The Three Hearts
The drill ground lay shrouded in a bluish predawn gloom, the sun not yet fully risen. Hundreds of people, freshly conscripted only yesterday, stood in rigid lines across it. Their clothes were little more than rags, their eyes wide with terror.
The newly introduced commander of the recruit training battalion, Viscount Rolls, raised his voice.
Rolls’s voice rang out across the field without a trace of emotion.
The drill ground erupted into uneasy murmurs. Three days. To Tae-oh, who had already completed his military service back on Earth, the order was pure insanity. Throwing civilians who didn’t even know basic drill or how to hold a spear into battle after three days wasn’t training—it was slaughter.
Three days until the battlefield? Are you fucking kidding me? They’re just using us as meat shields!
A hollow laugh escaped Tae-oh. He had already died once, only to be conscripted again, and now they were telling him to go die a second time in three days.
In a normal story like this, they should at least give me something! A status window, some cheat ability, anything!
The moment he screamed the plea inside his head—
Status Window Activated.
A translucent blue window materialized in the center of his vision. It looked almost identical to the UI from Imperial Conquest, the game he used to play obsessively.
Yes! That’s what I’m talking about!
Tae-oh let out a mental sigh of relief and examined the window.
Name:Yoon Tae-oh
Race:Human
Remaining Lives:❤︎❤︎❤︎
Tae-oh’s eyes narrowed. “…That’s it?”
No level? No strength or agility stats? Where were the flashy magic or sword skills? The window was almost completely empty, containing nothing but his name, race, and three ugly red hearts.
Goddamn it, no skills either? Then how the hell am I supposed to survive…!!
That was when he noticed them.
Tae-oh stared hard at the three crimson hearts. They looked exactly like the icons from the souls-like action version of Imperial Conquest, not the MMORPG one he usually played.
Wait… are these actual lives? Does dying three times mean game over for real?
If so, it was an incredible privilege. But to confirm, he would have to die once. Having lived in modern society, Tae-oh had zero courage to test that theory with his own life. Besides, what if they weren’t lives at all?
No, they might not be. Maybe they just represent health.
Sacrificing one on an experiment would be beyond stupid. Tae-oh took a deep breath, forcing his pounding heart to calm.
“Hoo…”
Only when he regained his composure and looked around did the rest of the scenery finally register. The first thing that shocked him was the composition of the recruits.
Women…?
Roughly one-third of the hundreds of conscripts were female. Not trained female knights, either—just ordinary young women who, until yesterday, had probably been plowing fields or selling goods at the market.
In that instant, the contents of the romance-fantasy novel he had borrowed from Private Jeon Woong-jae flashed through his mind. The empire that served as the setting for this romance fantasy was currently in the middle of a mad war of conquest—all because of the crown prince’s fiancée’s wedding gift. The surrounding kingdoms, facing national extinction, were throwing every citizen—man, woman, young, and old—onto the battlefield.
After living among nothing but men in drab military uniforms for a year and a half, the sight of women standing beside him felt strangely alien.
He had thought this was dark fantasy after seeing those damn hearts, but…
It really is a romance-fantasy world. Military service with women…
Of course, no excitement stirred in him. Their faces carried the exact same despair and terror as his own. Still, the bitter resentment he had felt earlier eased just a little. Maybe it was the comfort of shared suffering—knowing he wasn’t the only one screwed. Or, to be brutally honest, the mere presence of women slightly raised his tension. That was simply the nature of soldiers.
But that feeling lasted only a moment. Training began without mercy. Basic drill or running was a luxury. The instructors handed each conscript a crude spear as thick as a forearm.
The instructor’s words were exactly what Tae-oh had expected. It wasn’t infantry tactics—it was the role of disposable meat shields meant to slow down a charging force.
Sobs and screams broke out across the drill ground, but Tae-oh silently adjusted his grip on the spear. To survive, he had to get used to it. He had to do something.
“Hey, number 142! Nice stance!”
A passing instructor stopped in front of him. Without realizing it, Tae-oh had assumed the basic bayonet stance. While the grip differed between a spear and a rifle with bayonet, the fundamental purpose was the same: a straight thrust and using length for defense. Weight centered back, left hand guiding direction, right hand driving forward. The principles of bayonet training he had repeated to the point of nausea in the army applied perfectly to the spear.
“Have you used a spear before? Your form is decent.”
“…Just a little, sir.”
Tae-oh answered curtly and thrust the spear forward.
Whoosh—!
A sharp cutting sound rang out. All that bored practice with perfect form during his military service was actually paying off here. Tae-oh swung the spear like a madman for three days. Even when his palms tore and bled, he didn’t stop. In his head, he ran endless simulations—what to stab, how to dodge when the enemy charged, when blades flew at him.
He just wanted to live.
He had already died once, crushed under a two-and-a-half-ton truck before the ink on his discharge papers had even dried. This was his second chance. He refused to die helplessly again as a meat shield on some nameless battlefield.
“All troops!! Charge!!”
The roar that erupted from the horizon was the signal.
