The Day the Road of Suffering Opened

Thud—

I flung the corpse—long gone cold in my grip—far off into the distance and was done with it.

Blood must have splattered while I was finishing off the last one, because a fresh smear of crimson still clung to my sleeve and hand...

"Whew..."

I let out a sigh and flexed my fingers a few times, and the scattered droplets of blood drew together into a single bead. I popped the bead into my mouth and looked up at the sky, where the moon had slipped free of the clouds at some point and was shining down on me...

I gazed at the moon for a while, then slumped down onto the boulder beside me and muttered in self-mockery.

"A monster, huh..."

Thinking of the not-quite-dying-words of that lump of meat cooling somewhere down below, a bitter laugh escaped me unbidden. Who knew how long I sat perched on that rock, moping all by myself...

At some point the moon sank back into the clouds, and as darkness folded around me once more, I murmured in a low, weary voice.

"How on earth did I end up dragged into this place, to suffer like this..."

Spitting out that hollow soliloquy no one would ever hear, I thought back to the day it had all begun.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

"WHAT THE FUCK!!!!! WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING TO ME!"

Quality furniture, a clean-lined interior, even a window with a view of the river. In that upscale office straight out of a TV drama, the one and only thing out of place was a single man, face contorted in rage, cursing a blue streak.

"Does this make any sense?!"

The man, apparently untroubled by any fear of going bald, kept clawing at his own hair as he spewed abuse at the monitor.

"Haah....."

I stared at the words floating on that screen for a long while—there was not the slightest sign they intended to change—and laughed, hollow.

"The end...? It seriously ends just like this?"

But no amount of denial budged reality...

In the end I surrendered to despair, ran a dry wash over my face with both hands, and promptly exploded all over again.

"I ought to just delete this bitch of a game. Fuck... how is this even possible... why does it only ever happen to MEEE!"

BAM!!!!!

My rage, which I'd believed had quieted down, roared back to life like one of those posters that say even a burnt-out flame deserves a second look—and unable to contain the eruption, I brought my fist crashing down on the desk.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

At that moment, someone stepped into the office.

"Sir... um..."

"GET OUT!!!!!"

But I was beyond seeing reason by then; I snatched up the ashtray and hurled it with a roar.

"Yes, sir..."

Answering, in a voice shrunk small with fear, both my roar and the projectile whistling at their head, the unwelcome guest beat a retreat out the door...

"Haah....."

Alone again, I leaned back far enough to bend the chair in half and muttered.

Creeeak—

"Honestly, I just want to smash the whole thing to pieces..."

The thing that had blown apart my smug confidence in my own sturdy psyche was a single game. Murim Conqueror, by name.

Hearing the name, anyone would take it for a perfectly ordinary martial arts game... but whether it was the CEO or the developers who'd lost their minds, they had crammed a roguelike, a domain-management sim, and a collection game—everything—into one title. A completely unhinged game.

"I'm the dumbass who dumped time into this trash game... If I'd spent those hours practicing the guitar instead, I'd have mastered the Canon variations ages ago, with hours to spare."

I had pumped nearly ten thousand hours into this one game... and now, only now, was I laughing emptily over how much all that time had been worth.

"Ha... fuck... it doesn't add up.... It seriously does not add up....."

Really, what are games for, if not to be cursed at? But the curses ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠spilling out of me now weren't the reflexive kind born of a flash of anger—they were welling up from somewhere deep in my gut.

"It's rigged, isn't it? Yeah... rigged. It's definitely rigged....."

I had begun denying the unbelievable reality.

In truth, here is how this whole affair began.

As with every game ever made, Murim Conqueror's updates grew sparser and sparser after launch until the game was left to gather dust... A few years on, the users rotting away inside the frozen game were committing every manner of bizarre ritual, wringing the thing so thoroughly dry there wasn't a scrap of content left to wring—when suddenly...

Out of absolutely nowhere, a notice had gone up announcing a full-scale overhaul.

And so we rotting ghouls checked the announcement with giddy hearts...

Of everything in the notes, what set the frost-bitten hearts of those ghouls most ablaze was the faction additions.

