Thursday. 10:43 PM.
The apartment was dark except for monitor glow.
Cold rice on the desk. Coffee gone cold two hours ago. A dog barking outside at nothing.
Kaito noticed none of it.
His eyes were locked on the screen.
Demon King's Fortress — Final Boss Stage.
Most players attempted this dungeon with fifty people minimum. Guild raids. Coordinated strategies. Hours of preparation.
Kaito was alone.
He had cleared it nineteen times this way.
His fingers moved across the keyboard — dark summons responding instantly. Skeletal warriors flanking left. Shadow scouts circling right. Wraith archers holding the back line.
The Demon King roared.
Charged.
Kaito didn't flinch.
[DARK SUMMON SKILL: VOID STRIKE activated]
[Critical Hit!]
[Damage: 847,000]
The Demon King collapsed.
Silence.
Kaito exhaled slowly.
Another clear.
Then —
[LEVEL UP!]
[Current Level: 9999 → ???]
He frowned.
The developers had emailed him once asking how.
He never replied.
But question marks?
That was new.
Then the second notification appeared.
Not a game alert. Not a normal system message.
Something older. Something that felt less like code and more like a voice.
[HIDDEN SYSTEM MESSAGE]
The Seal has been broken.
The true heir of darkness has awakened.
Initiating soul transfer to origin world…
Please remain calm.
Please remain calm.
Kaito stared at the words.
Please remain—
The monitor exploded with white light.
Not digital white. Not screen glare.
Living white — cold and ancient, crawling out of the monitor like liquid, spreading across his hands, his walls, his entire existence —
I left the stove on, he thought.
Then nothing.
— DEADHOLLOW —
He hit the ground hard.
Dirt.
Cold, cracked, dead dirt that smelled like ash and old forgotten things.
Three seconds of stillness. Silent damage assessment. Engineering habit.
Fingers — working. Arms — working. Head — painful but intact.
He pushed himself up.
And stopped.
A narrow dirt road. Crumbling wooden houses on either side, scorched and leaning against each other like exhausted survivors. A broken well at the center — dry, cracked, completely useless. Every wall carried scorch marks. Every roof had holes.
This village wasn't just poor.
This village had been systematically destroyed.
The sky above was deep violet.
Two moons on the horizon — one silver, one the color of dried blood.
The stars were wrong.
Okay, his brain said quietly. Okay.
Same hands. Same scar on the right knuckle. Same wrinkled grey office shirt from this morning.
No sword. No armor. No dramatic fantasy equipment.
Just a twenty six year old civil engineer standing in an alien world at what appeared to be midnight.
Okay.
The window appeared.
[SYSTEM ONLINE]
► DARK ORIGIN SYSTEM ◄
Name: Kaito Voss
Class: dark Summoner
Level: 1
EXP: 0 / 200
Souls: 0
Title: None
Status Points: 0
[STATS]STR: 5 | AGI: 5 | INT: 8VIT: 5 | DEF: 3 | LUCK: 1
► AVAILABLE SUMMONS:▷ Weak Evil Scout ×3 [ACTIVE]▷ Weak Evil Warrior ×1 [ACTIVE]▷ All Other Summons — [🔒 LOCKED]
[Would you like a tutorial?]▶ NO YES
Kaito selected NO without hesitation.
Six years of playing this game.
He didn't need a tutorial.
What he needed was answers.
Level 1.
He stared at the number.
Level. One.
Nineteen minutes ago he had been 999. He exhaled slowly and opened the summon menu.
Everything was locked.
Evil Warriors — locked. Demon Scouts — locked. Shadow Knights — locked. Every creature he had spent years commanding — locked behind level requirements he hadn't even begun to reach.
Four summons.
He had four summons and a civil engineering degree in a medieval world.
Starting from zero. Again.
He almost laughed.
Almost.
Then the new notification appeared.
[NEW MAIN QUEST]
► "The Rotten Root"
The village of Deadhollow rots from within.
Its chief is not what he appears.
Eliminate the Village Chief.
CONDITION: Reach Level 10 first.
► REWARDS:▷ Title: Lord of Deadhollow▷ +500 Souls▷ New Summons Unlocked▷ Village Recognition
⚠ WARNING:Attempting this quest below Level 10will result in mission failure.
[ACCEPT?]▶ YES NO
Reach Level 10 first.
Kaito stared at the quest.
The village chief is not what he appears.
He looked at the broken well. The scorched walls. The crumbling houses.
Something cold settled in his chest.
Someone did this deliberately.
He accepted the quest.
[QUEST ACCEPTED]
[SYSTEM FEATURE UNLOCKED]
► SOUL COLLECTION
Defeat enemies to collect Souls.
Souls are used to:▷ Summon new creatures▷ Upgrade existing summons▷ Unlock locked abilities
Current Souls: 0Next Summon requires: 50 Souls
[SYSTEM FEATURE UNLOCKED]
► STATUS POINTS
Each Level Up grants +3 Status Points.
Distribute freely between:STR | AGI | INT | VIT | DEF | LUCK
⚠ Choose wisely.Points cannot be redistributed.
Smart system, Kaito thought.
Summons cost souls. Souls come from defeating enemies. Status points are permanent.
It rewards strategy. Not just grinding.
His engineer's brain was already calculating.
