The case of the disappearance of Mr. Noh, the CEO of Great Dao Trading Company, on the Xth of X month, 20XX...
Dong Bongsu, as usual, was cleaning up after finishing his hobby.
Swaaaa—the sound of water, wheeeeing—the hum of the vacuum cleaner, and swish swish—the sound of a broom soon came to an end.
Lastly, he rolled up the special vinyl sheet he had laid all over the floor to prevent blood from dripping and threw it into the trash.
Thud.
Next was the result of his hobby, sprawled out all by itself.
Unlike the ones he had handled so far, it was a very large corpse.
Nevertheless, Dong Bongsu easily hoisted it up and headed to the freezer.
Creeeak—
With an unpleasant noise, the large double doors opened.
He went to a corner of the freezer and neatly arranged the still-warm corpse.
Inside the freezer, the fat man's seniors were already lined up, leaning against the wall.
Of course, this one was a warm rookie for now, but this corpse would also become a senior before long.
"The police are tracking the whereabouts of Mr. Noh, while also investigating the company funds he embezzled..."
The news flowing from his smartphone was about the fat man who had just become a member of the freezer family.
The reason Mr. Noh became a target?
It was nothing special.
It was simply because this fat man was a 'Predator'.
Most humans are herbivores.
Even when their territory is invaded, they laugh it off, and even when they suffer violence from others, if the opponent is strong, that's the end of it.
Enduring is their daily life.
But predators actively hunt, attacking and killing their prey to devour them.
If another competitor challenges them, they bite and tear until their last breath is gone.
Just like lions or tigers that have reached the pinnacle of the survival pyramid.
Dong Bongsu enjoyed attacking and killing such predators.
The top predator... it was his sole reason for living and his hobby.
"In the course of the investigation, the police discovered a dozen people chained in Mr. Noh's basement. They were all women, and at the time of discovery, all had their tongues cut out, unable to speak... The National Forensic Service... it was determined that they were all young girls who had disappeared several years ago..."
Rumble, thud.
Closing the iron door of the freezer marked the end of his cleaning.
Dong Bongsu calmly left the warehouse, still listening to the news flowing from his smartphone.
"Next story. The claim that murders have increased due to the harmful effects of recently developed virtual reality games has been raised, drawing attention from academia..."
As news is wont to do, once the report about the freshly dead rookie, Mr. Noh, ended, a new story immediately began to flow.
Thud.
Dong Bongsu's footsteps, which had been climbing the stairs, stopped.
The news interview was being passed from the announcer to a reporter, and from the reporter to an expert.
"Murim Online must either be shut down immediately, or it must be patched to make an excessive sync with reality impossible. By indiscriminately showing vivid scenes of flying flesh and blood and severed hands, feet, and necks, it stimulates the murderous impulses of young students and immature adults. There is a very high possibility that this is linked to actual murder cases..."
It was common for the news to inform him about new prey.
However.
"Murim Online, you say."
This was the first time it had informed him about a new hunting ground.
Dong Bongsu stood there for a long time, staring intently at his smartphone until the news was over.
After the news ended.
He returned to his room and ordered one item online.
"This should be fun."
Murim Online Exclusive Capsule.
It was a new hunting ground.
Chapter 1: Rebirth
You who pass through this gate, abandon all hope.
Death God Baelteruk was bored.
It wasn't that he had nothing to do.
Work was overflowing.
Even now, he had a mountain of things to do, but he was simply enjoying a moment of leisure.
The primary duty of the Death Gods was to collect the souls of people whose lives had come to an end.
To find the dead, or those who will die, or even those who must die, and sever their Soul Thread.
That was it.
It wasn't that he had any complaints about the job.
It was just that the daily repetition was tedious.
Just because one is a god doesn't mean they are particularly different from people.
Gods feel most of the emotions that humans feel.
It's just that, depending on their respective duties, they may not feel certain emotions, or the sensations and feelings they experience more intensely are different.
The One Creator God or the perfect gods that humans imagine?
Such things don't exist.
No, perhaps there is a world where they do.
But at least as far as Baelteruk knew, they did not exist in this universe.
As far as Baelteruk knew, the only difference between humans and gods was just lifespan and duties? If one had to add another, it would be the difference in strength, perhaps?
Even this was not an absolute difference.
Sometimes, among humans, there were fellows who trained to the point of encroaching upon the domain of the gods.
Their lifespans could be immense, and there were definitely cases where their strength was comparable to that of a god.
The souls of such beings were not easily collected by Death Gods.
Generally, when such things happened, the Death Gods would suffer from a headache.
In severe cases, the entire Netherworld would be put on high alert.
'Hah?'
Shaking his head for a moment mid-thought was Baelteruk.
