***
"Useless slave scum! Can't you walk any faster?"
Crack!
My consciousness returned with a sharp pain.
However, my unbalanced body tumbled to the ground, and only after burying my head in the sandy beach could I realize something was wrong.
"What is this situation right now?"
I had lost consciousness while watching the game intro.
And when I came to, it was this current situation.
Although it was a very baffling situation, my mind worked surprisingly calmly.
"This isn't my body."
Thick hands. Muscles, vibrant with color, that would make a fitness trainer weep.
It wasn't my body. Yet, it felt as vivid as if it were my own.
Furthermore, judging by my tightly bound hands and the current situation, I was being dragged along.
When I raised my head, hundreds of other men were also bound in a line and being dragged.
Combining the fact that I was whipped and the current situation, the answer became clear.
"War slave."
They were the defeated soldiers. They had lost the war and were captured as slaves.
But what was even more astonishing was the giant monster walking at the front.
"Hydragon!"
That monster, a combination of a nine-headed Hydra and the lower body of a dragon, looked incredibly familiar.
I had clearly never seen this monster before, yet as soon as I saw it, I knew what it was.
Hydragon.
The very first adversity that every player playing the game inevitably faces!
A graphic entity had materialized and appeared before my eyes.
Having raised nearly a thousand characters and defeated them that many times, it was only natural that I would be familiar with it, but it was not normal to instantly recognize a game monster.
"I have to get up."
There was no time for sentimentality.
If I continued to lie down like this, I would die.
As soon as I stood up, a whip immediately flew at me.
Despite the intense pain that made my hairs stand on end, I forcibly suppressed a groan.
"If you fall again, I'll throw you to the Hydragon as food."
...It seemed it was indeed Hydragon.
Everything was certain now.
"This is Pangenia. Did I enter the game?"
An incomprehensible event.
It would be normal to be confused, but surprisingly, I was calm.
Instead, I quickly grasped the situation and adapted.
"All my senses, including touch, are no different from reality... In that case."
It was a game, but it wasn't. It was extremely similar to reality, but I remembered spinning the dice at the end.
All Random.
Hadn't I randomized everything?
If this was the result, there was something I absolutely had to check.
"Status window."
At that moment.
Rustle. A rolled-up parchment appeared before my eyes and slowly unfurled.
<Stats>
Level: 1
Strength: 12 Stamina: 12 Agility: 12
Intelligence: 12 Magic: 12
<Talents>
【Health】【Constitution】【Intelligence】【Senses】
【Swordsmanship】【Shield Mastery】【Spear Mastery】【Axe Mastery】【Dagger Mastery】【Archery】
【Light】【Darkness】【Fire】【Water】【Earth】【Wind】【Air】
【Void】
【Artistry】【Scholarship】【Leadership】【Observation】
......
<Activated Hidden Traits>
【Oblivion】
【Dexterity】
【All Master】
【Weapon Master】
【Giant's Magic Resistance】
【Druid's Affinity with Nature】
【Heart of the Iron-Blooded Lord】
【Beast Lord】
【Golden Grace】
【Heavenly Being (Chonsang)】
【Mutant】
【Glutton】
【Great Sage】
......
<Pangenia Collapse Remaining: 6.12%>
<<As the collapse progresses, the boundary between reality and Pangenia blurs.>>
<<Once the collapse reaches over 10%, the first rift will occur.>>
"Crazy."
I suppressed the urge to swear as soon as I saw it.
A status window had indeed appeared, but what appeared was nonsensical.
First, the stats.
Originally, stats were determined within a range of 1 to 10 depending on talents. But these exceeded that, at 12. And they all started uniformly at 12.
It was a golden start I had never seen in my 5 years of playing Pangenia.
And that wasn't all.
"How many talents have been chosen?"
The parchment continued to scroll endlessly. Not only were over 200 talents chosen, but more than 10 hidden traits had been activated.
Just one of these hidden traits was enough to make someone the strongest, capable of "uprooting mountains and covering the world with their spirit." Yet, I possessed exactly 13 of them.
"13 Hidden Traits."
Even named NPCs who had achieved transcendence by consuming stars, or world-class monsters from the abyss, did not possess 13 hidden traits. They had at most five.
Unprecedented.
Among them, one particularly caught my eye.
"Heart of the Iron-Blooded Lord!"
This was a linked trait and a hidden trait that appeared when all physical talents were maxed out, the Heart of the Iron-Blooded Lord.
It had functions such as "making one not tire easily, not be easily surprised by most things, and accept situations quickly."
Furthermore, it increased "Stamina" and "Reputation," which were not visible on the stat window, granted better quality quests, and bestowed the "Qualification of a Lord."
And there were a staggering 13 of them.
