Prologue: The Path of the Prisoner

I lived a life far removed from any semblance of affluence. Orphaned young, I grew up in an orphanage and learned independence early. The moment I aged out, I scrambled for work. I survived in a cramped one-room apartment, grinding from morning until afternoon—and through the night if I had to. With nothing but the raw determination to keep living, I seized every job that came my way and used any means necessary to hold on.

But did all that effort ever reach anyone? One day, a letter arrived from an anonymous benefactor. They wanted to support me with various supplies. Me? Receiving sponsorship? Honestly, I didn’t believe it at first. A ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠few days later, however, when countless delivery boxes piled up in front of my door, reality finally sank in. Three months of daily necessities, an air fryer, an electric kettle—every essential a solo dweller could need. Why on earth would someone send me all this?

If it hadn’t been anonymous, I would have tracked them down and bowed deeply every single day for a year. Instead, I settled for a profound bow toward the mountain of boxes stacked outside my house.

Thank you. I’ll put them to good use.

With the practiced movements of someone who’d done plenty of loading and unloading, I hauled the packages inside. That was when I noticed a heavy object hidden among the boxes.

You’ve got to be kidding me…

They had even sent a desktop PC complete with a LAN cable. Sure, it was an older model, but it could have fetched a decent price on the secondhand market. To donate something like this to me… Was this person actually an angel?

I gave the desktop its own deep bow, then set it up and powered it on immediately. Click. Click. The desktop background was minimal, stripped of any trace of its previous owner—except for one icon.

‘Path of Ascendant?’

Almost in a trance, I clicked it. A game launched. Maybe the benefactor was suggesting I play games like others my age? Following that logic, I played a few rounds.

It was an action-adventure RPG. The English-only version suggested the sponsor might have wanted me to study English as well. Honestly, that suited me fine. I decided to dive in properly.

Click. Click.

…Fuck. What is this?

The game was brutally unfriendly. No tutorial, no guide—just raw experience and painful lessons. The difficulty was merciless. Even early bosses required specific stats to defeat, and their patterns demanded precise control. On top of that, death meant losing everything: the character you’d painstakingly raised, all your gear, forcing you to start from zero.

Total garbage.

It didn’t match my tastes at all, so I closed it without regret.

That should have been the end of it. Yet one or two days later—tap tap tap tap—I caught myself booting the game up again every single day.

Fine. I’ll admit it. This game had a strange, addictive flavor. The kind that kept dragging you back in. At first glance the systems seemed unfair, but they were intricately balanced. The dark story and world-building were genuinely compelling. There were numerous playable races, origins, and job classes. Skill synergies worth theory-crafting. Countless encounter events. Hidden items scattered across every map. The deeper you dug, the more the game revealed its charm.

But the most distinctive feature was the character origins. The one I kept returning to was Prisoner.

Most origins granted unique traits and allowed you to select a job class at the start. Prisoner was different. You began with no traits and no class. Instead, you started burdened with multiple demerits and debuffs—the very definition of a dirt-poor beginning. It felt like something the developers had left in specifically for hardcore masochists.

I feel a certain kinship…

It sparked something stubborn in me. A foolish desire to save this miserable character. It’s just a game, after all. Might as well give it a real shot.

Tap tap. Click. Click.

Thus began my challenge to conquer the game with a Prisoner.

“Sigh… Is this even fair?”

I hit a wall right from the start. Even accounting for hard mode, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the game was so brutally difficult that progress felt impossible. I swallowed my pride and scoured community guides, but useful information was scarce. The player base had always been tiny, and even those who tried it quickly dropped the game. Very few people bothered writing proper strategies. Most reviews were just players calling it a trash game and venting their rage.

“Right. So I have to keep smashing my head against it until it breaks.”

That became my approach. Through endless attempts, I slowly grew familiar with the game’s systems.

“First, build up to free-man status… scavenge temporary equipment from hidden locations…”

I made countless mistakes. I lost characters I had spent two years nurturing. Sometimes I died in the most humiliating ways because of a single misjudgment. When the game frustrated me too much, I would compile everything I had learned into detailed guides and post them on the community. Almost no one read them, but it was a form of self-satisfaction. Writing them always brought fresh insights.

