TSCU 01

Chapter 1

Death was close.

Kang Hyuk blinked once and muttered quietly.

“I didn’t think this was how it would end.”

His voice was remarkably calm.

It was hard to believe that the man speaking so peacefully had one arm blown off and his entire lower body missing.

Surprisingly, he felt no pain, either.

It was probably because of the special stimulant he had taken before the battle. Without it, he would never have been able to keep swinging his weapon until the very end despite the agony.

“But what good does that do?”

The stimulant could only make him forget the pain. It could not eliminate the cause of it. Still, at least he could take some comfort in not having to writhe in agony during his final moments.

Kang Hyuk blinked once more.

He was going to die soon.

Still, it wasn’t as if he had nothing to take comfort in.

“So you can die, too.”

He muttered as he looked at the corpse lying right in front of him, its heart pierced through.

Jeonsin Aleph Heart.

That was the corpse’s original name.

A man who had been called a Jeonsin while possessing a human body.

He had earned that title because he had never lost a single battle in the ten years since he was summoned to the battlefield.

Some even called him immortal.

He had survived being surrounded by ninety-nine demons, an all-out assault by the Assassin Guild, and even a battle against a thousand top-tier magical beasts by himself.

And now, that very man was dead right in front of him.

What was more, the spear stuck in his chest belonged to Kang Hyuk.

“Cough!”

He coughed violently.

Of course, Kang Hyuk hadn’t killed Aleph Heart by himself.

More than ten thousand soldiers had been slaughtered by that one man, and three heroes had been torn limb from limb.

Kang Hyuk had ultimately killed the bastard by driving his spear into him, but the price had been his own arm and lower body being ripped away, leaving him waiting for death.

If his companions had arrived on time as originally planned, he could have survived, but…

There must have been a reason.

How many times had their plans gone awry?

In the end, perhaps his luck had simply run out.

That was what he thought.

Until he sensed someone approaching from a distance.

“What? He’s still alive?”

“Apparently.”

Kang Hyuk slowly raised his head.

His companions were walking toward him.

Alteon. Shin Ha-yeon. Jeff. Kalsen.

His four companions.

He stared at them and spoke after seeing how astonishingly unharmed they were.

“You guys…”

But his companions abruptly cut him off and continued talking among themselves.

“Hmm. Well, he’s practically a walking corpse. He’ll die soon, right?”

“Yeah. At this point, even bringing a Divine Healer wouldn’t save him. He’ll probably be dead in five minutes at most.”

His brow furrowed.

Something was wrong.

The way his companions looked at him.

Their tone.

Their eyes.

It was as if they weren’t looking at a dying companion.

They looked more like hyenas waiting to feast on the carcass of a rotting animal.

A thought suddenly flashed through Kang Hyuk’s mind, and he voiced it aloud.

“You did it… on purpose?”

They looked at him without answering.

But their expressions gave him the answer.

The people he had believed were his companions had deliberately failed to follow the plan.

Because they wanted him dead.

Kang Hyuk spoke with a hollow expression.

“Why?”

“…You were powerless, yet you were too strong. You know that yourself, don’t you? An Irregular is a source of instability.”

One of his companions finally spoke.

Alteon.

A powerful fire user whom Kang Hyuk had met in his second year after arriving here. They had remained together ever since.

Hadn’t he said that he would climb to the High Society to revive his dead younger brother?

He clenched his lips tightly before speaking again.

“Who doesn’t know that? Just be honest. Do you really want to keep spouting bullshit to a guy who’s about to fucking die anyway?”

Alteon frowned at Kang Hyuk’s words.

Then the woman standing behind him stepped forward.

“It’ll be easier for you if you just die.”

She, Shin Ha-yeon, smiled seductively.

She possessed powerful holy abilities and had even earned the nickname of Saintess.

At first, Kang Hyuk had gotten to know her because they were both from Korea. He had soon recruited her into his party after realizing how exceptional her abilities were.

That had been four years ago.

“If you really want to know, I’ll tell you. An order came down from above. They promised that if we got rid of you, the dangerous element, they’d raise the entire party’s standing.”

