“......Urgh.”
A heavy groan echoed across the battlefield, which had become a sea of blood.
Several figures in the midst of that battlefield clicked their tongues as they looked at its source.
“As expected of the All Master. To think he’s still alive even after suffering those wounds.”
“The Ten-Thousand-Year Poison Dragon’s venom. The Godslayer’s Spear. The Hero’s Sword. The Archer God’s Bow. Even after bringing countless other legendary and mythical items, this is all we could do......”
“It truly makes one glad we crushed the sprout before it could grow.”
“Ahem, we’ll receive a handsome reward for this.”
Every one of them looked different.
One had the form of a dragonkin, as though a dragon and a human had been blended together.
Another had pointed ears and a face carved like a sculpture.
Another possessed green skin and a body covered in rugged muscles.
The last was short but powerfully built.
Among them, only one was human.
It was Choi Shin-hyeok, Earth’s sole Challenger Tier player in the Unified League, known by the audacious epithet of the Infinite Emperor.
“All Master Choi Shin-hyeok, do you have any last words?”
When the dragonkin asked him for his final words, Shin-hyeok looked up with an incredulous expression.
“You suddenly launched a combined attack on me in a co-op game...... Do you really think you can win a Challenger Tier match without me?”
The place where they stood was a Challenger Tier battlefield.
Naturally, the enemies they had to face were also of Challenger Tier.
Having to play the game without even one person in such a place was fatal.
That was especially true considering that defeat in Challenger Tier imposed severe penalties not only on the dimension a player belonged to, but on the individual player as well.
Yet those who had attacked Shin-hyeok did not care in the slightest.
“That’s right. If we had made no preparations, something like this would have been impossible.”
“What do you mean?”
“It means every Challenger player participating in this game agreed to your death.”
“......!”
There were a hundred Challenger players participating in this cooperative game.
The fact that the other ninety-nine had agreed to his death left Shin-hyeok speechless.
“Without me, Earth is a Bronze-tier dimension that’s worth nothing. What did you think you could siphon from it by planning something this insane?”
“......”
Earth, Shin-hyeok’s home dimension, was the lowest-ranked of countless dimensions: Bronze Tier.
Thanks to Shin-hyeok, it had been on the verge of promotion to Silver, but it would still have been no more than Silver.
“The New Humanity Empire. I’m asking what a Challenger-tier dimension like yours could possibly need from a Bronze-tier dimension!”
Compared to the New Humanity Empire, which had likely focused on attacking Shin-hyeok together, Earth was nothing more than a paltry sliver.
That was why Shin-hyeok was even angrier.
Then the dragonkin who appeared to lead the group spoke.
“According to one of your human sayings, there is a phrase like this.”
“......?”
“Does a human need a reason to crush an ant underfoot?”
“......Croden. You lizard bastard—”
Shin-hyeok vented his fury at the dragonkin, Croden, in response to that reason, delivered with a sinister smile.
But that was all he could do.
“Farewell, Choi Shin-hyeok. Divine being born in a frontier dimension.”
“Urk! Ngh! Aaargh!”
Even as Croden looked down at him with pity, Shin-hyeok’s entire body had been pierced by weapons, and the flesh poisoned by a lethal toxin could not respond to his rage.
Croden swung a sword at Shin-hyeok.
“Earth will accompany you on the road you travel.”
“......Ah.”
SHNK!
At those final words—that Earth would accompany him—Shin-hyeok pictured what would become of Earth after his death and let out a quiet sound.
‘Father...... Mother...... Shin-woo...... Su-a......’
His parents.
His only younger brother.
And finally, his only friend, who had always encouraged and guided him before eventually catching up to him.
As their faces flashed through his mind like a panorama, Shin-hyeok closed his eyes.
[The conditions for acquiring another chance have been fulfilled.]
[Would you like to receive the reward?]
[Error! Error! Error!]
[The target is unable to receive the reward.]
[The reward will be granted automatically.]
‘What the......?’
The System’s voice rang through Shin-hyeok’s mind, as though seeing him off on his final journey.
And—
CRACK!
