The Beginning Is Always Peaceful

The beginning is always peaceful.

— Crash!

A dull impact, and pain bloomed through my entire body as I slammed onto my backside. I had rolled straight off the creaking old wooden bed.

"Ugh..."

A groan slipped out on its own. Clutching my lower back, I rolled across the floor.

The stone floor was endlessly hard, and endlessly cold.

"...Was it a dream?"

I thought back on the dream I had just lived through.

Scenes I had never seen before had unfolded before my eyes.

The modern world. Computers. Games... None of those were things that I — Ian Darkest — should have known.

And yet they felt familiar.

Familiar enough to make my skin crawl.

Have I finally cracked from the stress?

The thought of the taxes I owed the family by tomorrow made my head throb. But right now, that wasn't what mattered.

"I should at least wash my face."

I headed for the washroom and let out a breath of relief.

Deep black hair.

Pale skin.

A body so thin it was practically skin and bone.

It was exactly the Ian Darkest I had known for more than twenty years.

And then—

"Kim Ian."

The name I had carried in the dream.

The moment I murmured it, goosebumps raced across my skin.

A language that should have felt utterly foreign — Korean — rolled off my tongue and into my ears with unnatural ease.

More than twenty years lived as Ian Darkest, bastard son of the Darkest family, and yet the name Kim Ian clung to my mouth as if it had always belonged there.

"Have I lost my mind?"

There were two possibilities.

The first: that for some reason, the me of right now had gone insane. Honestly, that one wasn't even worth considering. In this world, the mad were locked away in a certain institution called the "Sanatorium." The reason it boasted a hundred-percent cure rate was simple — no one ever came out alive.

So I chose to believe the second possibility.

"...I've recovered the memories of a past life."

The memory of sitting in front of a computer just moments ago, deleting a dead game I'd left untouched for seven years — Tales of Legend — belonged to Kim Ian. The hypothesis was that those were my past-life memories.

I must have possessed the game while deleting it, been born into this world as Ian Darkest, forgotten the truth for more than twenty years, and only now remembered.

The "modern man" memories that had settled into place at some point made that understanding come easily.

"This route is looking a lot like the witch-trial ending, though."

To be honest, getting caught as a "possessor" was more dangerous than getting caught as a "madman."

This world had plenty of people who topped up their dopamine watching witch bonfires — witches becoming the bonfire, that is.

Even so, I preferred this possibility.

If I was a possessor, I just had to hide it well enough never to get caught.

"Anyway."

I looked around.

This was my room — Ian Darkest's room.

A cold stone floor.

A shoddy wooden window frame that let the draft straight through.

A dusty, threadbare rug.

And the table I'd been leaning against, whose creaking was especially loud.

It was a dump, but I liked this place.

It was the home I had scraped together after finally escaping the Darkest family, where all ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'd ever gotten was constant abuse.

Then the aftershock of swallowing the red pill of reality hit me full force.

"Why is this place so run-down?"

By Kim Ian's standards, this had been the reception hall in Tales of Legend.

This was the result of dumping tens of millions of won into the game?

It had looked halfway decent on a monitor. Experiencing it with all five senses doubled the damage.

And this place was also where the heroes were supposed to gather by default.

Not that a single hero was in sight right now.

In my past life, I had poured every hour and every coin into them.

Even the territory I'd cultivated had been cultivated solely to maintain those heroes.

Raising heroes took enormous resources, and only a large-scale fief could shoulder the cost.

But now there were no heroes left. No territory left either.

Having everything I'd ground myself down for thousands of times reduced to nothing still left a bitter taste.

"........"

No.

I didn't have the luxury of wallowing in gloomy thoughts.

Whether I was insane or had truly recovered past-life memories, I needed to find the reason for this sudden event.

The best way to organize your thoughts is still to walk.

The scenery outside the house was strange and familiar all at once.

A barren hill dotted with a few skeletal trees. A shabby, crumbling earthen wall. And below it, a cluster of tiny mud houses huddled together.

Seorigol.

A worthless, abandoned scrap of land even by Darkest family standards, home to maybe fifteen residents.

The fief dumped on Ian Darkest — the family's shame and headache of a bastard son.

— I am the lord of Seorigol!

Trying to introduce myself that way with any pride would just be embarrassing.

It was barely a rural hamlet, let alone a proper territory, and the circumstances under which I'd been stuck with it weren't exactly glorious either.

"They say it was 'entrusted' to me. Really, I got the leftovers."

From the family head on down, every member of the household had treated me like an outcast.

Of course they had. I was the bastard born between the family head and a servant girl.

In a society built on rigid class hierarchy, a son born between a high noble and a commoner?

There was no chance of good treatment.

They couldn't stand the sight of me, so they packed me off as administrator of a territory that didn't even need managing.

"Piece of shit family."

The words slipped out, and I startled myself.

Just yesterday I couldn't have managed a single proper insult toward the family.

Dangerous. The modern values and memories were already showing.

I checked my surroundings and let out a quiet sigh.

The witch-hunt ending still seemed a long way off.

"Still, though."

An endlessly quiet, empty territory.

