In a barren wasteland, ten figures stand opposite one, each of them wielding weapons and covered in powerful armor. The one who stands against them is covered by a glass-like armor, barely noticeable, but still there. He wields a katana and has a bored, almost annoyed expression as he looks at the ten standing across from him, without a single mark on his body, except for an old scar running from the left side of his forehead down to his left cheek. The ten are all injured, some worse than others, a few of them missing an arm or an eye, and slowly healed back. All of them have a look of shock on their faces.
"How…"
One speaks, his voice desperate and full of fear.
"How is he so powerful, even after hours of fighting? We're the same rank, aren't we? There can't possibly be this big of a gap between our strengths…"
The man, wielding a certain spear, with holy armor, says, unable to believe the sight in front of him. A single man was able to fight ten of the strongest people in the world and practically toyed with them for nearly half a day, even after Kimsung had banded what was left of humanity's strongest, along with the Demon Queen's remnant forces, it was still for naught.
Kang Kimsung is a regressor, one of the eleven Z-ranked humans produced by the ten disasters. Even in all his resets, he'd never been able to defeat this one man, no, this monster wearing human skin. It was as if the universe itself colluded against him for this one goal.
In over a thousand resets, never once did he come close to defeating him. The man in translucent armor was invincible, no matter what blessings, perks, or artifacts he used against him. In fact, the man had once taken a hit from the Longinus, simply because he was curious about its abilities, and survived. The man in translucent armor, the Achilles of America, the Demon of Humanity, spoke, looking down at the ten exhausted warriors.
"Kang Kimsung, I've grown tired of these games. You must've reset over a thousand times, and yet never once did you learn to accept its outcome. Why? Why do you torture yourself so? Do you not know revenge is the destruction of man?"
The man asked with genuine curiosity and a hint of concern in his voice as he spoke.
"In the end, this path of revenge leads you into nothing but a spiraling circle of failure. You weren't meant to be hellbent on such a fruitless goal, yet here you are."
He sighs, disappointed in Kimsung. Ever since he'd figured out Kimsung's skill of returning to the past, he'd slowly become concerned about the path that this hero had been veering off of in pursuit of killing him. Achilles was entirely unable to understand why Kimsung was so hellbent on his goal. Then again, it was not his desire nor intent to figure out the reason for it, so he didn't have a reason to care.
"Please, just give up. I didn't like killing you since the first reset I could remember, and I won't like killing you now. I've given you chance after chance to give up, to start anew and forget about me, to save the world like you were meant to. But time and time again, you obsess over killing me, even though my goals do not clash with your own."
Kimsung grits his teeth, enraged at the man for trying to teach him a lesson he's heard hundreds of times before.
"Shut up, you liar! You don't care about anyone but yourself, and I can see through your lies, you snake! You say I had a chance to start anew, so why do you continue to live? You could just let me kill you, and all of this can finally end!"
He yells in anger, remembering all the resets which Achilles had killed his friends, his comrades, even his own wife, Anastasiya, simply because he defied that monster. Achilles looks at him with… sympathy. The Achilles of America pitied Kimsung, he truly did. He couldn't help but feel sad that Kang Kimsung was unable to accept and forgive.
"Please, Kimsung. You can still turn back. It's not too late. All of you can, all of you can turn around and change the world like you were meant to. Forget me, forget what I've done. I don't care if I am forgotten by history; It was always my goal to help humanity."
A few feet away from Kimsung is Shadow Samurai Jamal, barely able to kneel. He laughs, blood dripping from his mouth, his ribs shattered, and most of his body having large cracks over them as he uses his katana to rise to his feet.
"You… Do you really think being forgotten fixes any of this? Don't you remember? It was you who told me the greatest lie is pretending something never happened… I'm sure even David would look at you as a monster if he could see you now…"
He chuckles, coughing out blood as his body heals slowly, but enough to keep him alive with his current wounds. He looks at Achilles with disappointment in his eyes, ashamed that his five-year-long friend is his enemy now. He could almost feel the disappointment from David.
'If that bastard didn't die during that battle, would the world have been a better place by now?'
Achilles looks back at his old friend, then slowly closes his eyes.
"Enough, this cannot continue any longer. I've grown bored of you and your game. You want me to leave? Fine, I'll leave."
