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chapter 2
I had transmigrated.
Into a game world overflowing with all kinds of supernatural abilities—a game I had never even played.
Kim Min-gyu.
Twenty-nine years old. I had given up on college, but thanks to learning a practical trade, I managed to live a decent life. I was an ordinary man whose greatest joy was spending time with my busy older sister’s son—my one and only nephew.
If I’d known I’d die so pointlessly in a car accident, I should’ve skipped work once in a while and actually enjoyed life instead of obsessing over perfect attendance.
I hadn’t seen it happen myself, but there was no doubt that the original me was dead.
At first, I had been horrifically confused.
The circumstances were bad enough, and when I opened my eyes, I had become some unfamiliar twenty-year-old.
For a brief moment, I had been happy about becoming younger.
That joy didn’t last.
I had become Arsene Nero, an extra character in the game The Demon King of Astava.
Compared to my previous life, this body was pathetic. Worse at running, weaker, less durable, and physically frail in every possible way.
That was my new life.
Transmigration? Missions?
Well, whatever.
The sooner I accepted reality, the better.
That was how you survived.
Fortunately, I hadn’t been thrown into this world completely empty-handed.
Perhaps because I was designated as a Player, I had been given three abilities.
I still didn’t fully understand one of them, but one thing was certain.
Immortality.
Though calling it immortality was a bit misleading. Still, the system called it immortality, so that’s what I went with.
No matter what happened, I would die and come back to life.
Burned to ashes, blown to pieces—it didn’t matter.
After a certain amount of time, I would respawn near where I died.
My previous corpse would disappear completely.
Ah.
If the corpse remained intact, I’d simply recover perfectly and revive in the same body.
Just like this.
“—Hurk!”
“Oh! You’re awake? Really sorry. I had no idea you were there. You okay?”
The moment my eyes snapped open, a tingling sensation shot through my entire body.
As I gasped for air, it felt like I could smell something burned inside my mouth.
My limbs ached.
My head spun as though my brain had been shaken loose.
A moment ago, I had definitely died.
All because of the man standing right in front of me, whose lies carried not even the slightest trace of sincerity.
“Man, it’s fascinating every time I see it. Your breathing clearly stopped, but then you start moving again.”
I’m so jealous!
His voice, so light it seemed ready to evaporate into the air, drilled straight into my ears.
As I coughed in agony, all I heard was his growing curiosity.
“Even if you’re immortal, I guess there are side effects when you revive? You always look like you’re suffering.”
You son of a bitch…
I gritted my teeth as the man leaned in close, watching me like some kind of exhibit.
When I tried to get up, every joint in my body creaked as if it had rusted shut.
This revival felt even worse than the last.
No matter how many times it happened, death was something I could never get used to.
My entire body crawled with goosebumps.
It was disgusting.
Terrifying.
I felt like I might vomit up everything inside me.
Only after coughing violently into the dirt for a long while did I finally calm down.
My blurry vision gradually focused.
“Why don’t you lie down a little longer? You’re making me feel guilty, struggling around like that after I killed you.”
The man now sitting beside me, chewing on a sandwich he had apparently pulled out of nowhere, was named Cove Alekman.
About thirty years old.
His bright blue hair made him hard to miss.
He was one of the Rankers who protected the Center.
And one of the people who occasionally killed me.
Watching him smack his lips while chewing a piece of lettuce that stuck out from his sandwich stirred impulses I didn’t even know I had.
I grabbed my throbbing head and took a slow, deep breath.
…This time I didn’t even see it coming.
The world had gone dark in an instant.
Then I died.
Based on previous experiences, I was certain I’d taken one of Cove’s lightning attacks head-on.
I always try not to let my guard down, but somehow it still happens…
Suppressing my frustration, I turned toward the source of my misery.
“Are you insane? What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”
“Ow, my ears.”
The moment I shouted, Cove stuffed the rest of the sandwich into his mouth and lazily picked at his ear.
The world might be full of immoral lunatics, but this guy was on another level.
“You came back to life, didn’t you? You’re alive now. Isn’t that enough? I said I was sorry.”
“…Ha.”
This was always how it went.
Especially when it came to immortals.
People treated them like this.
Which was exactly why immortals—rare to the point of practically not existing—either hid themselves or concealed their abilities.
Based on everything I’d learned so far, immortality usually came with a weak body.
And because of that, immortals were treated no differently than disposable meat shields.
Even if they wanted to resist, their nearly normal human bodies were nothing more than unbreakable toys to ability users operating on completely different levels.
I had been treated the same way at the Academy I attended before arriving at the Center.
It’s not like I can return the favor…
People who had never died knew absolutely nothing about death.
Especially how cold it felt.
“Cut me some slack. I stayed here waiting for you to revive, didn’t I?”
I stared at him in disbelief.
Was that seriously supposed to be a point in his favor?
Cove merely shrugged.
Did he actually expect gratitude?
Sometimes I thought I’d gotten pretty used to Astava’s common sense.
Then moments like this reminded me how far I still had to go.
After scratching the bridge of his nose, Cove casually changed the subject.
“By the way, your revival time got shorter. It used to take over three hours. Today felt faster.”
“Yeah. What wonderful news.”
I stood up, not bothering to hide my deeply furrowed expression.
What Cove was talking about was my resurrection cycle.
It was probably related to the system message I’d seen after arriving in Astava:
All abilities grow stronger through training and refinement.
