Chapter 89

I tore another shirt. This was the eighth one.

‘No way.’

Despite being incredulous, I followed their instructions since it was needed. They justified it by saying my clothes were torn during intense battles, so there wasn’t much room for argument. Still grumbling, I continued shuttling between Earth and Ardenia.

“Log in.”

In Ardenia, I used One Sword Force before returning to Earth for a kissing scene with Hye-young.

“Log out.”

Back in Ardenia, I employed One Sword Force again, then returned to Earth for a battle scene with Sungjae.

‘I need to think more about my Inner Force.’

Currently, the Inner Force I possess is neutral Qi without any distinct characteristics. It lacks specialization but allows me to utilize any martial arts technique.

This phenomenon occurred because it wasn’t directly cultivated through Heart Law training and accumulating energy. Instead, I was processing mana obtained from class buffs and collections using chakra.

‘I only use One Sword Force with Instant Destruction Technique as well. In that case…it is better to specialize in martial arts for this type of combat.’

The advantage of being able to rest by logging in/out repeatedly was too powerful. It couldn’t be ignored. If there weren’t any suitable martial arts, I planned to create new ones.

“Log Out.”

I used One Sword Force and returned to Earth. Then I moved my still tense muscles and launched myself forward.

Dang!

“Ugh?! What are those guys?”

“Stop them!”

The army of the giant cartel launched an attack. Sungjae flicked his fingers and sent magic power flying while I penetrated through it, shaking sword energy like lightning to finish off the enemies.

Thud.

Sungjae’s back touched mine.

“Not bad.”

“It isn’t too good.” It was dry praise. Then…

“CUT! Okay, prepare for the next scene!” There was brief applause as staff members rushed around the temporary filming location. My torn clothes attracted whispers from nearby.

“I didn’t think there would be a love triangle… but Jae-yeon is quite good, right?”

“Yes. Her voice is clear, and her aura is considerable… Initially, she seemed a bit fierce, but now she has a wild charm.”

“Those bulging arm muscles…so sexy…”

I pretended not to hear and checked my reflection in the mirror.

‘It is fortunate that I underwent Rebirth.’

If it wasn’t for Rebirth, I wouldn’t be able to use this scenario where I remove my shirt. For 20 years, I lived without any backup in the Land of Midgard. Injuries were commonplace, and there was no environment suitable for proper treatment. As a result, scars covered my body like a child’s scribbles, making me look quite unsightly. However, during the process of Rebirth, all those numerous scars disappeared, and my skin became smooth.

Yet, it wasn’t entirely positive.

‘My body has become smaller.’

The mountain-like muscles on my back disappeared, and my arms became pathetically thin. The staff cheered with ‘Look how great you look without clothes!’, but I found it regrettable since I still had a great body even when clothed. Fortunately, despite becoming smaller, my athletic ability didn’t decrease. It felt like my muscles were compressed rather than just reduced in size.

”…Login.”

I was sitting in a chair resting when I entered Ardenia.

Hwooohhh!

Chirin! Chiiik!

Ice elementals gathered on top of the castle walls, emitting cold air as they shot ice arrows.

“Hold your shields straight!”

“Don’t stop advancing! Enter the castle!”

Thousands of soldiers rushed through the destroyed castle gates.

“Kwooooh!” A yeti roared and blocked the main road ahead of jae-yeon’s army. Its goal was to halt their advance long enough for more monsters to gather, but…

jae-yeon executed Momentary Art: First Form - One Sword Force by leaping from atop the castle gate and splitting its head open with one swing.

“The castle lord is fighting alongside us!”

“Push forward! Take the castle walls! We must secure the north gate completely!”

“If we win this war, we’ll become elite soldiers too! And gain citizenship!”

Most of those currently engaged in the siege were regular soldiers. The elite soldiers who had previously cleared dungeons were resting outside the castle grounds eating Songpyeon rice cakes.

There’s a time limit.

After clearing a hell-mode dungeon, they had two hours to initiate the siege, and once it began, they needed to claim victory within three hours.

Of course, now that the game has merged with reality, there’s no restriction on when we can attack.