Just like that action, he was an exception.
If he could just get rid of this boredom, which was like a perpetual snowfield, he wished such incidents would happen all the time.
However.
Such an event might happen once in tens of thousands of years, if at all.
'I suppose no such incident will happen today either.'
Baelteruk, as always, took out the Death God's List.
A yawn escaped him as soon as he faced the page full of letters.
It truly was tedious.
Creeak---
Still, he couldn't postpone his duties as a Death God.
If he were to be extinguished for being neglectful, there would be nothing more absurd.
He yawned widely as he got up from his chair and glanced at the very top of the Death God's List.
3789028376.
The first Death God's Number.
Today's first customer of the day.
Since he had collected a soul from the 110th Dimensional Plane before, this time it must be the 111th Dimensional Plane.
It was an old rule among Death Gods to take charge of the dimensional planes in sequential order.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
This was due to the teachings of their predecessors that staying in one dimensional plane for too long could lead to being tainted by its energies.
Setting aside the dimensional plane number, he checked the number once more.
3789028376.
Baelteruk placed the Death God's List into the Divine Space and took out the Death God's Exclusive Terminal.
The terminal, made of black crystal, was the size of his palm, but it was a powerful tool that connected all sorts of dimensional planes.
Beep-beep-boop-
With his light touch, the surrounding scenery changed in an instant.
The gray mist and cold air of the Netherworld disappeared, and the characteristically warm and humid air of the 111th Dimensional Plane enveloped him.
He had teleported from the Netherworld to the 111th Dimensional Plane.
Baelteruk operated the terminal once more to search for the location of soul number 3789028376.
XX Villa, XX-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
He flew straight to the location the terminal had found.
Winding his way through the buildings where all sorts of greedy emotions were concentrated, he reached his destination.
Humans couldn't see it, but in the eyes of a Death God, the energy of desire and obsession was rising from each building like hazy smoke.
This region, called Gangnam, was particularly thick with it.
Today's first customer.
The building he lived in was a villa with a neat exterior.
"Yaaaawn---."
Baelteruk poked his eye, which was about to close from boredom, with his Death God's Scythe.
It was his personal habit to chase away sleepiness by letting the cool energy of the Death God's Scythe seep deep into his eye.
Having chased away his drowsiness, he entered the villa.
The inside of the building was as clean as the outside.
It seemed the owner of soul number 3789028376 lived alone in this rather large villa, as he couldn't feel the movement of any other souls.
He headed for the 5th floor, the highest floor of the villa, from where the soul's vibration was felt.
Passing through the wall and into the room, he saw a man, presumed to be the owner of soul number 3789028376, sitting in a strange-looking chair.
'Is it that thing again?'
Baelteruk knew what that hermetically sealed black chair was.
It was something called a Virtual Reality Game Capsule.
He didn't know how humans had acquired such an ability, but they had created a new dimensional plane called virtual reality.
Of course, it was a lower-concept dimensional plane, distinct from a True Dimensional Plane, but what was amazing was amazing.
Virtual Reality.
As the name literally implied, it was a virtual world, so souls could not directly belong to it.
Nevertheless, souls belonging to a True Dimensional Plane could come and go using that thing called a capsule as a medium.
Although humans themselves were not aware of it, the Death Gods knew very well that their souls were repeatedly entering and exiting.
For that reason, some High-ranking Death Gods were taking this matter very seriously.
Right now, it has the 'virtual' label attached to it, but if it develops further, in a few dozen generations? Or perhaps in one or two? Couldn't it possibly develop into a practical 'plane'?
"..."
It was such a ridiculously excessive worry.
Humans were beings with so many variables that they couldn't be controlled, but.
'That's taking it too far.'
Scoffing as he blew away the old-timer High-ranking Death Gods' groundless fears, Baelteruk passed through the capsule's wall and went inside.
A man with an ordinary face and an ordinary physique was lying down, wearing a hat for connecting to the Virtual Reality Server.
Baelteruk gave the man a quick scan and then, without a shred of hesitation, raised his scythe high and cut the neck of the owner of soul number 3789028376. There was no blood, nor was the actual physical neck severed.
The scythe of a Death God does not cut matter; it only severs the Soul Thread.
Outwardly, it looked as if nothing had happened, but the body of soul number 3789028376 was already dead.
In Baelteruk's eyes, the severed Soul Thread could be seen sticking out from the headset for accessing the Virtual Reality Server, swaying.
Normally, the main body of the Soul would have emerged attached to that thread, but not this time.
This was because the Soul of 3789028376 was currently enjoying a game in virtual reality.
This was how Death Gods could tell that souls were in virtual reality without even having to connect themselves.
