Two days earlier, the training ground at the goblin subjugation force’s encampment.
In the deserted training ground, the cool night air brushed my cheek.
Alone in the empty grounds, I lifted my spear.
The familiar sensation as it settled into my hand.
Along with it, my mind grew calm.
It felt as though I was standing exactly where I was meant to be.
Savoring that feeling, I steadied my breathing and took my stance.
Whoosh—!
The spearhead cut through the air, thrusting forward.
A clean thrust, as if it had come straight out of a textbook.
And yet I was dissatisfied.
“So it really won’t work.”
With a bitter smile, I thrust my spear again.
The spearhead held not even mana—no power of any kind gathered upon it.
Mana occlusion.
Because of that cursed constitution, I could not handle mana.
‘I’m sorry, Ashen. It seems you won’t be able to become a knight.’
I still cannot forget the expression Master wore when he heard the name of my illness.
The old knight, who had always seemed so strong, shed tears for the first time that day.
I did not cry.
No, I could not cry.
To think I could not even reach out toward the dream I had pursued my entire life.
It felt as though my whole life had been denied.
Even so.
“I don’t want to give up.”
I did not stop.
Because the dream of becoming a knight had already become my very identity.
Even if it was impossible, I could not let go of the spear.
**
By the time I finished practicing, the moon had already tilted toward the west.
‘I should head back to the barracks soon.’
There was no need to pointlessly stay in the training ground until morning and get scolded by a senior.
Watching the moon slowly set, I started toward the barracks.
Until I saw it.
Creeeak.
Mixed with the cold wind came the sound of rusted metal.
Was there someone else who hadn’t fallen asleep besides me?
I held my breath and turned my gaze toward the source of the sound.
There was a man sitting in a wheelchair.
Was he a noble?
His clothes were unfamiliar, but the luxurious fabric stood out.
Sitting alone in the darkness, he fixed his attention on me.
I looked at him as well, but I could not see his face.
As if it were something I must not see, the darkness had swallowed his face whole.
Just trying to force myself to see the man’s face made an intense revulsion surge up inside me.
A feeling as though my heart were being squeezed.
That thing must not exist.
I must not acknowledge that thing.
Such whispers echoed in my mind.
Just as I began to feel fear at that sensation—
The man’s figure slowly vanished into the darkness.
I moved toward the disappearing man.
I must not let him get away.
Apart from the revulsion, I had that premonition.
Forgetting even my exhaustion, I quickly approached the man.
And the closer I got, the faster he disappeared.
‘You think I’ll let you escape?’
One step. Two steps.
I kicked off the ground with all my strength.
By the time my breathing began to grow ragged,
I had somehow arrived in front of the man, and I saw it.
‘What is this?’
Sitting there was “me.”
No, was that really me?
Similar, but different.
Even though the hair color and eye color were not the same, I instinctively knew that it was me.
“What are you?”
At my words, “I” smiled as though his mouth would split open.
“You finally made it.”
An expression as though the one he had been waiting for had arrived.
“I” slowly reached out toward me.
It was clearly a slow motion, and yet for some reason, I could not dodge.
Taking my hand, “I” whispered softly to me.
“You’re sick of living as part of the background too, aren’t you?”
“What the hell are you talking about…?”
“So I’ll give you a chance.”
With those words, my consciousness slowly sank into the floor.
**
A world I had never seen before unfolded before my eyes.
Roads made of black stone, castles built of iron, and carriages that moved on their own.
Everything was fascinating, but the most fascinating thing of all was inside this room.
The man who resembled me was sitting alone in a small room.
The place where his two legs should have been was empty.
His gaze, too, was hollow.
Whether I stared at him or not, he paid no attention at all and simply looked at the screen before him, tapping at something.
What was in that place?
My curious gaze reached the screen.
Inside it, there were people.
Labyrinth Academy.
That was what the man called the world inside the screen.
That world was astonishingly identical to the one I lived in.
No, that wasn’t it.
“That” was the world I lived in.
As I stood there dazed by that fact, a whisper sounded by my ear.
“What are you staring at so wonderingly?”
A giggling laugh.
The other me looked at me as though amused.
“You already know all of this, don’t you?”
“I know all of it?”
“Don’t you remember?”
No sooner had those words ended than an intense pain struck my head.
It felt as though my brain were being stirred with a heated needle.
