Shane blinked. Maybe he needed to say it louder. He glanced down the street to make sure nobody was around.

  He spoke again, clearer this time.

  “Log. Out.”

  Still nothing.

  Was his connection lagging?

  He tapped his fingers against his thighs, then aggressively swiped the air to sift through the System menus, and accidentally scraped the brick wall of a building.

  Pain shot up his hand, and he stared at the grit on his fingertips.

  It felt real. A little... too real, didn’t it?

  That’s what he’d been constantly thinking, from the moment he’d logged in.

  Shit.

  He cycled through all the commands in his memory, even resorting to open the task manager.

  “Damn it, disconnect already!”

  “You alright, man?”

  Shane whipped around.

  A passerby had stopped to check on him. Shane must’ve looked unhinged, muttering every version of “log out” he could think of.

  His face turned ashen as he stared at the stranger, whose frown appeared too genuine to be a pre-rendered expression.

  He ignored the guy and went back through the menu screen.

  What was going on? Was he stuck inside the game because it was modded?

  Eventually, he pulled up the notification log. There, buried under all the other pop-ups, was the message he’d received after logging in.

  [Transmigration complete.]

  [Welcome to your new reality.]

  Shane stared at the words.

  Transmigration?

  He didn’t know what that meant exactly. But it looked like he was trapped in the game on purpose, didn’t it?

  Or...

  The sounds of the streets—people’s voices, car engines, storefronts blasting music—all flooded in as nausea climbed up his throat. Everything was so loud, so close all of a sudden, a prickle of sweat started at the base of his neck.

  ...This actually wasn’t a high-fidelity mod.

  No, no, no.

  He’d finally gone mad. That was the only explanation.

  His real body must be rotting away while he was stuck inside a crappy game.

  I mean, if this was an actual, living-and-breathing world, then why did the event dungeon exist?

  And Josh Miller. The NPC he’d seen earlier. He was a character that was made to look like 1nspector’s avatar. Why was he also here?

  And what did his dead friend have to do with all of this?

  ...He needed to get out of here.

  Death. Would dying kick him out of this game and wake his real body?

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Without thinking, his hand closed around the empty air as he pulled the weapon from his inventory.

  A sword, its blade snapped clean in half. This was the reward he’d gotten from the event dungeon.

  [Weapon: Broken Oath]

  Currently unlocked skill: 1

  Skill: Bloodcraft (C-)

  He’d have to make it quick, exactly like before. Slit his throat twice, once to trigger [Cheat Death], and again to finish the job.

  But he couldn’t raise the blade to his neck as easily as before. Why was he hesitating? He should just get this over with.

  His grip was shaking so hard that it was impossible to hold it still.

  Right before he pressed the edge to his skin, he heard distant yells.

  That was when a pedestrian near the alleyway looked up from her phone and glanced at Shane—the tall figure with a broken sword in his hand, hiding in shadows. She almost dropped the device in panic.

  Other passersby bumped into the woman.

  “Hey, watch i—”

  But they instantly froze when their gaze followed and saw the weapon.

  The crowd staggered backward, creating a semicircle around Shane. Eyes wide, some ducked behind parked cars while other pedestrians further down the street looked in their direction to see what was going on.

  “He’s armed!”

  Shane’s shoulder jerked at the shout, making him relfexively grip his sword tighter. Seeing the look of terror on their faces as they fled from him like he was a monster, jolted him back to his senses.

  He turned and ran into the alley before he [Blinked] to escape the scene.

  Though he’d just spammed [Blink] without much thought, Shane found himself in the familiar silence of the studio apartment he’d rented earlier.

  The quiet was so absolute, in stark contrast to the chaotic street he’d been on seconds ago, that his ears started ringing as he stumbled and grabbed the wall to stop the room from spinning.

  His heart thumped so loudly that it seemed like it was trying to break out of his ribcage.

  When he straightened up, he noticed a weight in his right fist. The Broken Oath. He’d forgotten to return it to his inventory.

  Exhausted, he just unclenched his fingers and let the sword fall. The heavy clatter against the cheap wooden floor made him flinch. He kicked it away, walked over to sit on the edge of the bed, and gripped his hair with both hands.

  “...Damn it.”

  The faces of the pedestrians kept haunting his vision. They’d looked at him as if he were a robber. Or a terrorist.

  But... but if this was a real world, then the NPCs he’d been bulldozing through...

  Were they... all real?

  Shane replayed the last twenty-four hours he’d spent here.

  The arrogance and assholery he’d shown. He’d treated people as mindless AIs. Even almost murdered them just because he found them annoying.

  He raked his hand through his hair, gripping the roots tight as he tried to push his panic down.

  Shit, what’ve I done?

  He’d been acting like a fucking sociopath to actual human beings.

  Feeling the nausea return, he looked down at his hands, then aggressively wiped them on his pants.

  He took a long, shuddering breath.

  No, he couldn’t dwell on what happened. He needed to focus. Focus on something else.

  The Cataclysm. Yes.

  If everything from the game was real... then it was highly likely that the First Cataclysm was also real.

  He could hate himself later. Right now, he had a job to do.

  Though he’d messed up royally this time.

  He had a literal apocalypse to stop, but he would have trouble doing it with government officials and guildmasters breathing down his neck after offending Josh Miller.

  Damage control, he told himself, forcing his pulse to slow.

  He went back to pick up the Broken Oath he’d kicked away. Inspecting the dark metal, he traced a finger along the flat part of the blade before returning it to his inventory.

  It would’ve been nice if he could just apologize to the Wynn Guild and start over again. But that wasn’t likely to work.

  He glared at his status sheet.

  [Title: Predator of the Seraphim]

  His [Behavior Lock] would never allow him to salvage what little public image he had left.

  He clenched his jaw as he walked over to the window, and peeked through the blinds to stare down at the peaceful streets.

  Hair rose on the back of his neck when he saw the people walking by nonchalantly, and he immediately snapped the blinds shut, letting darkness engulf the room.

  First, steer clear of the Wynn guild as much as possible.

  His reputation as a hunter had probably plummeted by now, but there was nothing he could do about that.

  The best he could hope for while clearing minor gates would be to try to avoid directly speaking with people.

  He’d solo’d the game multiple times.

  If he could grind in the right dungeons, he’d be prepared by the time the First Cataclysm hit.

  Thanks to the [Daily Quest Skip Pass], he would gain one point of Mana each day for thirty days.

  Under normal circumstances, this buff would have been a godsend. But his eyes drifted to the red text in his vision.

  [Mana Hypersensitivity (EX)]

  The user’s mana acts as a potent toxin to the user. Skill use, mana potions, and even passive mana circulation may cause escalating physical damage.

  Frowning, he focused on the last part of the Quirk description.

  Even passive mana circulation may cause escalating physical damage.

  Well, whatever pain his increased Mana stat would cause, he would just have to grit his teeth and endure it. There wasn’t enough time to grind his Constitution high to the point of negating it, since the lower-level dungeons barely gave useful rewards.

  The best move, at this stage, was to reduce the mana cost of his skills; lower cost meant less damage per cast. Also, to farm Constitution stats when the portals opened, stabilizing his combat output was the priority.

  And he knew the perfect dungeon to get this perk.