Chapter 1
Chapter 1
He had once been a fairly successful mixed martial arts fighter.
No matter how harsh life became, if you endured it like a rock and kept pushing forward, one day you would achieve greatness.
And once you succeeded, never turn your back on those less fortunate.
Born into a family of social workers, he grew up engraving those words into his heart and tried to live an upright life.
That didn’t mean he was naturally kindhearted.
He had a rough temper and a somewhat twisted side to him.
Still, if you had to categorize him, he leaned more toward being a good person.
Just not exceptionally good.
He was simply the type who couldn’t easily ignore someone pitiful, and someone who never forgot the kindness he received.
His competitive spirit was extraordinary, and he was naturally gifted at taking hits. Better yet, he was even better at hitting others. That was how he ended up entering the world of combat sports.
Still, outside the ring, he believed people shouldn’t hurt one another.
Of course, he wasn’t endlessly kind all the time.
When he needed to get angry, he got angry. When he needed to be firm, he was firm.
He wasn’t the frustratingly saint-like type.
Anyway, if there was one unexpected thing about him—
It was that he was infamous as a trash talker inside the ring.
Not that anyone particularly had a problem with it.
That side of him was nothing more than a “character” created by his team.
It wasn’t much different from a scripted performance in professional wrestling.
The reason he adopted such an unfitting strategy was simple.
Just as his father had said, it was to achieve greatness.
If you were poor, even helping others came with limitations.
And when poverty wore down the mind, you no longer had the energy to show kindness.
Besides, skill alone didn’t earn huge amounts of money.
For athletes, star power mattered most.
But kind words brought kind words in return.
Even he couldn’t escape that universal truth.
The moment his trash talk finally came back to bite him was surprisingly simple.
As time passed, the biggest match of his life was finally arranged.
The organization he fought under was considered the greatest in the world of mixed martial arts.
His nickname was Challenger.
There wasn’t any grand meaning behind it. He simply had an aggressive fighting style and never hesitated to challenge giants despite his smaller frame.
In that world, the man known as Challenger entered the heavyweight division at only 177 centimeters tall and weighing 96 kilograms.
Despite the somewhat lame nickname, he was skilled enough to become a top contender among monsters whose average height exceeded 193 centimeters.
Honestly speaking, his natural size was closer to a lightweight or welterweight fighter than a heavyweight.
In fact, those were the divisions he fought in when he first debuted.
But his competitiveness and talent drew him into the world of giants, and somehow, miraculously, he proved himself there too.
That alone was extraordinary.
Yet he went even further, becoming the first Asian fighter to challenge for the title.
It was truly an unprecedented achievement.
The man he would face was a British fighter named Andre Ladrio, standing at a monstrous 205 centimeters tall.
Worse still, the champion had never suffered a single defeat, even after ten title defenses.
The long-awaited super fight immediately became the talk of the public and combat sports media alike.
A true battle between David and Goliath.
However, there was one peculiar thing about the champion, Ladrio.
He constantly rambled about being a knight in his previous life.
And he did it with complete seriousness.
Judging by the champion’s endlessly solemn attitude, it wasn’t some gimmick or marketing strategy.
He genuinely believed it.
Naturally, the public dismissed it as delusion.
Which made sense, considering his hobbies consisted of obsessively consuming medieval fantasy novels and anime from both East and West.
When a reporter once asked if he had become too immersed in his hobbies and started confusing fantasy with reality—
“I am merely reminiscing about my homeland.”
He answered with an expression overflowing with longing.
His sincerity was so overwhelming that the reporter could only shut his mouth.
Either way, there was no doubt the man was an eccentric who didn’t understand jokes.
And Challenger knew that very well.
Unfortunately—
He was also a trash talker.
And once he found an excuse to insult someone, opening his mouth became inevitable.
To Challenger, trash talk wasn’t simply entertainment.
It was a necessary act for survival.
His coach had practically forced that persona into him because maintaining that image brought in money.
He wanted to continue supporting the younger fighters in his gym and the children he regularly sponsored.
That greed made him forget one simple truth—
You had to choose carefully who you provoked.
Still, even considering that mistake, Challenger didn’t really have another choice.
If he suddenly stopped trash talking, audiences would mock him for getting scared, and the bad-boy image he’d built over the years could collapse overnight.
And once popularity dropped, his fight pay would naturally drop too.
So as always, he put on a show.
He mocked the champion as a nerd, a delusional freak, a giant stick figure, and threw around plenty of harsh insults.
In the end, he even raised his middle finger and declared he would crush the lord from the champion’s delusions along with him.
Of course, Challenger never truly meant any of it.
Unfortunately for him, though—
He had picked the wrong opponent.
For a rigid champion like Andre, there were no jokes and no performances.
Even Challenger’s team grew worried after seeing the champion become far angrier than expected. They sent a lengthy apology letter to calm him down.
The only response they received was:
“A knight’s stained honor can only be washed clean with blood.”
A bizarre answer.
Regardless, Challenger had clearly touched the champion’s reverse scale.
And so, what awaited him inside the ring—
Were the champion’s murderous blue eyes.
The moment he saw them, instinct screamed inside him.
I’m screwed.
Or maybe—
I might actually die.