And chief among them, the one that drew the most attention was the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult...

The all-but-dead community faintly, faintly caught fire for the first time in ages, everyone chattering about what concept-build they'd run their Heavenly Demon with.

At last, the promised day arrived...

The instant the patch went live, the ghouls built Heavenly Demons of every conceivable archetype—from bubblegum-sweet darlings to black-hearted masterminds—and threw them straight into the newly minted Nightmare Difficulty...

For the better part of a month, not one of them unified the murim. These were veterans, hardened past all hardening—and not a single one laid eyes on the ending.

"Hold on, why is some random endgame NPC already at the Transcendent Realm?!"

On Hell, the former highest difficulty, the Transcendent Realm had been a respectable late-game stat...

"Why you... you son of a bitch of a vice-leader!!!"

Factor in the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's defining trait—worshipping the strong above any faction in the game—and the overwhelming majority of runs ended with the player deposed and the cult toppled in the early to mid game.

But what kind of people were these old hands... no, these fully rotten ones?

"I can do it... I can do it..."

"Ah... one more try and I think I've really got it..."

Weren't they precisely the breed of pervert whose competitive hunger burned hotter the more vicious the difficulty became? And unlike Hell difficulty, where they were still brawling over who'd cleared it first, the first-ever Nightmare clear would be stuffed, mounted, and enshrined for all eternity—so everyone went bloodshot-eyed over claiming the first kill...

I was one of those perverts.

Back to a little while ago...

Arms hanging limp at the sides of the chair, I had been muttering away to myself, lamenting my sorry lot.

"Fuck... five hundred hours this month alone, and it was the best run I'd ever had..."

Five hundred hours in a single month by the clock alone. An optimal early build honed across a hundred-odd consecutive failures. Random factors lining up with deranged generosity. This run, all three of those pieces had slotted together perfectly, so I'd been certain of the clear; with only the final battle left, I'd raised a premature toast while drowning in a torrent of dopamine.

Cracking open a cold can of beer from the fridge tucked against the wall, shuddering at the sheer majesty of the Heavenly Demon I'd raised with such tender care, I had finally set out on the invasion of the Central Plains.

"Ahh... now that's crisp."

Having satisfyingly flattened Kunlun—a sect that basically lives on somebody else's front lawn—I snapped a screenshot and fired it off to the friend rotting away in this game alongside me. His reply arrived practically trembling, face no doubt flushed beet-red before I even looked, and I snickered, drank my fill of satisfaction, and pushed on into Sichuan.

But the incident happened in Sichuan.

"Damn... who the hell is that, holding the line all by himself? Say one thing for the guy—he doesn't lack for drama."

I was grinning ear to ear as I advanced into Sichuan... when some character I'd never seen before planted himself single-handedly in the path of the entire Heavenly Demon Divine Cult war host. And here was the kicker: black hair, red eyes—almost exactly like my own. A character with that build, guarding the pass all alone like Zhang Fei at Changban. I whistled in admiration at the sight, dropped a lazy attack-ground marker, and went to grab another can of beer.

And then...

"Huh.....?"

In the short time I'd stepped away, the situation on screen had changed beyond all recognition.

"What. Where did all my cultists go..."

On the monitor: the scorched earth of Sichuan, half the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's followers evaporated, and my Heavenly Demon still standing—minus an arm.

"What the hell?"

I fumbled for a moment, utterly unable to process it... then pulled myself together and played for real, gripping mouse and keyboard in earnest. The conclusion of that desperate struggle...

BAM! BAM! BAM!

"WHAT THE FUCK!!!!! WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING TO ME!"

...was a shotgun ending. A full self-destruct, taking the whole run down with it. And so the game came to an end... and so, too, did my patience.

Is this what it feels like when the garden you've lovingly tended gets razed by a single typhoon? Feeling as if the world itself had betrayed me, I sat slumped against the chair—until a notification chimed from my phone.

Faced with that message from the friend who'd been rotting in the game with me, I debated whether to tell him at all—then finally snapped a photo of the monitor and sent it over.