No people, a remote borderland, a rural backwater, useless land — sure, that explained some of it, but...

Was this really the world inside Tales of Legend?

I didn't distrust the memories I'd recovered (though I hadn't entirely ruled out the possibility that I was simply insane), but this world was far too peaceful to be a dark fantasy.

Peace was fine, of course.

But Tales of Legend was a dark fantasy.

The moment you got even a little attached to a character, it killed them.

Monster raids at any hour, plagues sweeping through villages, noble intrigue and betrayal, and above all the vicious monetization designed to empty the player's wallet.

And this world right now?

The sky was impossibly clear and blue. The only sounds drifting over were the humble noises of the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠residents going about their lives. No screams. No monster cries.

There was none of that damp, despairing atmosphere from the game screens in my memory.

Then a loud voice erupted right beside me.

"You little brat! Skipping work again and wandering around?! The sun's high in the sky — get to work! If you've got nothing to do, go dig ditches in the fields!"

"Grandma! It's barely dawn! A person needs to loosen up a little before working — what am I, an ox?!"

"Hah, tsk tsk, you disrespectful little—! With a head like that, no wonder Seorigol's in this state! Tsk tsk!"

As the old woman stomped off without a sound of footsteps, I shouted after her, "May you live forever in perfect health!"

See that?

How peaceful. How heartwarming.

A bloodbath in a place like this?

Hard to believe.

And then—

A gust of wind sent a single maple leaf drifting across the sun for a moment.

Something heavy seemed to slam down on my skull. A flash, and a memory tore through me.

Goosebumps covered my entire body. Of all the memories burned into me from hundreds — thousands — of regressions playing Tales of Legend as Kim Ian, this was the most vivid. The starting point of every tragedy.

EP 1. Eclipse.

It wasn't just some game event. It was a massive inflection point where the laws of the world themselves twisted out of shape.

The peaceful sky turned blood-red in an instant, and the sun was completely swallowed by a black shadow. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠The world sank into a grotesque darkness, and the earth howled as if in dread. Animals went berserk. Mana ran wild without restraint.

And then they appeared. Black fissures splitting open across the sky. Through those gaps poured beings of shapes too horrific to imagine. Familiar landscapes transformed in moments into a living hell of chaos. Screams. Slaughter. Destruction…

I had witnessed that beginning countless times. In some runs I died helplessly. In others I barely survived and scraped through to the next scenario. But in none of them did the terror of the Eclipse ever fade.

I bolted back into my room.

At the same time, I checked the calendar.

"...One year left."

If my memory was accurate, the main episode began in one year.

In other words, the peace of right now was nothing more than the prologue.

Time to build strength before the main episode hit.

In the game, I was pretty sure I'd poured everything into gathering heroes.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

My heart started hammering like mad. This peace was a lie. Nothing but the calm before the storm. Soon, just like in the game, the Eclipse would come to this world too.

If… if this world truly was the same as Tales of Legend.

Academy expulsion? Overdue taxes? The family's cold shoulder?

Once the real scenario started, none of that would matter at all. Simply surviving would be a miracle.

Past-life memories.

They were a curse and a blessing at once.

What I'd gained at the end of 999 bad endings was nothing but betrayal, despair, and bone-deep exhaustion. The thought of having to repeat that hell again was horrifying. And this time, there was no regression ability. Only one chance.

But at the same time, those memories could become a powerful weapon.

…Can I do this?

I was the one who'd ground tens of thousands of hours into the game and still failed to kill the Demon King, only to be betrayed. The loser who'd quit at the end because he couldn't even afford to spend money anymore, leaving nothing but disappointment for the heroines. Could someone like me change anything in this reality?

…I don't have a choice.

I had to survive.

As Kim Ian, or as Ian Darkest.

Survive this hellish world, and maybe… see an ending I never got to see in my past life.

...One year remaining.

I'd find a way. Somehow.

I clenched my fist tight.

The sting of my nails digging into my palm snapped my mind sharp and clear.

Harvest season was nearly upon them.

The man working the fields lifted his head.

The sun was setting.

Despite it being broad daylight, a deep darkness settled over the entire world.

The Eclipse.

Watching it, the man finally remembered.

That he was not simply the lord of an abandoned territory.

That he was a being who carried the fate of this world on his shoulders.

That he was a being who had regressed hundreds of times to stop this world's destruction.

That he was a being who had failed hundreds of times.

And so, that he was a being who had hungered for strength more than anyone.

The man also remembered something else.

That his previous self had found a way to grow stronger.

It was to shatter his own memories into pieces.

To seal his power into each fragment of memory.

So that when he recovered a memory, he would recover the lost power along with it.

Growing stronger that way was the only path to seeing the ending of this dark fantasy.

His previous self had put that judgment into action.

And now.

Watching the dying sun, the man recovered one fragment of memory.

At the same time, he realized.

That in this run, he had recovered his memories far too late.

"Goddamn it."

From far away came the howls of monsters.

The Eclipse.

The act of the moon covering the sun.

But this Eclipse was different.

What covered the sun was not the moon.

Monsters.

A swarm of monsters vast enough to blot out the sun had descended upon the territory.