“What?”

“Why are you pretending you don’t understand, you idiot? Let’s be honest. You accomplished almost everything our party achieved, didn’t you? You were practically at the doorstep of the High Society. But what about us?”

Shin Ha-yeon shook her head.

“We’re nobodies. That’s what we are. But if we get rid of just one person, you, they said all of us could move up together. How could we possibly refuse that?”

“I told you I’d postpone entering the High Society and wait until all of us could rise together. I clearly said that if we worked hard for another year or two…”

“There was no need to do that. There’s an easier way.”

She smiled sweetly.

“Everyone agreed. Right? Kalatz and Balun were happy the moment I mentioned it. Alteon pretended to think about it after I asked him once or twice, but he accepted too.”

Kang Hyuk stared at her blankly.

Then something surged up from inside him and spilled out.

“Cough!”

Blood and pieces of his internal organs burst from his mouth.

Shin Ha-yeon looked at him with contempt before turning around.

“He’s going to die soon. At least you have someone to accompany you on the journey. Go peacefully together.”

Alteon turned around after her.

Then one by one, the others turned their backs as well.

Now that they had confirmed Kang Hyuk didn’t have much time left, they saw no reason to stay any longer.

He stared blankly at their departing figures.

He wanted to scream at them.

He wanted to curse them.

But his body wouldn’t move.

That conversation had been the final moments granted to him.

Because he was dying.

Just before he closed his eyes, he saw something like black mist rising from his chest.

It moved toward the direction where Aleph, the last person he had killed, lay.

[You have awakened the Predation Ability!]

[The Predation Ability has been activated! You have devoured the Transcendent-grade ability of Jeonsin Aleph Heart, ‘Cogs of Fate.’]

[The difference in levels is too great!]

[The rank of the devoured ability, ‘Cogs of Fate,’ will be lowered by one grade.]

[The power of ‘Cogs of Fate’ has been lowered by one grade.]

[The ability has changed into a ‘One-Time’ ability.]

[It has been confirmed that your life is in critical condition. The SS-grade ability, Cogs of Fate, is activating—]

He sensed that something strange was happening, but he didn’t even get to see all the messages that continued appearing.

The time he had been granted in this life had already come to an end.

Kang Hyuk’s eyes closed completely.

“Ah…”

With that faint groan as his final sound, he died.

---

“Urgh! Cough! Cough!”

He clutched his chest and continued coughing.

“Haa… Haa…”

After struggling for a long while, Kang Hyuk suddenly went limp.

His clothes were soaked with cold sweat.

He blinked.

A yellowish ceiling came into view.

He slightly turned his head, and the cramped room immediately came into sight.

An old refrigerator hummed in the corner, while the clock hanging on the wall proudly announced its existence with a steady tick-tock.

What?

He blinked again.

His mind was a complete mess, and he couldn’t quite grasp the situation.

But as time passed, his thoughts gradually became clearer.

“I’m… alive?”

No matter how he looked at it, this place didn’t resemble Heaven or Hell.

If anything, it was extremely familiar.

This is definitely my apartment.

As he looked around in bewilderment, he spotted a cellphone lying beside the bed.

He immediately picked it up.

Then he checked the date and time, and his mouth fell open.

“One week before I went to the battlefield…”

There was no mistake.

After being summoned, he had gone over the date he arrived on the battlefield dozens of times, if not hundreds.

There was no way he could have forgotten it.

He repeated that cursed word once more.

“The battlefield.”

The battlefield was a place where races from countless dimensions fought for their own interests, for victory, and to reach the ‘higher realms.’

It was divided into three levels: the High Society, the Middle Land, and the Underworld.

Humans—and Earthlings in particular—were treated as the lowest of the low.

Unlike superhumans who wielded powers such as martial arts or magic, Earthlings had no powers whatsoever.

But Kang Hyuk had overcome that limitation and risen all the way to the Middle Land, standing on the verge of entering the High Society.

No.

He had killed Aleph.

If he had remained alive, he definitely would have risen to the High Society.

“Those fucking bastards…”

If his companions hadn’t betrayed him, he would still be alive.

