🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 1
01. Harmonia Ju Elorang
What had my life been?
Had it been nothing more than a single grain of sand, insignificant even among the countless grains swept along by a gigantic current…?
As I watched the sharp, freezing blade drawing close enough to sever my neck, I thought:
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if it all ended here.
“Your Highness! Hurry, escape!”
“If His Highness survives, Elorang’s future will… Urgh!”
Thud!
I was knocked to the ground, and hot blood splattered over me.
The eyes of the nameless soldier, wide open and bloodshot even after death, seemed to speak to me.
Your Majesty, please survive.
From the moment I was born, I had been their king.
But did I really have a reason to survive?
“Haa… haa… haa!”
And yet, before I knew it, my breathing had grown ragged, and I was running with all my strength, my thighs aching as if they might burst.
“Elorang’s king is running away!”
“Don’t let him escape!”
“Get the bows!”
Arrows rained down like the sharp teeth of a pack of wolves, biting and tearing into me.
I didn’t know whether I was in pain. I didn’t know where I was supposed to go.
I simply ran and ran.
Because escaping from this place was what I was meant to do.
My name is Harmonia Ju Elorang.
I am the young and incompetent king of the powerless kingdom of Elorang, living in a world that has been turned upside down.
This story began with a mystery that occurred roughly one hundred years ago.
Long ago, a black tower suddenly rose from the land of the Titan, a minority race.
It was a tower without even a single window. It had only one entrance, and its height disappeared into the clouds, making it impossible to see its end.
The tower was inexplicable.
No matter what anyone did, the entrance would not open, and no one knew how to enter it.
Wary of the tower’s strangeness, people tried to destroy it, but no method they used left even the slightest crack.
Then one blacksmith said:
“The material used to build this tower isn’t from this land! Isn’t this truly a tower of demons?”
Where it came from, how it came to be there, and why it had appeared—no one knew.
In particular, Lexio, proud of being the only empire, felt humiliation and fury that even the full strength of the nation could not destroy the tower.
Lexio directed the arrows of its anger toward the Titans.
Claiming that the land of the Titans had been cursed, they persecuted the Titan people.
Many nations joined them and killed the Titans.
Then they sealed off the land of the Titans.
After one year, hardly any Titans could be found.
That was when an entity commonly known as the ‘System’ appeared.
[The System has been unlocked because the invasion conditions have been fulfilled.]
It began with an enormous message that covered the entire sky.
They had never seen such writing before, yet there was no one who could not understand the message.
[Event Occurred! The dimensional gate to dimension D831-301 has opened!]
[The D831-301 dimensional system is using the exclusive skill ‘Systemization’.]
[A blessing has descended upon dimension D831-301.]
[The Blessing Roulette is spinning.]
[Olga’s Tarot Cards (Mythic Grade) have been selected!]
[From this moment until the next update, every human newly born in dimension D831-301 will receive one of the Fate God Olga’s Tarot Cards.]
“What in the world does all this mean?”
Their questions did not last long.
Because even at that very moment, children continued to be born.
[Olga’s Tarot Card is spinning!]
[Olga’s Tarot Card: A tarot card belonging to the God of Fate and Blessings, Olga, of dimension A007-21. The cards are generated according to the number of fates watched over by Olga. They are granted only once in a lifetime to newborn children, and any skill bestowed by Olga’s Tarot Card is permanently bound to its recipient.]
As though celebrating the birth of a new life, a golden magic circle flashed around newborn babies whose umbilical cords had not even been cut.
[The skill Sparkling Eyes (Normal Grade) has been bound to you.]
[The skill Sparrow’s Song (Normal Grade) has been bound to you.]
[The skill Fawn’s Leg Strength (Normal Grade) has been bound to you.]
The first people to check the results of the Tarot Cards were not the newborn babies, but their parents.
They were also the first to understand what the skills and grades meant.
Most babies received green-colored Normal Grade skills.
Occasionally, blue Rare Grade and red Heroic Grade skills appeared, while black Legendary Grade and white Mythic Grade skills were exceedingly rare.
The power of Normal Grade skills was not great.
They caused small changes, such as making someone slightly stronger or giving them greater musical ability.
Rather than abilities, they were more like talents.
However, things were clearly different from Rare Grade onward.
[The skill Fireball in My Hand (Rare Grade) has been bound to you.]
[The skill Courage of a Veteran Adventurer (Heroic Grade) has been bound to you.]
[The skill Lion King’s Heart (Legendary Grade) has been bound to you.]
