"AAARGH!!"
The scream that tore from my throat was so loud and primal, I barely recognized it as my own.
To summarize: I was currently trapped inside a dungeon.
My original plan was simple: find the hidden treasure—dubbed the Hidden Piece—then make a quick escape. But...
Why?! Why won’t the emergency dungeon escape item work?!
The emergency escape item, my one failsafe, had stopped functioning.
And of course, it had to happen in this dungeon—an L-rank dungeon, no less. That stands for "Legendary," which is ranked even higher than the typical A or S levels. Clearing it by defeating the boss monster in the conventional way? Virtually impossible.
In other words, my only way out was to die. My character had to perish, resulting in a "failed clear."
And therein lay the problem.
The VR MMORPG I was playing, Call of the Doomed World, commonly known as DoomsCall, wasn’t just difficult. It was merciless.
Most games would penalize you lightly for dying in a dungeon—perhaps some lost experience or a bit of in-game currency. DoomsCall? Oh no, it wasn’t that kind.
When you died in a high-difficulty dungeon like this, you didn’t just lose experience and gold. Your entire inventory—every item you’d stored—would be wiped out. Gone. Reduced to digital dust.
Poof.
...Which was precisely what was about to happen to me.
“AAAAARGH!” Another scream of frustration burst from me as the grim reality set in.
"All my rare items...! If I want to get out of here, I have to sacrifice them?! Items worth at least five billion won—gone, just like that?!"
I wasn’t exaggerating. In a game as popular as DoomsCall, rare items could be sold for staggering sums in the real world. The developers even encouraged cash trading to create a "vivid economic ecosystem" within the game.
And I’d been one of those hyenas sniffing out profit. Through sheer cunning and effort, I’d amassed around five billion won in item value.
Until now, I’d never made such a catastrophic blunder. But today? I’d been careless. Overconfident.
I hadn’t deposited my valuables in the game’s bank before entering the dungeon. Why? Because I had my trusty escape item, and I thought I could just teleport out in case of danger.
I hadn’t expected the item to malfunction due to some system glitch.
And the developers? They had a strict no-refund policy. If your items disappeared because of a bug, too bad. Complaining wouldn’t get you anywhere.
Stay calm, I told myself. You don’t have to die. Not necessarily. If you manage to beat the final boss, you can still clear the dungeon and get out alive.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Of course, that would require me to defeat a boss monster so powerful that it was stronger than all the other monsters in this dungeon combined.
But still, I clung to that slim hope. If I crumbled now, I wouldn’t stand a chance.
Taking a deep breath, I decided to focus on the immediate task: looting the item dropped by the dungeon’s gatekeeper monster.
I had already defeated it—the Corrupted Holy Knight Commander. In my despair over the escape item, I hadn’t even bothered to pick up the loot.
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Ding.
The moment I picked up the item, a translucent holographic window appeared in front of me.
[Acquired Item]
* The Corrupted Holy Knight Commander’s Ancient Sword (???-grade)
A thousand-year-old sword wielded by the Corrupted Holy Knight Commander to protect his master. Still faintly blessed by the goddess. Its true value may be revealed if repaired by a skilled blacksmith.
I frowned. No gold. No experience. Just this rusty old sword.
"This is the reward? Seriously?"
For an A-rank monster, the loot was disappointing. The sword looked ancient, its blade dull and its hilt worn. Even the inscription near the pommel—possibly a name—was too faded to read.
"Maybe if I repair it, it’ll turn out to be at least a B-grade item," I muttered, trying to console myself as I stowed it in my inventory.
That’s when it happened.
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[Kan... Lashut...]
"...!"
The gatekeeper monster, which I’d assumed was thoroughly defeated, suddenly spoke.
Without hesitation, I drew the ancient sword and plunged it into the monster’s heart.
[Ka... Shuth...]
Its body crumbled into ash, leaving only that cryptic final whisper behind.
“What the hell?” I muttered.
Monsters weren’t supposed to drop loot until after they were dead. Yet this one had dropped its sword before it was fully gone.
Had the monster somehow chosen to drop the item on its own? That made no sense. NPCs might act autonomously, but monsters? They were just pre-programmed lines of code.
Between the malfunctioning escape item, a loot-dropping undead, and now a cryptic dying message, this dungeon was getting increasingly bizarre.
"Focus," I muttered. "I still have the boss to deal with."
Downing a health potion, I steeled myself for the challenge ahead. As I approached the boss room’s massive, rusted doors, a system warning rang in my ears.
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WARNING
You have been logged into Call of the Doomed World for eight hours. Extended use of VR capsules can result in severe physical harm, up to and including death.
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Pfft. These warnings were government-mandated, designed to curb addiction and prevent idiots from starving to death in their gaming pods.
But I wasn’t about to log out now—not when I was so close to clearing the dungeon.
As the boss room doors groaned open, a chilling draft swept out. The final confrontation awaited.
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Inside the Lucidmiller Cathedral’s Upper Chapel, the eerie atmosphere was palpable. Statues of forgotten gods lined the walls, their faces unfamiliar—an intentional touch from the developers to emphasize this wasn’t Earth but a world long destroyed.
At the center of the room lay a pristine white coffin.
That’s it.
The boss monster was inside. I braced myself for its dramatic entrance: the lid would creak open, and the creature would emerge with a roar...
But nothing happened.
Minutes passed.
Frustrated, I hurled a stone at the coffin, then a fire spell. Still nothing.
“Are you kidding me?”
Finally, I decided to approach the coffin myself. As I lifted the lid, a single syllable escaped my lips.
"...Oh."
The figure inside wasn’t grotesque, nor monstrous. In fact, he was... breathtaking. A flawless face framed by golden hair.
The game had labeled this creature the Corrupted Pope, but he looked more like a fallen angel.
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Before I could act further, my attention shifted to a nearby treasure chest. And within it lay something extraordinary:
[Ring of the Goddess’s Last Mercy (L)]
* Imbued with the Goddess’s final mercy for her fallen servant. Grants the wearer the ability to reverse time and undo past mistakes.
* Uses Remaining: 3
My eyes widened. This was it. The Hidden Piece.
As I slipped the ring onto my finger, a cascade of system notifications appeared:
[Hidden Piece successfully bound to you.]
[Activating special skill: Time Reversal.]
[You are being sent back 1,000 years.]
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Before I could process what was happening, my vision went dark.
And then... nothingness.
Death. Or was it something more?