In games, hostile actions within castles were not allowed except during sieges, but there was no such restriction in reality. If I killed all the monsters and took over the castle, then it would be mine by right of conquest, wouldn’t it? However, my situation was different. Systemically, I had to take control of this castle.

Obviously, the condition of elite soldiers who entered the dungeon couldn’t recover in just a few hours. There were many seriously injured soldiers, with most suffering from frostbite due to the extreme cold. Therefore, I let the elite soldiers rest while leading the remaining forces in the siege. Naturally, our combat power was greatly reduced.

“Haap!”

The process turned out easier than expected.

“Stop them! Curse these humans! Tear their limbs apart!”

“Their spirit is good.”

An ice golem rushed forward to block me. But it was futile.

The cold emitted from him was reduced by 90%, and despite the size difference, my strength was greater.

Ku-thud!

I grabbed the Ice Golem’s legs and threw it, sweeping away dozens of monsters. Then I approached the furious ice slayer with the Great Power Sword raised.

“You can’t stop me with this number.”

The difficulty of the siege war had decreased significantly because most elite monsters were killed when clearing the dungeon. When the siege began, regular monsters revived but not the elites. Despite the overwhelming numbers, it became difficult if there was too much of a level gap. How could ordinary monsters withstand endless One Sword Force attacks?

“Log in.”

“Log out.”

It repeated. Continuously repeating. At one point, Sungjae looked at me and spoke, “Jae-yeon, you finally seem more human now.”

“What do you mean?”

“You look tired. Well, your recent schedule has been tight?”

As Sungjae said, I was indeed feeling tired. It was natural since I had been continuously going back and forth to Ardenia for sieges. Rather than conducting war, it felt like being a One Sword Force machine. Still, combat remained combat. Moreover, on Earth, there wasn’t any rest as I continued acting, leading to accumulating fatigue.

“Somewhat.”

I replied while pondering,

‘Should I not go to Ardenia for a while? Things might improve once filming is finished.’

However, I immediately shook my head.

‘No, it won’t get better.’

It wasn’t just about the current busyness. A week from now, a month later, even a year down the line, I would still be busy. I needed to continually earn money, which meant keeping up with work incessantly.

“Log in.”

“Log out.”

Yet, as this process repeated, doubts resurfaced again.

I was really tired.

‘Should I just act carelessly and move on?’

However, I barely managed to regain my focus.

‘Nope. If I am going to do it, then I should do it well. More work may come up later.’

I needed to work harder. As an actor, the guarantee of earnings from acting didn’t compare to the sponsorship received for writing novels. Unfortunately, there were limits to the sponsorship.

‘There aren’t enough works…’

Sponsorship for each work could only be given once. There were more than 10 sponsors with suspiciously large amounts of money, but so far, no single work had ever received sponsorship from two different patrons. In other words,

‘It’s becoming increasingly difficult to secure more sponsorships.’

There were very few works reaching the level of an encyclopedia, and even excluding those, not many novels remained available.

From the beginning, literature wasn’t flourishing in Ardenia, and many works were lost due to monster attacks. Of course, royalties from already written works continued to come in, but it was small compared to the sponsorship worth billions. These works had been abandoned by the masses from the start.

“Login.”

Meanwhile, I finally succeeded in assassinating all the elite monsters.

Bang!

Angry regular monsters swarmed towards me, but I didn’t bother dealing with them and leaped upwards. With my strength surpassing that of humans combined with Parkour, I effortlessly soared over 50 meters high.

“Kasim!”

A white drake appeared in mid-air, catching me gracefully. Initially, if I had summoned Kasim directly near the castle, we would’ve faced certain death amidst the swarm, so instead, I advanced by breaking through the gates myself.

Now that my soldiers had entered the castle and started advancing, there was no risk of being surrounded on multiple sides.

”…Hmm?”

However, upon reaching the feudal lord’s castle, I realized something strange. There were no monsters guarding it at all.

“What? What is this?” I searched around incredulously, but the building was completely empty.

I returned to the throne room and sat down on the throne.

[A message from Han Jae-yeon: Attempting Engraving on the Throne!]

