Chapter 4 - Log Out

He could not tell whether he had swayed into the other person or the other person had bumped into him. His body was already going numb.

"Have you lost your fucking mind?"

A vicious curse reached his ears. It was the voice he had just heard.

Machil? That was his first thought.

THUD! THUD, THUD!

Three or four blows struck Sosam's abdomen in an instant.

"Urgh!"

It hurt. It hurt enough to kill him.

Only after tasting those fists did he realize the man was not Machil. Machil's punches could never sting like this, as if they were tearing his guts apart.

Drool streamed from his mouth, and tears gushed from his eyes. Not from sorrow. From pain. He had thought he was used to being beaten by now, but this hurt far too much. The only small mercy was that the pain had begun to clear his blurred vision a little.

"Hah... ugh. Ghh... ugh..."

Unable to breathe properly, he sank to his knees, gasping. Even then, he mustered all his strength to lift his head.

He saw a familiar face. He did not really know the man's name, but he was one of the Danri Family's warriors.

THUD!

Another blow struck Sosam's face.

"S-spare..."

Struck by a kick infused with internal energy, Sosam could not even finish pleading for his life.

Why? Why? Why...? Why on earth are you doing this...? What have I done wrong?

Am I not even allowed to live quietly, like a bug?

But the answer to his silent questions was all too clear.

His present situation was the answer. Murim had always been such a place. It was not a world so forgiving that a bottom-feeding herbivorous insect like him could survive in it.

"What the fuck are you babbling about? Speak properly, you piece of horse-shit trash."

With those curses, an endless barrage of kicks began.

Yet Sosam could no longer feel any pain. He was dying. He realized that he already had one foot in the underworld.

It was so unfair. All he had wanted was to live, however he could. He could not understand why the world was doing this to him.

He wanted to kill Machil, who had set all this in motion. He wanted to kill the bastard of a warrior trampling him now. He wanted to kill every last person in the Danri Family who had ignored him, looked down on him, and toyed with him.

He just...

Wanted to kill them all. He wanted to smash the world to pieces.

But...

Something else came out of his mouth.

"... Please... spare... me..."

In the end, those were the only words that could escape his lips.

THUD!

Those were the last words he uttered in the world of the living.

Though that world had been hell itself, he had wanted to survive until the very end.

And so Sosam, the owner of soul number 3789028376 in Dimensional Realm 112, who had wanted so desperately to live, reached the end of his wretched life.

And...

● ● ●

THUNK!

"Aaargh!"

With a soulless scream, the 'Local Thug Elite' died.

Dong Bongsu's spear did not stop there. Every time he swung it, another Local Thug, elite or normal, fell to the ground. Naturally, no matter how many he killed, their numbers never dwindled. They respawned as quickly as they died. Not only he but the other people here were slaughtering the Local Thugs indiscriminately, yet they kept respawning without end.

And that was not all.

Despite exerting himself for so long, he was not even tired.

He had only just logged in, but Dong Bongsu had already lost interest in MURIM ONLINE.

Was this really enough to provoke claims that the game was causing an increase in murders?

What a complete disappointment. He had thought he had found a new hunting ground...

This was no hunting ground. It was a playground.

The blood the Local Thugs shed when they died resembled real blood only in color.

It lacked the heat and moisture of real blood, and that uniquely stimulating stickiness. He could feel no texture at all. None of the satisfying weight of impact that ought to travel through his hands. Even the players killed by the Local Thugs' counterattacks had smiles on their faces.

Dying was not really dying. Killing was not really killing. The killing and dying here was not slaughter, merely play.

What dampened Dong Bongsu's interest most of all was the complete absence of 'carnivores.' The animals here were either toys or herbivorous insects.

He had not expected much from this virtual reality game, Murim, to begin with. However closely it imitated reality, how could it possibly feel the same in his hands? Even so, this fell far short of his expectations. He had thought that, even if it could not become a hobby, it might at least serve as a fishing spot where he could occasionally enjoy the feel of a catch.

This was nothing of the sort.

Dong Bongsu smashed the head of another Local Thug charging at him and reached his conclusion.

This would never do as a hobby. Of course, his level was still low, and he knew nothing about the game's rules. But continuing to level up would not change the texture of the blood or make carnivores appear where there had been none.

