Chapter 2: I Can't Live Like This
Chapter 2: I Can't Live Like This
He would survive, no matter what.
Three months had passed since Jiha made that resolution. And today, once again, he was being beaten by Enril.
"Urgh... agh!!"
Jiha was reasonably tough and durable.
But Enril's beatings were anything but ordinary.
This wasn't just a woman's fist.
Every time Enril hit him, blue energy—Mana—surged from her knuckles.
Each impact made his bones ring.
Enril spat the words with pure disgust.
"You lost again today, you maggot. And without even putting up a fight—you surrendered."
"......."
Jiha pressed his hands against his knees and gasped for air.
He wasn't exaggerating the pain. Just staying on his feet was an achievement.
No, the truth was, Enril was holding back.
If she meant it, she could punch his skull into pieces right now.
That was Mana—the essential power for fighting in this world, Warsland.
"You cling to life the same way in the arena, don't you?"
Enril sneered and withdrew her hand.
"Hah... haah...."
Relief. It was over.
Ashamed to realize he'd thought that, Jiha bit his lip hard.
"Not even an excuse anymore? Why would you have one, anyway?"
Enril snapped and kicked him in the stomach again.
"Guh-huk."
Caught off guard after just relaxing, Jiha collapsed to his knees.
"No improvement. None at all. At this rate, I...."
Enril muttered as she looked down at him.
Silver hair glinted. Her features, as delicate as a finely crafted doll, were filled with contempt for him.
Beyond her face, the line from her nape to her shoulders, then from her full chest to her waist, was devastatingly alluring.
Her well-tanned brown skin was taut with vitality.
A peerless beauty any man would drool over.
But toward Jiha, the only emotion she carried was contempt.
"Why no answer? Try making an excuse, you coward."
"......."
A silver-haired dark elf beauty.
The kind of woman so seductive she'd fuel a wet dream the second she appeared—and she was beating Jiha down and demanding an answer.
Jiha forced the words out.
"There's no way I can win if I fight... I have no Mana."
"Then die. A proud warrior dies fighting. Surrendering just to cling to your wretched life—how pathetic."
Enril was contemptuous, but from Jiha's perspective, it only made him want to curse.
The opponent he'd been supposed to fight today was a metal golem, a three-meter-tall mass of iron.
If an ordinary human like him fought a hunk of metal barehanded, he'd die.
He didn't want to die, so he had no choice but to surrender.
And Enril denounced him as gutless trash.
Then followed the denunciation with a beating.
It had been three months of this, repeating over and over.
"That I'm the supervisor for garbage with no pride... it genuinely infuriates me."
Enril stomped her foot in irritation.
Boom!
The ground shook and tiles shattered.
Those legs boasted a bewitching shapeliness, but fueled with Mana, a kick could pulverize a wall with ease.
In truth, beating Jiha to death would be no trouble at all.
From Jiha's end, being on the receiving end of a one-sided beating, the reality was shitty—but right now she was pulling her punches while hitting him.
"Fuck, seriously...."
After getting tortured for touching the wrong woman, was this his life now—getting beaten by a woman?
But it wasn't anything new.
This world, Warsland, ran on the law of power.
And those who held that power—the ones at the top of the world—were all women.
Meaning, it was a world where strong women trampled over men.
From Enril's standpoint, Jiha was weak and gutless, so all she could feel for him was contempt.
Enril dismissed him and spoke.
"Your next match is in three days. You've already racked up twenty-eight losses. Don't forget—if you reach thirty, you'll be banished beyond the dimension."
"......."
"I, a Unique of the dark elves, am training you personally. If you lose again... there'll be no need to send you beyond the dimension. I'll deal with you myself."
Thud!
Enril kicked Jiha in the stomach once, then left.
"Guhk."
Jiha doubled over, and Enril's retreating figure came into view.
That brown rear that made a man want to grab tight.
It provoked male lust in its rawest form.
"That bitch, really...."
From the receiving end, he wanted to murder her—but he couldn't deny she was a killer beauty either.
And on top of that, the sight of himself—getting thrashed by a woman like that and having to walk on eggshells—made him feel utterly, disgustingly pathetic.
"Fucking hell, goddammit...."
He wanted a cigarette and had none.
All he had was a fouler mouth and a hardened grudge.
A long while later.
Once his battered body had settled a little, Jiha pushed himself up.
It was miserable and shitty, but he couldn't stay slumped over forever.
This place was a deserted ruin.
Enril had moved to this out-of-sight location before taking him apart.
Purely for her own dignity—getting physical where people could see would stir up needless rumors.
"Ptui. When can I go back...?"
Jiha trudged unsteadily through the empty ruin.
Rubbing his stomach, dragging his feet as he walked—his own sorry state was too pitiful.
And to top it off, no fire, no cigarettes.
"Hah...."
Honestly, staying in Korea would've been better.
Sure, messing with a powerful woman had gotten him royally fucked, but she probably hadn't actually meant to kill him.
Killing him would've turned into a criminal matter. Probably.
But Enril really was going to kill him.
"Damn it."
