The first thing I saw wasn't a white light. It was a "Game Over " screen.
Then, the world rushed back in. I didn't taste blood or ash. Instead, I was lying on something soft.
Green grass tickled my cheek. A gentle, warm breeze brushed over me, carrying the scent of pine and fresh earth.
For a few seconds, it was peaceful and quiet.
I pushed myself up, blinking against the bright sunlight.
My hands hit the dirt—but they weren't my hands, they were tiny.
The skin was caked in dust and covered in the rough, thick calluses you only get from manual labor. I pulled at the scratchy burlap tunic clinging to my chest.
Wait. No.
I blinked, waiting for the pixels to reset. I reached for my face, my fingers trembling against unfamiliar, sunken cheeks. This is a dream. A vivid, crazy, hyper-realistic dream.
Then I looked up.
Past a line of trees and the soot-stained roofs of a massive city, the obsidian peaks of the Dragon-Back Mountains pierced the sky like broken teeth.
I froze. I knew those mountains. I'd spent three years staring at them through a monitor.
This was DOOM of the Eternal Rose. The most brutal open-world RPG ever made.
"No," I whispered, my voice high and cracking. "No, no, no."
I spun around. There was no UI hovering in my vision. The "render distance" wasn't a setting anymore; it was the sprawling, terrifying scale of a medieval capital. I was a nameless villager, an extra, that what I thought.
My heart hammered against my ribs in a frantic, tiny rhythm, it seem like I'm in prologue.
And the clock was ticking.
In exactly ten minutes, the "Third Calamity" would be born: Alisa von Blood-Rose. To the players, she was the mid-game boss you beheaded in Chapter 2. To the Church, she was a demon.
And I see her differently, she was the reason I'd poured for hours into this hellish world.
I turned and bolted.
My bare feet slapped against the cobblestones, stinging with every step.
My lungs burned—this body was weak, malnourished, and completely exhausted.
I shoved past armored mercenaries and shouting merchants, my breath coming in jagged gasps. Move. Just move. I knew the layout of the Capital by heart.
I reached the slums just as the sun began to dip behind the spires, casting long, bloody shadows.
I skidded to a halt at the mouth of a narrow alleyway.
There she was.
She was tiny, maybe ten years old, backed into a corner near a pile of rotting crates. She clutched an oversized black cloak around her trembling frame.
Three boys in fine, expensive silk tunics circled her like stray dogs.
"Look at her shaking!" the tallest lackey laughed, kicking a crate near her feet.
"Show us the eyes, freak!" the other one cheered, leaning in to taunt her.
The blonde leader smirked. He lunged and yanked the edge of her cloak away.
Silver-pink hair spilled over her shoulders. When she looked up, her eyes were a deep, haunting crimson.
In this empire, red eyes weren't just a rare trait. They were a death sentence. It was why her father, the Duke of the North, kept her locked away.
It was why the world would eventually burn her at the stake.
Alisa bit her lip so hard a bead of blood surfaced. I saw it then—the dark sparks of mana flickering around her knuckles.
The trigger. If she snapped now, she'd kill them.
The guards would come, she'd be labeled a monster, and her path to the guillotine would be set in stone.
My hands were shaking. I had no weapon and no magic. I was a peasant kid against three noble brats. But if I didn't move, the story ended before it even began.
"Hey!" I yelled, stepping into the alley. "Leave her alone!"
My voice cracked badly. I sounded exactly like what I was—a terrified kid.
The three boys turned, staring at me in pure disbelief.
"Who the hell is this?" the tall lackey snickered.
The other boy pointed at my dirty tunic and burst out laughing. "A street rat! Look at him, he's actually trying to protect the demon!"
"Leo?"
Alisa's voice was a whisper. My heart skipped. Leo? Who was Leo? I was just a guy who died in front of a computer or maybe I'm not even sure.
"Just back off!" I shouted, taking a step forward despite the panic rising in my throat.
The blonde leader scowled, his amusement vanishing.
"Let's teach this peasant a lesson."
He unclipped a heavy wooden training sword from his belt. The other two grinning lackeys drew theirs as well, slapping the wood against their palms.
They didn't hesitate.
The first boy swung his wooden blade wildly at my head. My stomach dropped.
I knew this attack pattern from the game's AI, but my new body was horribly sluggish.
I ducked, feeling the wind of the heavy wood whistle over my hair.
Panic flared in my chest. I threw my weight forward, crashing blindly into his lead knee.
Crack.
He yelped, his leg buckling as he tumbled into the dirt.
Before I could recover, the second lackey slammed his shoulder into my chest.
All the air left my lungs.
I stumbled back, desperately grabbing a handful of loose dirt and gravel from the ground and hurling it straight into his face.
He shrieked, dropping his sword and clawing at his eyes.
"You little shit!" the blonde leader roared.
His face was bright red with humiliation. He threw his wooden sword aside and planted his feet. Closing his eyes, he took a deep, sharp breath.
Instantly, the air around him shifted. A sharp breeze whipped through the narrow alley, swirling dirt and trash around his boots.
My heart slammed against my ribs. Wind magic.
It was the basic 1-star Gale Strike. In the game, it barely chipped your health bar. But here? Looking at the sharp, cutting gusts gathering around his hands, I knew it would tear right through my fragile body.
Genuine, freezing fear rooted me to the spot. I couldn't dodge it. I couldn't run.
"Hey..." a small, trembling voice echoed from the corner.
"Stop it."
It was Alisa. She was clutching her cloak, her crimson eyes wide and desperate.
The blonde kid completely ignored her. He gritted his teeth, the wind howling louder around his fists as he prepared to unleash the spell.
Then, the air died.
The temperature plummeted in a split second.
A suffocating, heavy pressure slammed down on the alley, making it impossible to breathe.
It felt like the gravity had suddenly doubled.
Alisa was standing. Her pink hair whipped around her face in an unseen wind, and her eyes weren't just red anymore—they were glowing.
"Get lost," she said.
Her voice sounded hollow, like it was echoing from a deep well.
"Don't you ever touch him."
The boys didn't even grab their fallen weapons.
The magic around the leader shattered, they scrambled over each other, screaming in pure terror as they fled into the main street.
The pressure vanished as quickly as it came. Alisa swayed, her face turning a sickly, bone-white.
I surged forward and caught her just before she hit the ground. She was freezing, her skin like ice.
"You're an idiot," she whispered, her eyes searching mine with a terrifying intensity.
"Why did you stay, Leo?"
My head was spinning.
"Look... who is Leo? Do I... do I know you?"
She flinched as if I'd slapped her.
"Leo, stop. It's not funny. We've lived in the same village for five years. You gave me that wooden bird when I was crying..."
"I don't remember any bird," I muttered, the weight of the situation finally crashing down.
I didn't get a chance to explain.
A heavy, steel-toed boot stepped into the light at the alley's entrance. The smell hit me first—expensive tobacco and old, dried blood.
I looked up. My heart didn't just stop; it turned to stone.
Standing there, draped in a massive coat of black wolf fur, was a man who looked like he'd been carved out of granite.
The Duke of the North. In the game, this man was the "Final Boss of the Prologue." A monster who executed players just for standing in his way.
The Duke looked at the discarded training swords, then at his daughter, and finally, his cold, grey eyes locked onto me. The sheer 'Aura' of the man was a physical weight, making me want to retch.
"A villager," the Duke rumbled. His voice sounded like grinding stones.
He stepped closer, his massive hand resting on the pommel of a very real, very sharp longsword.
"Explain why you are holding my daughter, boy," he said.
"Before I decide to remove your arms."
I couldn't even breathe.