A fake was just a fake. It could never become real.

Without a trace of regret, Dong Bongsu turned away, back toward the real world, where genuine prey abounded.

"Log out."

His voice was low and clear.

At that moment, his game character vanished from the virtual reality game Murim, and Dong Bongsu's consciousness went dark as well.

In Korea. No, on Earth. No, in the dimensional realm to which Earth belonged.

That instant...

Was the very instant Belteruk's soul grafting succeeded.

And so Dong Bongsu, the owner of soul number 3789028376 in Dimensional Realm 111, 'logged in' to Dimensional Realm 112.

● ● ●

"Mmm..."

The moment Dong Bongsu regained consciousness, he felt excruciating pain in his chest. It hurt so much that he could barely breathe. Worse, his entire body felt limp, as if every bone had been broken, and his muscles were screaming madly in agony.

Even his eyes were so swollen that he could hardly open them.

'What is this? Have the police finally caught me?'

Dong Bongsu assumed that his past activities had finally been caught in the investigative net.

Three hundred and thirty-two murders.

He had thought he had been perfect. Apparently not.

He let out a faint chuckle.

Yes, it had been a very dangerous hobby. He had known it would end someday, and this was how it had ended. He did not particularly regret it. After all, he could pursue this hobby anywhere, provided he stayed alive. Wasn't South Korea a country with no death penalty in practice? Unless they passed a special law just for him, even if the prosecution demanded a killer's death, the sentence would never actually be carried out.

South Korea, a nation of human rights, was the finest hunting ground a predator like Dong Bongsu could ask for.

But even setting all that aside...

Something was odd.

As he had just reflected, South Korea guaranteed human rights. Even someone who had murdered 332 people could not simply be tortured or beaten without a trial. Even if the police secretly used violence to extract information, they would not go this far.

Judging by what he could feel, his injuries would take at least several months of lying completely still to heal, if they healed at all. A little worse, and he might have died.

Beating an unconscious suspect this badly, when it was not even for an interrogation?

Unless every charge against Dong Bongsu could be proven, conduct like this would put the police under enormous pressure. If the press and the human-rights zealots raised an outcry, the police would be the ones with a headache.

Dong Bongsu would welcome that, of course, but unless the police were idiots, they would never handle things this way.

This...

Wasn't this far too strange?

At that thought, Dong Bongsu forced his eyes open. Agony shot through his swollen eyelids. They were so swollen that he could see only about a fifth of what he normally could. Blind spots filled his vision. Only a tiny, restricted portion of his surroundings was visible.

At least a little dim moonlight was filtering in from somewhere, telling him it was evening. The light dazzled his eyes, but its presence told him several things.

'Moonlight.'

Obviously, this was not his room.

There was a window. Every bit of light in his own room came from electric lights.

Dong Bongsu slowly examined the place where he lay.

Immediately, his neck creaked and shifted unsteadily.

It further restricted his already limited movement. Still, he endured the pain in his neck and surveyed his surroundings by moving his eyes, using his neck as little as possible. His eyes could barely do their job through those narrow slits, but that was enough.

The first things he saw were fairly large animals with long faces. He had never seen one in person, but he had seen them countless times on television.

'A stable?'

Horses.

The overpowering stench of horse dung and the animals' distinctive musk assaulted his nose. Even if someone had secretly brought horses into his room, a smell like this could not have soaked into it in a day or two. He could infer that this place had always been a stable, and that he had been moved here.

His eyes scanned his surroundings faster, and his brain stirred into motion. Faced with an unpredictable situation, his predatory sixth sense and intuition were working at full capacity.

Just then...

Dong Bongsu caught sight of something very strange... something bizarre.

'What is this?!'

Some translucent lettering appeared superimposed over a horse's face. He turned his head. The horse's face remained where it was, but the lettering followed his gaze.

After repeating this several times, Dong Bongsu established that the lettering always stayed within his field of vision, right in the center. He also realized that, rather than looking like ordinary two-dimensional writing, it had a three-dimensional form.

'A holographic window?'

He had seen something like this only a short while ago.

In the virtual reality game, MURIM ONLINE.

When he had first logged in, a welcome message had floated before his eyes in just this format for quite some time.

[Welcome to MURIM ONLINE, the world of the truly strong.]