Chapter 01
What’s the most painful way to die?
Living in this damned world, that question came up in conversation all the time.
“Getting your head cut off, maybe? They say you stay conscious for a few seconds.”
“Nah, burning alive. That has to be the worst pain.”
“Wrong. Ever see someone fall into qi deviation? The way they scream… looks unbearable.”
As usual, there was never a conclusion.
Every death is different, and once you’re dead, that’s it.
No one can come back and say, “Hey… this is definitely the worst.”
But now—I think I can say it with certainty.
The process I’m going through right now is the most agonizing of them all.
Grrrkkk.
A grotesque noise came from the skin of my stomach, clinging to my spine.
“Damn it…”
Survived thirteen Cataclysms, only to end like this?
It’s almost funny.
“Pff… haha…”
2035.
A peaceful planet called Earth received an unwelcome visitor:
The Demon God Ashtar.
While humanity was still wondering how to deal with an unknown entity, Ashtar swung his first hand.
Just one swing.
But the result was catastrophic.
The earth shattered like a cracker, a wound that could never be healed.
And that wasn’t enough—his grotesque maw spewed endless, never-before-seen monsters.
That was the First Cataclysm.
On that hellish day, countless people died.
Humanity, once the apex of the food chain, plummeted to the very bottom.
Civilization?
Useless trash against those monsters.
No weapon or counterattack could leave even a scratch.
When everyone expected extinction, something appeared as if on cue:
The Valhalla System.
A divine gift, accessible only to a chosen few—the Awakened.
It granted power to resist the Demon God.
No one knows where it came from or how it worked.
Suspicious as it was, humanity had no room to question it.
The Awakened clung to the Valhalla System to survive.
It had everything: status screens, skills, even a community tab.
Thanks to this gift, humanity managed to delay extinction… for about ten years.
“A useless struggle.”
The Valhalla System helped us live, but only slowed the inevitable.
Even with it, the world steadily walked the path of ruin through thirteen Cataclysms.
The earth rotted.
Rivers turned into poisonous geysers.
Life was snuffed out.
Convinced we would all die, I gathered the last survivors.
After horrific sacrifices, we finally killed the Demon God Ashtar.
And that was it.
A cursed land breathing only venom, with not a single blade of grass.
No crops, no livestock.
Eat the monsters? Impossible—when Ashtar died, they vanished too.
My comrades died one by one.
Now I’m the only one left.
No dramatic wounds—just a slow, agonizing death by starvation.
“Haa…”
With the last of my strength, I opened the Valhalla System.
[Name: Lee Jin-su (Lv. 999)]
[Skills: Sage’s Eye (Max), Overflowing Mana (Max), Sword-God’s Body (Max), Unyielding Conviction (Max)…]
An endless list of skills—enough to defeat a Demon God.
But now, they’re nothing more than useless text.
[Friends: 0]
“Figures.”
Every day I searched desperately for someone, anyone.
Always nothing.
Tap.
My bony finger opened the Community tab.
[Community]
[No new posts.]
I scrolled through the last year of messages.
[Looking for survivors – 2045/07/14]
[Looking for survivors – 2045/07/13]
[Looking for survivors – 2045/07/12]
…
All posted by the same person:
[Author: Lee Jin-su]
Hands trembling, I started another message.
Please, anyone. Anywhere on Earth. Please answer.
[Looking for surviv—]
Tap.
My hand stopped.
“…What’s the point.”
By now, anyone can see the truth.
Non-Awakened would have died just breathing this poisoned air.
Awakened would have seen my posts.
There are no survivors.
As much as I hate it, it’s time to accept reality—especially when I’m on the verge of starving to death.
“Sigh…”
I scrolled through old posts.
One month… two months…
Traces of the past remained:
calls to gather strike teams, silly trolling posts.
Until last year, it had been lively.
[Conquer the World with Rank! – Ch. 2245]
“Heh…”
Right, there was that guy—
a lunatic who uploaded a web novel to a community only Awakened could access.
On Naver or something, he might’ve gone premium,
but here it was pure hobby.
At first he got tons of hate comments,
but people came to admire his persistence.
Even random soybean-paste-stew recipes filled the replies.
I enjoyed it, too.
In a world like this, hobbies are scarce,
and before the Cataclysms I’d liked web novels anyway.
Despite its cheesy title, his story had a surprisingly deep world and obsessively detailed timelines.