A notification appeared. It meant for me to quickly run over and stop her, but nobody came.

”…It doesn’t matter. Once I take the castle, everything will be over.”

Something felt uneasy, but it wasn’t enough to halt the engraving process. Once the occupation was complete, all the monsters would disappear, and the castle itself would become part of my domain.

However, at that moment, Combat Premonition activated.

”…!”

There was no time to groan as I pulled out the Great Power Sword and used One Sword Force.

Zzang-zzang-zzang!

Zing!

The entire castle froze over. I countered with the power of Combat Premonition but it was just barely enough. From the beginning, this attack couldn’t be avoided.

“Not bad. To face me head-on…I don’t want to believe that I died at the hands of a mere human, but you are certainly capable.”

Despite having a sword embedded in her heart, the enemy showed remarkable composure.

Awakened Ice Queen (Legendary)

Elisa

‘Regenerated already? So soon?’

My body went cold when I met the gaze of the ice queen. It wasn’t just a metaphor.

[The irregular status ‘Frozen’ has been applied!]

Normally, this condition wouldn’t last more than five seconds at most. Of course, there was no reason for her frozen body to recover spontaneously.

‘No way. If she could use such an attack before now, why didn’t she?’

As I watched in shock, the Ice Queen’s body slowly began to dissipate from her fingertips. Then it dawned on me:

‘Self-destruct… It’s a suicide attack.’

Incredibly, the Ice Queen had triggered her core to unleash an extreme cold beyond its limits. This would never happen in a game—what raid monster would possess such a worthless skill? In gaming terms, if someone fell victim to a self-destruct move, they’d simply respawn using diamonds.

However, reality was different.

“I heard from my subordinates that you can recover no matter how big the wound with just one word. How about now? Can you recover?”

”…”

I couldn’t recover. Once my body froze, even my monstrous strength became useless. I couldn’t even blink, let alone shout ‘log out’.

‘This can’t be.’

‘Incomprehensible Combat Premonition’ was a fraudulent ability. This skill, whose operating principle and method were unknown, made me immune to surprise attacks despite having neither Detection nor Intuition. However, it wasn’t absolute invincibility. Without Detection, there were situations like this where I couldn’t avoid ‘falling into a trap’. The belated activation of Combat Premonition was useless since I was already halfway into the trap.

‘If only I had brought Stonestone who learned the Reverse Flow Water Visualization Technique, he would’ve realized something was installed.’

Logging in and logging out were fraudulent abilities. As long as I didn’t die, I could avoid the situation and recover. Zone 34 was a safe place where any injury could be treated unless it wasn’t fatal. Even permanent disabilities could be cured at the hospital, so what more could be said?

However, this wasn’t invincible either.

‘I never thought they would prevent me from speaking.’

It was unexpected. There was a possibility that the special boss, not found in dungeons, might already have regenerated but even then, such a self-destructive attack?

The ice queen spoke:

[I observed… without you, all those forces are just paper tigers. It means I can sweep them away anytime.]

I couldn’t deny her words. My army was completely subordinate to my existence as one individual. There were no successors, so if I died, the entire force would be shattered and dispersed.

Fsssss…

The Ice Queen’s body slowly started dissipating. For a moment, she seemed frightened by this sight but quickly composed herself.

“You will die, and I will be reborn.”

“I will freeze your entire army and seize all lands.”

With these final words, the Ice Queen disappeared.

”…”

Despite trying hard to gather Inner Force, I couldn’t break free from the freezing effect. My consciousness gradually faded away.

[Congratulations! A guild has occupied the Ice Queen’s Paradise!]

[New Castle Lord: Han Jae-yeon.]

Finally, I lost consciousness.

Vwoom!

A new spot opened up on my inner Go board: The Flower Shop.

Nine meridians were now established on the Go board.

Tak!

And within this newly opened space, a previously unknown element awakened as if released from a seal. Han Jae-yeon had never possessed or trained with this element before, yet it started emanating its distinct presence naturally.

Those who awaken after experiencing near-death situations often possess elements related to attributes. In her case, it was coldness.