The pain was so great I could not even scream, but my consciousness remained strangely clear.
Then, stitch by stitch, memories of “me” that I did not know were engraved into me.
“My” name was Kim Yuhan.
A man whose dream had been to become a bodyguard, only for it to be crushed by a traffic accident.
A man whose only hobby had been a game called Labyrinth Academy.
My world had been nothing more than a game to “me.”
And to “me,” I had been nothing more than background, not even an extra.
But now, “I” and I had become one.
At last, when the flood of information came to an end,
darkness covered my consciousness.
**
“Ashen! Ashen!”
A familiar voice rang in my ears.
When I forced my heavy eyelids open, a familiar face came into view.
“Senior Rena?”
A round face, but sharp eyes.
Jet-black hair and golden eyes like the sunset.
A beautiful woman with healthy bronze skin was smiling at me.
“Of course it’s me. Who else would it be? Did you have some strange dream?”
“A dream?”
As if.
There was no way “that” could have been a dream.
Slowly sitting up, I retraced the memories of last night.
My past life.
The truth of this world.
And Labyrinth Academy.
All those memories were mixed together like mud, leaving me confused.
“Ashen. Are you all right? Are you sick?”
Did I look strange?
Worry seeped into Senior Rena’s voice.
“No, I’m fine. I just had a bad dream. I guess I’m nervous because of the subjugation.”
“You, nervous? That’s not like you. Are you sure you’re not really sick?”
“It’s nothing like that.”
“You’re not lying, are you? You know we Kurdans don’t forgive liars, right?”
Senior Rena looked straight at me with an intentionally stern expression.
She was clearly trying to look dignified, but because of her round face, she only looked cute.
Struggling to hold back the smile that threatened to burst out, I answered her.
“I’m really fine.”
“…Then that’s all right. Still, if anything happens, you have to tell me.”
“But what’s going on?”
“Ah, right! I almost forgot. Hey, hurry up and come out. We’re going to be late for assembly!”
Was it already that late?
Hurriedly putting on my gear, I quickly headed to the training ground.
Fortunately, it seemed we weren’t late; the soldier captain was just climbing onto the prepared platform.
What followed was the usual speech disguised as the soldier captain’s self-praise.
Using that boring interval, I organized the information I knew.
‘What kind of game was Labyrinth Academy?’
A run-of-the-mill fantasy game set in an academy.
That was the first thought that came to mind.
The graphics were ordinary, and the game style was ordinary.
If Kim Yuhan hadn’t been trying to escape reality, he probably would never have bothered playing it.
But unlike for Kim Yuhan, that game was reality to me.
For the sake of my life from now on, I had to find its singularities somehow.
‘First, the background setting was darker than I expected.’
The protagonist’s party enjoyed youth and school life, laughing cheerfully together.
But for those who were not the protagonist, this world was like hell.
Villagers were killed by monsters at the drop of a hat.
Academy students, too, often met brutal ends.
In that sense, this world would never be kind to me.
‘Because I’m not the protagonist.’
If I had to define myself, I was less than an extra.
No, I was closer to “background setting,” like a tree or a stone.
But now that I had gained the memories of my past life, I could change everything.
I was no longer background.
Even if I was not the protagonist, perhaps I could become something beyond that.
An adviser, or a friend. Or else…
‘A knight.’
As that thought came to mind, I stared fixedly at my right hand.
With that hand, I had gripped a spear shaft dozens of times, but I had never once grasped an opportunity.
This time, I would seize that opportunity for sure.
No matter what I had to go through.
“Ahem. Then, returning to the main point, I will explain tomorrow’s subjugation operation.”
Before I knew it, the soldier captain had finished boasting and was pointing at the map behind him with his hand.
But why did that map feel so familiar?
‘Where have I seen it before?’
As I pondered, the soldier captain’s explanation continued.
The location was the Red Forest. The target, a group of goblins.
And the one in command was Baron Molten.
With each puzzle piece that gathered, my memory grew clearer.
And when all of it came together, I realized.
A cry mixed with low frequencies. Yellow teeth. A massive body.
Its form revived in my memory.
When that damned thing appeared, terror descended over the battlefield.
Then the massacre began.
No one survived it.
Rena and I were no different, our limbs torn apart as we lay sprawled on the ground.
‘If things go according to this…’
Tomorrow, we will be annihilated by a troll.