My comrades teased him as a “setting maniac.”
[Next episode—‘Conquer the World with Rank!’ Finale]
└ This guy’s consistent.
└ Soybean stew recipe: 1. Boil water with anchovies and kelp…
└ That commenter’s even more consistent lol
└ lmao
“Pfft!”
That stew-recipe guy posted every single time.
A true fan.
Sadly, the novel never finished.
It stopped at chapter 2,245.
└ Where’s the author?
└ No idea. Probably dead.
└ Who’ll post recipes now?
I wasn’t even sad.
That’s just the kind of world this was.
The author probably died.
The commenters too.
Everyone’s dead.
I’ll be next.
My strength drained away, the world dimming.
So this is how I die.
My mouth was parched.
Heh… didn’t even get a last meal.
Yeah…
Every raid, we celebrated with a meal.
Not fancy, but loud and cheerful.
Honoring the dead, sharing a moment with the living.
Guess there’s no after-party for me.
I closed my eyes with a bitter smile.
…Ding!
“…Huh?”
Just as my consciousness was slipping away,
a familiar notification made my skin prickle.
That sound…
[A new post has been made. Read now?]
“A… a new post?”
Impossible. Everyone’s dead.
Who could have posted?
With shaking hands, I refreshed.
[Conquer the World with Rank! – Ch. 2246 (Finale)]
“W-what?”
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
The final chapter of that novel had appeared.
Was the author alive?
Writing a story while the world ended? Why?
Before I knew it, I clicked the post.
[■■■ ■■…■■■ ■■■■.]
“What… is this?”
Nonsense.
Unreadable symbols.
The Valhalla System auto-translated every language.
But this text was incomprehensible.
I hurriedly scrolled down to leave a comment—
Where are you? How did you write this? Are there other survivors?
So many questions.
[Where are y—]
But I never finished.
Flaaash!
Brilliant light burst from the screen.
Darkness took me.
My whole body felt heavy, like wet cotton.
…Where am I?
Only pitch-black darkness.
No sense of direction.
Did I die, after all?
With months of starvation,
if not for my Awakened body, I’d have died long ago.
So… the afterlife?
“Ugh…”
But something felt off.
My limbs were intact.
I could even make a faint sound.
“…?”
I cautiously opened my eyes.
I was lying in a soft bed,
surrounded by antique furniture.
A chandelier hung from the ceiling.
“…What?”
This wasn’t any afterlife I knew.
It looked like a noble’s bedroom from a medieval movie.
Clack!
Just as my mind was reeling,
the door opened.
A woman entered—brown hair, pale skin.
And her clothes… a black-and-white maid uniform.
What the…?
“…Young master!”
Young master?
She teared up and rushed to me.
“You’re finally awake! I was so worried!”
Young master? Awake? What is this?
I’d lived in a world of sky-falling monsters,
but being called young master by a maid?
Then I noticed a dusty mirror on the wall behind her.
In the reflection—a blond man staring blankly back.
“…Huh?”
“Yes? Is something wrong?”
“W-wait…”
“Oh! I’m sorry! You’ve just woken up, you must still be weak—”
Forget apologies.
That wasn’t important.
I looked again.
The man in the mirror was not Lee Jin-su of Korea.
A gaunt but strikingly foreign man gazed back.
“…Urgh!”
Suddenly a splitting headache struck.
Memories flooded in—
not mine, but someone else’s.
Like watching a vivid panorama of another life.
A drunken wastrel’s days.
Strangely familiar, yet not.
“What… is this?”
Spark.
A faint light glimmered near my left hand.
“…Hmm?”
Its source: my left palm.
Intricate rune patterns were etched there.
“Wait…”
It looked familiar.
I somehow knew exactly what it was.
“Ah…”
That man’s life.
The rune on my palm.
“No way…”
Impossible—
but the markings were exactly as described in Conquer the World with Rank!
“….”
It couldn’t be real.
Yet the rune matched the novel’s depiction perfectly.
The opening line of that story surfaced in my mind:
“In this world there exists one absolute truth: Rank.
To check it, simply open your left hand and look upon the rune.”
“…Could it be…?”
With a trembling heart, I spread my left hand.
Baaang!
A translucent image bloomed above it.
The rune broke apart into countless tiny dots,
swirling and rearranging.
What appeared was not the name Lee Jin-su.
[Name: Ian Impera]
END