After that, all he remembered was the terrifying blue light blazing like flames inside the champion’s eyes—
“You shall be sent to the world you mocked so dearly.”
The champion ground his teeth as he spat out those words.
And then Challenger’s consciousness faded into darkness.
When consciousness returned, the first thing filling my vision was an incredibly strange scene.
A spacious solitary room made entirely of white walls.
A small floating window vibrating repeatedly while displaying the same sentence over and over again.
And finally—
Complete silence.
It was more than enough to drive a person insane.
Had I become some kind of soul now?
Or maybe a wandering spirit?
Either way, the being that appeared before me wasn’t a goddess.
Nor some transcendent existence.
< Welcome to the Orthodox Fantasy World! >
It was just a square-shaped window.
One that endlessly numbed my mind.
In truth, I had already spent quite a long time trapped inside this isolated space.
Because the conversation never progressed.
Just like the window that kept repeating the same sentence—
“Send me back.”
I too kept repeating the same response.
At least one fortunate thing remained.
Even in this state, I could still speak.
Though that tiny window made even that meaningless.
“Look, I seriously have important things to do, so could you maybe send me back to my original world... please?”
When begging didn’t work, I even tried speaking politely.
Still—
< Welcome to the Orthodox Fantasy World! >
Neither side was willing to compromise.
“God, this is driving me insane.”
The endlessly repeating message was a problem.
But honestly, my stubbornness was a problem too.
At the same time, I couldn’t help feeling bitter.
None of this felt real.
I mean, sure, there was almost a thirty-centimeter height difference between us—
But how the hell did I die from a single straight punch?
I wasn’t some random civilian.
I was a professional fighter too.
And it wasn’t like I underestimated the champion.
I knew he hit hard.
I knew he was stronger than me.
So losing wasn’t impossible to accept.
But getting sent flying to the afterlife in one punch?
That was ridiculous.
It felt like all the pride I carried as a top contender, all the effort I’d built up over more than ten years since middle school, had vanished in an instant.
Maybe I’d pushed myself too far because of my obsession with standing on the heavyweight stage.
…Who knows.
“You shall be sent to the world you mocked so dearly.”
“……”
The champion’s final roar echoed through my mind.
And slowly, another thought crept in.
Maybe all that nonsense about being a knight wasn’t actually delusion.
Normally, anyone would call it absurd.
Impossible.
But if it were true—
Then my current situation suddenly made perfect sense.
Getting knocked out of existence by a single punch.
The champion’s inhuman blue eyes.
And this invitation to some “Orthodox Fantasy” world.
As time passed, the theory gradually solidified into certainty inside my head.
Either way—
“…I lost.”
And everything was over.
The tower I spent over ten years building had completely collapsed.
A hollow laugh escaped my lips.
At the very least, I realized this wasn’t the time to cling to pride or stubbornness anymore.
There was nothing left for someone like me.
“……”
I stared blankly into empty space.
Hours passed as I sat there trying to calm myself.
Then I shook my head.
This wasn’t right.
Even now, I hated admitting it, but refusing to accept defeat was even more pathetic than defeat itself.
Running from reality was no different.
More importantly, I had already wasted too much time sitting around in here.
I couldn’t tell exactly, but it felt like nearly a week had passed according to my body clock.
And who knew?
Maybe there would still be things worth pursuing in that world.
Maybe there was even a way to return home.
I forcefully brought my thoughts to an end.
There were still countless things I wanted to know about this bizarre prison-like room and the true nature of the champion—
< Welcome to the Orthodox Fantasy World! >
—but first, I desperately wanted this annoying window gone.
Being trapped in a sealed room while arguing with a floating message box for nearly a week was enough to make anyone lose their mind.
I couldn’t keep fighting with this mysterious thing forever.
“…I lost.”
In other words—
I surrendered.
I’d denied reality long enough.
Honestly, the growing fear that I might never escape this place at all played a large role too.
< Character Creation! >
“Fuck…”
Why did it keep adding unnecessary exclamation marks?
It honestly felt like the thing was mocking me.
“…Haa.”
I decided not to care.
Getting angry at something that wasn’t even alive was pointless.
< A penalty has been applied due to the sins of your previous life! As punishment for insulting Orthodox Fantasy, you will be unable to use Mana or Aura! >
That warning window, however, wasn’t something I could casually ignore.
The once plain floating box now glowed a frightening red.
Mana? Aura?
I dug through faint memories and tried recalling where I’d heard those terms before.
It came from those generic fantasy novels my friend used to recommend when we were younger.
Swordmasters. Circle-ranked mages. All those cliché settings.
Though honestly, weren’t those pretty far from “orthodox fantasy”?
Well, it wasn’t a genre I knew much about anyway.
Still, it definitely seemed similar to the fantasy worlds from those novels.
Which meant—
Being unable to use Aura or Mana was probably an enormous penalty.
…Was this thing basically telling me to die?
Ding!
Ignoring my thoughts, the window suddenly moved to the next section on its own.
< Please choose your gender! >
What?
Was this some kind of game now?
Why was there suddenly a character creation menu?
Still, at least the choice itself was easy.
There was nothing to think about.
If I had to survive in some unknown world, then naturally—
The side with better physical abilities was the better option.