His foggy mind became clear.

The sight of the people he had believed were his companions looking down at him with cold eyes came vividly to mind.

There had been no sympathy.

No sadness.

No anger.

Only contemptuous gazes and satisfied smiles.

“It wasn’t a dream. There’s no way it was a dream.”

It couldn’t have been.

His chest was burning with rage at those bastards.

How could that possibly have been a dream?

As he retraced his memories amid his anger and confusion, he remembered something he had forgotten because of the shock of the betrayal.

I definitely saw a message saying that the Predation Ability had been activated, didn’t I?

At the time, he had thought it might have been a hallucination he experienced before death.

But considering the situation now, there was a good chance it hadn’t been an illusion.

Otherwise, none of this made sense.

Kang Hyuk thought for a moment before abruptly getting up and walking to his desk.

Normally, this would have been the apartment he returned to after seven years, but he remembered exactly where everything was.

He took out a notebook and pen from the desk, sat down, and began organizing the situation.

• I really spent seven years there.
• I died on the battlefield.
• I was powerless.

He had been powerless.

A person who lacked the abilities possessed by most living, breathing beings who walked on two legs and could think, whether they were humans, orcs, or goblins.

Because of that, he had been thoroughly ignored and, during his first year, even treated like garbage by fellow Earthlings.

Eventually, he had become strong enough that people could no longer look down on him despite being powerless.

But what if he hadn’t actually been powerless?

What if his awakening had simply been late?

He thought about it for a moment before picking up his pen again and vigorously crossing out the words I was powerless.

• I awakened an ability right before I died.
• Thanks to that ability, I obtained Aleph Heart’s Transcendent-grade ability, which activated and sent me seven years into the past with all my memories intact.

Could the ability called Cogs of Fate have been a form of regression?

Thinking about it that way, he realized that Aleph Heart really had deserved to be called immortal.

If he returned to the past every time he died, there was no way he could ever lose.

He could simply find another way after coming back to life.

“Hmm.”

As he organized his thoughts and looked over the notebook, he added one final line.

• I will return to the battlefield in one week?

He couldn’t be certain.

But as far as he was concerned, it was entirely possible.

Possible enough that he couldn’t ignore it.

Once he considered that possibility, he became restless.

The past seven years of his life had truly been hell.

Every single day had been filled with regret.

But this time might be different.

He had seven years’ worth of memories.

The vivid memories of everything he had experienced, from the very bottom all the way to the Middle Land.

If I go to the battlefield again…

He gripped the pen tightly as he thought.

In his previous life, he had lived solely with one goal in mind:

To enter the High Society.

He had lived driven by the desire to climb higher.

But this time was different.

He remembered the faces of the traitors.

They had been Kang Hyuk’s companions.

And I know their pasts.

Very, very well.

He had been betrayed and killed.

But he had been given another chance.

And Kang Hyuk wasn’t the kind of person who forgot grudges.

Crack!

The pen in his hand snapped.

Feeling the sting in his palm, Kang Hyuk muttered,

“Let’s get stronger.”

To repay his grudge.

And to achieve the goal he had originally set for himself.

---

One week later.

A mysterious door measuring two meters vertically and one meter horizontally appeared in Kang Hyuk’s apartment, radiating an otherworldly light.

“It appeared.”

Kang Hyuk stared at the door with a strange expression.

If he passed through it, the dreaded battlefield would be waiting for him.

There was no option not to enter.

After approximately ten minutes, his body would be forcibly sucked inside anyway.

He gripped the backpack on his back tightly and took a deep breath.

“This time will be different. The old me is gone.”

He had spent the past week thinking about many things and had come to his own conclusions.

There had been countless thoughts running through his mind, but the conclusion was very simple.

I’ll use this second chance to crush every bastard who screwed me over.

Even if he once again found himself facing a crisis where his breath stopped, he would never stop.

He would fight until the very moment his life ended.

Kang Hyuk glared at the gate with eyes burning with determination before walking forward.

The moment he passed through the dimensional door, white light enveloped him, and a brief wave of dizziness washed over him.

He had entered the battlefield.