Crunch.
With the sound of something hard splintering, my vision spun wildly.
It didn’t hurt.
What was far stranger was that I couldn’t feel anything in my entire body.
The world flipped upside down. The crimson sky and muddy ground revolved around me like a spinning top.
Then I crashed into the dirt.
...What the hell?
I was dizzy.
I tried to close my eyes, but they wouldn’t shut.
No—more precisely, I didn’t have any eyelids to close.
The scene entering my hollow eye sockets was nothing short of hell itself.
A blood-red plain.
The deafening clang of metal and the screams of the dying.
Human soldiers and grotesque monsters were locked in a brutal slaughter on every side.
The stench of blood should have been overwhelming, yet I apparently didn’t possess a sense of smell either.
My vision finally stopped rolling, and I stared blankly ahead.
What kind of fucked-up situation is this?
Hadn’t I been working overtime at the office?
I had received that precious beta invitation and waited eagerly for the loading bar of the Dungeon & Empire expansion client to finish.
[Loading The Demon Realm Strikes Back data... 99%]
Faced with that accursed final one percent, several days’ worth of exhaustion had struck me all at once. I had collapsed face-first onto my desk—and the moment I opened my eyes, the sole of a boot came flying at me.
Oh, right.
I had been kicked by that military boot.
Thud!
My thoughts were abruptly cut off.
Someone’s battered military boot had kicked my “head” again, sending it flying like a soccer ball.
Ah, fuck.
A scream should have burst from my mouth, but all that emerged was the dry clacking of my jawbone.
Clatter, clatter—
My vision shook violently as I rolled through the mud once more.
When I finally came to a stop, I saw a skeleton that looked much like me.
Pale blue phosphorescence flickered inside its hollow eye sockets. A faint but unmistakable aura of mana surrounded its skull like the remnants of life itself.
My observation didn’t last long.
Crack!
The skeleton’s head exploded before my eyes.
A metal mace had come flying out of nowhere and pulverized its skull.
The pale blue light dispersed like smoke.
All that remained were shattered bone fragments.
Instinctive terror struck me.
If the same thing happened to me, I would be finished.
My jaw began trembling involuntarily from the overwhelming tension.
Clack, clack, clack!
What the hell is wrong with this thing now?
Even when I tried to stop, my unfamiliar skeletal body kept rattling on its own.
Had someone heard the noise?
“Damn it! No matter how many of these bone bastards we smash, they just keep coming!”
A soldier clad in plate armor approached while grumbling.
He raised the mace in his hand high above his head.
The beads of sweat on his brow, the chips along his blade, and even the blood caked onto his armor were rendered with chilling clarity.
The resolution was far too realistic for this to be a dream.
Just as the mace was about to come crashing down on the crown of my skull, a strange sense of familiarity flashed through my mind.
Wait.
That crudely painted wolf emblem on his armor...
It belonged to the Red Wolves, a mercenary company that only appeared in the early tutorial region.
And that stance, combined with the clumsy trajectory of his mace...
That’s Power Strike.
The fog clouding my mind vanished in an instant.
I was Han Seungwoo, thirty years old, a 3D modeler employed by a company that mass-produced cheap mobile games.
I was also a renowned veteran of Dungeon & Empire—so hopelessly ancient that I had gone beyond fossilization and turned into crude oil.
And the scene surrounding me now...
It belonged to the very same world I had spent years staring at until my eyes nearly bled.
The world of Dungeon & Empire.
Did several consecutive all-nighters finally drive me insane?
Before I could determine whether this was reality or a dream, the soldier’s attack pattern unfolded before me like raw data.
Watch the animation—then roll.
Boom!
The mace smashed into the spot where I had been, spraying muddy water everywhere.
In that split second, I instinctively rolled my disembodied head aside and avoided the attack.
“Huh? That pile of bones dodged?”
A pile of bones?
The soldier’s eyes widened.
