The clinking of wooden mugs rang out loudly, spilling golden frothy beer that evaporated into particles of light, leaving no wet stains on the tavern floor.
Hoarse laughter and cheers filled the room, blending harmoniously with the strumming of a lute from an NPC bard by the fireplace. In one of the busiest taverns in Lamdal Capital, a group of players was celebrating a happy ending.
Kenji sat relaxed in the center of the round wooden table. Hovering just above his head was a line of bluish holographic text:
[IGN: Kenjiro - Brawler Lv 40]
Unlike the top players from elite guilds who were plotting domination in their meeting rooms, Kenji was just a mid-tier player.
On Earth, he was an accountant at a firm in Tokyo—a twenty-eight-year-old man whose eyes were always framed by dark circles from endless stacks of financial reports. Orion Online was his escape, a second home where he could shed his corporate identity and become a tough vanguard fighter.
But tonight, that escape had to end.
"You're crazy, Kenjiro! You're really giving this Crimson Iron Gauntlet to me?!" exclaimed his friend, a burly Warrior.
The man stared at the fiery red iron gauntlet in his hand with disbelief. Kenji chuckled softly.
A genuine smile bloomed on his avatar's face.
"Take it, Taro. The lifesteal effect on that gauntlet will be far more useful for you on the New Continent," Kenji said. "And you, Elara, take this Wyvern Scale Vest. You're too squishy for a backline healer."
One by one, accompanied by the familiar chiming of the system interface, Kenji emptied out his inventory.
Hardened chest plates, steel knee guards, dozens of health potions and antidotes, right down to the stacks of gold coins he had farmed for months... he gave it all away without keeping a single thing for himself.
His friends looked at him with a mix of emotion, awe, and a sense of loss.
"You're really quitting, huh?" Elara asked, her voice trembling slightly as she hugged the dragon-scale vest to her chest.
Kenji leaned back in his wooden chair, rubbing the back of his neck in an awkward gesture. "Yeah. Tomorrow morning... I'm getting married."
"Yuna has been patient for far too long, watching me spend every weekend inside a gaming pod. Starting tomorrow, I have to be a good husband-to-be, not just a Level 40 Brawler," he continued, his eyes sparkling.
The cheers erupted once again, much warmer this time. His friends teased him about his honeymoon, slapped his back hard, and raised their wooden mugs high to the accountant's new life.
Kenji smiled warmly. His heart felt light. The burden of today's overtime work no longer tormented him because he knew, tomorrow morning, Yuna would be standing at the altar in the white wedding dress she had been preparing for months.
[SERVER ANNOUNCEMENT: THE NEW ERA UPDATE WILL COMMENCE]
[TIME REMAINING: 00:03:00]
"Time's up, guys," Kenji said.
He looked down at his avatar. Because he had given away all his equipment, the system had automatically equipped him with the default starting gear: [Tier Common - Beginner's Cloth].
It was nothing more than a set of dull brown woven clothes that offered zero defensive stats. His inventory pouch was completely empty.
"Good luck conquering the monsters on the New Continent!" Kenji cheered, raising his beer mug wide.
He waved his hand, caressing the silver cosmetic ring on his ring finger, and muttered softly, "Goodbye, Orion."
[00:00:03]
[00:00:02]
He closed his eyes, waiting for the gentle pull that would return his consciousness to the gaming pod in his apartment, ready to welcome the dawn of his wedding day.
But that gentle pull never came.
Instead of waking up with his back resting on a soft foam mattress, Kenji's sense of smell was assaulted by an incredibly foul stench.
The musty odor of an old cave pierced his nose—a nauseating mix of wet mud, rotting moss, bat guano, and rust-scented water vapor.
The temperature plummeted instantly. The damp air seeped through the thin fibers of his Beginner's Cloth, making him shiver.
Kenji jolted awake. His eyes shot wide open, blinking rapidly, trying to find the glow of Tokyo's neon streetlights that usually peeked through the gaps in his window curtains.
Nothing. He was surrounded by pitch black.
"Yuna?" he called out. It was his first terrified reflex.
His voice was hoarse and trembling, cutting through the silence.
Only the echoing bounce from the wet stone walls answered him.
His right hand frantically felt the surface beneath him. It wasn't a white cotton bedsheet. His fingers brushed against cold stone.
