The Reaper's Wooden Sword

Character Conversion.

Game labyrinths were sealed off from one another — without performing a Character Conversion, entering a different labyrinth was impossible. In the present day, the term meant nothing more than converting one's avatar.

But UR YggON declared otherwise: that such a thing was merely a low-level technique, and not a true Character Conversion in any real sense of the word.

True Character Conversion meant reshaping not some game account's avatar, but a living human being itself — reforging flesh and soul to fit Yggdrasil.

Ryu Hwi ran a quick check over his body. Nothing seemed out of order.

"Come to think of it, I was half-dead just before, wasn't I?"

"I repaired you in the process of converting you, Master. It was an emergency," YggON replied.

He checked the date and time. He had spent roughly ten days inside the game labyrinth — yet out here, only a single day had passed.

He scanned his surroundings. A shabby shop, a Random Box terminal glowing inside — the very shop where he had lost consciousness.

"Phew..."

In his field of vision, the UI blinked with a message notification. It was a concerned check-in asking after Ryu Hwi, who had failed to show up for work.

As an Unknown, Ryu Hwi's options in life were limited. Grind through the dirty work, keep his head down, and dream of the day he might claw his way back to Bronze — that was all a man like him could do.

At least, that had been true until yesterday.

"I suppose I should report that I'm quitting."

He stretched, joints popping, and headed for the shop entrance.

"Master, there are several cameras installed illegally inside this shop. May I smash them to pieces?"

Come to think of it, there had been cameras, hadn't there. Ryu Hwi gave a small nod and stepped out into the night.

The dark street greeted him — a sight he hadn't seen in what felt like ages. Only one day had passed in real time, but he had lived nearly ten inside the labyrinth.

What he needed first was a good, long rest. He set off toward home. That was when—

"Stop."

Someone blocked his path. And not just one or two of them.

A flicker of familiarity made Ryu Hwi frown. One of the men stepped forward.

"And here I thought you'd be dead. Somehow you walked away in one piece."

"Oh."

Now he remembered. The gang that had jumped him on the day his fate was rewritten.

"We saw the camera footage. You pulled something seriously weird, and— hey?!"

Ryu Hwi bolted without so much as a backward glance. The last thing they'd expected was for him to turn tail on the spot; caught flat-footed, the gang scrambled after him.

"Stop right there! Hey!"

"Master, why are you running?" YggON asked, the picture of serenity.

"What do you think?! There's over ten of them!"

It didn't take ten. Two would have been enough to tip the odds against him. Ryu Hwi spat out a curse.

"Understood. Then I shall guide you along a route that will allow you to escape this situation unharmed. Please turn right at the next corner."

Ryu Hwi ran as YggON directed. The whole neighborhood was probably crawling with the gang's lookouts, so trusting the AI's guidance beat blindly sprinting into their arms. And so he fled for his life, once again marveling at just how remarkable a UR could be.

And then—

"It's a dead end?!"

That was what trusting YggON's guidance had bought him.

"You damn machine, making this complicated. Whew... whew..."

Somehow the gang had caught up and boxed him in from every side. There had been ten of them before; now there looked to be thirty, forty.

The man at their head — the one who had ground Ryu Hwi's face into the pavement without mercy — bared his teeth.

"Crazy bastard came crawling back to the shop just to spin the Random Box. That bad an addiction? Whatever. Hey — what the hell did you pull yesterday?"

Now Ryu Hwi understood what they were after. The item that had emerged from the Random Box wrapped in an animation none of them had ever seen. They were hunting UR YggON.

"Checked the cameras myself, and even I've never seen a pull like that. Then you vanish into thin air... and today you pop up out of nowhere at the Random Box shop again? My gut says you hit something big. Real big."

The man extended a hand toward him.

"Hand it over nice and quiet, if you don't want to die."

Why weren't bastards like these the ones stripped down to Unknowns?