Rrriiing! Rrriiing!

The call came the instant the photo landed. I picked up.

At my friend's near-asphyxiating cackling, I hurled a curse and hung up.

Rrriiing! Rrriiing!

When the ringtone shrieked again, I lost it and hurled the phone at the wall.

My blood pressure must have spiked, because the back of my neck went taut and stiff... Before long I clamped a cigarette between my lips and lit it.

Click—

"Hsssss... hah..."

I chain-smoked for a good long while, until acrid smoke filled the room—and still my shattered mind showed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠no sign of mending.

"Haah... talk about a shipwreck."

I tossed the empty cigarette pack and headed for the convenience store.

It was one of those autumn days when the wind carries a faint chill.

Barely out of the office and on my way to the store, some squinty-eyed man abruptly hemmed me in and struck up a conversation.

"Excuse me—forgive me for saying so, but you have such a kind face. Might I trouble you for a brief word?"

"Pardon?"

Already in a foul mood, now waylaid by a street preacher on top of everything, I answered in an acid tone.

"Things haven't been going your way lately, have they? If you pray together with us, your ancestors will come to your aid."

And with that ever-smiling face, he had the sheer gall to carry on shamelessly.

That did it. I answered, seething.

"What era do you think this is, that guys like you still exist? Doesn't living like this shame you in front of your parents?"

But the squinty-eyed man went on, serenely unbothered...

"My parents couldn't be prouder of me for spreading such a wonderful message."

His answer was so staggeringly absurd that I turned on the spot—disbelief written all over my face—and stared straight at him...

"Oh my? Those eyes... Ah! You're a superhuman, aren't you... So many superhumans devote themselves with us these days, you know. Why not study with me, and offer your devotion to your ancestors in gratitude?"

Absurd as his shameless face and self-assured tone were, the feeling lasted only a moment. Watching him keep a busy man hostage while droning on about devotion and gods pushed me past irritation into honest anger, so I bit it down and told him:

"I'm in a genuinely bad mood today, so do us both a favor and get lost. Don't keep hovering around until you take a swing and end up whining about police reports."

But my heartfelt advice never reached his ears; even the faint killing intent laced through my threat rolled right off him as he pressed on.

"All that anger of yours? That's simply your ancestors in a fury. Come pray with us, offer up your devotion—see if you can't win back their favor."

At that, I glanced around the vicinity...

"Ssssss..... huh. Not a single one?"

Having ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠confirmed beyond doubt that not one CCTV camera in the area was trained on me or the man, I seized him by the collar and threw him.

CRASH!

"Aigoo..."

The man, flattened into the garbage bags stacked along the curb, gave a low groan, picked himself up, and spoke.

"You looked so kind, too. Who knew your character was rotten to the core... Resorting to violence like this—nothing good can come of it....."

"If you'd rather not end up in a worse state, then go home nicely, wash your feet, and go straight to bed."

At my words, the man began slowly prying his narrowed eyes open.

Hsssssssss—

And when those pinprick eyes finally stretched open to an uncanny width, what gazed back at me was black—nothing but black, white of the eye and all...

Exuding an indescribable menace, he parted his lips.

"Come with me now, pray to the one I serve, and even this can be forgiven."

Even with everything turning strange around me, I replied in a bored drawl.

"Can you cut the nonsense and just get lost? No... forget it. I'll be on my way, so you run along and find yourself some other sucker."

The man stared at me, utterly expressionless, and asked in a low voice.

"Are you quite certain you won't regret this?"

"Yep. I won't regret it—so please, let's each go our ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠own way."

I shrugged off the ominous presence swelling around me and turned to go...

FWAAAASH—

when a fierce light abruptly lanced down from above my head, wreathed in monstrous heat.

"AAAGH!!!"

The agony was like my very flesh ablaze; the moment I screamed, a voice like a whisper against my ear came through with impossible, unnatural clarity.

"Karma of your own making. Do savor it."

Shielding eyes that refused to stay open against the searing light with both hands, I managed:

"You son of a bit—........"

Those were the last words out of me before consciousness slipped away.