Chapter 3: To Live, You Must Win
Chapter 3: To Live, You Must Win
Warsland runs on a rigid caste system.
Common, the lowest rank. A status granted to those summoned from other worlds, of which only sixty exist in Warsland. They possess physical peculiarities alone, but no Mana.
Normal, the ordinary citizens of Warsland. Civilians without any Special Abilities. The female ratio among the Normal Grade is thirty-five percent.
Rare, combatants capable of wielding Mana. From this rank onward, the proportion of women surges, making up seventy-five percent.
Unique, a super-elite who not only handles Mana but can manifest a level beyond it. Only ten individuals exist in Warsland.
All of them are women, and Enril is among them.
There are ranks above Unique as well, but Jiha had never laid eyes on one.
As a Common, suffering through hellish hardships, enduring scorn from a Unique like Enril... Jiha had come to experience Warsland's class system in his very bones.
A fantasy world it might be, but there are no nobles or serfs here.
Whether you have the strength to fight, and how well you fight — that determines your entire life.
And even at the very bottom, as a Common, Jiha had been living a dead-end existence where he could do nothing but wait to die.
Until today. Until the moment he gained the power to turn the entire world on its head.
The barracks of Blue Seal, one of the two powers dividing Warsland between them.
A place where summoned Commons ate and slept, and Jiha's quarters as well.
Commons summoned from other worlds had no freedom of residence. All of them lived in the barracks.
"Common, my ass. We're just conscripted slaves."
Jiha made his way toward his room, careful to avoid catching anyone's eye.
Room 12.
If Warsland's forced summoning had one advantage over South Korea's conscription system, it was the provision of personal space.
Even though it was two to a room, it was far better than a military barracks where everyone had to live piled together.
When Jiha opened the door and stepped inside, the man seated on the chair by the window turned his head.
"Back already, Jiha?"
He was a man with green skin and viciously protruding fangs who stood out at a glance.
A non-human species. Jiha had been startled the first time he saw him, but he was used to it now.
Contrary to that first impression of a savage monster, he was a trustworthy friend.
"Yeah, Okram."
The other man was an orc, the kind of species people typically pictured in fantasy settings.
Okram looked Jiha's shabby condition over and shook his head.
"I just got back myself, but you use the washroom first. Must be hard standing around like that."
"No, you look worse off."
Blood was dripping steadily from both of Okram's arms.
Okram was a slave forcibly summoned to Warsland as well, stuck risking his life against monstrous opponents.
"This much is nothing."
Okram flashed a light wink and flexed his bicep.
The bleeding only grew heavier, but his attitude was unconcerned. He was a friend who seemed blunt at first glance but possessed a subtle wit.
Jiha, who had initially been uneasy about sharing a room with an orc, was now treating him like a human friend.
He was the most comfortable person Jiha had known since this life of slavery began.
"Go wash first so I can sort my thoughts out, Okram."
"Mm, will do."
Okram rose without asking a thing.
He understood perfectly well that Jiha would surrender every match without fail, and that he was in a position to be beaten and mocked by the dark elf Enril.
Gripping the washroom doorframe, Okram spoke low.
"If there's anything I can help with, tell me straight, Jiha."
"...Yeah. Thanks."
At the consolation, Jiha answered with a voice that had relaxed slightly.
Out of consideration for Jiha's state of mind, Okram said no more and went into the washroom.
"Well then..."
Jiha was not despairing right now.
He had sent Okram to the washroom first because he wanted a moment alone to organize his thoughts.
Jiha sorted through the situation as it stood.
1. Without ever wanting it, he was summoned to this fantasy world and forced into a position where he had to risk his life and fight.
His class was Common, the lowest stratum of society — a slave in all but name.
2. Rumors said that thirty wins in this fighting would send you back to your original world, while in contrast, thirty losses meant exile to a place called Beyond the Dimension.
Talk was running among the Commons that you'd be better off dead than banished Beyond the Dimension.
3. Jiha was currently at 0 wins, 28 losses. Two more defeats and it was over.
"I can't just die like this. Can't die, and I won't..."