Only when I saw my reflection in his pupils did I become certain.
A white skull rolling across the muddy ground.
That was me.
I really had become a monster with nothing but a head left.
I was moments away from being crushed, yet my mind remained strangely calm.
Was it because I was nothing but bones now?
Don’t panic. If I’m still alive after losing my head, that means I still have HP remaining.
While the soldier recovered his stance after missing his attack, I surveyed my surroundings.
Following a faint blue line of light at the edge of my vision, I spotted a decapitated skeletal body flailing on the ground not far away.
Move! Get over there and pick up that sword!
The moment I formed that weak intention, I sensed a strange connection of mana.
Clatter, clatter.
My body staggered upright and picked up a battered longsword lying on the ground.
Good.
The soldier stared at my head rolling around in the dirt, utterly bewildered.
He seemed like a novice. If I waved the sword around and frightened him a little, he would probably panic and run away.
Responding to my command, my body silently approached him from behind.
However, this was my first time remotely controlling my body while my head was detached, so my sense of balance was a complete mess.
I couldn’t properly control my strength or judge the distance.
Crash!
Like a broken puppet, my body stumbled into the soldier from behind.
I had only meant to thrust the sword forward to frighten him. But because my body staggered unpredictably, the tip slipped straight into the loose gap in the armor around his neck.
Shnk!
“Huh?”
Before I could even process what had happened, the sickening sensation of flesh being pierced traveled through my fingertips.
“G-Ghk...!”
The soldier coughed up blood, dropped to his knees, and collapsed.
Perhaps my survival instincts had taken over, because even after killing a person, I felt strangely calm.
I had barely registered that unsettling discrepancy when a translucent blue window appeared before my eyes.
[You have defeated an enemy!]
[You have gained experience.]
[You have leveled up.]
[You have become a Skeleton Soldier Lv. 2.]
A system window?
The game’s system was genuinely functioning here?
The absurdity of it nearly made me laugh, but another window appeared before I could.
[First Level-Up Reward]
[You may select a Unique Skill.]
[1. Bone Replacement (Lv. 1)]
Transplant a target’s bone and inherit the attributes of the corresponding body part.
Certain skills may also be inherited.
[2. Grasp of the Dead (Lv. 1)]
Seize an enemy from a distance.
Range: 5 meters
Duration: 3 seconds
[3. Bone Shield (Lv. 1)]
Detach a portion of your bones to create a shield.
Defense enhancement duration: 10 seconds
There was nothing to consider.
Number one.
Whenever choices like these appeared, the growth-type skill was always the correct answer.
The other two might be useful immediately, but they would quickly become obsolete as my level increased.
I didn’t yet understand exactly how it worked, but Bone Replacement presumably allowed me to grow stronger each time I replaced one of my bones.
Theoretically, it had no upper limit.
All those years I spent doing nothing but playing games had finally paid off.
[You have acquired the Unique Skill “Bone Replacement (Lv. 1)”!]
The moment I confirmed my selection, it felt as though a new circuit had been carved into the very foundation of my existence.
So this was what learning a skill felt like.
I picked up my head with my body’s hands, then carefully fitted it onto the top of my empty spine.
Click.
A thrilling sensation ran through me as my vertebrae reconnected with a satisfying snap.
It felt much better now that my viewpoint was higher.
I spread my hands and examined them.
Gaunt finger bones.
White joints entirely devoid of flesh.
And the dry rattling sound they produced whenever I moved.
[Skeleton Soldier (Lv. 2)]
[Traits]
–Precision Analysis (EX): Structurally analyzes a target...
[Unique Skills]
–Bone Replacement (Lv. 1): Steal a target’s bones and use them to replace corresponding parts of your body.
[Status]
–Hairline Fracture: Left Tibia
–Reduced Skull Durability
...
Even the system window was mercilessly confirming that I was a skeleton.
This is insane...
Whenever I tried to speak, my jaw merely clattered and produced a dry, desolate noise.
