Chapter 3

I could breathe again.

The darkness that had weighed down my entire body vanished, and the icy air rushing into my lungs snapped me back to my senses.

“Cough…! Hack! Ugh…”

A violent coughing fit burst from my mouth.

As I struggled to catch my breath and slowly opened my eyes, I was greeted by a pale, translucent light—

No…

“Maybe ‘hologram’ would be a better word.”

“What the hell is this…?”

Actually, asking what it was wasn’t quite right.

Because I knew exactly what I was looking at.

“…You’ve got to be kidding me.”

It was the system window from Journey of the Hero Party IV.

The one that appeared whenever you pressed the ESC key during the game.

Why it was floating in midair instead of appearing on a computer monitor, I had no idea, but one thing was certain—

This wasn’t normal.

Either I’d really entered the game…

Or I’d completely lost my mind.

Before I could make sense of the situation, a deafening explosion rang out.

BOOOOM—!!

Startled, I stumbled backward.

Only then did I realize I was standing atop a watchtower.

“Hold the walls!”

“If they break through, we’re finished!”

“The enemy’s coming! Prepare the cannons!”

On top of the massive fortress walls, soldiers defending the battlements shouted themselves hoarse.

At the signal of a man clad in blue armor, a lower-ranking soldier hurriedly fired a cannon over the wall.

BOOM!

Another explosion thundered through the air, leaving my ears ringing.

The acrid smell of gunpowder stung my nose.

Are we… in the middle of a war?

I took a closer look at the soldiers.

The men guarding the battlements worked without a moment’s rest, hauling cannonballs and barrels of gunpowder back and forth.

The defensive weapons repeatedly firing from the walls had glowing magic circles engraved into them.

As the gunpowder ignited, the circles shone with a brilliant blue light.

Enchanted cannons.

The runes carved into their barrels infused each cannonball with powerful magic before it was fired.

Then…

A bloodcurdling scream tore through the battlefield.

“AAAAAHHH!!”

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Something black…

Hundreds of them…

Were crawling up the outer walls of the fortress.

Even as I watched it happen, my mind refused to process what I was seeing.

It made no sense.

Castle walls were built dozens of meters high.

SKREEEE!

One after another, black figures vaulted over the towering walls.

In an instant, the battlements descended into chaos.

Grotesque creatures with jaws split into four sections and rows upon rows of shark-like teeth swept across the fortress.

It was nothing less than a monster assault.

“Damn it! Attack! Pull yourselves together and kill those bastards!”

“E-Everyone… Ready…! Fire!!”

The panic-stricken soldiers gradually came back to their senses.

Clinging desperately to their cannons, they opened fire on the monsters.

Spears and swords severed monstrous heads.

Cannon blasts tore their bodies apart.

But no matter how many they killed…

The monsters simply kept climbing.

Like a single colossal hive, they continued swarming over the walls without end.

“R-Run!!”

The terrified soldiers abandoned the battlements and fled for their lives.

It was pointless.

The monsters had already seized control of the fortress.

They caught the fleeing soldiers, smashed them into the ground…

And crushed them to death.

By the time one of the remaining artillerymen fired another cannon…

Instead of monsters…

Fragments of human bodies rained across the walls.

I stared blankly at the crimson pieces scattering through the air.

Just moments ago…

Those had been living people.

Now they’d been reduced to mangled remains in the blink of an eye.

The blood drained from my body.

Then someone beside me cursed.

“Damn it!”

I hurriedly turned my head.

A bearded man stood beside me, his face twisted with desperation.

The uniform he wore identified him as a member of the Hero Party.

“This won’t do, Young Master! We have to retreat!”

He grabbed me by the shoulders.

“If this keeps up, everyone will die! At the very least, you have to escape!”

Escape?

The screams and explosions echoing all around left my head pounding, but it wasn’t difficult to understand what he meant.

If I was standing safely atop a watchtower instead of fighting on the front lines…

Then I had to be someone of considerable rank.

And if he was telling me to run…

He meant abandoning everyone here.

I couldn’t answer.

Even if this was only happening inside a game…

People were dying right in front of me.

How could I simply turn my back on them?

But I couldn’t just stand here frozen, either.

I had to decide.

Let’s sort out the situation first.

Suppressing the nausea rising in my stomach, I forced myself to think calmly.

Right now…

I was inside the game.

The floating system window was proof enough.

And displayed within it was the very same quest I’d seen before coming here.

Only one thing had changed.

A new line had appeared.

Status: In Progress

Did that mean…

I’d accepted the final quest…

And been dropped directly into the middle of the battlefield?

Was that why I was facing these monsters?

“…Fuck.”