Enril had reviled him for lacking the courage to fight, but it wasn't as if Jiha had never tried.
He'd been dragged here out of nowhere, told he'd die if he didn't win — of course he'd fought desperately to win.
But the opposing Commons Jiha had to face were all physically extraordinary.
The ranks were packed with brutes who could tear a regular human apart with their bare hands.
Even Okram could beat a human to death without much difficulty.
To transcend physical limits in Warsland, you needed Mana. And could Shin Jiha, a man from Earth, possibly possess something like that?
"Until a little while ago... I didn't."
Jiha gave a bitter smile as he looked down at his own fist.
A crimson aura was beginning to rise from it like heat haze.
The color was different, but this was the very power Enril had shown him. It was Mana.
Thanks to this power, he'd managed to escape on his own.
But this power came with a condition.
Knowledge that had naturally entered his head the moment he'd acquired the ability.
Jiha bent at the waist and looked toward the spot where Okram had been sitting.
From showing off his bicep, more blood had dripped from the wound, and several drops had fallen to the floor.
After hesitating a brief moment, Jiha touched the blood with his fingertip.
The blood was absorbed without leaving a trace, and the red aura gathering at his hand grew noticeably sharper.
"To produce Mana I have to absorb other people's blood... So I've become a bloodsucker, through and through."
The knowledge that had entered his head was correct.
Jiha, who had been nodding to himself, turned around at a sound.
His eyes met those of a rat that had just crawled out of a hole.
Jiha stretched out his hand at once.
Shhhk!
In an instant, the red Mana shot forth and enveloped the rat.
The rat thrashed, trying to flee, but its movements soon ceased and it shriveled up, desiccated like a mummy.
Jiha could feel a faint trace more of power coiling at his fingertips.
"Small creatures can be drained at range, then..."
He stretched his hand toward the few remaining drops of Okram's blood, but no change occurred whatsoever.
Jiha withdrew his hand and seated himself on the windowsill.
He was in a situation where two more losses would end his life, so impatience clawed at him.
Which was precisely why he needed to act with even greater care.
"The blood of weak creatures can be drained from a distance, but stronger ones require direct contact. And the blood of stronger creatures is far more effective..."
Even a single drop of Okram's blood had increased his Mana more than all of the rat's blood combined.
"I was fine in sunlight too, so it doesn't look like I have a typical weakness. The question is how far this can go..."
For now, he had Mana. He couldn't immediately apply it to combat, but he had a rough sense of how to handle it.
But at a glance, this was clearly not a normal power.
In Warsland, Mana was fighting power itself, effectively no different from one's life.
Even within the same grade, it was a world where strength or weakness naturally determined how much say you had.
And to acquire Mana by absorbing other people's blood? Society was unlikely to ever accept an ability like this.
He had to hide it for now.
A vampire didn't exactly write "bloodsucker" on their ID card and walk around town, did they?
"A vampire, huh. Of all things..."
Jiha, laughing hollowly, looked at the window and then froze.
Something he had never seen before had appeared on his upper teeth.
The symbol of a vampire: two sharply protruding fangs.
"..."
The instant Jiha thought to hide them, they returned to normal.
After repeating the process, Jiha confirmed that he could grow and retract the fangs at will.
"At least I won't get caught because of my teeth."
A bloodsucker who gained Mana from the blood of others. Having taken stock of the ability he'd acquired a few hours ago, Jiha laughed it off.
Even if he'd turned into a vampire overnight, it was better than being a slave.
"Yeah. Much better..."
Now, he would win.
The women who had scorned him, this absurd world ruled by the survival of the fittest and female dominance — he was going to overturn it all.
But for the time being, he had to conceal his power and gather information. To do that, he needed an ally.
And the moment he saw those fangs, additional knowledge surfaced in his mind.
Direct Bloodsucking was more efficient than indirect Bloodsucking.
And direct Bloodsucking only worked on the opposite sex.
"..."
Commons were exclusively male.
In other words, biting them meant nothing.
"In that case..."
