The Mysterious Saintess NPC
Dungeon & Soul.
Once the number-one MMORPG in Korea, the game had been driven to the brink of server shutdown by its relentless pay-to-win schemes and catastrophically bad management — a title doomed by its own greed.
And yet, just as there are people who would plant an apple tree even if the world were ending tomorrow…
Even now, with only an hour left until the servers went dark, someone was still thrashing what few remaining players dared set foot in the Arena.
A veil of black and white whipped through the air. A moment later, a fist of steel slammed into a Berserker's gut.
The matchup between Infighter and Berserker was four-to-six. Against the pure trade-damage king of melee, an Infighter usually came out behind.
But there was one way to erase that gap completely.
Player control.
As if the class matchup meant nothing, the Infighter in a nun's habit slipped past the Berserker's swings with contemptuous ease and drove a fist home.
A sickening crack of breaking bone rang across the Arena. The unfortunate Berserker crumpled in a heap.
Behind the monitor, a man who had been savoring the sweetness of victory with a beer felt his face crumple like a sheet of paper. Taking a cheap shot from ViolentMightyWarrior — the same guy who always got wrecked in their Flag Duels — sat poorly with him.
But instead of firing back, he checked the time on his phone.
Eleven-thirty. Roughly half an hour until the servers closed for good.
"No grit at all. A real fighter would squeeze in at least one more Flag Duel before shutdown. Still got a long way to go."
Once again disappointed by ViolentMightyWarrior's reliably disappointing performance, he queued for another match.
Naturally, no one matched with him.
He was, after all, the number-one Arena ranker in Dungeon & Soul. Even on a normal day, finding a fight took over thirty minutes. With half an hour left until the end of the world, the odds were even worse.
"…Still. I've played this game since elementary school — more than twenty years. Hearing the servers are actually shutting down… I feel a little sad, somehow."
He took another pull of beer, gazing at his nun character standing alone and proud in the empty Arena.
Amazingly, he was a true veteran — a player who had logged in on day one of service and never stopped grinding right up to the final hour. There had been so many moments. Plenty of them were absolute garbage… but looking back now, even those had become memories.
"Taking first place in the Arena rankings was a real high. Winning the official tournament wasn't half bad either…"
Dungeon & Soul was viciously pay-to-win in every other respect, but PvP had somehow escaped the worst of it. That was the only reason a non-whale like him had been able to claim the top rank. And now even that was just another memory…
He sighed. He had enjoyed the game as much as anyone could, and still his hand refused to move toward the quit button.
"I'd settle for one more Flag Duel before shutdown… but this piece-of-shit game won't even give me a match till the end."
He drained the rest of his beer. Maybe it was the last minute ticking down, but the taste had turned bitter.
People always said the same thing to players of this game: Why didn't you quit that trash ages ago instead of wasting your time?
Yeah. Objectively speaking, it was a dumpster fire. But even if the whole world called it garbage…
"To me, it was the greatest game I ever played."
Would you like to continue to the next life?
"Yeah, good work— Wait. What did that just say?"
Maybe it was his age. In the very moment his eyes had begun to sting over a mere game, a jolt of wrongness cut through him. At first he thought it was just the forced-quit prompt. But looking closer, the wording was different, wasn't it?
There was no way to check. The second the message appeared, he had instinctively hit Yes.
"What the hell? A virus? But what kind of virus would even—"
A blinding light poured from the monitor and swallowed him whole.
Fortunately, it didn't last long. When he opened his eyes again, he was standing in ruins — burdened with a cumbersome nun's habit and a veil.
Her silver-white hair, a stark contrast against the jet-black habit, scattered in beautiful arcs. Her eyes were strange. Set in grey irises, distinct cross-shaped pupils marked her gaze. Combined with porcelain skin and tightly pressed lips, the effect made her look less like a person than a doll.
"…No matter how I look at it, this isn't a dream."
The girl lifted a hand and pinched her own cheek. She would almost have preferred a dream born of lingering attachment — but it wasn't that either. Accepting reality without a fight was impossible. Who could simply resign themselves to becoming their game character overnight?
Yet the wall of reality remained cold and absolute. Even in her confusion, it forced the truth on her without mercy.
Growl—
"I'm hungry."
For any living thing, taking in calories was not optional. And that rule, it seemed, applied even to a game character. In the end she let out a sigh and forced herself to her feet. Fruitless denial had gone far enough. Right now she needed food and water to silence the hunger and thirst. Thinking could wait.
Clank.
"…"
The scrape of metal clearly grated on her. She frowned. She was unmistakably human — and yet her left shoulder and arm were not soft flesh and bone, but a prosthetic of cold metal. It didn't hinder her movement… but waking up one morning to find a perfectly good arm replaced by steel was not a pleasant experience.
At least if some thug jumps me, I won't go down easy.
Clinging to that one silver lining to push the misery aside, she started walking. Scouting the surroundings came first. They said that even if a tiger dragged you off, keeping your wits about you could still save your life. She could only hope the same applied here.
After roaming the area while doing her best to ignore the irritating friction of metal, she pieced it together: this place was a ruined church.
A cross, a half-collapsed ceiling, mostly wrecked pews… yeah, this is definitely a church.
The remaining roof and walls would keep out some of the weather, and any intact pews could serve as beds. The problem was food. She hadn't found a scrap of it — and the hunger was only getting worse. Faced with a savage emptiness she had never felt in her life, the girl was a little shaken. Skipping a single meal had never hit this hard before.
Don't tell me it's a trait of this body…
In her previous life she had been a light eater — to the point of getting by on one meal a day. Alcohol, on the other hand, she had always liked. Compared to that, this unwanted new body was throwing a tantrum as if starving to death after missing a single meal.
After about ten minutes of searching the church, she reached the inevitable conclusion: she would have to go outside.
I've looked everywhere. No food, not even a proper scrap of anything useful. Which means I have no choice but to head out.
In her past life and this one, she had always hated leaving home unless work absolutely demanded it. But right now the situation had long since left the realm of personal preference. She tilted her small chin and looked up at the sky.
Beyond the hole in the ceiling, the night was crowded with countless stars. And the moon… there were two of them.
No matter how I look at it, this is not the Earth I know. What if going outside just gets me killed?
If Earth had two moons, the news would have lost its mind ages ago. She had never seen a single such article. In other words… this was not Earth. And since no status window had appeared either, it probably wasn't the game world either. Being stuck in a game character's body meant she wasn't weak, sure — but she had no desire to go looking for trouble.
Growl—
"…"
Growl—
"Ugh."
In the end, survival instinct won. At this point she could have eaten a stick of wood off the ground. What the hell was wrong with this body, screaming like this after missing one meal? If she was already this bad, she didn't even want to imagine what morning would feel like if she went the whole night without food.
"I'm just gonna take a quick look around. What could go wrong?"
Putting on a carefully casual air, the girl set off.