Chapter 3

No wonder he considered himself the Tang Clan’s shame.

Remembering what had happened earlier that day, Seogyeom hugged his knees tightly. The chill that had been creeping through his body seemed to have eased somewhat.

“Achoo.”

Or maybe not.

Perhaps he had simply been outside for so long that he had grown numb to the cold.

Sniffling lightly, Seogyeom looked toward his residence. The gentle lights that had illuminated the surroundings were gradually going out, one by one, as though the old servant had extinguished the lanterns while returning to his quarters.

Alone in the darkness, Seogyeom killed a little more time.

He had wondered whether the old servant might secretly be a master hiding his strength, or whether there might be guards watching over him without his knowledge.

But all of it turned out to be needless worry.

When no one came looking for him even after a long while, Seogyeom finally let out a sigh of relief.

After rubbing his stiff limbs several times, he bent down to inspect the wall.

Night had fully fallen, but the moonlight was bright enough that seeing his surroundings wasn’t particularly difficult.

“Where was it again…?”

How long had he been crawling along the ground, feeling around?

Suddenly, his hand slipped, and his upper body tipped sideways.

“Ugh.”

Barely managing to avoid rolling across the ground, Seogyeom rubbed his twisted wrist and looked around.

At first glance, it looked like a well-maintained garden.

But behind the rock he had just braced himself against, there were traces of a dog hole.

“Found it.”

The Five Great Families.

And one of them was the notoriously closed-off Tang Clan.

Seogyeom had wondered how a place like this could possibly have a hole in its walls, but apparently, the clever camouflage was what had kept it hidden.

Hoping it would remain undiscovered for a long, long time, Seogyeom lowered himself.

For a moment, he worried about whether he would fit through.

But when he recklessly shoved his head forward, it slipped through the hole with surprising ease.

Trying not to rush, Seogyeom carefully pushed his arms and shoulders through one after another.

With freedom so close at hand, even his previously calm heart seemed to start pounding.

And just as his waist finally passed through and escape was within reach—

! WARNING !
NPCs cannot leave their designated area by any means.

Tang Seogyeom’s current designated area: Tang Seogyeom’s residence within the outer city

An invisible wall blocked Seogyeom at the same moment the warning window appeared.

Without even realizing that he was now stuck between the wall and the hole, Seogyeom stared blankly at the warning.

The bright red exclamation mark was the same as usual.

But the message beneath it was slightly different.

Designated area? Not spawn area?

What’s the difference?

As Seogyeom became lost in thought, a deeper shadow fell over his head.

“What brings you here at this hour of the night?”

At the sudden question, Seogyeom froze.

Then, slowly, he raised his head.

The first thing that entered his vision was the slightly worn toe of a pair of martial boots.

Above them hung a black robe, visibly old from years of wear.

The sword hanging at the man’s waist was much the same.

Though well maintained, the scabbard was marked with scratches and signs of wear.

In short, he didn’t look like an important character.

And yet, Seogyeom immediately recognized that the person standing before him was anything but ordinary.

It wasn’t merely because of his pleasant voice or his strangely handsome face.

“It seems I’ve meddled where I wasn’t wanted.”

Perhaps taking Seogyeom’s silence as rejection while he tried to figure out the man’s identity, the stranger tilted his head slightly.

Hearing the embarrassment in his voice, Seogyeom hurriedly waved his hand.

“Ah, no!”

In doing so, his fingertips brushed against the man’s instep.

Even Seogyeom was startled by what he had done and hurriedly tried to pull away.

But his body was wedged too tightly for him to do more than squirm.

Apparently finding the sight amusing, the man let out a quiet laugh above him.

“Ahem. Then… may I touch your body, Young Master?”

Though he had clearly already seen everything, the man suppressed another laugh and bent down.

The way he extended his hand as though asking permission was remarkably befitting of a true wandering hero.

The protagonist of this world.

Someone Seogyeom had seen dozens—no, hundreds—of times.

Namgung Yun.

The only difference was that he was far more vivid than he had ever appeared through a pair of VR goggles.

And strangely enough, gentler too.

Having unconsciously become absorbed in looking at him, Seogyeom nodded without realizing it.

The moment he did, his body was smoothly pulled free from the hole.

As expected. Even if he’s hiding his identity, a protagonist is still a protagonist.

Despite effortlessly lifting an adult man, Namgung Yun’s breathing didn’t even falter.

Seogyeom inwardly marveled as he stole another glance at the protagonist’s appearance.

Well, it wasn’t surprising.

Namgung Yun had been born with the Heavenly Bone Physique and the Limitless Severed Meridian—a once-in-a-generation genius.

To someone like him, a person the size of Tang Seogyeom probably felt no heavier than a branch.

Indeed, Seogyeom’s feet were dangling in midair even now.

There was only a three-year age difference between them, but the gap between a martial arts prodigy and a terminally ill young master was enormous.

“……”

Perhaps Namgung Yun had also been surprised by how small Seogyeom was, because he fell silent for a moment.

“You can put me down now.”

Keeping his gaze fixed downward, Seogyeom spoke as casually as he could.

It wasn’t even his original body, so there was nothing to be embarrassed about.

And yet, for some reason, heat rose to his face.

“Young Master!”

Unfortunately, Tang Seogyeom’s body was even weaker than expected.

The moment his feet touched the ground, his damned body swayed.

Thanks to Namgung Yun catching him quickly, Seogyeom narrowly avoided collapsing onto the ground.

But Seogyeom didn’t have time to care about something so trivial.

The moment Namgung Yun’s warm body temperature—so different from his own—touched him, a system window appeared over that handsome face.