This wasn’t a dream.
I had genuinely entered this skeletal body.
Just because I earned the title “Lord of White Bones” didn’t mean I wanted to become a pile of white bones...
If I was going to be transported into the game, they could have at least let me play as my max-level character.
Instead, they had confiscated the entire unique collection I had painstakingly assembled and left me as a naked, level-one trash mob with nothing but bare bones.
Wasn’t this going too far?
This was supposed to be a beta test.
Was it really acceptable to treat a beta tester this brutally?
I want to return this test copy. Let me log out!
[Your current race does not possess the required authorization.]
Damn it.
How could a mere system window be this infuriating?
Wait.
It said my current race didn’t possess the required authorization.
It didn’t say logging out was impossible.
It meant I lacked permission in my current skeletal state.
Conversely, that also meant I might be able to log out if I obtained the necessary authorization.
...So there is a possible solution.
All right.
I needed to organize the situation rationally.
First, this was a game.
And every game had rules.
Just as the knowledge I had accumulated from studying this world for years remained applicable, the game system was clearly alive and functioning.
I could level up.
I could acquire skills.
If that was the case, there had to be a way to log out—an exit from this world.
Living as a skeleton couldn’t possibly be the ultimate objective.
I had to find the answer within the rules governing this world.
I needed to discover a way out.
Or, at the very least, learn why I had been shoved into this body.
And to uncover that, I needed information.
I had to become capable of asking questions in the human tongue, listening to answers, and searching for clues myself.
But if I set foot in a human settlement looking like this, they’ll immediately mark me for extermination.
The conclusion was simple.
First, survive.
Second, find a way to assume a human form.
After that, discover how to escape this world.
Having a clear order of priorities should have eased my mind, but my surroundings weren’t kind enough to permit that.
“Aaargh!”
“Save me!”
The lowest-ranking monsters in the distance were being systematically slaughtered by the human soldiers’ organized formation.
A Skeleton Soldier like me was worth less than a stone lying in the road.
Besides...
I looked down at my gaunt rib cage.
I was far too weak.
My bone density appeared low, and the loose connections between my joints rattled with every movement.
My chances of surviving in the brutal Demon Realm with such a frail body were practically zero.
Boom! Kaboom!
In the distance, the merciless attacks of the human soldiers reduced my fellow skeletons to clouds of bone dust.
Surviving is already going to be a problem.
For now, my first priority was avoiding being pulverized by those rampaging humans and scattered across the battlefield as fertilizer.
I picked up the fallen soldier’s helmet and placed it over my skull.
Clatter.
It was too large and partially obstructed my vision, but it was still better than leaving my completely hairless skull exposed.
My gaze soon fell upon the human soldier whose neck I had stabbed.
I hadn’t actually intended to kill him.
Still, if I thought about it rationally, my own skull had been moments away from being crushed.
The outcome had worked in my favor.
When the soldier collapsed, his shoulder had landed on an exposed tree root and been torn open.
Through the mangled flesh, I could see a hard, white humerus.
Human bones were sturdier than one might expect.
I could sense a density and strength that my own rotten, twig-like arm bones couldn’t even begin to match.
“......”
A strange sensation suddenly seized my entire body.
An ache throbbed within my hollow rib cage.
I possessed no heart, yet an unnatural hunger boiled up from the depths of my soul.
It was like a starving beast discovering prey after going days without food.
I wanted that bone.
I wanted to tear out that strong bone and insert it where my own gaunt arm bone belonged.
[The conditions for activating the Unique Skill “Bone Replacement (Lv. 1)” have been fulfilled!]
A blue system message appeared before my eyes.
[Bone Replacement (Lv. 1)]
[Target: Human Humerus — Grade: Common]
[Estimated Effect Upon Transplantation: Increased Physical Strength]
[You crave stronger bones.]
As if entranced, I reached my skeletal hand toward the blood-soaked body of the fallen soldier.