After taking in all the hidden traits, I looked at the next section.
"Pangenia's Collapse. Boundary with reality? I don't know what that means."
I didn't understand what it meant. What was certain was that things far beyond the scope of normal understanding were happening to me.
However, I couldn't remain lost in thought forever.
"Hey."
I spoke to the man walking ahead of me.
The man, whose right middle and index fingers were missing, listlessly turned his head and looked at me.
"Why?"
"Where is this place?"
"......? It's the Kaltsman Desert."
Ignoring the look in his eyes, as if I had gone mad from heatstroke and lost my mind, I asked again.
"Kaltsman Desert? You don't mean we're heading to Paisalmer, do you?"
The Kaltsman Desert, located in the southeastern part of the continent, was a notorious land inhabited by three major tribes.
All three tribes were lunatics who made a living by hunting slaves and constantly waged war.
And Paisalmer was a mid-sized city where captured slaves were sold.
"That's right. So give up on the thought of returning alive."
Was that the reason why the slaves' eyes lacked light?
No slave who was taken to Paisalmer ever left alive.
"A place you should never designate as a starting point. If you're dropped into the Kaltsman Desert, it's better to just delete your character and start over."
It was already a notoriously harsh desert.
I had tried starting here once out of curiosity and then given up.
Since then, I had definitively never chosen the Kaltsman Desert as a starting location.
"Damn it."
It was my mistake to have randomized the starting point as well. Who else could I blame?
I unleashed the last of my lingering questions.
"But did the Kaltsman tribes normally handle this many slaves?"
Even the largest slave traders usually handled at most a few dozen slaves, but this procession looked like it had well over 300.
The man scowled.
"How would I know that?"
"Why are we being dragged along?"
"The reason we're being captured? Well, maybe we're stragglers from the expeditionary force?"
"Expeditionary force? What expeditionary force?"
"Sigh... The Demon Realm Expeditionary Force, led by the 8 Heroes. We were caught after failing and running away, you and I. Did you get heatstroke or something?"
8 Heroes? Demon Realm Expeditionary Force?
"Ah!"
...... It was about me.
No, more precisely, it was about the character I had played just before creating this one.
I had gathered eight unique-grade items from the eight strongest characters to form an expeditionary force.
And it had failed spectacularly.
We had entered the Demon Realm and even reached near the Demon Temple, but ultimately, we were Game Over without being able to open the final door.
That seemed to be known as the 8 Heroes and the Expeditionary Force.
"Shit. If there hadn't been infighting... the expedition would have succeeded...!"
Infighting?
What infighting?
I tried to ask, but at that moment, the ground shook.
Simultaneously.
《Main Quest 1: Survive!》
《Reward: Varies based on content》
《Failure Penalty: Death - Both your physical body in the game and in reality will die.》
The quest appeared before my eyes.
Survive? In this situation?
What was even more horrifying was the failure penalty. Did "physical body in reality" really refer to my actual body?
The intro suddenly came to mind. The scene of Pangenia and Earth colliding.
Rumble! Rumble!
However, there was no time for further deliberation.
With a rough sound, a colossal body was approaching from afar.
"Three Hydragons!"
"Form a battle line! Prepare for an ambush!"
The slave traders, who were also seasoned soldiers, took out their weapons from their pouches and held their breath.
The enemies, who had stormed in with as many as three Hydragons, began slaughtering the slave traders without a word.
"Snake Princess! It's the Snake Princess!"
"Snake Princess! Have you forgotten the non-aggression pact?!"
"Aaaah!"
Screams filled the air.
They engaged in a massacre, disregarding pacts and rules.
Yes. It was a one-sided slaughter.
"If I stay still like this, I'll die!"
My instincts screamed.
These attackers were unhesitating in killing slaves.
It seemed their objective was to wipe out everyone here.
I took a key ring from the pouch of the slave trader who had whipped me and was now lying dead right in front of me.
After unlocking my handcuffs, I drew a scimitar and prepared for the attack.
"I, I too!"
"Untie me too!"
Seeing the key ring, the former expeditionary force soldiers shouted.
Even though they were soldiers who had embarked on the Demon Realm Expedition,
I could have expected them to fight alongside me, but they were all broken in some way.
【Lv. 1】
【Lv. 2】
As proof, all the soldiers' levels were between 1 and 2.
The physical damage and mental defects had caused a level reduction.
But still, the levels were too low. Was the expedition force on a level worse than a militia?
Thump!
"I, I'll go first!"
"Ack! Get out of the way!"
I threw the key ring, and a scuffle broke out.
It meant "deal with it yourselves." I didn't have the luxury of freeing them one by one.
Meanwhile, the slaughter continued.
Chaos. If hell existed, it would be like this.
"I have to survive."