Virtual Reality Games were quite a nuisance to the work of Death Gods.
When someone died, they should come out promptly so they could be taken away... but humans who died while connected like this ran rampant within the server, unaware that they were even dead.
Much like headless insects that flail about for hours without any consciousness.
In such cases, the Death Gods had no choice but to wait until the Soul they were meant to take to the Netherworld decided to Log Out.
Of course, an eccentric Death God like Baelteruk had no complaints about this.
Because what he had in abundance was time, and all that time was linked to the horror that was boredom.
To Baelteruk, this thing called virtual reality was a bit of a nuisance, but in some ways, he was rather grateful for it.
It was because it allowed him to kill the dreary and endlessly long time he had been given, if only for a little while.
Shhh.
Baelteruk sheathed his Death God's Scythe again.
He scanned the room thoroughly.
This was something he did while waiting for the Soul of 3789028376 to come out, to see what kind of human this Soul had been.
This act was not born out of any particular interest in the Soul of 3789028376. It was merely a habit, something he had done like a routine for an innumerable length of time.
It held no meaning at all.
The room starkly revealed the personality of the owner of Soul 3789028376.
Simple, basic furniture and electronics.
A desk, and on it, a bookshelf.
A few books tucked into it, and a bed.
Next to that, a small trash can, and finally, the Virtual Reality Game Capsule where the body of Soul 3789028376 lay.
That was all.
Everything was as clean as if it were brand new, without a single speck of dust.
An obsession with cleanliness.
The owner of Soul 3789028376 seemed to be a perfectionist who did not allow even the smallest speck in his space.
Baelteruk had seen many like this, but a case this severe was rare.
'Obsessive mysophobia? Or if not that...?'
Baelteruk's Clairvoyant Eye passed through the room and fixed upon the living room and the bathroom.
Like this room, it was hard to find a single speck of dust.
But this was not what Baelteruk had expected.
Sniff, sniff.
What stimulated his senses was not his eyes, but his nose.
He caught a familiar and peculiar smell from somewhere.
A very acrid, yet unique fragrance that pleased the noses of Death Gods.
It was the smell of blood and rotting corpses.
It was so faint that it was difficult for even him, a Death God, to notice.
A faint scent that he could only properly sense now that he was focusing his senses.
That was probably why he hadn't noticed it when he first entered the villa.
Baelteruk's nostrils flared.
He was tracing the source of the smell.
The smell was rising from below.
He lowered his head.
His gaze, naturally directed downward, passed through the floor of the 5th story, the 4th, the 3rd, the 2nd, and the 1st, but he still couldn't find the source of the smell.
Baelteruk's jet-black eyes turned into White Eyes.
This was a phenomenon that occurred when he pushed his Clairvoyant Eye to its maximum.
Soon, a secret space in the basement was detected.
'Hmm!?'
There were no bodies there either.
His vision descended further down.
Only after passing through three more such secret spaces did he find the source of the smell.
This client is truly a meticulous one.
"Heh heh heh."
Baelteruk muttered lowly.
The reason was that he had confirmed that the owner of Soul 3789028376 was a human who created work for Death Gods.
He didn't know what his profession was, but his 'hobby' seemed to be closely related to the work of Death Gods.
In a cavity hidden deep underground, the bodies of what looked to be dozens, perhaps hundreds of humans, were taking a long slumber inside a massive freezer.
Judging by the fresh corpses that had yet to completely freeze, it was clear that the owner of Soul 3789028376 had enjoyed his hobby just a few days ago, or perhaps even yesterday or today.
This planet, called Earth in the 111th Dimensional Plane, had always been a bit more brutal compared to other places.
It had distanced itself from Death Gods a little in recent times, but its true nature was not so easily changed.
Before the discipline that humans called science had developed this far, such scenes could be easily found anywhere on this planet.
Of course, when a war broke out, things far worse than this happened often.
Thus, to the Death God Baelteruk, this was no big deal.
The reason he found it amusing was something else entirely.
A corpse is stained with the color of the killer's soul and their killing intent.
Even if that corpse is an empty vessel, its soul long gone.
From the corpses in that underground freezer, he felt a sense of purity.
Not a trace of killing intent could be found.
How should he describe that purity?
Pure Homicidal Mania.
That seemed about right.
A soul with such sensibilities was hard to come by in this 111th Dimensional Plane, which emphasized things like human rights and civilization these days.
It wasn't that they didn't exist, but they were rare.
It had been a long time since Baelteruk had encountered such a soul, and that was why a smile graced his lips.
"A pure killer thirsty for blood. In the words of this place, Earth, I believe they call it a Psychopath."
This was Baelteruk's assessment of Soul 3789028376 from the 111th Dimensional Plane.