Fuck… what the hell am I doing here?
Tae-oh stood at the very front, facing the enemy’s massive army. He had been a soldier, but he had never experienced a battlefield like this. The very air felt oppressively heavy with killing intent.
Thud-thud-thud-thud—
The Imperial elite cavalry reflecting sunlight as they surged forward looked like a colossal silver tidal wave. Every time thousands of hooves slammed into the ground, an ominous vibration shot up through Tae-oh’s feet and into his entire body.
A commander’s voice, barely audible over the chaos, screamed into his ears.
Some soldiers were already breaking formation from the overwhelming terror of the cavalry. Those men became the first to vanish, turned into mist on the battlefield.
The officers’ desperate, screaming orders no longer reached the ears of the terrified conscripts. The recruit standing next to Tae-oh shook so violently while gripping his spear that he wet himself. The sharp stench of urine mixed with the metallic smell of blood, stabbing at Tae-oh’s nose.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
Even as he cursed out loud, Tae-oh never loosened his death grip on the spear.
Then came the collision.
Crunch—!
“Aaaaaaaaagh!!”
The horrifying sound of bodies bursting open and dying screams filled the battlefield. It wasn’t a battle—it was a slaughterhouse. Warhorses weighing over a ton slammed into humans at full speed, and human bodies disintegrated like they were made of paper. The sound of bones snapping like crackers was louder than spears piercing horses.
The comrades at the front of the formation were crushed beneath massive hooves without even time to scream. Blood sprayed upward, splattering Tae-oh’s cheek with wet heat.
“Aaaaaagh! My leg! My leeeeg!”
Severed limbs spun through the air. Spilled intestines poured onto the muddy ground. The glamorous romance-fantasy setting had vanished. Only a gutter of crushed flesh and iron filings remained.
Fuck… what is this… what kind of romance fantasy is this!!
Tae-oh clenched his teeth against the terror threatening to overwhelm him and readjusted his grip. The three days of desperate training at least let his body move on instinct. A sword swung by an Imperial infantryman to his side grazed his shoulder.
Slice—
“Ugh!!”
The instant the cold sensation passed over his skin, Tae-oh bared his teeth and thrust his spear with all his strength.
“You son of a bitch!”
Squelch—!
The spear tip found the gap in the enemy’s armor and drove straight into his chest. The sensation was nothing like what he had felt in games. The disgusting, vivid vibration of tearing tough leather and muscle, catching on solid cervical vertebrae—it all transmitted through the shaft into his palms. He could feel the enemy’s life force flickering and dying.
Blood smelling of iron gushed out, blinding Tae-oh’s vision.
“Gurgle…”
The soldier before him stared at Tae-oh with resentment, mouth full of blood. In the enemy’s glazing eyes, Tae-oh saw his own distorted face reflected back.
He had killed a person.
Not a wooden target, but a living human being—someone’s son, someone’s husband. The heavy, sticky weight of guilt seized his ankles. His sense of reality crumbled, and the surrounding noise grew distant.
I… I killed someone…!
In the middle of that hellish battlefield, Tae-oh froze for a brief moment.
Shit, this is no time to freeze!
He snapped back to his senses, but a single instant on the battlefield could be fatal.
Slash—!
“…Huh?”
The cold sensation that began at his left flank instantly turned into burning agony. Another Imperial soldier’s sword had sliced deep across his waist.
“Gahk!!”
The feeling of hot liquid pouring out made his legs give way. Tae-oh dropped to his knees, clutching his side. Something slippery forced its way out between his fingers. For the first time, he saw his own intestines.
“Ugh… no… please…”
His vision flickered rapidly. Beyond his overturned sight, he saw horse hooves mercilessly trampling the conscripts. The red blood splattered across their ornate silver armor shone beautifully, just like the novels described, but the reality beneath it was nothing but cold mud and death.
Before he could even forget the texture of his discharge papers, Yoon Tae-oh slowly grew cold on an unnamed plain in another world. It was a miserably wretched end, so pathetic that not even resentment could escape as a scream.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
Tae-oh shot upright like a spring. His heart was pounding as if it would explode. He frantically felt his side, but there wasn’t a single wound. The stale smell of sweat, the familiar barracks ceiling.
“Wh-what…?”
With trembling hands, Tae-oh waved at the empty air.
“Status window… Status window!”
Status Window Activated.
Name:Yoon Tae-oh
Race:Human
Remaining Lives:❤︎❤︎
One heart had disappeared. Tae-oh’s pupils shook violently. Everything was clear now. The sensation of death, the disgusting feeling still lingering at his fingertips—none of it could have been a dream. He really had died. And he really had come back.
But infinite retries were not allowed. He had only two lives left.
“…Fuck.”
A short curse slipped from Tae-oh’s lips. Two chances. In this hellish battlefield, two remaining lives didn’t feel like much. One wrong step and it would all be over. Yet Tae-oh did not despair. He chose to think of it as still having two more opportunities. Within those two chances, he had to find a way to survive this battle.