The ragged, ancient sound of a war horn ripped through the nascent silence that had, for a fleeting nanosecond, offered respite. Kim Hyu-Gi's eyes, gritty and raw, snapped open to the familiar chaos: the churning mud, the terrified shrieks, the metallic tang of blood already thick in the air. He was on his feet again, body miraculously whole, but the phantom ache of a spear piercing his gut just moments – or was it hours? – ago still resonated deep within his bones. It was a memory etched in nerve endings that no resurrection could truly erase, only mute.
He gasped, a shallow, choked sound, his gaze sweeping frantically across the battlefield. Bodies lay strewn like discarded dolls in the thick, red-brown mire. Smoke billowed from distant fires, painting the overcast sky in bruised purples and grays. Southern soldiers, identifiable by their crude leather armor and desperation, clashed against the more organized, steel-clad Northern forces. Screams, the clang of steel, the thud of flesh, and the wet crunch of bones formed a symphony of terror that vibrated in his very marrow.
“No, no, not again,” he whimpered, a desperate prayer that went unanswered. He barely registered the coarse wool tunic clinging to his form, the worn leather boots on his feet. He was just a soldier, a nameless, faceless pawn in this endless slaughter, and his only instinct was to run. Always to run.
He pushed through the chaotic press of bodies, his F-Class hunter's instinct screaming at him to find an exit, a safe zone, anything but this. But there was no exit. The boundaries of this simulation were a cruel joke, stretching endlessly in every direction, offering only more conflict, more death. He remembered the system's indifferent voice: "Every sensation, injury, and death is 100% real." It had not lied. Each death was a unique hell, a distinct torture, and the cumulative memory of them was driving him to the edge of madness.
His legs pumped, clumsy and unpracticed in the heavy mud. He bumped into a retreating Southern soldier, who merely shoved him aside, eyes wide with the same fear that gripped Hyu-Gi. He saw a gap, a momentary lull in the fighting near a pile of fallen wagons. He surged towards it, his heart hammering against his ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage.
Just as he neared the supposed safety, a shadow fell over him. A Northern heavy infantryman, broad and menacing, loomed overhead, his armored hand raising a massive, spiked mace. There was no time to react, no time to even scream. The mace descended, a blur of iron and spikes. The world exploded into agony. His skull fractured, his vision fragmented into a kaleidoscope of black and red, and then… nothing.
---
He jolted back, gasping, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead. The war horn blared. The mud was under his feet. He was alive again. Or rather, resurrected. The phantom ache this time was a blinding headache, a pressure behind his eyes that threatened to shatter them from within. His hands flew to his head, verifying its intactness, his fingers brushing against his scalp. No blood, no bone fragments. Just raw, pulsating pain.
"How many?" he whispered, his voice hoarse. "How many times?" He had lost count after fifty. Then a hundred. It felt like a thousand. He'd been stabbed, shot with arrows, decapitated, trampled by horses, burned alive by flung torches, drowned in mud, choked by smoke, and once, horrifyingly, disemboweled by a desperate fellow soldier mistaking him for an enemy in the dark. Each death unique, each memory vivid, a collage of agony burned into his psyche.
He wanted to scream, to lash out, to rip his own eyes out just to escape the sight of this endless carnage. But he couldn't. All he could do was run, again. This time, he darted away from the main clash, weaving through the chaos towards a cluster of trees on a small hill in the distance. Maybe, just maybe, he could hide, catch his breath, think. His mind was a scramble of panic and raw, primal fear.
He ran, ignoring the shouts, the pleas, the dying gasps around him. He was a coward, he knew it. An F-Class Hunter, weak and useless, even in a simulation. Kang Hwok, his former bully, had given him the Awakened Stone, had sacrificed himself. And for what? For Hyu-Gi to die endlessly in a hellish game? Guilt, a cold, sharp knife, twisted in his gut, mingling with the phantom pains of past deaths.