At this rate, it would be difficult for it to get out of the Eight Hells again before being properly purified.
It might even rot there for ten million years.
If it was unlucky, the soul might be extinguished before those ten million years were up...
Of course, that was none of his business.
Having confirmed that much, Baelteruk completely lost interest in Soul 3789028376. Whether 3789028376 was the worst killer in the history of the universe or not had nothing to do with him.
After all, his duty as a Death God was simply to escort the man's soul to the Netherworld.
Whether Death God Yama turned that soul into a tattered rag or extinguished it was not his concern.
It was at that moment, as Baelteruk was about to scratch his eye with his scythe out of boredom again, that a beeping sound rang from his Death God Terminal.
It was a warning tone.
It meant that the time to collect the soul was nigh, so he should get to work.
Baelteruk wasn't too concerned since he was already finished with his work and was just waiting, but he took out the Death God's List to double-check.
Just as before, he yawned and confirmed the Soul Number of his target.
3789028376.
It matched.
"No problem here."
Just as he felt relieved.
"Huh!? What is this...?"
"?"
He found a problem! And it was a critical one!
The number of the Dimensional Realm written below the Soul Number wasn't 111, but 112! This client wasn't soul 3789028376 of the 111th Dimensional Plane, but soul 3789028376 of the 112th Dimensional Realm.
The impossible had happened.
It was a simple mistake, but in the Death God Realm, mistakes were often directly linked to annihilation.
If Death God Yama found out about this, it would be the end.
If he were unlucky, he might be the one suffering in the Eight Hells for ten million years, not this soul.
And the outcome of that would, nine times out of ten, be annihilation.
Baelteruk's mind raced.
He had performed his duties as a Death God for tens of millions of years.
He had never made a single mistake until now.
His overconfidence in that fact had finally led to this day's disaster.
'I can't lose everything I've worked for over tens of millions of years because of this one mistake! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it...! Ah!'
At some point, as he spat out the word 'damn it' countless times in his mind, 'that incident' from hundreds of millions of years ago, which had shaken the Netherworld, came to mind.
'Soul Grafting.'
An eccentric incident caused by a mad Death God who had tried to artificially create Soul-bound Twins.
That Death God had experimented to see if it was possible to insert two souls into one body.
The method was very simple: to take a severed Soul Thread and attach it to the Soul Thread of another living being, then fuse it.
This was a grave sin, a clear violation of the Death God Service Regulations.
Every single action of a Death God is related to the order of the Dimensional Realms.
To have done such a thing to a soul that was meant to live, his end was obvious.
In the end, that Death God was discovered and annihilated for his actions.
Whether the experiment succeeded or failed, or what effect it had on the Dimensional Realms, was never revealed at all.
Death God Yama had issued a gag order to all involved.
However.
Within the ranks of the Death Gods, the consensus leaned towards it having been possible.
As evidenced by the Death Gods, who still tell this tale whenever they are bored.
Indeed.
'Is it possible?'
What if he attempted it now? What would happen?
His eyes fell upon the Soul Thread dangling outside the Virtual Reality Game Capsule.
There was still time.
3789028376 had not yet logged out.
What if that soul logs out in this situation?
Baelteruk would be annihilated.
But if he attempted Soul Grafting, he might have a chance to cover up his mistake.
If he grafts the soul 3789028376 from the 111th Dimensional Plane onto the body of soul 3789028376 from the 112th Dimensional Realm, which was originally supposed to die, and then just severs the Soul Thread of the 112th Dimensional Realm soul and guides it to the Netherworld, then all dimensional realms will flow as originally planned! If he can do this, no one will ever know of his mistake!
Although a soul from the 111th Dimensional Plane would go to the 112th Dimensional Realm, the total count of souls in the Netherworld would be preserved.
That would be enough for Baelteruk to be safe.
The decision didn't take long.
Baelteruk grabbed the end of the Soul Thread of 3789028376 from the 111th Dimensional Plane.
Then, without a moment's hesitation, he took out his Death God Terminal.
Beep-beep-beep-.
The Death God's Number 112 appeared on the terminal.
With a light vibration, Baelteruk vanished from the spot.
The moment had come for Soul Grafting to be realized for the first time in hundreds of millions of years.
Author's Note: This is the original Chapter 0 and Chapter 1, preserved as they were in the source material. The fanfic's divergence begins at the tournament arc. The lore expansions the Kill Point Exchange, the cultivation realms, the past Heavenly Demon, the class progression will be woven into subsequent chapters as Dong Bongsu discovers them. The next chapter will pick up exactly where this one leaves off: So-sam's first day as a stablehand, the failed Log Out, and the realization that he has found his permanent hunting ground.