He says, as a crack forms in reality, then grows until it shatters, and Achilles walks through it, reality repairing itself immediately afterwards. The group of wounded heroes stares in confusion, then shock, and finally, anger. Confusion, and what had just occurred, shock, at Achilles' unexpected exit, and anger, that the man they had banded together to finally kill had calmly left, as if their battle didn't even matter to him.
"What? He just left?"
Says Keido, finishing the recent chapter of his favorite novel, The Ten Disasters. He groans in disappointment and immediately closes the tab to see what everyone else is saying on the official fan website.
Reading through the comment section, they were all divided, but grouped together in a few categories. Some were angry that the most hyped up battle of the story ended in such a way, others were understanding, reasoning that Achilles was simply too powerful to keep in the story any longer, and others were happy, thankful the writer didn't use some stupid plot armor to kill off Achilles in the worst way possible.
Keido himself was angry because he had spent quite a long time waiting for Kimsung to finally have his long-awaited revenge, but that thought was put aside after he remembered Heidi was in the room with him. He turned to his sister and saw her face, barely containing rage in her expression. She slowly opened her mouth, and Keido wisely covered his ears.
"What the hell was that? That ending was terrible! Achilles just left, and that's it? No real showcase of his power or anything? That was such terrible writing! Move, I'm leaving a comment!"
She yells in anger. Heidi herself loved Kimsung, and he was her favorite character, so it was only natural for her to be angry. There was a whole arc of the story spent solely on Kimsung growing his forces and strength to fight Achilles, only for it to all be useless and receive a one-sided beating instead of his deserved revenge, ever since the death of his wife, Anastasiya.
Keido couldn't help but feel bad for all of the other Kimsung fans and wondered if they were taking the news just as badly as his sister was. On the other hand, he just knew that all the Achilles fans would go wild in the comments and message boards, proclaiming his superiority for days, maybe weeks, maybe months.
He went back to his chair and reopened multiple message boards, all of them flooded with Achilles fans posting memes and bashing on other characters.
-I knew Goatchilles would win! Fraudsung couldn't do it! Fraudthur couldn't do it!
-Achilles stocks are at an all-time high! I knew my goat was the best!
-I knew Henry was a fucking fraud! He gets carried by Longinus all the time-
'Ok, that's enough of that for today.'
Keido quickly closed that message board, getting the feeling that it would become even worse later. He looked to his sister, who was now crying into his pillow. Keido turned off his computer and, with another tired sigh, grabbed his sister's wrist, trying to get her out of bed, usually a very risky move for anyone with siblings who are sad about something.
"Heidi, c'mon, let's go get some snacks, ok? I'm buying."
He offers, and she gets up, her face still red from crying. She sniffles and wipes the tears off her face, getting up.
"Ok… fine."
The two put on some shoes and head out of their home in Mangwon of Mapo-gu, Seoul, and walk to the nearby convenience store to get some snacks. Once they've bought what they wanted, the two head out, and Keido looks up at the night sky, unable to forget the recent chapter of The Ten Disasters.
'That fight was terrible. If I were the writer, I could totally do better. Seventeen whole chapters of fighting all for nothing."
It was a disappointment to Keido, to say the very, very least. There must have been a reason why the writer wrote the ending of the most hyped up battle so terribly. He knew Heidi must've also been fuming, so he thought it wise to change the topic.
"Hey, Heidi. If you could have a skill, what would it be?"
Heidi, who was still angry in her own mind, sighed for a moment before responding in a tired, quiet voice.
"I guess… an energy-type skill… Those are always cool. Especially Jamal's."
Keido smiled, having averted another angry rant from his sister. Heidi was quite emotional when it came to her favorite characters, and every time Kimsung was forced into another reset, she'd be angry for hours before calming down.
"Well, I'd also have an energy-type skill. You're right, they are cool."
The two of them wait at the street crossing, and once it's their turn to cross, they begin walking, but suddenly, a certain truck comes speeding down the empty street, catching the two by surprise. Keido quickly shields his sister before the truck hits, but it's a useless effort; the impact kills both of them instantly.
"Shit!"
Keido wakes up with a shout, sitting up in bed. He breathed heavily, checking his body, but he had no bandages, much less any injuries. He looks around the room, which isn't his own.