Prioritize INT — summons get stronger faster. Prioritize VIT — survive longer. Prioritize AGI — move faster.
The rumbling interrupted him.
Felt in the chest before heard by the ears.
He turned.
Torches at the village edge — spreading wide in a practiced hunting formation. Twenty men minimum. Loud. Laughing the way people laugh when they know nobody can stop them.
Looters.
A small girl exploded from between two houses and crashed directly into him — barefoot, eyes wild, lungs burning.
She grabbed his shirt with both hands.
"PLEASE!" she gasped. "Looters — they're coming — PLEASE RUN!"
Kaito looked at her.
At the torches.
At his system window.
▷ Weak Evil Scout ×3▷ Weak Evil Warrior ×1▷ Everything else — 🔒 LOCKED
He thought about the empty apartment. Cold rice. Thirty four reports with someone else's name on them. A hostel bed at age twelve. An uncle's business handshake.
Twenty six years of being invisible.
Something quiet and cold settled behind his eyes.
Not anymore.
"Don't run," he said.
The girl stared at him. "W-WHAT—"
"Go wake everyone up."
"But the LOOTERS—"
"I know." His eyes stayed fixed on the approaching torchlight. "Tell them the new guy is handling it."
He raised his right hand.
Called the darkness.
[SUMMON ACTIVATED]
► Weak Evil Warrior has entered the battlefield.
► Weak Evil Scout ×3 have entered the battlefield.
[BATTLE INITIATED]
⚠ Soul Collection Active.
The shadows at his feet moved.
Peeled away from the ground. Twisted upward. Solidified into four dark figures — humanoid but wrong, edges blurring like smoke, eyes burning dim red — standing silently at Kaito's sides.
Waiting.
The looters froze.
Twenty three armed men. Torches flickering. Laughter completely dead.
Their leader — massive, scarred, broadsword raised — recovered first. He spat on the ground.
"Dark summons?" A snort. "Kill him! He's just some weak—"
Kaito dropped his hand.
The four figures moved.
[BATTLE COMPLETE]
Enemies Defeated: 4
EXP: +200
[LEVEL UP!]
Level: 1 → 2
[+3 STATUS POINTS]
[SOULS COLLECTED: +40]
Sixteen looters were running — actually running, weapons dropped, screaming into the darkness like men who had seen something they would never forget.
Four remained on the ground. Conscious. Staring up at Kaito with the specific expression of people who had spent their lives frightening others and had just —
For the first time —
Been genuinely afraid.
The scarred leader grabbed Kaito's collar with trembling hands.
"W-who ARE you—"
"Nobody," Kaito said simply.
The leader's eyes searched his face desperately.
"That power — those creatures — I've never seen anything like—"
"Leave," Kaito said quietly. "Take your men. Don't come back."
The leader stared at him for one long moment.
Then released his collar.
Grabbed the nearest unconscious man.
And ran.
Kaito distributed his status points.
INT: 8 → 10 (+2) VIT: 5 → 6 (+1)
Stronger summons first. Survival second.
He looked up.
The village had gathered around him.
Five hundred people filling every doorway, every gap between houses — staring at the stranger with dark summons standing alone in the middle of their dirt road.
Nobody spoke.
Nobody moved.
They didn't know who he was.
They didn't know where he had come from.
They didn't know what those dark creatures were.
All they knew was that their village was still standing.
And he was the reason.
A little boy near the front — maybe seven years old — was staring at Kaito's summons with wide eyes that had gone somewhere past fear and arrived at something closer to pure amazement.
An old woman near the back watched silently from the shadows, face unreadable, saying nothing.
A young man with broad shoulders stood near the well, jaw tight, studying Kaito the way you study something you haven't decided how to feel about yet.
Kaito looked at all of them.
Strangers.
Every single one.
He was Level 2 in a broken village in a world he didn't understand with a quest telling him to kill the chief and a system he was only beginning to figure out.
He had no allies.
No information.
No plan beyond the next few hours.
Exactly like every other time in my life.
He looked at the broken well in the center of the village square.
Dry. Crumbling. Dead.
First things first.
"Does anyone have rope?" he said.
The crowd blinked.
"Rope," he repeated. "And tools. Whatever you have."
Silence.
Then the little boy near the front ran back into his house.
A minute later he returned — dragging a coil of rope twice his size.
"We have this!"
Kaito looked at the rope.
Then at the boy.
Then at the broken well.
"Good," he said quietly. "That's a start."
Nobody in Deadhollow that night knew his name.
Nobody knew where he had come from.
Nobody knew what the dark figures at his sides were.
Nobody knew what he was planning.
And Kaito Voss —
for once in his life —
preferred it that way.
[STATUS UPDATE]
Name: Kaito VossLevel: 2EXP: 200 / 500Souls: 40Title: None
► ACTIVE SUMMONS:▷ Weak Evil Scout ×3▷ Weak Evil Warrior ×1
► ACTIVE QUEST:▷ [MAIN] The Rotten Root — Level 2/10
[HIDDEN SYSTEM MESSAGE]
This world was built around you.
The truth is buried deeper than you know.
Find it.
In the forgotten village of Deadhollow.
Under two moons and a violet sky.
A man nobody knew.
Fixing a well nobody asked him to fix.
With darkness standing quietly at his sides.