Episode 2
The first event of [The Ruined World] was fixed.
The moment the ‘Player’ realizes the advent of ruin.
[Chapter 1: Apocalypse ▼]
Blink, blink.
The grandiose title announcing the first event passed by, and text lines appeared below it.
[▼]
This is your apocalypse, the sole record documenting you.
I am the only narrator of that apocalypse. Though centuries may lie between us, I will be your only friend.
Some apocalypses begin this way, I’ve heard.
And then, the final sentence, appearing deliberately slow.
My day isⅠ
A blinking cursor.
My day is somehowⅠ
Each character being inscribed as if pressed down firmly, one by one.
My day is somehow wrong.
The final sentence.
Beneath it, choice options and a stark red phrase appeared without delay, as if issuing a warning.
[Chapter 1: Apocalypse ▼]
[〉 Charge at the monster.
[〉 Quietly step back.
[〉 Help the people.
※ This choice will profoundly impact your future.
……It was exactly the same, down to the last particle.
This was unmistakably the first event of [The Ruined World].
The forced, first event.
It seemed to mock me as it…
…blinked.
Before I could even process that fact, the student standing next to me let out a sharp scream, vomited something dark red, and convulsively collapsed to the floor.
“Hey, you!”
It wasn’t just that student who fell. The teacher on the podium, the parents standing behind, and various unknown individuals began toppling over one by one.
Soon, dark red blood was splattered everywhere.
Amidst those spewing blood and people screaming to call 911, I was fighting a sense of unreality.
In that situation where I didn’t even know what to choose, the surroundings rapidly descended into chaos again.
Because the appearance of the teacher on the podium, who had been vomiting blood, began to change.
Creeeak.
A sound that shouldn’t be audible rang like an auditory hallucination.
Their once rounded fingertips and toes elongated, the skin at the tips turning black as if necrotic.
Their pupils turned white like those of a dead fish, and with a snap, their joints twisted, making their frame larger than before.
The dark blood smeared around the mouth, the pallid skin, the blue veins bulging on that skin…
At that grotesque transformation, people recoiled in horrified disbelief, stepping back. Before they could even create much distance, the eyes that had been staring vacantly began to move.
Those eyes were….
“……What the hell….”
Soon, they focused precisely on someone.
And then.
“Kyaaah!”
A scream, on a different octave, echoed through the space.
Even amidst the surreal terror, my gaze followed the movement. Within the chaotic scene, something caught my eye.
It was someone’s name tag, brushing past.
As if receiving a revelation, that name tag oddly stuck in my vision.
[Sa Jeheon]
The seemingly sole luminous name tag…
…captured my gaze.
Simultaneously…
…a vaguely familiar sentence came to mind….
[Sa Jeheon had no way of knowing why he kept repeating the destruction. He just wanted it to end now.]
‘Sa’—a rare surname I’d never seen before.
Although it didn’t exist in my reality, it was a name I encountered daily.
‘The Ruined World.’
It’s the protagonist of <The Ruined World> that I saw every day.
The cause of the ruin in <The Ruined World> was the ‘Third Entities.’
Among the ‘Third Entities’ blended with all sorts of unique settings, if I had to pick the most peculiar one…
…it would be the ‘Narrator.’
[I am your only comprehender and companion, and the ‘Narrator’ who will narrate your every aspect. The sole narrator of your apocalypse.]
According to the setting, the ‘Narrator’ was the main axis of the ‘Third Entities’ that invaded Earth.
Yet, unlike other ‘Third Entities,’ they didn’t directly participate in the ruin or the narrative. They merely observed from a standpoint of watching.
What the ‘Narrator’ desired wasn’t some trivial reward. It was something fundamental.
A story.
A compelling, attention-grabbing, non-boring story.
For that alone, the ‘Narrator’ willingly provided even traits and skills. Solely because indiscriminate ruin was boring, they said.
Thus, this story depicted the process of overcoming the ruin using what the ‘Narrator’ provided and the rewards obtained from defeating the ‘Third Entities.’
[The narrator has encountered their ‘protagonist’!]
And ‘Sa Jeheon’ is the protagonist of that story.
My reflexively outstretched hand grabbed Sa Jeheon’s forearm. And I pulled him strongly towards me.
Sa Jeheon, losing his balance from the sudden force, stumbled towards me, and just past him, a long fingernail tore through the air with a rending sound.
[You have chosen to help the people. The narrator of this apocalypse has a somewhat ‘righteous’ disposition!]
Hearing the Narrator’s nonsense made the peculiar sense of unreality even more… pronounced.
This can’t be reality.
Even as I thought this, my sense of reality didn’t loosen but rather sharpened.
Coupled with my heart pounding like mad… everything felt like it was screaming at me that this moment was reality.
Even though I knew full well it was all false.
‘A dream?’
My sleep had been troubled lately, I hadn’t been sleeping well. I must have fainted for a brief moment.
Was it possible I fainted due to soaring blood pressure from the unbearable frustration of encountering a bug while trying to send a bug report?
And this was a dream born from the cumulative stress I’d been under?
…Yes, that must be it.
