That night, Seol Hajin stumbled into his house, slightly tipsy from drinking, and lay sprawled on his bed, staring intently at his smartphone screen.
[Ragnarok]
“…Should I download this or not?”
To be honest, he had always wanted to try playing Ragnarok. The game was enjoying an unprecedented level of popularity worldwide, which only fueled his curiosity further.
Just how enjoyable could this game be that it stirred up such a commotion everywhere and was being advertised from all directions? If he claimed that he wasn’t interested after witnessing all that, it would indeed be a lie.
However, given his history of dismissing mobile games with great disdain, he had been reluctant to dive in, out of pride. It would indeed be embarrassing for a man to go back on his word not once, but twice.
Ordinarily, he would have stubbornly refused to download the game just to uphold his silly pride, but alcohol clouded his judgment at that moment.
After all, it wasn’t like he intended to fully commit to playing; he just wanted to give it a quick try. Didn’t the saying go that knowing your enemy and yourself ensures victory in every battle?
Right, I’m not selling my pride; this is more about reconnaissance to see what the enemies are up to before the war starts. Plus, I’ll be doing my junior a favor by sending them 500 diamonds…
All the stray thoughts in his mind managed to rationalize his decision, and without further hesitation, Seol Hajin clicked the ‘Install’ button.
And then—
“…Huh?”
There was no warning or indication. The moment he hit the install button, his consciousness sank into an abyss of darkness.
It was the beginning of a damn nightmare.
*
Long ago, Seol Hajin had gotten lost during an overseas trip with his parents.
This happened over a decade ago, yet he could vividly recall the experience.
Unfamiliar sights that blurred into one another, foreign strangers speaking a language he couldn’t understand, and the overwhelming despair and fear of feeling utterly alone in the world.
Fortunately, his parents, realizing he was missing, desperately searched for him and found him in less than an hour, rescuing him from a situation as a lost child.
Sadly, this time, he couldn’t expect such luck.
Because the place where Seol Hajin found himself lost was not merely another country, but an entirely different dimension.
On the first day of being here, he thought it was a dream. Or perhaps he wondered if he was being filmed for a massive hidden camera show.
However, that suspicion was promptly discarded. No matter how advanced technology became, it was impossible to conjure fire from his fingertips or summon lightning.
Though he didn’t quite understand the nature of this world, one thing was certain: this was not Earth, but a fantastical realm where magic and otherworldly phenomena thrived.
To his misfortune, while he could communicate with others, it didn’t change his predicament. Regrettably, being a humanities student who had merely studied in 21st-century South Korea offered him little advantage in a fantasy world.
Initially, he was merely focused on adapting. He had to adjust to a drastically changed living environment overnight and adapt to a culture that was entirely different from what he had known. Most importantly, he had to accepting the fact that he was completely useless in this world.
On the bright side, having spent twelve years in school allowed him to be more useful with paperwork than the other ignorant simpletons around him. He struggled at the bottom of society, fighting desperately to survive by any means necessary.
Thus, a decade passed. After tremendous effort, he was finally able to mingle with others somewhat and, above all, secure a home right in the heart of the Imperial Capital. Such a remarkable achievement would have been impossible back in Korea.
Indeed, what is home, really? No matter where one settles and lives, that place becomes home. Over the last ten years, he became accustomed to life in this world.
Well, there were moments when he missed the modern wonders of 21st-century Korea or longed to see his parents’ faces, but…
Even that was something that time would resolve. After all, in Korea, isn’t it nearly impossible to own a home in your twenties?
He thought he might live a normal, unremarkable life until the end, perhaps finding a kind and naive woman to marry someday.
In this manner, Seol Hajin—no, Jin—was living a life that was simply peaceful compared to ten years ago.
However, one day, everything he had painstakingly built came crashing down in an instant.
Without any warning, the end arrived, and the world fell into ruin. As a bonus, the home he had worked so hard to establish disintegrated into dust.
And crucially—
“…Huh?”
Jin found himself back to ten years ago, at the very moment he first fell into this world.
*
Jin did not die. More precisely, at the moment of death, he found himself regressing to the past, as if the world itself did not wish for his demise.
At first, he thought it was great to have a second chance at life, but it wasn’t until some time passed that he realized how miserable it was to be forced to live against his will and unable to meet death.
As soon as he regressed, Jin contemplated fleeing somewhere. However, when he learned that the end was aiming to obliterate the continent itself, he gave up on even that. He had no choice but to give up.
In other words, if he wanted to live and didn’t want to perish, fighting back was not an option but a necessity. He refused to become a mere meal for a monster once again, as had happened in his first life.
There were a total of nine regressions. And Jin’s final moments facing the end also numbered nine.
There were times when he met a pitiful end, having achieved nothing.
And the world was destroyed by the end.
There were other times when humanity united to defeat the end.
And the world fell to the second end.
There were moments when he raised new ‘heroes’ to leave hope for the future.
And the world was destroyed by the third end.
Despite trying to navigate this wretched world like a dog for nine lifetimes, seeking to avoid death, there were still limits.
Of course, it wasn’t just a reckless headlong charge into the unknown that cost him his life. After losing it a whopping nine times, he had gleaned several crucial truths.
Firstly, this world wasn’t just a different universe; it was a realm within Ragnarok.
Secondly, the end wasn’t merely a cause of the world’s destruction; it was part of the game’s scenario.
And, since the end was part of this scenario, it meant that somewhere in this world, there had to be a way to defeat it.
Because it was easy to surmise that if the creators of Ragnarok weren’t out of their minds, they would have undoubtedly included elements to overcome the end within the game’s framework.
However, separate from that, Jin felt various aspects of his being gradually wearing down as he repeated the regressions over and over again.
“I’m utterly sick of this.”
At first, he was appalled by how lightly his life seemed to flutter away like a bug, but now even that felt all too familiar. Killing someone or being killed felt too trivial now.
He was bored. How long was he supposed to keep rolling around in this hamster wheel of a cage? How long would he need to bear witness to this endlessly repeating theater?
After pouring a hundred years into it, he had only just met the third end; how much longer would it take to overcome all the ends and reach a conclusion?
And until that time, would he even be able to keep his sanity intact? How long could his weak mind endure this seemingly endless cycle of regressions?
Creak—
Was it just his imagination? He thought he heard the sound of a clock winding somewhere.
No, it couldn’t just be his imagination, as he had heard that damn sound every time he died—a total of nine times.
“Please, just leave me alone. Just let me die.”
He was exhausted. The end and everything else—it was time to simply rest. He wanted to die without a thought, to just collapse uselessly.
But against his will, the world began to regress. It started reconstructing itself back to that day ten years ago.
His consciousness drifted somewhere. And when he opened his eyes, everything had already changed.
“Damn it.”
He found himself standing in the central square of Ninea, the Imperial Capital. As one of the busiest places in the capital, it was bustling with the lively sounds and commotion of people.
Just before that despicable lizard pierced his heart, the surroundings had been engulfed in flames; now, there wasn’t a trace of that devastation to be found.
It was undeniable. He had returned once more to that very time, that very place when he first fell into this world, ten years ago.
Thus, Jin’s tenth life, after nine regressions, had begun anew. He now had the opportunity to seize a chance to change everything for the future, rising above the horrific death brought about by the end.
“…Shit, I’m seriously losing my mind.”
Of course, Jin didn’t want this even a little bit.
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