Chapter 263: 139. A Small Clue -2 (Part One)

Translated by A Passing Wanderer

Edited by RED

**

It had happened a really long time ago.

A large game company held a public event, which also doubled as an experiment of sorts.

The whole thing was being broadcast live, and they recruited volunteers like myself, who were ushered into the large open capsules.

“Argh, don’t be nervous, now,” I heard someone say, and shifted my gaze over to a dude wearing a scientist-like lab coat next to me.

Although the temperature inside this location was okay-ish, this guy was still soaked in cold sweat from top to bottom, while he was continuously manipulating the complicated machinery I was lying in.

This man, who happened to be one of the game developers, finally saw me staring at him.

He said, “Don’t be nervous and just breathe in, breathe out, Johan.”

Huh, not even bothering with polite speech, are we? Besides all that… Johan? That wasn’t my name.

“Excuse me, but I’m not Johan.”

The developer flinched a little and awkwardly waved his hands around. “Ahaha! I-I know. I’m Johan.”

“…”

“Fuu-wuu-! You know, I’m getting really nervous here. This is my first time being in a live stream, you see. Let’s not forget, we’re about to unveil the world’s first-ever virtual reality game, aren’t we!”

The developer began rubbing his hands like some kind of a fly. Maybe he was trying to lessen his anxiety that way.

But watching him act like that only made me nervous, instead.

“…You guys have done enough testing beforehand, right?”

“E-eh? Of… course. If we haven’t, we sure as heck wouldn’t broadcast any of this live, you know. You can rest easy.”

I saw how he took his time answering me just now, and that awkward, cramped smile on his face, doubled my anxiety level in an instant.

Even though he was telling me to relax, how could I do that now?

I glanced around and spotted what looked like doctors performing medical checks on the people inside the other capsules.

“W-well, if you’re still feeling nervous, please read this in the meantime. I’m sure it will help you brighten your mood.”

The developer named Johan handed a book to me so that I could at least stay occupied during this standby period.

[A Story of a Ring.]

That’s a famous fantasy novel from overseas.

The old-school classic had been revised for this latest edition. They had even made movies based on the book, too.

I accepted the novel.

“Well, I’ll be on my way now.” After he said that, the developer walked away from my side.

I opened the cover of [A Story of a Ring] and started reading the novel’s contents.

I heard the announcement from the speakers, “Well, then! Let’s get this show on the road. Everyone, be on standby! Ten minutes before the live broadcast!”

Just as the door to my egg-shaped capsule closed up, I quickly put the book on the shelf next to me. The book fell upside down and I got a glimpse at its publication date.

The publication date was 20XX April 28th.

“Alright, we’re on air!”

The capsule’s door sealed shut. Minutes ticked by.

The overall flow outside sounded like the broadcast was well underway now.

I did as the guiding message in my ear instructed and chose my in-game profession.

It was right then that an emergency bell loud enough to deafen me suddenly went off.

An urgent voice could be heard next, shouting out “What’s going on?!”

My whole body was getting hot for some reason, too.

“What the hell?! What’s going on over there?!”

“Stop the broadcast! Cut the feed, now!”

“Who the f*ck placed a faulty capsule over there?!”

“Who worked on that capsule?!”

“F-fire! Fire extinguisher!”

The capsule was sealed tight, so I couldn’t even leave. Its interior quickly filled up with black smoke, and I couldn’t even breathe.

As if that wasn’t enough, a horrifying pain similar to electricity coursing through my whole body overwhelmed my senses.

Finally…

‘Is that… a black hole…?’ This sensation of being sucked in, as if something or someone was forcibly squeezing my body and yanking me inside.

I was sucked inside an unknown space. My darkened vision was rapidly spinning around.

I no longer had a body by then, only my soul tumbling nonstop in this space.

I flew past what seemed like an endless stream of darkness, only to be flung into what looked like a tunnel bathed in bright light.

By the time I regained my consciousness…

“Keo-uuuuuhrk?!”

I was being hung by my neck in a forest filled with the undead.

“Kuwaaaahk!” Blood rushed to my head. My fingers dug into the rope, trying to pull at it.

My neck couldn’t endure the tightening pressure. My dangling feet kicked the empty air as I struggled.