They could wield magic they had never learned and recover at an astonishing rate.
Some babies were wiser and more mature than sages despite having only just been born.
The sight of babies using their powers as naturally as breathing was like a miracle.
Just like the black tower, the cause of the System and skills remained unknown, but people accepted these powers as a blessing rather than a curse.
The power contained within the skills was immediately useful in their daily lives.
The humans of dimension D831-301 defined the day the System appeared as January 1, Year 1 of the World Calendar.
From Year 1 to Year 20, the birth rate rose sharply, and the babies born during this period came to be called the Golden Generation.
Starting in Year 21, when the Golden Generation began reaching adulthood, civilization rapidly flourished based on their diverse skills.
[Seabird’s Nest (Rare Grade Dungeon)]
[Little Dwarf’s Laboratory (Heroic Grade Dungeon)]
It was around this time that dungeons containing monsters and treasures began to be discovered one after another.
Dungeons only allowed people with skills to enter.
Hunters.
No one knew exactly who had started it.
At some point, people began distinguishing the members of the Golden Generation who explored dungeons as Hunters.
And in World Year 76, one genius sparked a worldwide craze.
Known as the first holder of a Mythic Grade skill, Blanc Marca used his bound skill, Crystal Network (Mythic Grade), to make it possible for anyone to communicate from anywhere in the world with nothing more than a crystal orb.
Within less than five years of Blanc beginning his activities in earnest, people of every social class were exchanging information anonymously.
The network was commonly known as the Anonymous Bulletin Board, and vast amounts of information poured into it.
The development of dungeons accelerated.
Enormous treasures poured out.
Hunters who distinguished themselves rose through the rankings and were called Rankers.
Rankers earned tremendous amounts of gold and were idolized.
World Year 80 was called the beginning of the true Hunter era.
And that was the year I was born.
[A miracle has occurred! Congratulations, ‘Harmonia Ju Elorang’.]
[The skill Harmonia’s Necklace (Mythic Grade) has been bound to you.]
As the Hunter era began, the social hierarchy became unstable.
Some were left behind by the torrent of change, while others adapted quickly.
Some nations incorporated Hunters into the nobility in an attempt to maintain stability.
On the other hand, there were countries that could not abandon their sense of superiority based on social class and discriminated against Hunters according to their status.
My country, the Kingdom of Elorang, was the latter.
They belatedly scrambled to recruit talented people based on their abilities, but by then, it was already far too late.
The kingdom’s power had been declining since the moment I was born.
Not long after my birth as the firstborn, my parents and relatives all died, further weakening the power of the royal palace.
“Nuvel only passed away fifteen days ago! And now Esdel too…”
“Ahh! I’m afraid of Harmonia! What if all of this is that child’s fault? How am I supposed to look at that child now?”
The message revealing the bound skill granted by Olga’s Tarot Card appeared above the head of the newborn baby.
At that moment, the information about the skill was also revealed to everyone present.
[Harmonia’s Necklace (Mythic Grade): A necklace created by the Blacksmith God of dimension A21-107. It grants eternal youth and beauty, but brings unavoidable misfortune. After becoming bound to Harmonia Ju Elorang, it underwent a slight change. The auxiliary skill is determined according to the user’s will. The method of use is unknown.]
It was only natural that my parents feared my skill and regarded it as an ill omen.
My skill, ‘Harmonia’s Necklace,’ carried a fatal penalty: unavoidable misfortune.
Perhaps my very existence itself was an omen of misfortune.
My parents gradually fell ill and eventually died.
—My vessel was too small to embrace you. I’m sorry… You must grow strong and live on, baby…
—Grow up well, our Hani. Tomorrow, there will be another morning… Why am I so sleepy…? I’m sorry, Hani…
Even though these were memories from when I was very young, I could still vividly remember the whispers of my parents, who had feared me, and their final words.
They echoed in my mind like a refrain, stopping me whenever I tried to give up after failing to learn how to use my skill.
That, too, must have been my misfortune.
After my parents’ deaths, while I was still young, the nobles took control of the central council and began deciding all matters concerning the kingdom.
When I was little, I genuinely believed that they were doing it for the sake of the kingdom and its people, so I followed them.
But as I grew older, I had no choice but to obey them because I lacked power.
The opinion of a king in name only was insignificant, and I wanted power.
“There’s no way a Mythic Grade skill would bring nothing but misfortune to its owner. If I can only obtain this power… There must be a way!”