Panic exploded in his chest. His heart beat wildly, pumping blood at high speed. He started panting heavily. Cold sweat poured from every pore on his face.
System glitch? his brain thought, desperately clinging to rationality. Did my gaming pod short-circuit?
"Menu!" he shouted into the empty air. "Log out! Open Interface Panel!"
Void. There were no transparent blue holographic windows. No circular compass in the corner of his eye. No HP bar, no mini-map, and no digital clock.
In hysteria, both of Kenji's hands grabbed the back of his neck.
In the real world, the emergency manual release lever of every gaming pod was located exactly at the junction of the spine and the neck. His fingers scratched frantically through his collar, searching for a metal latch or a protective plastic button.
He scratched his own skin, so hard that his fingernails tore through his flesh. A stinging pain instantly flared up, followed by drops of fresh blood trickling down his collar.
He found no cables. He only felt thick flesh, a pulsing vein, and the texture of his own skin.
The man had been thrown into a rocky cave with no clear geographic location, wearing beginner-class clothes, separated from his friends, and completely blind to his surroundings.
"NO! NO, NO, NO!"
Kenji stood up. His legs were shaking. He stumbled forward in the darkness, feeling along the cave walls to find a way out.
In sheer desperation, Kenji clenched his right fist tightly, then punched the stone wall in front of him as hard as he could.
CRACK!
He flinched as pain shot up his arm, looking down to see his knuckles bruised and bleeding.
"GM! GAME MASTER! GET ME OUT OF THIS PLACE!" Kenji screamed. His voice was laced with absolute terror.
"I have to go home! I have a schedule tomorrow morning... I have a... a wedding I need to attend..."
His angry shouts slowly crumbled, replaced by heartbreaking sobs.
As a grown man who enjoyed reading fantasy Isekai novels, the concept of being thrown into a magical world was very familiar to him. In the paragraphs of heroic fiction, the main character would usually accept their new fate enthusiastically with an overpowered system in hand.
But now, standing practically naked inside a cave reeking of bat guano, Kenji's stomach churned with sheer terror. The only thing pulsing through his veins was the absolute despair of a normal human being.
Tomorrow was his sacred day. In the darkness of the cave, his mind envisioned Yuna's face. Yuna, who had prepared her dream wedding dress. Yuna, who tomorrow morning would be beautifully made up, waiting at the altar for a groom who would never arrive.
He would leave the woman he loved the most all alone, becoming an object of pity for the wedding guests, while he was trapped in this hellhole.
"Help me..." the accountant sobbed quietly. He leaned his forehead against the cave wall, letting his body drop to his knees. "Please... send me back. Let me go home to Yuna..."
From the depths of the shadows on the cave ceiling, a sharp scraping sound echoed.
Clack-clack-clack-clack...
The rapid rhythm sounded like the tips of nails dragging against stone.
That eerie clicking sound made the hair on the back of Kenji's neck stand up instantly. A nauseatingly sour smell suddenly filled the air.
Kenji stopped sobbing and looked up in horror. His eyes caught the appearance of terrifying dots. Eight glowing red eyes clustered together in a horrifying arrangement.
A giant spider crawled down the cave ceiling.
Kenji instantly recognized it from the game. A Venomous Cave Spider.
It was the size of a horse-drawn carriage. Its carapace was made of thick, purplish-black plates. A pair of giant pincers as thick as a man's thigh dripped with dense green venom.
The moment the liquid hit the ground, a hissing sound erupted, accompanied by white smoke.
In the game, this monster was Level 35.
The spider leaped from the ceiling, lunging at the man below. Its jaws were wide open, ready to separate the accountant's head from his neck in a single bite.
Kenji's brain froze. However, his body possessed an instinct that moved on its own.
Now that he was in the world of Orion with his game character made real, various max-level skills were deeply embedded in his body like primal instincts. His job class also allowed him to intuitively fight like a true martial artist.
A split second before the jaws could pierce his neck, Kenji's posture mechanically ducked and sidestepped with a fluidity that was physically impossible for his Earth body.
[Tier D - Evasive Step]
THUD!
The giant monster lunged into empty space, slamming into the cave wall right behind where Kenji had just been.
The Brawler's combat instincts took over command. His consciousness seemed to split in two. Kenji the office worker was still screaming in terror, but Kenjiro the Brawler rotated his hips with a perfect stance.
