Chapter 21: Dragon and Gladiator and Saint

Hungry.

After passing out from drinking in the middle of the day, what woke me wasn’t the chirping of sparrows, the sound of my phone ringing, or the alarm clock.

It was the growling of my stomach.

And then, what hit me next wasn’t a hammer smashing into my head, but a splitting headache that felt like my skull was being squeezed.

Damn. My head hurts.

How many bottles did I even drink?

I counted the soju bottles scattered haphazardly across the floor.

One. Two. Three… Four… Five, six bottles?

Seriously. The last thing I remember was finishing the third bottle.

So, after that, I downed three more?

By myself? Without a single snack to go with it?

Was I always this good at drinking?

My head was pounding, but it wasn’t to the point where I was praying for death like most hungover people do.

I didn’t feel like throwing up either, so…

“I’m surprisingly okay.”

The question in my mind was immediately answered as soon as I heard the vibration of my vocal cords.

Ah.

This wasn’t the frail, malnourished body I once had.

This was the saint’s body, one that defied the basic rules of caloric intake and metabolism.

I could go without eating for days and still be brimming with energy.

The crushing headache that felt like it was clamping down on my brainstem eased considerably after I guzzled down some tap water.

More importantly, what time is it?

I grabbed my phone to check.

7:58 PM.

Oh,

The competition starts in two minutes!

“Holy crap?!”

I practically flew to the computer chair and sat down.

Darkness descended upon the world.

Darker than the night sky,

Deeper than the abyss beneath the earth,

A shade more profound than pitch-black,

So dark it deserved to be called absolute darkness,

A curtain of night spread over the world.

This, of course, was not a natural phenomenon.

Thus, all living beings who sensed the anomaly looked up at the sky in utter shock.

What the setting sun illuminated for the last time before being smothered by the encroaching darkness was a massive structure.

Black, exuding a chilling aura, rising upward like an inverted tower—

Though described as a structure, it was, in truth, a skeleton of some kind of enormous creature.

Anyone seeing it for the first time would naturally mistake it as such, given its massive form.

The way it gathered together to form a shape and eventually stretched wide like a tent to blot out the sun—it seemed only natural that the world would be shrouded in darkness.

The bones of this dead creature erupted from the skies across the world like bamboo shoots after a rainstorm.

Eventually,

Even as its entire body was tightly bound in chains of an unknown origin to keep it at bay,

The skeletal monster tore through dimensions and carved its existence into worlds beyond this one.

With the mere appearance of it, emitting a dreadful sense of deception, everything alive shrank back in fear.

At the same time, a message appeared to all twelve players participating in the current game.

Loading…

“‘Sorama’ player has activated Ultimate Skill!”

Death Dragon’s Summoning: The Ancient Evil Dragon, once sealed and whose body had rotted away with time, never fully perishing, continued to live on, waiting for the day when its bindings would loosen.

Long ago, the wicked evil dragon spread darkness across the entire continent.

Now, even after its body had decayed, it waited for the moment when the weakened seal would finally break.

And now, in this very moment, the sacred sacrifices made by the union of humans, elves, and dwarves—those who once shone the brightest—are on the verge of being undone by a wicked necromancer!

If the seal on the Death Dragon were to fully break, not only this war but the entire continent would once again descend into hell.

However…

“Soon, another foolish being will arise. This is my plan for that time.”

Fortunately, the Death Dragon will not be able to engulf the continent.

The continent has long forgotten the great hero, once called the Sacred King, who, at the end of his life, sacrificed even his own demise to reinforce the final seal.

This seal, forged with their lives, now acts against the Death Dragon’s return to the mortal realm.

The broken chains, under the resistance of the dead dragon, regain their original form, and with that, the beast is once again cast into a world beyond dimensions.

Tightly bound in chains, the Death Dragon is dragged into the black world, feeling both relief and the peak of fury as its ambitions are thwarted.

In its final moments, the Death Dragon takes a deep breath.

“Bre…”

The first to react to the message was Holdmedic.

A fragile voice, barely audible, swept through the voice chat.

“Brass!!!!!!! Get to cover!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Into the corner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Holdmedic has died.

It was a ridiculous situation—the person who told everyone to take cover was the first to die, but no one in the voice chat laughed or mocked her.

Stak has died.

With just a single exhale from the Death Dragon,

Mohega has died.

Parfeccino has died.

As members of the team ‘Yuyuyu Charcharchar’ were dying one after another.

And amidst it all, a shout unexpectedly echoed.

In truth, it wasn’t so much a cheer as it was a cry filled with frustration and a desperate scream.

Loading…

“‘Gladiator’ player has activated Ultimate Skill!”

The Fury of the Immortal.

‘Why can I not die?’

It was a question,

one that could never be answered,

from a warrior who participated in battle solely to extinguish life, with no other purpose.

The warrior, who loved the sensation of slicing flesh, the beauty of the rising fountains of blood,

only ever joined the battlefield to bring death, not to fulfill any greater goal.

Having thrown himself into countless battlefields,

he, who had been closer to death than anyone,

felt a strong yearning for the world beyond death, a place he could never reach.

But that yearning was never fulfilled.

‘Why can I not die…?’

The question shifted into resignation, and resignation turned into fury.

The rage transformed into a torrent of frustration directed at death itself.

“If you will not come to me, I will not come to you.”

“I will wait until you want me!”

The ‘Gladiator’ etched his existence outside the range of the Grim Reaper’s scythe.