A blaze of hatred and fury roared up in his chest. Every fiber of him wanted to smash their faces in. But the bitter truth was that Ryu Hwi had no strength to do it with.

Not that he was out of ways to escape. With YggON's power, he could dive into Yggdrasil on the spot. Ryu Hwi moved to ask for a Character Conversion—

"Master, there should be an abandoned wooden sword beside you. Kindly equip it."

"...What?"

"It pains me to say it, Master, but 'Normal Items' obtained within game labyrinths cannot be manifested ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in reality. Only 'Special Items' can. Your Short Sword and your Gunsword both fall under Normal Items. I'm afraid they cannot be manifested."

What on earth was the machine getting at?

"For precisely that reason, I located the nearest place you could acquire an actual 'sword' and guided you here. Now — kindly equip the wooden sword."

Just as YggON said, a wooden sword lay abandoned nearby. It looked like it had rotted in that alley for years; the thing was in terrible shape.

What the hell was he supposed to do with this? Don't tell me the machine wanted him to fight those thugs with a stick?

Grumbling under his breath, he picked it up anyway.

That instant—

"Ugh?!"

He understood, all at once, why YggON had told him to grab it.

"What a joke."

"Is he seriously going to fight with that thing?"

The gang surrounding Ryu Hwi sneered at the sight. They were a pack of lawless thugs who called themselves Black Snake around these parts. Preying on Bronzes carried real risk, so they ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠stuck to safer quarry: Unknowns. Unknowns were trash that didn't even count as human — you could do whatever you liked to them and nothing would come of it. That was what Black Snake believed.

"Kill him."

Finish it fast, take the goods. Black Snake's leader gave the order without a second thought.

But—

"Huh?"

Ten minutes later, every last member of Black Snake lay on the ground — all except the leader and a handful of others.

"Huh...?"

The better part of thirty-odd men, wiped out. By a single man swinging a beat-up wooden sword.

Ryu Hwi laughed a hollow, disbelieving laugh.

The moment he'd seen the text blazing across his UI, he had understood the true terror of UR YggON.

A skill that should only ever have activated inside a game labyrinth had activated. The instant his hand closed around the wooden sword, his physical abilities had soared off the charts.

That was the power of Sword Mastery. With a blade in hand and without, he was, for all practical purposes, two different human beings.

Character Conversion.

YggON had said it converted Ryu Hwi's body itself. His circumstances were nothing like those of other gamers. Every change that took place inside a labyrinth was a change his own living flesh underwent.

Which meant—

If I get stronger in the labyrinth, I get just as strong out here in reality?

He couldn't hold back the laughter. Every other gamer's precious routine suddenly looked like a child playing house.

YggON had called the way modern gamers connected to Yggdrasil "low-level." The machine had been exactly right.

Ryu Hwi turned his head, wooden sword still in hand. The men still on their feet flinched as one.

"You're the only ones left standing. Why do you think I let you stay standing?"

There was one thing all the survivors had in common — and the moment it dawned on them what that was, their faces drained to a sickly gray.

The common thread. Every man still upright was one of the perpetrators who had gang-beaten Ryu Hwi and torn his account creation rights from his hands.

"Looks like you've figured it out. The rest, I finished off by just knocking them out cold. You don't get off that easy."

They had always assumed "killing intent" was the stuff of novels and comic books. But the pressure crushing down on them in that moment was killing intent, plain and simple.

"U-Uwaaah!"

"Damn it!"

Some broke and ran. Others, cornered, flung themselves at him in desperation. Ryu Hwi intended to let not a single one escape. He was going to show them hell.

One strike to shatter the bones of a leg. One strike to ruin a shoulder, an arm. He calibrated each blow so the pain would never let them pass out — he refused to grant them release from this hell.

One man after another, hideous screams tore through the night — and with the screams came tears, snot, and the warm spread of something loosed between their legs.

With only the last man left standing, Ryu Hwi paused.

"Just you now. And judging by the look of you, you're the boss. You had me in quite a sorry state yesterday, didn't you?"

