Chapter 3
Chapter 3
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 3
Chapter Title: Special Move Command
-----------------------------------------------------------------
# 3
"Ah."
People who've just woken up are never fully lucid. And so the young man—Choi Kang-seok—blinked with a slightly dazed expression.
"Ugh."
He didn't want to get up. But he had to. He was still on a break from college, but he had a mountain of things to do, from TOEIC classes to his part-time job.
Still, with his eyes closed, Choi Kang-seok stretched out an arm. He was reaching for his smartphone on the desk right next to his bed to check the time.
But his hand grasped nothing.
"Huh?"
It wasn't a desk in the first place. What his fingertips touched was a hard floor, sand, and gravel.
It took a while for his sleep-addled body to register the strangeness.
But once he sensed something was off, he reacted instantly, as if his earlier laziness had been a lie.
Kang-seok's eyes flew open, and he first looked at the ceiling. It was too dark to see clearly, but it definitely wasn't the ceiling of his studio apartment.
His breath hitched with sudden tension. Kang-seok's eyes darted left and right. Then, with a speed that surprised even himself, he shot up like a bolt of lightning.
It was dark. Torches hung here and there on the walls, but the shadows were too deep for them to banish completely.
The floor, the walls, and the very high ceiling all seemed to be made of stone. Their original color appeared to be black or gray, but the torchlight made them look orange.
He seemed to be in the middle of a corridor, open on both ends, but the darkness was so thick he couldn't see what lay at either end.
Kang-seok swallowed dryly again and again. His heart pounded as if it were about to burst.
"Huu, huu, huu..."
Only after consciously steadying his breathing did he feel ready to move.
The first thing Kang-seok did was examine his own body.
"Bandages?"
His right arm was wrapped tightly in bandages. They were similar to the hand wraps boxers use for practice, but instead of just covering his hand and wrist, these bandages coiled around nearly his entire right arm.
He was wearing black leather. It clung to his body like a full-body suit, yet it was so comfortable to move in, it felt as if he were wearing nothing at all.
‘Okay, all my limbs are fine.’
There was no problem moving. No, in fact, he felt much better than usual. His body was as light as a feather, as if he could take flight at any moment.
But this was no time to celebrate. Kang-seok touched the tips of his fingers to his green hair, which flowed down to his shoulders. It wasn't a conscious act. That was why, a moment later, he jumped back in shock.
Green.
And the length of his hair was different, too.
A name instantly flashed through his mind.
‘Dark Destiny Lord.’
The bandages wrapped tightly around his right arm, the form-fitting black leather clothes, the green hair—they were all trademarks of his main character from War God Online, ‘Dark Destiny Lord.’
"Cos... play?"
A clumsy, anxious smile crept onto Kang-seok's face as he shook his head. He closed his eyes and consciously regulated his breathing.
After a while, Kang-seok finally opened his eyes again and pulled one of the torches from the wall.
It was the kind of torch and sconce that would look right at home in an underground tomb from a movie or game.
From where he stood with the torch, he had a path forward and a path back.
The ends of both were lost in darkness. Kang-seok decided to walk forward.
The studded soles of his leather boots clicked against the floor, and soon the sound of his footsteps echoed through the corridor.
What was happening? Had he been caught up in someone's sick prank?
Kang-seok consciously blocked out his own thoughts. He needed to stay calm.
"Ah."
Kang-seok, who had been walking close to the left wall, came to a sudden halt. He had seen something beyond the torchlight.
A massive silhouette.
Kang-seok raised the torch slightly, his gaze naturally following the light. And then he froze right where he stood.
It was a monster. A red, vicious, and enormous monster lay before him.
He didn't scream, not because he was particularly brave, but because he was too shocked.
The hand holding the torch trembled slightly, but Kang-seok didn't drop it. He raised it higher and discovered something else besides the monster.
A large sword was plunged into the monster's chest. A skeleton, clad in magnificent armor worthy of a video game—though it was half-destroyed—was clutching the sword's hilt, as if it had died from exhaustion after striking the final blow.
When faced with a situation too absurd, people tend to laugh. Kang-seok was no different. After letting out a few stiff chuckles, he hastily swung the torch around. The floor was littered not only with what looked like the monster's remains—bones and hide—but also with all sorts of other things.
Among them, what stood out the most were nearly a dozen swords.
Most were broken and shattered, but a few of them looked intact.
Kang-seok carefully approached the nearest sword. Keeping one eye on the monster's corpse, he slowly picked up the blade. He wanted to secure anything that could be used as a weapon.
But the moment he gripped the sword.
Kang-seok had no choice but to focus all his attention on it, even the part he'd reserved for the monster.
It wasn't because the sword felt unnervingly real, nor because of the obviously expensive jewels embedded in its hilt and blade.
It was because of the 'string of characters' that had popped into his head the moment he held it.
←↖↑↓→←↑↓+HS
Sword of the Supreme King
There was only one thing Kang-seok could say.
"A special move command?"
* * *
The first emotion that filled his mind was bewilderment.