“I can’t believe this.”

The situation wasn’t looking good.

Having played this game for the past few months, I could roughly predict how this battle would unfold.

The walls had already been breached.

A significant portion of our forces had been wiped out.

We were heavily outnumbered, with no viable strategy or tactics left to turn the tide.

To put it bluntly…

This was the perfect setup for a complete massacre.

To begin with, the game I’d been playing was a strategy game—not some hyper-realistic battlefield simulator.

How was I supposed to save everyone here?

They were monsters.

And I’d only just been thrown into this world.

If I stood here fumbling through the system window, trying to figure out what abilities I had, I’d practically be hanging a sign around my neck begging the monsters to kill me.

So…

Was running away really the only way to survive?

I shook my head.

If this were reality, retreating would probably be the smartest choice.

But this wasn’t just reality anymore.

I knew this was a game.

The quest for the true ending was already underway.

There was no way the highest difficulty would allow a retreat.

This game’s system would never permit an ending like that.

“Young Master! Hurry! We have to get down from the watchtower!”

The man shouted as more monsters poured over the walls.

If the tower collapsed, both of us would be buried beneath the rubble.

As we hurried down the stairs, I made my decision.

I wasn’t going to retreat.

Even though we’d only just met, his name surfaced naturally in my mind.

“Rickby.”

“Yes! Please, Young Master! We have to move now…!”

The man standing before me—

Rickby Hegment.

He was one of the major supporting characters in Journey of the Hero Party IV.

And there was only one person in this world whom he addressed as Young Master.

Allen Kalstein.

The only son of House Kalstein, a young officer stationed at Fjord Fortress.

An utterly unlikeable character infamous for botching every battle he participated in, earning himself the nickname of the dumbest commander in history.

That guy.

Why the hell did I have to transmigrate into him? I never even unlocked his skills, and I barely invested any stat points in him. Damn it… If I’d known this would happen, I would’ve actually bothered building him…!

Still, blaming myself entirely felt a little unfair.

After all…

Allen Kalstein was one of those characters veteran players always warned each other never to raise.

Recruiting him into your party was practically asking for disaster.

His hidden events had an uncanny habit of ruining battles.

He constantly used his noble status as an excuse to sacrifice his teammates.

Thanks to his Coward trait, whenever the battle turned against him, there was a high chance he’d abandon the party and flee.

The worst part?

He’d run away carrying every piece of equipment and every valuable item he was wearing, leaving the player completely robbed.

Anyone who seriously invested resources into a character like that was either missing a few screws…

Or was some kind of hardcore masochist.

In fact, clearing quests with Allen Kalstein in your party had become a challenge run among veteran players.

He was infuriating enough in ordinary battles.

So what happened if you brought him into the final quest?

Having actually tried it myself…

It was an absolute nightmare.

Allen Kalstein was utterly useless.

The amount of materials required to raise him was absurdly high, making it difficult to unlock all of his skills.

And the skills he started with were so mediocre that you were honestly better off not using them at all.

The most ridiculous part came during the final quest, when his Coward trait activated.

He’d try to save his own skin by running away, only to get captured by the undead army and taken hostage.

A walking disaster.

The single greatest burden a player could possibly have.

To make matters worse…

One of the Hero Party’s key members would sacrifice his own life trying to rescue Allen Kalstein.

Rickby Hegment.

The very man standing in front of me.

“This way! I’ve already prepared a carriage—”

“What happens to this battle if I run away?”

“Huh? What do you mean? We need to get back to the fortress first—”

“What about Helior?”

Rickby’s expression wavered ever so slightly.

Helior.

The protagonist of Journey of the Hero Party III and IV.

The Hero who protected the continent of Arkerion.

From Rickby’s reaction alone, I knew the Hero was still somewhere on this battlefield.

Sure enough, Rickby answered after a brief hesitation.

“The Hero… the Hero will remain here to hold the front lines. We swore to give our lives for this kingdom.”

Just as I thought.

Even on the highest difficulty, the main storyline hadn’t changed all that much.

The true ending would undoubtedly introduce new events…

But there was no way the game had prepared some incredible twist for a pathetic villain like Allen Kalstein.

If I ran away now, I already knew exactly what would happen.

Rickby Hegment and I would die together.

Sorry.

I wasn’t interested in such a predictable ending.

I had to return to the real world.

An exciting adventure?

Thrilling battles?

A moving story that could bring people to tears?

Sure.

They were all wonderful.

But only when they were happening on the other side of a monitor.

I still had a life waiting for me in the real world.

I had a family I loved.

And I had every reason to protect them.

There was only one answer.

“Let’s go to the Hero, Rickby.”