“Ah, this Bronze-trash bastard has lost his mind.”
“I told you to go buy bread, Bronze trash.”
“......?”
A dim alleyway.
A throbbing pain in his head.
The name tag pinned to Shin-hyeok’s school uniform reminded him of his current situation.
[Choi Shin-hyeok / Bronze]
‘Bronze? Me, Earth’s only Challenger player, is Bronze?’
The name tag gleamed with a vivid bronze sheen, proving that he was Bronze.
Then Shin-hyeok remembered that he had once been Bronze in the distant past.
The nickname he had back then was surely—
“Useless Jack-of-All-Trades. Have you finally lost your mind?”
“Ugh, your expected tier is Bronze, and now you’ve lost your mind too? The only thing left for you is to get placed in Iron.”
Useless Jack-of-All-Trades.
It was a nickname the Shin-hyeok of the future, known by the audacious epithet of the All Master, could not have even imagined.
But that had been reality, and the past.
And now, it was the present.
“Useless Jack-of-All-Trades has returned to his Bronze days?”
Not as the All Master, but as the Useless Jack-of-All-Trades.
Not as a Challenger, but as Bronze.
“Was I dreaming? No, was all of that just my delusion? That can’t be.”
As Shin-hyeok tore at his hair while trying to process the sudden reality, the two students who refused to leave him alone swung their fists.
“What’s with this bastard?”
“Let’s beat some sense into him first. He’ll come to if we hit him.”
The fists of the two students wearing gleaming silver name tags flew toward him.
Seeing the two fists that felt unbearably slow, Shin-hyeok let out a hollow laugh and avoided them.
TAP— TAP-TAP—
With only two steps and two movements, Shin-hyeok lightly let the two punches slide past him as fluidly as water before swinging his own fist and hammering both students in the jaw.
WHAM!
“Urk!”
“H-how could a Bronze trash do that?”
The two students could not hide their shock.
They had never imagined that Shin-hyeok would dodge their attacks, much less counterattack.
However, they were not the only ones surprised.
‘Hah. I hit them in the jaw, and they didn’t even pass out? Just how terrible was my condition in the past?’
Shin-hyeok himself was equally astonished by the abysmal state of his former body.
Of course, the surprise did not last long.
“Attention. All students, please report to your classrooms.”
“......You can thank the homeroom teacher for saving you.”
“See you on placement day, Bronze trash.”
At the teacher’s voice echoing throughout the school, the two students vanished while clutching their swollen red jaws and fuming.
After watching them leave, Shin-hyeok followed them toward the classroom.
‘It’s been so long that I couldn’t even remember where the classroom was. This works out well. If I follow them, I’ll get there.’
Thanks to his excellent guides, Shin-hyeok had no difficulty finding his classroom after regressing to the past.
SCRAPE—
When Shin-hyeok opened the classroom’s rear door and entered, dozens of pairs of eyes turned toward him.
They looked back and forth between Shin-hyeok and Dong-hyeok and Ho-bin, curious about what had happened between them.
But Shin-hyeok saw no reason to explain himself and simply took an empty seat.
“Shin-hyeok, what happened?”
“......Ah, Su-a. It’s nothing. They came at me, so I gave each of them a fair hit.”
Still, he could not ignore Su-a, who had merely turned around in her seat in front of him to ask.
‘Su-a was this young, huh? This really makes me feel that I’ve regressed.’
The Saintess of the Battlefield.
A Dual Class who had been called the Holy Mother of the upper tiers and had been an exceptional paladin.
But more important than any of that, she was the only person Shin-hyeok could truly call a friend.
By the time Shin-hyeok died, Su-a had remained beautiful, but even she could not hide her age.
Seeing her so young, Shin-hyeok suppressed an inward smile.
“Shin-hyeok, you did that?!”
“Han Su-a. If you’re going to chat, go outside and do it.”
“I’m sorry!”
Su-a startled at Shin-hyeok’s answer, only to be scolded by their homeroom teacher, Han Tae-hun.
When the classroom fell silent after Su-a’s interruption, Tae-hun cleared his throat and spoke.