An arrow whizzed past his ear, embedding itself with a sickening thud into the trunk of a tree inches from his head. He didn't slow. He didn't look back. The trees offered no real cover, just a momentary visual block. He could hear horse hooves drumming the earth behind him. Cavalry. They always sent cavalry when he tried to flee too far from the main lines. It was a pattern he’d learned, another cruel certainty in this unpredictable hell.
He ducked behind a thick oak, pressing himself against the rough bark, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The thundering hooves grew louder, closer. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to make himself smaller, invisible. It was futile, he knew. It always was. He would be found. He would die again.
Suddenly, the ground vibrated violently. A powerful kick landed squarely on his back, sending him sprawling. He cried out, hitting the muddy earth hard, the air knocked from his lungs. He looked up, coughing, to see the gleaming hooves of a warhorse, its rider a towering, silent figure in dark armor, a long, brutal-looking spear pointed directly at him. He could see the horse's nostrils flaring, its breath steaming in the cold air. The spear, tipped with sharp, glinting steel, descended with terrifying speed.
This time, the pain was a searing, icy plunge, a sudden, all-encompassing chill that spread from his chest. He felt the spear pierce through his sternum, tearing through flesh and bone, puncturing his lungs, his heart. He choked on blood, a gurgling sound escaping his lips as his vision blurred, the towering horseman fading into a swirl of red and black. He heard the faint sound of the system message, a distant, clinical voice announcing another death, another reset.
---
He woke up again, the taste of blood still in his mouth, the phantom pain in his chest a burning ember. The war horn. The mud. The screams. It was all the same. Each cycle, the terror didn't diminish, it simply warped. It became a dull, constant ache beneath the fresh surge of panic. He was numb and yet acutely sensitive to every incoming threat.
He didn't run this time. Not immediately. He stumbled, his legs refusing to obey, his mind a wasteland of despair. He saw a Northern soldier charging, a crude, rusted sword held high. Hyu-Gi simply stood there, frozen, his eyes wide and vacant. He didn't even try to dodge. The sword came down, a brutal, clumsy chop, splitting his shoulder, then his neck.
He was reborn. Again. He didn't even register the specific pain, only the overarching sensation of being violated, of having his life snuffed out over and over. He dropped to his knees in the mud, hands pressing against his temples, trying to physically push away the torrent of horrors. The faces of his guild members, Kang Hwok, even his sister Han-Yol, flashed before his eyes, mocking him, reminding him of his failure.
He was a broken man, a trembling wreck. There was no escape. There was no end. Just this endless, agonizing cycle of death and rebirth, a cruel mockery of what the system promised. He was an F-Class Hunter, useless, destined to be nothing more than a corpse on an eternal battlefield. He had tried everything: hiding, fleeing, even trying to surrender to enemy soldiers only to be cut down without a word. There was no mercy, no loophole.
His breath hitched, turning into a sob that tore through his chest. He slumped forward, his face landing in the cold, wet mud. Tears mingled with the grime, hot streaks on his numb cheeks. He wanted it to stop. He wanted to die and truly stay dead. The system wouldn't let him. It was a prison forged from pain and repetition.
“Just… end…” he croaked, the words barely audible. He lay there, waiting for the next blow, the next agonizing rupture of his body. He heard the thunder of hooves, the shouts of men, the clash of steel getting closer. He closed his eyes, accepting his fate, ready to welcome the oblivion, however temporary.
But as the sounds of battle engulfed him, a strange, stubborn flicker ignited deep within the ashes of his despair. A tiny, defiant ember that refused to be extinguished. He was going to die again, yes. But did he have to die like this, a whimpering victim? The thought was fleeting, barely a whisper in the storm of his terror, but it was there. A spark of something new, something that wasn't pure, unadulterated fear. He didn't know what it was yet, or what he would do with it, but for the first time in what felt like an eternity, he didn't just passively await his doom. He simply existed, trembling, but with a nascent question forming in his shattered mind. What if… what if he stopped running?