Chapter 1
Chapter 1
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: From Primitive Chieftain to Cosmic Emperor
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Another day had come to an end.
Staring at the monitor under the office fluorescent lights until my eyes burned, I glanced at the clock.
It was already 10 PM.
If I wanted to make it to work tomorrow morning, I needed to hurry home.
Taking the elevator down with a weary shuffle, I caught my reflection in the mirror.
"Is this what a human being looks like?"
Some zombie bastard was glaring back at me.
Sometimes...
No, every single day, I wondered if this was really the right way to live.
Korean society had hardened into a structure where social mobility was practically impossible.
Prices skyrocketed day by day, currency melted away with inflation, and asset values soared—leaving me in the dark about when I'd ever save enough to make it big.
Having failed the birth lottery and grown up in an orphanage, could someone like me really climb the ladder?
My team leader always said it.
"If you want to survive in this industry, you have to work twice as hard as everyone else."
What utter bullshit.
It already felt like my body was being ground to dust every day—what happens when you burn out your health? Game over, right?
I just wished I had a real shot.
A society where you could start from the bottom and still build something up.
If I'd been born in the baby boomer generation, wouldn't I have had a far better life than this?
Of course, thoughts like that were just pointless what-ifs.
Lives at the very bottom like mine inevitably turn to vicarious thrills for satisfaction.
For me, that was Primitive Era Online.
By the time I got home, it was midnight, so playing games on weekdays was out of the question.
I saved all my gaming for the weekends.
In Primitive Era Online, you started as a tribal chieftain in the hunter-gatherer age, growing your tribe and expanding your territory through hunting and conquest.
In reality, I was a slave to a black company, but in the game, I could do anything I wanted.
Found a kingdom, unite others through conquest, aim for world domination—it was all possible.
And you could keep developing straight through to a completely different future from the present day. That was a huge draw.
Boiling up some instant ramen on the weekend and sitting at my computer to manage my tribesmen's daily lives—that was my one joy.
One day, a strange email landed in my inbox.
The sender was Primitive Soft.
[You're invited to the Primitive Era Online 2 open beta.]
At first, I thought it was spam.
These days, clicking the wrong spam link could infect your computer with a virus and drain your bank accounts dry. I hesitated big time.
Then I noticed the bottom of the email.
[To Black Company Slave,]
Were game company servers getting hacked these days?
No way.
Why would a hacker bother breaching a game company's server just to infect my PC?
I wrestled with it, but in the end, I clicked because even if some hacker did install a virus and ransack my drive, the only thing worth taking was the one-terabyte stash of videos tucked away in a hidden folder.
Clicking the link launched the game automatically—no installation needed.
"What the hell... Is this even possible? A web game?"
The familiar UI popped up on screen, but the graphics were way more refined.
I couldn't believe my eyes.
Tech advances so fast that regular folks can't keep up—and apparently, that was true.
As a hardcore Primitive Era Online player, I knew the difficulty scaled with your customizations.
People often thought pumping everything into intelligence for a chieftain or lord was best, but you had to consider the starting point: the primitive era.
A towering 190cm frame packed with battle-hardened muscle.
Geometric tattoos on the face for intimidation, hand him an axe, and boom—perfect barbarian hunk.
I went all-in on strength and stamina stats.
As a primitive chieftain, leading your tribe into war was daily routine. Weak physical specs meant instant death early on.
I opened the options tab.
Customization had gotten even more detailed.
Values for climate adaptation, wound recovery speed, night vision, charisma, memory enhancement, and more.
I prioritized survival and combat essentials.
Cold resistance. Food poisoning resistance. Infection resistance. Wound recovery speed.
They seemed minor, but in the primitive era, even tetanus could kill you.
I built the character to resist pathogens as much as possible and survive bare-handed.
In trade, I'd take penalties to intelligence growth...
That was fine.
National rule: focus on survival first.
As I went to hit start, I spotted fine print: "This open beta supports cheats."
"Ho ho."
Primitive Era Online was a long-haul game. Without cheats, the beta wouldn't achieve its goals.
So they added them temporarily.
[You can set only one cheat.]
Every kind of cheat imaginable: hyper libido, genius intellect, perfect physique, super regeneration, etc.
Then at the end, I saw "Immortality."
"Immortality?"
What did that mean?
Not dying of old age.
Even mortal wounds would heal, and no need to pass the torch to heirs.
Huge merit.
In the primitive era, succession was incredibly tough.
The strong ruled as kings.
Even in federations, it held true.
Human history's era of primogeniture inheritance wasn't that long ago.
With immortality, no power leaks from succession.
Undying meant deification was possible, and continuous growth made it a true game-breaker.
Obviously couldn't use it in the full release.
"Not bad for a quick playthrough."
I applied immortality and hit start.
That instant.
The monitor's frame shattered like glass, the screen warping.
"Ugh!"
My vision darkened, like being sucked into deep water.
Ears rang with silence, then sound crashed in.
Wind scraping through trees.
Wet earth and sap smells.
I snapped my eyes open.
Giant leaves swayed overhead.
Were there plants like that in the world?
Reflexively, I patted my pants pocket.
"..."
A worn leather thong around my waist, with flint and a bone knife dangling from it.
A dream...?
Couldn't be anything else.
Standing up, I saw my body wrapped in muscle.
No upper clothes, just a leather skirt.
Slap!
I smacked my cheek.
"Fuck!"
Sharp pain raced up my nerves.
Pain felt real.
So not a dream.
"St-status window?"
"..."
"Skills! Stats! UI! Log out!"
No commands worked.
My hands and feet started shaking.
Stuff that only happened in novels... happening to me?
Snapping out of it, I scanned my surroundings.
Dense forest.
Under the dry leaf litter on the ground, short mushrooms and soil bugs wriggled.
No birdsong.
Distant wolf howls.
I looked for footprints first.
Absurd as it was, being alone in the woods meant becoming prey for carnivores.
The primitive era was the age of survival, another way to put it.
Everything around was a threat; humans weren't predators.
Luckily, human footprints marked the ground at my feet.
Wide soles, long big toe impressions.
Nearby, smaller footprints overlapped.
Soon, a cave appeared.
The entrance gaped under a rock ledge twice human height, surrounded by dense bare footprints in the dirt.
Wide adult prints, small child ones overlapping, even drag marks like from hauling loads.
A few steps closer, and murmurs rose from inside.
'This has to be it... right?'
The Primitive Era Online tutorial started in the woods, finding your tribe.
But this was the sequel, not the one I knew.
What if I wasn't the chieftain here?
Cannibalism happened plenty in this era—I'd end up as meat.
No matter my specs, I couldn't take on dozens alone.
Commotion from the cave, and primitive folk poured out, filling the entrance.
Men in short shoulder capes and bark-fiber loincloths, splattered in blood from battle.
Some wounded.
Stone axes and fire-hardened bone spears in hand.
Beast teeth and shell necklaces dangled from necks—straight out of the game.
Sweat trickled down my forehead.
I had a stone axe at my belt, but against over ten primitives? No telling how it'd go.
Thankfully, women and kids came rushing out too.
Nearly thirty in total.
Matched the Primitive Era Online starting size.
Musty smell wafted from the cave.
An old-looking man (probably in his thirties) approached and shouted.
"Whirlwind!"
"Woo-ahh!"
"Great warrior!"
I could guess the situation.
In the game, after reaching the cave, combat followed right away.
Small-scale tribal skirmish over fertile land; win, and absorb their resources and people.
In-game, arm up and charge.
But in reality, full-on war would leave both sides wrecked.
'This... is fucked, isn't it?'