Ryu Hwi took a step forward. The leader stumbled a step back, snatching up a wooden plank from the ground in a panic.

"Stay back! I said stay back, you son of a—!"

He swung the plank in a threat, and Ryu Hwi didn't so much as blink.

"Scared? Your men are all down already. Come on, show me some grit."

"Shut uuuup!!"

Screaming himself hoarse, the leader flailed the plank at him. Compared to the Chaos Dark Knight, it was slow enough to yawn at. Ryu Hwi batted the blow aside with an easy flick of the wooden sword.

"Ugh?!"

He had barely exerted himself — and yet the leader's hands, still gripping the plank, were shaking like leaves.

"My arms... why can't I—?!"

"What are you doing? Keep going."

"Why, you—!"

The leader swung again, and again it was turned aside without effort.

"Guh!"

Every time an attack was blocked, his arms spasmed as if paralyzed.

"Keep going."

"You...!"

Ryu Hwi went on deflecting, patient as stone.

"Hah... hah...!"

The leader's face had gone white as paper. His arms were numb past feeling. What the hell is going on? How is any ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of this possible? He couldn't comprehend it. Ryu Hwi, standing there and calmly waiting for each swing, looked like some creature from a species he couldn't name.

"Done already? Come on, struggle a little more. Like this — and this."

Now it was Ryu Hwi attacking — swinging the wooden sword deliberately, carefully, at exactly the level a man could block.

"Ugh?! Guh!"

Always blockable — but the moment a block failed, the sword cracked into flesh without mercy.

"Kuhehk!"

Not hard enough to knock him out. Just hard enough to hurt like nothing he'd ever felt. The blows came without pause, without rhythm — and having tasted that pain once, the leader blocked with everything he had.

"There you go. There you go. Put your back into it. Oops — missed another one."

"Uwaaak!"

Five minutes later, there wasn't a spot left on him that didn't hurt. His face, glazed in tears and snot, had twisted into something barely human.

"St-stop... please, stop..."

Ryu Hwi lowered the sword and sneered.

"You've got decent strength, though. Don't you? Ahh — now I get it. That groveling look on your face. It's a beautiful thing to see. So this is why you people enjoy tormenting the weak. You must have had a wonderful time stomping on me, too."

"Ugh..."

"And there's no way you saved all that fun just for me. I'd bet anything you've trampled a hundred others exactly like this."

Ryu Hwi swung the wooden sword again. The leader couldn't even raise a guard — he simply went sprawling.

"Did no one ever beg you to stop? Of course they did. And what did you do back then?"

"Grr... a damn Unknown..."

Voice climbing in a last flare of defiance, he shrieked:

"I-I'm a Bronze! Not garbage like you! Unknowns are— khk!"

Ryu Hwi's foot came down on the fallen man's head.

"The account creation rights you took from me..."

He nearly crushed the skull then and there, without meaning to. Steadying his breath, he went on.

"They were the hope a man clung to — a man dropped into Unknown hell without ever being told why, who in the depths of despair had miraculously, finally, gotten his hands on a single thread of hope."

A man who had lived like a walking corpse had dreamed one small dream — and it had been ripped away in an instant.

"So this time, it's only fair something gets taken from you. Don't you think?"

"An Unknown laying hands on a Bronze is a serious crime..."

"It's fine. No problem at all. It only becomes a problem if you can talk about it — and you won't be able to, will you?"

Bronzes were citizens guaranteed basic human rights. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠But only the basics — nobody important enough to be watched closely. And these men were the dregs of Bronze anyway: lawless thugs squatting at the edge of the city.

"No one's going to miss you when you're gone."

Ryu Hwi raised the wooden sword high. Silhouetted against the dark, he looked for all the world like a death god, come to deliver the end.

"U-Uwaaah... s-spare me... please..."

Ryu Hwi smiled — a bright, easy grin.

And brought the sword down.