Less than three hours now, huh…
Honestly, that was pretty good news.
Before coming to the Center, revival took exactly six hours.
Since arriving here and repeatedly dying at the hands of this psychopath, my ability had clearly improved.
“How did you even find this place?”
Despite the irritation dripping from my voice, Cove simply grinned.
Apparently, he still didn’t consider any of this his fault.
“No, seriously! I found this amazing scenic spot on the island. I was looking for somewhere secluded to try out a new training method, and boom—there it was! Were you really keeping a place like this all to yourself, Arsene? Huh?”
And just like that, another one of my secret hideouts had been discovered.
Now this lunatic would come here all the time.
And kill me.
Great. Now where am I supposed to relax?
The thought of searching this enormous island for another secluded spot filled me with exhaustion.
“So you attacked me just because I happened to be there? As a joke?”
“Whoa there. Don’t exaggerate. I was simply curious about how accurately I could hit a target from that distance. And whether a tiny electrical projectile could still pierce someone’s heart.”
You absolute bastard.
Why was I always the target?
The curse nearly slipped out before I swallowed it.
I couldn’t afford to lose my temper with him.
In Astava’s ability-first society, a person’s rights were basically determined by rank.
A kind of caste system.
That was the perfect way to describe it.
S.
A.
B.
C.
D.
I was a C-rank.
Not the lowest.
But nowhere near the middle, either.
Honestly, ordinary civilians had it better.
At least they were protected.
Cove Alekman, on the other hand, was an A-rank.
An A-rank Ranker responsible for protecting the Center.
People like him existed in a different world.
The kind of people you’d never even get close to outside.
Still, I had one option.
“If you use me as a test subject one more time, I’ll report you to the Supervisor. I’ve been stupid for putting up with this.”
“What? Test subject? I’ve never thought of you that way! Arsene, how could you say that? I thought we had something special!”
Cove’s eyes widened dramatically as he launched into a pathetic excuse.
What nonsense.
I didn’t even know where to begin correcting him.
I shook my head and started walking away.
Immediately, he grabbed the hem of my pants.
“You’re really going to tell on me? That guy’s a complete fossil! I’ll get punished! They’ll dock my pay!”
“Then maybe stop killing me.”
“But that’s not killing!”
“What are you even— Never mind.”
“Arsene!”
“Don’t follow me.”
Leaving the fake-crying Ranker behind, I continued walking.
If I stayed any longer, that shameless idiot would definitely cling to me again.
“Damn it.”
My stomach still felt sick.
Though I couldn’t deny there was a silver lining.
“Three hours…”
The time it took me to resurrect.
For a long time, the interval had refused to decrease.
I had wondered whether it could ever get shorter.
Apparently, it could.
Thanks to that damned man killing me again.
As I descended the hill and followed the cliffside path, the Center came into view below.
The distance between me and Cove gradually widened.
“What a crazy world.”
I sat down and rubbed my face.
It really was an incredible world.
Just when it started to feel livable, something like this happened and sent my mood crashing.
“Haa…”
At least the scenery helped calm me down.
An endless ocean.
A lush green island covered in vegetation.
The air carried both the fresh scent of earth and a faint trace of salt.
The Center where I worked sat in the middle of the vast sea.
I had no idea where the other Centers were located, but they were probably just as bizarre.
The Center.
To explain that, I first had to explain Astava itself.
Astava—the setting of The Demon King of Astava—was a united world government established after supernatural abilities and Gates appeared on what had once resembled twentieth-century Earth.
When Gates opened across the globe and monstrous creatures emerged from them, the four continents united under a single treaty and created a new system called Astava.
And along with it came a new breed of humanity.
Ability Users.
People who had transcended human limits due to the influence of the Gates.
Using powers beyond common sense, they fought monsters and destroyed Gates, saving a world on the brink of collapse.
But great power always came with consequences.
As ability-user terrorism and crime increased, Astava established the Association.
An organization responsible for registering and regulating ability users.
To manage things efficiently, they created a ranking system.
And among those ranks, exceptional individuals became known as Rankers.
The Centers were created to support ability users.
They were places where their children could grow up.
Though honestly, it feels like only Rankers get to use them.
Fatigue washed over me.
Leaning against a tree trunk, I was just about to drift off to sleep when—
“Mr. Arsene! Mr. Arsene!”
A familiar voice desperately called my name.
Opening my eyes, I spotted Amanda running toward me from afar.
So much for my peaceful break.
Actually, that was close.
If I’d fallen asleep, I would’ve been in serious trouble.
The thought of nearly missing my return time made the back of my neck stiffen.
The Supervisor was extremely strict about punctuality.
Because of that blue-haired lunatic, I’d lost over half of the four measly hours of free time I got each day.
One day, I swore, I would take the most brutal revenge imaginable.
“What’s wrong?”
I sat up as though I’d been planning to get up anyway.
Amanda was one of the few people at the Center I was relatively close to.
She was a sitter, and this was supposed to be her break too.
Why had she come all the way out here looking for me?
And why did she look so panicked?
This isn’t good.
Her long skirt fluttered awkwardly as she ran, so I walked toward her instead.
She was about two hand-spans shorter than me.
Bent over, gasping for breath.
“Something terrible happened! Lottie—Lottie…!”
Damn.
A sense of dread instantly swept over me.
Amanda finally forced out the words between ragged breaths.
“Lottie’s gone missing!”
…Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever actually managed to enjoy all four hours of my break.