You have come into contact with the protagonist, Namgung Yun.
Checking eligibility for entry into the Main Scenario.

Calculating iteration number.

Search Result: Tang Seogyeom (???)

Requirements confirmed.
You will now be incorporated into the Main Scenario.

As though everything until now had merely been a joke, brilliant light brighter than anything Seogyeom had seen before illuminated the surroundings.

Seogyeom stood motionlessly and read the words appearing before him.

Chapter 4…

<Chapter 4: Shadow of the Crimson Flower (丹花影)>

When he was young, Namgung Yun lost everything overnight.

Only two members of the direct bloodline survived the horrific massacre.

His uncle claimed that he would rebuild the family.

Yet, for some reason, Namgung Yun refuses to return to the main estate.

Assassins arrived the moment the Clan Head collapsed.

There was a time when Namgung Yun believed it was nothing more than a sinister scheme by the Demon Cult.

But after repeating his life countless times, he discovered the existence of another enemy.

Why did his father and senior brothers fall on the very same day?

Could Namgung Hyeok, one of the Ten Supreme Masters of the Martial World, truly have been defeated so helplessly?

There was only one answer.

The only thing capable of rendering even a master who had reached the Transcendent Realm powerless—

Poison.

There was no solid evidence.

No witnesses.

And yet Namgung Yun was certain.

Because he himself was the sole survivor of the Namgung Blood Massacre.

Thus, Namgung Yun decided to devote this entire life to uncovering the truth.

He would discover the secret behind the poison.

He would find the enemy hiding in the shadows.

But to do that, he needed the Tang Clan’s help…

So why was it that the gates of the Tang Clan, which he had finally reached, were tightly shut?

The Tang Clan repays kindness twice over and grudges tenfold.

If you wish to approach the truth, you must open the Tang Clan’s gates.

Help them and obtain what you desire.

Success Reward: The Tang Clan’s assistance, one fragment of the secret behind the Namgung Blood Massacre
Failure: The Tang Clan completely seals its gates

Tip: Players may restart the game as many times as they wish. If you fail, regression is recommended.

The familiar story of Namgung Yun scrolled past Seogyeom’s eyes like film credits, followed by the rewards and penalties.

The supposedly helpful—but not particularly helpful—tip was there as well.

If Seogyeom had been playing , he probably wouldn’t even have read it before skipping everything.

What had kept him from abandoning was the enormous world of the martial arts and the appeal of being able to learn countless martial techniques.

Seogyeom himself had never been able to become the greatest martial artist under heaven, but he had found satisfaction in supporting Namgung Yun.

And if reaching the pinnacle of martial arts wasn’t your thing, there were plenty of other ways to enjoy the world.

You could establish a merchant guild and build it into the Man Geum Trading House, or run the finest teahouse in all of Sichuan.

Without even knowing what the hyeop in Wuxia truly meant, Seogyeom had enjoyed perfectly well.

But even Seogyeom couldn’t help swearing when he discovered that the save-and-load function had been disabled.

For a gamer, save and load was practically a second life.

How many people had the courage to face a major choice without saving first?

At the very least, Seogyeom wasn’t one of those bold people.

If the developers of hadn’t deliberately disabled saving, he would have used it not just a few times, but hundreds of times over.

So what did you do when you wanted to start over in a game where save and load weren’t available?

Most players killed Namgung Yun the moment they realized how difficult it was to reach the true ending.

Once someone’s playthrough count entered the triple digits, the belief began spreading that following the intended route was actually the stupidest strategy.

That was because once Namgung Yun’s iteration count surpassed one hundred, new evil-alignment endings became available.

Endings with names like the Heavenly Demon and the Blood Demon—just hearing their titles was enough to make them sound appealing.

The community, which had seemed destined to fade away because of the game’s absurd difficulty, briefly came alive again.

Strategy posts such as “How to Retry Within One Minute” and “A Yunhyeopji Veteran Explains Rerolling” still occupied the top rankings.

Seogyeom had never made the same choice as those players.

Even if they were only game characters, he simply wasn’t the kind of person who could cruelly throw them away because they had become inconvenient.

Still, he could confidently say that few people had experienced restarting from the beginning as many times as he had.

If anything, Seogyeom had steadily worked his way toward the endings.

And when it came to making Namgung Yun the greatest martial artist under heaven, he was confident.

But the Seogyeom of now wasn’t a player.

He was an NPC.

The overwhelming sense of reality made it impossible for him to calmly accept the scenario scrolling before his eyes.

If…

If that guy dies, what happens to me?

Thinking back, the game had always returned to the beginning the instant Namgung Yun stopped breathing.

It had happened when Namgung Yun invaded the Demon Cult and perished together with one of its elders.

It had also happened when Seogyeom was searching everywhere for a spiritual herb in order to complete the Tang Clan quest.

The screen had suddenly gone dark before his eyes.

He still remembered how empty he had felt when, immediately after obtaining the information he needed, he found himself staring at the main menu.

After going through such painful experiences, Seogyeom had learned to stay as close to Namgung Yun as possible—or at least keep a close eye on him.

Even when he was that careful, Namgung Yun still died as easily as a glass cannon.

So would things really be any different now?

 

Note

 

The Korean term 개복치 (gaebokchi) literally means ocean sunfish. In gaming slang, however, it refers to a character with extremely poor survivability—someone who dies ridiculously easily. Here, Seogyeom compares Namgung Yun to one because, despite being the protagonist and a martial arts genius, Namgung Yun has an astonishing talent for dying during playthroughs.