The question of life had evolved to exclude the very concept of death.

Until the will burned out, the ‘Gladiator’ would not die.

Remaining duration: 19 seconds.

Like trembling herbivores in fear,

the very air fled from the Death Dragon’s breath,

and everything on the earth and in the sky melted away before them.

In this scene of everything dissolving,

a man with a massive greatsword, gripping it lightly as if it were a toy, stood proudly.

The warrior, who had overcome even death, let out a roar that seemed capable of shaking the heavens and the earth.

And before the will he had rekindled could fade, he kicked the ground and charged forward.

The warrior’s powerful leap, so forceful that his iron footsteps left deep marks in the molten earth, caused the enemy heroes to scatter in panic, running in every direction.

This was because there was nothing to be gained from confronting the ‘Gladiator’ who had activated his ultimate skill, delaying death.

Their movements were based on the strategy of avoiding battle until the ‘Fury of the Immortal’ wore off,

but it also meant that their formation would be shattered in the process.

Not missing the opportunity, the Gladiator began to sweep through the enemy lines like a lion slaughtering a flock of sheep.

However, once the ultimate skill’s duration expired, he would be left alone without even an army to support him.

For that reason, the ‘Saint’ gave him an order.

“Let’s retreat for now.”

The pure voice, under which guilt was deeply concealed.

The situation had arisen because she had gathered the entire team together in a forward formation to secure the key objectives.

She had expected the meteor strike, but she had never considered that the enemy’s necromancer had already cleared all the conditions to summon the Death Dragon.

She had managed to react to the incoming breath just in time,

and to prepare for the artillery aimed at her from the rear, she had activated a divine spell she had memorized to block any attack,

barely surviving in the melted breath that had consumed everything.

But now, she blamed herself for not anticipating this.

‘Idiot. It was a favorable game… I ruined everything in an instant. Because of my mistake…’

It was her clear mistake for overlooking something critical.

Though she secretly thought it was due to the lingering effects of alcohol,

she also realized that it was her own mistake for not managing her condition properly, which was crucial in the tournament.

Before she became who she was,

the fragments of depression and self-loathing that always lingered within her once again began to gnaw at her.

Whether the ‘Saint’ knew what kind of emotions she was feeling or not,

the ‘Gladiator’ said something during the intense battle, perhaps to comfort her, or maybe not.

“It was a position we had to take, even if we died. We could have ended the game if we had taken it.”

“No. The scout should have come first. We should have sent Parpetchino first…”

“If we had done that, we would have been hit by the object burst.”

When players focus all their skills and forces on hunting objects rather than engaging in combat, it’s called a “burst.”

Clearly, sending a scout to check and confirming the burst before advancing was too late.

The opposing team’s ability to hunt objects was so superior that there was no time.

Even in this unfavorable situation, the sharp strategy of the enemy’s order struck unexpectedly,

and it was like trying to guess the front and back of a coin tossed into the sky.

Either they lost the object with their eyes open,

or they fell into a trap while trying to advance, just like what had happened now.

For this reason, even the Saint, who seemed to have all the answers to every battlefield situation, had to leave the decision to probability, or more accurately, to psychology.

Still,

despite the words of the Gladiator, which could or could not have been a comfort,

the Saint couldn’t root out the seed of self-blame.

It was a favorable game.

If the enemy forced them to match the coin’s front and back in the sky,

and the penalty for failing to do so would directly cause the game to reverse,

then losing the object was a sacrifice that could be willingly accepted.

The momentum would be broken for a moment, but by giving up something and regathering their formation,

they could easily end the game, even if it took a little longer.

The reward for matching the front and back of the coin,

the fact that the game could be immediately ended, made her blame herself for thinking that way.

She had fallen because she tried to rush.

“You know, nothing will change by blaming someone. Focus.”

The Saint, who had been as deflated as if she were going to crawl into the ground, suddenly snapped back to her senses at the Gladiator’s words.

Yes, the game wasn’t over yet.

Though all of them were dead and four were missing,

the object could still be taken, and the core would be exposed after breaking through the second defense line in just one hit.

But because they had been so favorable, the game wouldn’t end immediately.

It would be a little harder, but if they fought well, a comeback was entirely possible.

That’s why she said it.

“Let’s retreat for now.”

At that moment,

as the words were spoken once more,

the Gladiator’s ‘Fury of the Immortal’ duration ended.

After wreaking havoc in the enemy lines for just twenty seconds,

the Gladiator suddenly retreated.

However, instead of turning around and fleeing,

without running away, the enemy’s formation, shattered by the defiant character who refused death, began to regroup as it faced him.

At that exact moment, the Gladiator suggested a plan to the Saint.

“Haven’t we done something like this before?”

“What do you mean? Just retreat for now. If we don’t fall back, we’ll get caught…”

Not understanding what he was implying, the Saint was silent.

The Gladiator, no longer speaking through voice, began typing on the familiar chat interface for the Saint.

[Gladiator: Remember what we used to do?]

[Gladiator: Let’s show them.]

[Gladiator: Trust me and follow me, I’ll charge in if you believe in me.]

“Why would we do that? The risk is too high. If we all die now, the game could really end…”

[Gladiator: Not doing it?]

[Saint: Let’s do it.]

At that answer,

both the Gladiator’s and the Saint’s laughter erupted simultaneously in both the game and reality.

Then, instead of fleeing,

the Gladiator and the Saint charged toward the enemy lines.