But at the same time, all sorts of knowledge suddenly popped up in my head: magic, the Necromancer Class, necromancy, skills…

This choked-up, gasping voice leaked out of my lips almost instinctively. “Re… resurrection of the dead.”

When I muttered that out, a rotting corpse limply crawled out from the ground below me.

“Save… me… Help… me!”

The zombie’s eyeballs shifted around before it reached out with its rotting hands. It grabbed the rope tied around my neck, then ripped it apart.

“Haaaak…” Cold air rushed into my lungs.

I collapsed on my back on this cold ground and stared up into the sky.

As my vision faded away, I saw it.

This place was filled with vegetation that I had never seen or heard of before.

A completely unfamiliar world that I didn’t recognise.

Those were my memories of the moments after I arrived in this world.

**

Back in the ice castle’s corridor…

I rubbed my face while staring at this novel. The loose fragments of my past memories were clicking into place.

“I remember now.”

I turned the book over and looked at its back cover.

The publication date was 20XX April 28th.

This book was the same one that I read. It came from the same place I had.

‘Ahhh, you son of a b*tch…’ I ended up cursing inside my head.

My hand was already rubbing and massaging my temples by then. Chaos was filling up my head.

What the hell was going on here? Could it be that this warp thing was connected to me somehow?

‘Hang on, maybe the reason why I ended up in this world was…?’

“Stop the subjugation.”

The holy undead spreading out to all corners of the ice castle stopped moving right then.

I kept massaging my temples while glancing at the novel, then issued another command, “Capture all the vampires alive.”

The fierce glowing balls of light in the skeleton’s heads shook around.

“Do not leave a single one behind, and capture them all.”

No, I wasn’t planning to spare any vampires here. It’s just that now I had questions to ask them, that’s all.

“And then… interrogate them.”

All of my undead heard my orders and began moving once more. The screams reverberating throughout the ice castle grew even louder and more tragic.

The holy undead put away their swords and spears, replacing them with maces and shields, instead. Rather than muskets, they now wielded crossbows and bows while relentlessly advancing inside the castle.

“S-spare me!”

Holy skeletons smashed their maces on the vampires. The bloodsuckers were being dragged around by their legs, while some ended up resembling hedgehogs from the barrage of arrows and crossbow bolts. Those boasting tenacious lifeforce were dragged before me.

Then, I interrogated them. While showing them the novel, I asked them what this was. But the vampires all shook their heads and said that they didn’t know.

“Dammit.”

The small fry found here didn’t seem to know anything.

Right, what I needed wasn’t some blood-creations, but a true Progenitor. The culprit who constructed the warp gate in the first place, in other words.

“Find this Count Timong.”

That guy was a Count-class Vampire, so regular undead wouldn’t stand a chance against a monster like that.

“Kasim, Nasus!”

I stomped down on the floor. The lake of holy water was immediately summoned there, and Kasim and Nasus pushed their soaked bodies out from its depths.

They knelt down before me and bowed their heads.

“Go and capture the Vampire Count.”

**

(TL: In 3rd person POV.)

Count Timong was busy packing away all the data related to warp magic in his bag.

Although he had already committed it all to memory, these things were still far too valuable to be stolen away by some measly little human being.

‘Someone managed to decode the warp that I created!’

The odds of an Alchemist, not a Magician, activating the warp were uncomfortably high, judging from how one of Timong’s own warp circles had been utilised.

This just didn’t make any sense to him, though. Just which insane bastard was it?!

Timong had barely managed to create this warp magic by researching it for the past thousand-plus years. On top of that, he had even encrypted everything in an ancient language.

‘Yet, whoever it was, he managed to decode it all!’

That man must’ve been a genius that might appear once in a millennia or some such!

‘If I lose my valuable research data to that bastard, then…’

Then, someone other than Timong would come to possess authority over the warp magic, instead.

Such a thing could not be allowed! Only he, Timong, was qualified to peek into the domain of the gods and decipher the truth, and no one else!

“Yes, I must flee from here.”

The research data could not just be destroyed. Timong had to gather other researchers interested in the warp gate and continue on with the research somewhere else, using this data as their foundation. That was the only way to save himself another several decades.