Fine, let's say he'd been summoned to this world called Warsland. Fine.
Jiha had tried to adapt.
Being the personal secretary to a high-ranking person had given him all kinds of professional skills.
So he'd built up knowledge and assessed the situation.
This otherworld, Warsland, was broadly split into two warring powers.
Factions split like that naturally became hostile.
But instead of clashing directly, both camps summoned people from other worlds to fight in their place.
Like Roman nobles pitting their slaves against each other to prove who was stronger.
A system born of necessity soon became Warsland's sport.
A proxy war, warriors from another world fighting in the Summoning War.
Warsland's lowest class, the Commons.
And Jiha was one of those Commons.
Even though he'd never wanted it, he'd been thrown into the heart of a life-or-death struggle.
Fight and win? Easy to say.
His opponents weren't other humans, but three-headed giants, monsters spewing acidic liquid, and all manner of bizarre species.
There was never a winning angle, so he had to surrender.
And then his supervisor Enril would beat him down. That was the cycle.
He'd considered escaping, running away.
But even if he escaped, this was a world with no connections—he had nowhere to run.
All he could do was endure and hold on.
"Damn it all, if I just had Mana... if only I had Mana, I could try something...."
The Mana Enril wielded.
A power that transcended the physical. It was absolutely essential to fight properly in Warsland.
As a human from Earth, Jiha had absolutely none.
And no way to learn it.
"Hoooh."
Jiha leaned against a crumbling wall and sighed.
A life fallen rock bottom beneath rock bottom....
Suddenly, the ground trembled violently.
Rrrrrrumble!
"An earthquake?"
Seeing even buildings shake, Jiha quickly dashed forward—and then the ground beneath him suddenly collapsed.
The earth had split open!
"Aaaaaagh!"
Jiha screamed as he plunged into pitch darkness.
Into the darkness below the floor.
His cheek was cold.
Collapsed on the stone floor, Jiha slowly opened his eyes and checked his condition.
His body was aching all over with bruises, but nothing seemed broken.
"Today's luck is really, one hell of...."
Grumbling, Jiha looked upward and his face sank in despair.
The place where he'd been walking, the ground, was seven meters above him.
There was no sign of anything to step on or climb.
"Shit, this is hell."
Could a man be this unlucky in the world?
It felt like something was testing just how far down he could fall.
Shaking his head, Jiha paused.
"The air's cleaner than I expected."
For something caused by a simple crack and fall, the space was remarkably large.
Noticing an open passage on his left, Jiha reached out and carefully touched it.
Covered in dirt, but they were cleanly cut bricks.
"A tunnel underground?"
Realizing it was man-made, Jiha began walking along the passage.
Just waiting here, trapped, hoping someone would rescue him, would be idiotic.
"As if anyone would come to save me."
At worst, he might even be branded a deserter and killed.
If he deserted, his supervisor—the dark elf Enril—would take full responsibility and hunt him down with fire in her eyes.
In any case, no matter how much his life was dogshit, he couldn't die.
Unsure if another aftershock might hit, Jiha moved carefully.
It was underground, but light seeped through between the bricks, so moving forward wasn't hard.
After following the passage, Jiha arrived at a small stone chamber.
A dead end—no exit in sight.
"......Damn it."
Having hoped for a way out, Jiha stopped mid-curse.
In the center of the chamber stood a waist-high pillar.
From that pillar, an eerie red energy flowed outward.
"Red?"
Jiha's eyes widened on their own.
In this world, Warsland, when people wielded Mana, blue energy—or occasionally purple energy—flowed from them.
He'd heard no other colors existed.
But here, a strange red light was emanating.
Jiha gulped and slowly approached the pillar.
It might be dangerous.
He crept closer... and suddenly a three-dimensional image burst forth from the pillar.
If you wish to overturn the world and need power, lay your hand upon it.
Choose the path of the Demon God.
The language wasn't Korean but the language of Warsland.
During the summoning process, Jiha had acquired the language, so he read it without difficulty.
"'Overturn the world,' huh...."
It was like tossing a water flask to a dying man.
Though he had no idea what was inside that flask.
He'd gotten tortured and nearly killed for touching the wrong woman.
Then he'd been forcibly dragged into a world where he didn't know a single soul.
Forced to fight, and when he surrendered because he didn't want to die, a woman beat him to within an inch of his life.
Better than this kind of life.
"Fuck, fine...."
If he kept living like this, one of three things would happen.
Killed by an enemy, banished beyond the dimension, or have his throat slit by Enril.
And all three were the same god-awful end.
He didn't want to keep living this way.
He wanted to flip everything completely upside down.
The women who looked down on him, the enemies aiming for his life, and this entire world that had summoned him on a whim—all of it!
"Goddammit, let's go!!"
Encouraging himself, Jiha laid his right hand on the pillar from which the unknown red energy was seeping.
Immediately, searing agony began to shoot through his fingertips.
A pain like being burned alive, but Jiha forced a grin.
Whatever happened from now on, it couldn't be worse than this.
His life had hit rock bottom?
The only way left was up.