A name reflexively surfaced.
Enril.
If he could sink his fangs into that woman, wouldn't he be able to grow strong immediately?
The following afternoon.
Commons had their sphere of activity restricted. They couldn't even go outside as they pleased.
Just like being locked up in the military.
"...So, because you couldn't go out, you called me here?"
Standing in the barracks' rear courtyard, Enril wore an expression of sheer disbelief.
A Common, the lowest rank, daring to summon a Unique back and forth?
"It was so preposterous... I came half in doubt. But if this is some crooked scheme, you die today."
Resting one hand on her hip, Enril pierced him with a frosty stare.
Losing your nerve just because a woman was glaring at you would make you a fool, but the story changed when the woman was a monster who had cut people's throats as routinely as eating meals.
"I have a proposal."
But Jiha brought up his business without a trace of hesitation.
Enril let out a hollow laugh.
"A proposal? Did you just say a proposal? To me? A Common is making a proposal to me, a Unique?"
"Don't drag this out into a long, grubby mess."
"..."
Enril, incredulous, clenched and unclenched her fist.
A reaction of internal conflict, as though debating whether to drive her fist in and smash his skull outright.
Jiha, his resolve steeled, did not shrink back.
"Even though I'm a Common, the lowest rank, you can't dispose of me however you like. Summoning a Common requires a ritual, offerings, and a magic stone."
"..."
As he'd pointed out, Commons were effectively slaves, but they also couldn't be disposed of carelessly.
Because of all the resources that went into summoning one.
That was why, even while Enril found Jiha distasteful and held him in contempt, she was keeping him alive for now.
Enril folded her arms, her face radiating cold hostility.
Her ample breasts were pressed flat by her forearms, warping provocatively.
"If you speak or act in a way that unravels the grade system, disposing of you is no problem. A piece of trash who's already racked up twenty-eight straight losses — I can simply file a report saying you arrogantly challenged me, and that will be the end of it."
"You're going to file a false report?"
"The very act of ordering me around is a grave offense. You are trash, and I am a Unique. Five minutes of my time is worth more than your life."
An endlessly arrogant declaration, but Enril was simply saying what she had been taught.
She had lived her whole life in a world where women dominated and men were inferior.
The ones who ruled Warsland were women. Men without Mana were fit for nothing but menial labor.
Having been raised looking down on men from birth, she didn't even possess the awareness that she was offering insults.
Even accounting for that, Jiha couldn't help the heat rising inside him.
What kind of insane bitch was this? Maybe that was why she couldn't even get a husband? ...All manner of thoughts flickered through his mind, but he held them down.
"My next match is two days from now, right?"
"You called me out here just to check your schedule? If you didn't know the date of your own funeral, I can arrange it for you right now."
Enril moved her hand to her waist, and it didn't look like a joke.
She had beaten him countless times before, but she had never drawn her sword.
Enril was just about to pull the blade when Jiha spoke quietly.
"I'm going to win that match."
"..."
A hint of surprise flickered across Enril's face.
This was coming from Jiha, who had spent every match doing nothing but surrender the moment it began.
"Oh, is that so. Well then..."
"But I have a condition."
Condition? Enril looked flabbergasted, but Jiha remained coldly composed.
"When I first came here, you were the first person I saw. You're the one who told me that Warsland was a world where winning meant you could have anything."
"..."
Enril's brow furrowed. She didn't remember it clearly, but it was the standard explanatory text given to freshly summoned Commons as a formality.
"You remember me asking if that meant I could have you too? You laughed in my face just like your temper dictates, but you said if I kept winning, it would be possible."
"So, what exactly do you want to say?"
Enril snapped coldly.
A threat that if he talked nonsense, she would crush his skull in.
But in order to start winning from here on out, Jiha was doing this because he needed to.
If he wanted to drastically increase his Mana, he had to be willing to cross some dangerous bridges.
Toward a voluptuous, silver-haired dark elf beauty whose very figure, just from the sight of her standing there, made his mouth water — Jiha made his declaration.
"So, if I win..."