about. An old, shabby earthen wall. And below it, a small cluster of mud houses.

Seorigol. The most worthless and abandoned land within the Darkest family’s domain, inhabited by about 15 residents. It was the fief entrusted to Ian Darkest, the shame and troublemaker illegitimate son of the Darkest family.

– I am the lord of Seorigol!

To introduce myself so proudly would just be embarrassing. Not only was it too small to even be called a small rural village, let alone a fief, but the circumstances under which I came to be in charge of it were not good either.

“To say it was entrusted to me is a lie; I was basically dumped with it.”

I was virtually ostracized by every member of the family, including the head. And for good reason.

I was the illegitimate son born between the family head and his maid. In a society with a strict class system, a son born between a high noble and a commoner?

There was no way the treatment would be good. They probably couldn’t even stand the sight of me in the family, so they sent me here as an administrator, telling me to manage this fief that didn’t even need managing.

“F*cking bastards.”

I muttered and was startled by my own words. Just yesterday, I couldn’t even say a single bad word about the family. This is indeed dangerous. The values and memories of a modern person. Looking around, I let out a small sigh. It seemed the witch-hunt ending was still far off.

“By the way.” An endlessly quiet and desolate fief. It was because there were no people, it was on the frontier, rural, and useless land, but… Is this really the world of TeLe?

It’s not that I don’t believe the memories I’ve recalled (though I haven’t completely ruled out the possibility that I’m mentally ill), but this world was far too peaceful to be a dark fantasy. Of course, peace is good. But TeLe is a dark fantasy. It kills off characters and everything else as soon as you get even a little attached.

Monster attacks erupting without warning, plagues sweeping through towns, nobles’ conspiracies and betrayals, and above all, the vicious payment inducements that drain the player’s wallet.

But this world now? The sky was perfectly clear and blue. The only sounds were the simple noises of the residents’ daily lives; there were no screams or roars of monsters anywhere.

The gloomy and desperate atmosphere from the game screen in my memory was nowhere to be found. At that moment, a loud voice erupted from beside me.

“You rascal! Slacking off and wandering around again! The sun is high in the sky, get to work! If you have nothing to do, go dig a ditch in the field!”

“Grandma! It’s barely dawn! A person needs to stretch their body before working, am I a cow?!”

“Aish, tsk tsk, you disrespectful thing! This is why Seorigol is the way it is, because the one in charge is like this! Tsk tsk!”

As the grandmother walked away without a sound, I shouted after her, “May you live forever and ever!” Look at this. How peaceful and heartwarming. You’re telling me a bloodbath is going to happen in a place like this? It was hard to believe.

At that moment.

A maple leaf, carried by the wind, briefly covered the sun.

Like something heavy had struck my head, a memory flashed by.

『The world was perfectly peaceful.』

『…As if this fun and happiness would last forever.』

『…. And then.』

『[ EP 1. Solar Eclipse ]』

『The main episode begins.』

Goosebumps covered my entire body.
The memory most intensely imprinted from hundreds, thousands of regressions playing TeLe as Kim Ian.
The starting point of all tragedy.

[ EP 1. Solar Eclipse ]

It was not a simple game event.
It was a great turning point where the very laws of the world were twisted.

The peaceful sky was instantly dyed blood-red, and the sun was completely swallowed by a black shadow.
The world was plunged into a bizarre darkness, and the earth cried out as if in unease.
Animals went on a frantic rampage, and mana ran wild.

And then they appeared.
Black rifts in the sky.
From those crevices, beings of unimaginably horrific forms poured out.
The familiar landscape instantly transformed into a living hell of chaos.
Screams, slaughter, destruction…

I had witnessed that beginning countless times.
In some regressions, I died helplessly; in others, I barely survived to move on to the next scenario.
But in no regression was the terror of the eclipse erased.

I hurriedly rushed back into my room.

At the same time, I checked the calendar.

“…One year from now.”

If my memory is correct, the main episode starts in one year.

In other words, the current peace is merely a prologue.

It was a time to build up strength in preparation for the main episode.

In the game, I believe I had focused my efforts on gathering heroes.

Thump, thump, thump.

My heart began to pound like crazy.
This peace is a lie.
It’s just the calm before the storm.
Soon, just like in the game, the eclipse will come to this world too.

If… if this world is really the same as TeLe.

Expulsion from the academy?
Overdue taxes?
Cold treatment from the family?

Once the main scenario begins, none of that will matter.
Just surviving will be a miracle.

The memories of a past life.
They are both a curse and a blessing.

What I gained at the end of 999 bad endings was only betrayal, despair, and a profound sense of fatigue.
The thought of having to repeat that hell was horrifying.
Worse, this time I don’t have the regression ability.
There’s only one chance.

But at the same time, those memories could be a powerful weapon.

‘…Can I do it?’

I was the one who, after pouring in tens of thousands of hours, still failed to catch the Demon King and was betrayed.
Even at the end, I was a loser who quit the game, disappointing the heroines because I didn’t even have money for in-app purchases.
Can someone like me change anything in this reality?

‘…I have no choice.’

I have to survive.
Whether as Kim Ian or as Ian Darkest.

Survive in this hellish world, and maybe… maybe I can see the ending I couldn’t see in my past life.

…One year left.

I have to find a way, no matter what.

I clenched my fists tightly.

The sensation of my nails digging into my palms brought me to my senses with a sharp sting.

.
.
.

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[Record]

▶ 931st Bad Ending

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The harvest season was just around the corner.
The man tilling the field looked up.

The sun was setting.

Despite it being broad daylight, a deep darkness descended upon the world.

A solar eclipse.

Seeing it, the man finally remembered.

The fact that he wasn’t simply the lord of an abandoned fief.

He was the one who shouldered the fate of this world.

He was the one who had regressed hundreds of times to prevent the world’s destruction.

The one who had failed hundreds of times.

Thus, he was the one who craved strength more than anyone.

The man also remembered.

That his self from a previous regression had found a way to become stronger.

It was to shatter his own memories.

To imbue each memory fragment with his abilities.

Thus, when he regained a memory, he would also regain the lost ability.

Becoming stronger was the only way to see the end of this dark fantasy.

The man from the previous regression had put that judgment into action.

And now.

Watching the setting sun, the man regained one fragment of memory.

At the same time, he realized.

That in this regression, he had regained his memory too late.

“Damn it.”

The roars of monsters could be heard from afar.

An eclipse.
The act of the moon covering the sun.

But this eclipse was different.
What covered the sun was not the moon.

Monsters.

A swarm of monsters large enough to cover the sun descended upon the fief.

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[Record]

▶ Playback of the 931st Bad Ending ‘Memory Failure’ has ended. The bad ending has been overcome.
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▶ A reward will be granted.
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