…

"What do you think Sung-jin is doing?"

A girl with long blonde hair, a slender body, and a smooth face with no imperfections asked the woman in front of her while sipping on a cup of coffee. She broke the silence after nothing had been said between the two in a while; they had just been enjoying the great coffee in silence.

"Why should I know?"

Dallia laughed at the strange question Aera suddenly asked her. She made weird eye motions as she leaned over the table and got up close to her face.

"Are you perhaps in love?"

She whispered into her ears, making her blush with embarrassment immediately after. Her face was glowing red, indicating to Dallia that she was spot on with her prediction.

"I knew it!"

She shouted, so everyone at the café heard it, and all the attention suddenly got on them.

"Shhh!"

Aera pushed her face away and told her to calm down.

"It doesn't matter if I'm in love or not. I'm just a little worried about him..."

She shouted in a whisper, and her concerned and shaky voice was more than enough to tell Dallia that she was serious and worried about the man.

"Don't worry; I think he is doing fine. He was the one who saved us from that pack of goblins, so I think he is plenty strong."

She tried to calm her worries, and it seemed like it worked.

"Your right; he is very strong… There is probably nothing to worry about."

Area responded and calmed down, but she couldn't make proper eye contact, so she awkwardly looked away.

'I can't say that he was the one who took down the Goblin General.'

She thought back to the tutorial and the promise she made with Sung-jin about keeping it a secret that he killed the Goblin General. It was something she had forgotten about until Dallia reminded her about the tutorial just a moment ago.

"Yea, he is probably fine."

Aera smiled as she sipped on the cup of coffee again.

…

Swash-!

[32 Damage Taken]

"Arh. This motherf*cker!"

Sung-jin yelled after only half blocking the sword that hit him on his shoulder.

'This is bad! If I don't do something quickly, my health will hit rock bottom!'

He thought, and at this point, desperation to find a way to kill the monster filled his mind.

'The Headless Horseman… If I remember right, in traditional folklore, the Horseman was a Hessian trooper who was killed during the Battle of White Plains in 1776. An American cannonball decapitated him, and the shattered remains of his head were left on the battlefield while his comrades carried his body away.'

He perfectly remembered folklore from the past world he lived in before getting teleported, but if it was the same monster as the legend depicted…

'Surely, this monster can die, right?'

His hands got sweaty because of the possibility that this Horseman was the same in the folklore. And if it was, Sung-jin got a big problem.

'The story goes that the Headless Horseman was never killed, so I don't have any idea if it's possible to kill him. But then again, this is a game, so there must be a way.'

He cheered himself up. No matter how the folklore went, this world was set up as a game, so making an unbeatable enemy was against the rules, or so he thought it would.

'If I think about it logically, the folklore says the Horseman lives in the Dark Forest, meaning he is probably a Dark-type monster in this game… And that's all I know…'

Looking at the ground with no optimism, he thought he was doomed.

'Okay, okay. Let me just attack it and find out! That's the best way to discern how f*cked I am.'

He laughed a bit awkwardly as he equipped his weapon, the Goblin's Knife. He tightly gripped the handle and prepared to make an attack.

'Just a quick jab and—

Woosh-!

His thoughts got interrupted, and he couldn't react in time before the Headless Horseman dashed towards him.

Thunk-!

"Wha—"

Blood filled his mouth so that he couldn't say a thing. His head got light, and his eyes darkened. The Horseman stood in front of him suddenly, but Sung-jin still hadn't figured out what had happened.

"Arh!"

An incredible pain followed soon, and he began to choke in his blood. And when he looked down to where the pain came from, he quickly understood why he had it like this.

'Damn…'

His eyes teared up because of the unfathomable pain, and he quickly took himself to the stomach where the Headless Horseman had penetrated with his sword. Everything went so fast, and Sung-jin still hadn't understood completely what was going on.

"Why! I'm not going to die here!"

Spitting his blood out in anger, he screamed his determination to fight back. However, a numbness suddenly occurred, and he couldn't feel the tips of his fingers or toes.

'I'm actually going to die here…'

He thought the inevitable as the numbness crawled up his body, and soon, no muscle in his body worked.

[Fatal damage.]

A notification flashed before his eyes, telling him the obvious.

"Ark!"

The Headless Horseman retrieved the sword that otherwise held Sung-jin in place. He painfully groaned and fell to the ground. And without batting him an eye the entire time, the Headless Horseman turned around and walked away from the dead man on the earth.

'I failed…'

Regretting thoughts filled his mind as darkness ensued in his eyes; he had finally understood the seriousness of his situation, and tears appeared streaming down his cheek. Without friends and family, no memories, or good times, regretting his life choices as he lay on the cold forest floor. The only thing that awaited him now was eternal sleep.

Ding-!

-System: The Demon King admires you.

A sudden sound woke him before his eyes closed forever, and as he looked up at the blurry text he could barely read, a slight smile showed on his face.

'That's right; I got the Dark Apostle title from the Demon King… Maybe you should have chosen another person, though...'

He tried to communicate with the Demon King to tell him the wrong choice he made, but as he had thought, no reply came. But that wasn't surprising to Sung-jin, and even if the Demon King was watching, why would he talk to a weakling like him? However, surprises didn't stop coming.

Ding-!

-System: Quest completed 'Demon King's Quest.'

The sound of the system resounded again, and another text appeared in front of him. However, this time he couldn't read it, his eyes could no longer be kept open, and this time nothing could be done about it.

'Just shut up! And let me die in peace…'

Everything got dark, and his body was cold as ice. Without knowing what the notification said, he took his last breath.

[Game Over!]

It said as the nonresponsive Sung-jin took his last breath.

Ding-!

-System: Summoning Request. Do you agree? Yes or No.

The system tried to communicate with Sung-jin, but he didn't answer as he was already lying dead on the ground.

Ding-!

-System: Summoning Request error!!!

-System: Summoning Request error!!!

-System: Summoning Request error!!!

Unusual notifications cluttered up his vision if he were awake. It was notifications that hadn't been seen before. And the system didn't know what to do.

Ding-!

-System: Demon King forcefully overwrites the system.

-System: Demon King summons without permission from the player.

The strange abnormality continued, but the culprit behind the panicked system got revealed, and it was non-other than the one who had had an eye on Sung-jin ever since his rebirth.

Ding-!

-System: Summoning in progress… Please wait.

The sounds continued, revealing that the Demon King had enough authority to corrupt the system and make it do as he wanted.

Ding-!

-System: 3…2…1… Summoning is successful.

The last sound resounded, and Sung-jin's body disappeared from the forest floor. And what was left was a blood pool and streams of blood that spread out on the uneven forest floor, painting the brown mushy ground red. And with the moon reflecting itself in the clear and pure blood, no evidence was left of Sung-jin ever being there.