A far-fetched dream where [The Ruined World] appeared before me as if it were real.
Evidence was rampant everywhere.
‘Seongwang High is my alma mater. And ‘Sa Jeheon’ isn’t there.’
No, first of all, there are no students with the surname ‘Sa’ there. It’s a common dream for one’s held reality and known unrealistic stories to mix and manifest.
This is definitely a dream.
While I was denying reality, people in panic rushed past me out the door. Sa Jeheon’s bewildered face looked somewhat familiar.
Ah, now that I think about it, Sa Jeheon regressed on the second day after the ruin came…
…’Since this is Sa Jeheon before his regression, that expression is accurate to the setting.’
It’s these subtle details that make it feel even more like a dream.
I’ll wake up soon. As that thought flashed through my mind…
“Move it!”
Someone shoved me roughly.
The direction I was falling was towards…
[Even if the narrator of this story helps people, someone else might make a different choice.]
[Unfortunately, this is the result of that choice.]
…the front, where I was looking. Meaning,
…it was within the striking range of the ‘monster’ that had been swinging its arm at Sa Jeheon.
‘This is actually better.’
I thought that as I fell. Actually better, I thought. Because I wanted to escape this space, even if for a moment, as soon as possible.
If I die, I’ll wake up, I thought.
[In this world, such events will be commonplace.]
[I wonder if the narrator of this story can remain ‘righteous’ even after experiencing such things countless times….]
A window that seemed to be grinning somewhere flashed before my eyes, and the faded pupils seemed to recognize my falling form and followed its movement.
An attack followed immediately. Long fingernails swept horizontally, rushing towards me.
With no time to do anything about my falling body, a massive shock overwhelmed my head only after I was slashed by the rushing fingertips.
‘……It hurts.’
It hurts…… Shouldn’t dreams be painless?
At that moment, an intense sense of reality enveloped my entire body, and the loud heartbeat I had been trying to ignore consumed me along with anxiety.
Crash-!
My body, having lost its center, fell in the direction the monster swung its claws, tumbling over chairs that were already toppled and onto something unidentifiably soft and squishy.
Even while buried among things I didn’t even want to identify, I reflexively brought my left hand to my neck.
A searing heat and a throbbing pain, as if my neck were about to be torn, transmitted directly through my hand. The sensation was vivid in my palm. Right now, in my hand.
Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
Thumpthump, thump. Thumpthump, thump. Thumpthump, thump. Thumpthump, thump. Thumpthump, thump.
Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump.
The heartbeat was vivid.
It must be a dream.
It definitely should be a dream.
But the heat filling my palm…
…seemed to insist otherwise.
…that this is reality.
‘……No.’
If this isn’t a dream.
Then that means.
Stagger.
The hand I’d stretched out to step back with slipped on a sticky puddle as it tried to support my body.
‘…Can I… die… like this?’
A hypothesis flashed through my mind.
That I, would die. Here. Suddenly. Like this.
My mind, still unable to grasp the situation, was filled only with an unfamiliar fear.
It was a type of fear I had never experienced before. Not even when I was beaten so much as a child that my head split open did I feel such fear.
My mind, which had been escaping reality as it pleased, began to spin furiously. Meanwhile, the variant that had turned towards me moved its feet slowly, one step at a time.
[However, I already know most of the outcomes.]
[Dreadfully cliché.]
Pushing the successive windows aside, I looked squarely at the creature.
‘…A basic variant.’
It was a creature from the very beginning of [The Ruined World]. Despite the ferocity suggested by its size and appearance, its standing was roughly equivalent to a goblin in other games, leading users to call it ‘Var-Goblin.’
They primarily targeted the injured or the weak, and they never let go of their prey once targeted until it completely vanished from their sight.
“Hah……”
A sigh-like, involuntary laugh escaped me—the lament of someone who never thought they’d become the ‘extra who stupidly fails to grasp the situation and dies.’
Simultaneously, I understood them deeply.
‘Who would believe this damn situation is my reality?’
I thought if ruin came, it would be something like an ice age. I never knew I’d suddenly get rejuvenated, possessed, and end up like this. No, isn’t this even less probable?
Gritting my teeth, I properly pressed my hand against the floor again. There was no time for lamentation. I had to run before the variant attacked again.
Anywhere, as long as it was away from the variant.
Drip, plop, plop.
What was probably my blood dripped from the creature’s hand. Looking at the variant preparing to attack again, I decided on a direction.
‘Left…!’
I rolled diagonally to the left to evade the claws that were lifted briefly and then slammed down towards me.
Thud! Crash-!
Chairs and desks tangled at my feet came tumbling down noisily.
Whether I hit something wrong or not, my aching foot demanded even more force as I forcefully pushed away the things snagging at my toes.
I had no time to mind the throbbing pain right now. I had to stand up.
“Grab my hand!”
Just then, someone shouted from behind, and the moment I instinctively reached out my hand…
My helplessly dragged-along gaze met the massive hand swooping down from above.
‘…A goblin? Bullshit…’
That hand, capable of shattering all will to fight.
My leg was right where it was headed.