Well, I probably won’t ever see the ending, but…

They say nothing is impossible. Eight years. From a cramped one-room apartment to becoming a proper company employee. After all that time spent together, I had finally…

I actually did it? And as a Prisoner, no less?

Emotion surged through me. My character, who had begun as a dirt-poor convict, had reached the final stage. My own life, which had finally found stability after countless hardships, overlapped with his. The thousands of attempts, the long journey we had walked together, flashed before my eyes like a panorama.

The hand gripping the mouse trembled with tension.

What was there to think about? Of course it was YES. After everything I had gone through to reach this point.

The ominous disclaimer. I figured the character would disappear once the ending played. It left a lingering attachment. This character was the culmination of every piece of knowledge I had gathered over years of play. It would be a lie to say I wasn’t reluctant, but refusing now after coming this far would be even stranger.

YES / NO

The moment I clicked Yes, the screen froze for loading. I wondered what kind of ending they had prepared. After putting me through all that suffering, it had better be something spectacular. They owed me that much. Or maybe there was a hidden stage. With this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠game, that wouldn’t be surprising at all.

While I stared at the screen with rising anticipation, another popup appeared.

Huh? What was that supposed to mean? The story had always been vague, but this made no sense…

Suddenly, motes of light flickered before my eyes. When I looked closer, they were pouring out of my own body. My form was disintegrating, turning into particles of light and vanishing. A sharp ringing filled my ears as burning heat spread across my skin.

I collapsed. My strength gave out and I crumpled to the floor. I tried to scream, but something blocked my throat. My hands disappeared. Then my feet. My legs. My entire body was losing shape, fading away.

What the hell is…

My consciousness was being pulled somewhere. I desperately tried to hold on, but in the end only bottomless darkness remained.

“____!”

Inside pitch-black darkness, I heard a whisper.

“___!”

Consciousness gradually returned. But what was that sound? It was far too alien to belong in front of a computer. I slowly opened my eyes and faced the scene before me.

…Hoo.

I let out a long, deep breath. My head throbbed as if I had been struck hard, but I endured it. That wasn’t important right now.

I looked around. Crude stone walls that reminded me of a medieval basement. Torches mounted on the walls. Worn-out wooden furniture. A solemn atmosphere. People standing in neat rows, all wearing identical uniforms. And…

The man suddenly hurled insults at us. Fuck. What the hell was going on?

I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again.

Yeah. This definitely wasn’t a dream.

The vicious curses slapping against my ears snapped me fully awake. All kinds of chaotic thoughts and anxious emotions flooded in.

Why was I here? How had this happened? Had my brain ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠finally broken?

The fear of ignorance and uncertainty is the most primal terror a human can feel. My mind went completely blank.

Hoo…

With my thoughts tangled, I took another deep breath to steady my mind and body. When I thought about it, this had always been my life. There had never been anyone around to teach me even basic common sense. I had always learned the hard way, crashing into things like an idiot. Ignorance was simply part of my daily existence.

…I think I’m regaining my senses now.

Right. Let’s hold onto reason and slowly retrace what happened.

I had definitely been playing a game at home. I was standing right in front of the ending I had waited so long for. I thought it was finally over… when my body suddenly began to disappear. It wasn’t a hallucination—I had watched with my own eyes as my body oxidized into glowing particles. After I lost consciousness, I woke up here.

…Yeah. Far from clearing anything up, it only created more questions.

Still… this felt eerily familiar.

I hadn’t been certain before, but now I was. It started the moment he mentioned the “benevolent Blessing King.”

It couldn’t be a coincidence. I had heard those exact lines thousands of times.

This was the opening sequence for the Prisoner origin in Path of Ascendant.

At first I had been unsure. The dialogue had been completely different until the “benevolent Blessing King” part. But from that point onward, it matched the game perfectly. Even the unique title “Blessing King.”

…Yes. On some level, I had already known. The interior of this place that looked like a medieval basement, the armor the cursing man was wearing, the uniforms of the people standing beside me—every detail was something I had seen countless times while playing Path of Ascendant. I simply hadn’t wanted to believe it.

Ha, fuck…

Okay. I understood where I was. But how was any of this possible?

More questions surged forward, but I forced myself to stop thinking. No answer would come anyway. So I focused only on organizing the current situation.

It seemed I had become a prisoner. In a dark fantasy world devoid of dreams or hope.