“As you all know, today is December 30. There are two days left until the Placement Exam on January 1. Make good use of tomorrow to prepare yourselves both mentally and practically. Show all of South Korea that you are the pride of Shinhwa High School.”
“Yes!”
“Thank you for the past three years!”
“I’ll definitely be placed in Silver!”
“Me too!”
Perhaps feeling sentimental at Tae-hun’s words, the students rose to their feet with tearful eyes and shouted.
Watching them, Shin-hyeok understood exactly what point in time this was.
‘December 30, when I was nineteen. There are two days left until the Placement Exam.’
Nineteen.
December 30, just before he turned twenty.
It was precisely two days before the Placement Exam held on January 1.
It was a test one could take only once: upon turning twenty or entering the Dimension Arena for the first time.
Since its results could change the course of a person’s life, the entire world would grow quiet during the Placement Exam period.
Shin-hyeok had taken the Placement Exam as well.
And his placement then had been—
‘Iron. Iron 5.’
It had not even been Bronze—the brass tier—but Iron, a lump of steel.
And since it was Tier 5, the very lowest among the five-tier ranking system, that said it all.
Shin-hyeok briefly dwelled on that memory from the past, when it had felt as though he had been shoved into an abyss of despair.
“Then I hope you all have a good December 31 and succeed in your Placement Exam on January 1.”
“Yes!”
With Tae-hun’s words, the students answered energetically, bringing class to an end.
“Shin-hyeok, let’s go home together. We can talk about the Placement Exam too.”
“Sure.”
In truth, since Shin-hyeok was Shinhwa High School’s only Bronze-tier student, the Placement Exam had already been little different from a failure for him.
Even so, Shin-hyeok agreed to Su-a’s suggestion.
‘She’s doing this for me. She’s too kind.’
A noble paladin who did not shed a single tear before an enemy, yet a saintess who wept profusely over the smallest wound suffered by an ally.
That was the kind of person Han Su-a was.
Knowing that, Shin-hyeok walked home beside Su-a.
Then, as they were heading home together—
“Young Master. Today is the day of the gathering at the main family estate. Please get in.”
“Ah, that was today too.”
A luxury sedan stood in front of the school, along with a man dressed in an expensive suit.
Yet Shin-hyeok did not care about the disrespectful attitude the man displayed as he recalled the day’s event.
“Today was the Shinhwa Group family gathering.”
Shinhwa Group.
A conglomerate that was unquestionably ranked first in South Korea’s business world.
Today was the day of the family gathering for the owner family of that massive corporation.
It may have been a seat others dreamed of, but that had not been the case for Shin-hyeok in the past.
‘As the eldest son of the youngest son who had fallen out of favor with Chairman Choi Cheol-ho—the man who was practically everything to Shinhwa Group—and with an expected Bronze Tier to boot, a family gathering like this was poison to me instead.’
That was evident even from how Shin-hyeok had been treated at school.
‘What did I do in my previous life? Ah, I tried to run away, but that secretary caught me and dragged me there by force.’
Remembering even the disgraceful behavior of his past self, Shin-hyeok pushed Su-a back and stepped forward.
The man in the suit flinched. If Shin-hyeok tried to run, the man had been prepared to chase after him and seize him immediately.
“You told me to get in.”
“......Please forgive my discourtesy. I’ll escort you.”
At Shin-hyeok’s amused remark, spoken as he calmly climbed into the open back seat, the man broke into a cold sweat and got into the driver’s seat.
“Shin-hyeok......”
“Su-a, do well on the Placement Exam. I’ll see you afterward.”
“......Okay.”
Leaving behind Su-a, who could not stop worrying about him until the end, the black sedan carrying Shin-hyeok sped unhindered toward the main family estate in Pyeongchang-dong.
With his legs crossed in a manner the man in the driver’s seat found arrogant, Shin-hyeok stared out the window.
‘New Humanity Empire. Before I wipe you all out, I should put my own family in order first.’
Another chance had been given to him.
And Shin-hyeok intended to use it to properly change his past.