'Where am I? Didn't a truck crash into me and-'
He isn't able to finish the thought as he hears a scream in the next room, which he assumes must be his sister, as soon after, she bursts into the room. Expecting his sister, Keido is shocked again as a girl who looks nothing like his sister opens the door in a rush.
"Who the hell are you?"
She demands, looking around the room.
"Wait, where am I? This isn't my house… Did you kidnap me?"
She asks, grabbing a nearby lamp and holding it menacingly. He looks at her in shock, still processing what's going on.
"Well, answer me! Before I call the police!"
She demands once again, and he opens his mouth, his lips trembling.
"Heidi? Is… Is that you? You look… different…"
He says, getting up from the bed. Heidi raises an eyebrow, confused at his question. He walks close, but she raises the lamp, silently threatening to hit him. He takes a deep breath, raising his hands up, before speaking in a calm voice.
'If this is what I think it is… I know exactly how to break it to her. Come on, Keido, you've read enough webtoons to know what to say!'
"Heidi, just look in a mirror for me, ok? I promise, I can explain after, or you can guess what happened."
She slowly puts the lamp down and looks in the mirror. Her once brown hair is now black. Her once black eyes are now a nice light brown, but at least her creamy skin remained mostly the same, with a very slight reddish tint now. She must've been around 164 cm, 7 cm taller than before. Her eyes widened, and like any rational person in such a situation, Keido wisely covers his ears before hearing Heidi scream at the top of her lungs.
A short while later, the two are downstairs in the living room of this new home, sitting on the couch and each nursing their own cup of tea. Heidi is the first to break the silence since their conversation.
"So… That truck. It really…?"
She asks hesitantly, her eyes watering up, so she takes a sip of her now warm tea. Keido takes a deep breath, taking a sip of his own tea before speaking.
"Yeah… I guess so… Where are we, anyway?"
He asks, looking around the foreign house, different from their own in Mapo-gu. She also looks around their new home, having wondered the same thing since she had woken up.
"I think we're still in Korea… I hope it's Seoul, because I don't know any of the other districts. Do you think we might still be in Mapo?"
He takes a pause, and gets up, opening the curtains before taking a look outside, confirming their location after seeing the Korean World Cup Stadium, meaning they had to be in either Eunpyeong, Seodaemun, or Mapo-gu, the Northwest regions of Seoul, South Korea.
"I think we might be in Eunpyeong, Heidi. I can see the stadium from here."
He says calmly, looking back at his sister, who's been staring at her cup of tea with a distant look in her eyes. Heidi looks up from her cup in realization.
"Wait, you said Eunpyeong? If we really did get… Hold on, what's the word? The Japanese have a term for it… mmm… Isekai'ed! If we really were transmigrated, hopefully to the TTD world, then we can find Kimsung here!"
She says in joy, quickly getting up and looking for a calendar.
"What day did the disasters start in the novel?"
She yells from the kitchen. Keido thinks for a while before remembering. Apparently, the author of TTD was very specific about the date and time of when the disasters began, so every time Kimsung returned to the start, he always knew what time and day it was.
"August twenty-third, at 7:30 AM in our time zone."
He responds, entering the kitchen and watching her skim through the months in the calendar. Heidi's eyes widened, her finger on the exact day.
"That's… just a couple weeks away…"
She says, looking back at Keido, both of them realize how little time they have to prepare for the day of the first disaster. She curses under her breath, walking around the kitchen.
What're we going to do? In a couple weeks, the first disaster will hit the world…"
Keido quickly hugs her, having thought of a solution.
"As you said before, we're in Eunpyeong, which means if we can find Kimsung, we'll be fine, ok?"
He asks, trying to assure her, but mostly himself. He never actually thought he'd be put in such a situation, and the reality of their situation had finally dawned on him. If they didn't get good skills at a good rank, the two of them would most likely die. He didn't want to die, especially not twice, after that truck most likely killed them on impact. At least that was a quick death. Who knew how they would die if they didn't prepare?
"We just have to find him, and we'll be alright."
He wanted to survive. Both he and his sister were going to survive these ten disasters and make it to the end, with Kimsung and everybody's help. He took a deep breath and looked up, wanting to test something before anything else. Anyone who was sent back in time or went to a new world in a novel always got a system or something to help them, right? That same logic should apply here, too. Keido swallowed hard before speaking.
"System, open."