Shaking his head vigorously to clear his thoughts, Kang-seok readjusted his grip on the sword. Its blade was a bit narrower than those seen in games or movies, but otherwise, it had the appearance of a 'classic holy sword.'
A jet-black pommel and hilt set with jewels, and a pristine white blade that seemed to be made of silver.
The command appeared in his mind again. It was still there even when he blinked.
"I am a normal person."
Muttering this to himself, Kang-seok moved toward another sword. This one had a red hilt.
"Hah."
Swallowing dryly, Kang-seok put down the black sword and picked up the red one.
→↗↑↓←→↓↑+S
Phoenix Swallow Sword
A different special move command from before. It felt like recalling a command list from a strategy guide he had read long ago.
"I haven't played that... many games. Is this a dream? A lucid dream, then?"
He said it out loud on purpose. And doing so only made him more certain that this wasn't a dream.
The heat from the torch, the distinct chill of the underground, the studded boots that clicked against the floor with every step.
It all felt too real to be a dream. The longsword in his hand was no exception. It felt like if he touched a finger to the blade, he would be cut.
Kang-seok decided to count.
One, two, three.
It was a simple act, but it was effective in calming his nerves. Once he had settled his excitement again, the next thing Kang-seok did was turn his attention from the swords to the monster.
It had red skin and an abnormally large upper body. Horns sprouted from various parts of its body, and its monstrously large hands had long nails that could have passed for blades.
‘It’s dead, right?’
His gaze shifted to the skeleton slumped over the monster's chest, still clutching the sword, but he couldn't bring himself to reach out.
Kang-seok turned the torch away and quickened his pace, putting distance between himself and the monster's corpse.
He made a decision.
‘Don’t think.’
For now, he wouldn't think about why he was here, dressed like this. Thinking about it would only lead to absurd conclusions, and such speculation would be of no help in overcoming his current situation.
‘The wall.’
It was stone. It was cold, and torch sconces were lined up at regular intervals slightly above his head.
Kang-seok moved slowly along the wall, lighting the unlit torches as he went. By the time he had lit the ninth torch, the area was considerably brighter, and he could get a rough idea of the 'room's' layout.
A large, circular room and a long corridor.
The place he had walked from was the corridor, and the monster's body lay near the junction between the room and the corridor.
Now that he could see it, the room was quite ornate. The occasional pillars and sarcophagi were adorned with intricate carvings.
A great battle had clearly taken place here. There were cracks all over the walls, and more than a few spots were broken and gouged.
‘For now, it’s a dead end. Does the corridor I came from lead to an exit?’
Once his mind started working, a sense of calm replaced his bewilderment. This particular composure was one of Kang-seok's strengths.
"Alright, fine. Let's just say this is the scene where a hero took down Diablo and they both died in the process."
That was the second priority. The first was Kang-seok's own condition.
The outfit of his main character from War God Online, Dark Destiny Lord.
‘In the game's settings, he’s shorter than me.’
Kang-seok's actual height was about 180 cm. But Dark Destiny Lord's was not. He had first created the character back in middle school, and speed-type characters received various penalties if they were too tall.
‘Probably in the low 170s?’
Perhaps because he was now conscious of it, walking felt slightly awkward. Kang-seok held the sword he was carrying against his body to estimate his height.
‘I can’t be sure, but I’ve definitely gotten shorter.’
His clothes and height had been adjusted to match Dark Destiny Lord. He could maybe accept the former, but the latter was something that couldn't happen under normal circumstances.
But it had already happened. So, what about the rest of him?
Kang-seok lightly felt his arm. The muscles he could feel through the leather were no joke. He had worked out quite a bit just before his military discharge since he had nothing else to do, but he had never been this ripped.
‘And above all, the abs.’
They were solid. He experimentally lifted his top, revealing a six-pack so defined it looked three-dimensional.
"Huh?"
Impressed in spite of himself, Kang-seok next loosened his belt. He couldn't bring himself to take them off completely, so he pulled the waistband of his pants outward to check inside.
"Hmm."
He looked again.
"Hmph-hmph."
The same green as his hair. No, that wasn't what was important.
"Hmph-hmph-hmph."
With a very satisfied expression, Kang-seok readjusted his pants and took another deep breath. He told himself.
‘Alright, fine. I’ll concede that I’ve somehow become Dark Destiny Lord.’
My clothes have changed, my body has changed, everything's changed, so let's just go with that for now. As he'd decided earlier, figuring out *why* this happened was a problem for later.
Kang-seok picked up the sword he had briefly set on the floor.
His body had become that of Dark Destiny Lord. If so, couldn't he also use a special move?
‘No, it’s not that I want to try a special move.’
Making excuses to himself, Kang-seok steeled his resolve and raised the sword. He focused his mind on the command that had naturally appeared in his head.
→↗↑↓←→↓↑+S
Phoenix Swallow Sword
One.
Two.
Kang-seok lowered the sword. He muttered with an awkward expression, as if to hide his embarrassment.
"How... do I input the command?"