He channeled all his power from his shoulder into his right arm muscles, and threw a straight punch right at the monster's abdomen.
[Tier C - Heavy Blow]
In the game, this punch would instantly drain all of the monster's HP.
However, Kenji forgot that this was only possible due to the massive stat boosts provided by his equipment. Equipment that he had already given away to his friends.
His fist moved with lethal speed, slamming barehanded into a shell as hard as steel.
CRACK!
SQUELCH!
"AAARRRGHH!!" Kenji howled in agony.
Kenji's punch struck the monster's carapace. The impact was accompanied by a double cracking sound. The venomous spider shrieked as its armor splintered, spewing green blood from its abdomen.
But in the real world, without the protection of an iron gauntlet to absorb the recoil, Kenji's hand was severely bruised, and his bones were fractured.
"It hurts... it hurts..." Kenji screamed, clutching his swollen, purple hand to his chest.
The agonizing shriek from the dying spider triggered a catastrophe.
It was a call to its pack.
From the ceiling and the tunnels, the sound of clack-clack-clack began to echo from every corner of the cave. More than a dozen Venomous Cave Spiders crawled out of their nests. Dozens of red eyes glowed brightly in the dark.
Kenji panted heavily. The throbbing pain in his hand twisted his fear into pure survival instinct.
With one crippled hand, he forced his leg muscles to run, dodging the snapping pincers of the monster swarm. Kenji fought with everything he had.
He executed a forward sweeping kick.
[Tier C - Low Sweep]
Without his steel knee guards, Kenji's shin bone clashed directly against the hard, iron-like joints of the spider's carapace. The monster's joint snapped, but in exchange, Kenji felt his own shin bone fracture.
He stumbled and fell with a groan of pain.
He twisted his body, using his left elbow to parry the jaws of another spider aiming for his face. But the excruciating pain in his leg slowed his movement down by half a second.
Protected only by Beginner's Cloth—which tore easily under the slash of a pincer—a spider managed to crawl up behind Kenji. Dagger-sharp fangs sank deep into the man's calf.
The sensation of venom forcefully pumped into his bloodstream paralyzed him.
Within three breaths, Kenji felt his veins burning beneath his thigh. His Level 40 muscles instantly convulsed.
With a roar of absolute desperation, Kenji raised his left knee, crushing the head of the spider that had bitten him. Then, he tore through the encirclement of the dozen monsters in front of him, dragging his stiffening leg.
He crawled along the tunnel toward the end of the cave.
He lunged forward, pushing through the sharp, thorny bushes at the cave's mouth. Kenji tumbled helplessly onto the forest floor, bathed in the twin moonlight of Planet Orion.
Kenji couldn't stand up anymore. His knees had completely frozen numb. The venom had crept all the way up to his lungs.
He was now choking on every breath. Blackened blood began to slowly trickle from the corner of his mouth as he coughed.
He didn't have a single antidote potion left. He had given all those dozens of healing bottles to his friends.
Kenji gasped for air. His field of vision began to blur.
From the cave entrance, the sound of dozens of legs indicated that the rest of the spider pack had caught up, surrounding the dying young man.
Squeezing the last ounce of strength in his left wrist, Kenji slowly raised his fingers in front of his face.
On his blood-soaked ring finger, rested a plain silver ring. This item possessed absolutely no stat boosts.
It was purely a cosmetic accessory, a trinket he never took off because it was a reminder ring to stop him from playing the game too late, so he could log out in time for his wedding the next day.
Tears spilled over, mixing with the bloodstains on his temples. His tears dripped slowly onto the silver ring. Realizing that he would never be able to go home to the embrace of the woman he loved.
"I'm sorry... Yuna," he sobbed heartbreakingly.
Kenji bent his left arm, pressing the ring tightly against the center of his chest.
He closed his eyes, desperately clinging to the memory of the warmth of a woman in Tokyo, who tomorrow would stand alone staring at the wooden doors of a church, squeezing her bouquet as she waited for a lover who would never arrive.
His vision went completely black just as a pair of fangs pierced his neck.
With the twin moons as his witness, the unfortunate accountant and Brawler met his end. He had finally learned that in this world, death could feel far more painful and lonely than a simple Game Over screen.