The first thing I saw wasn't a white light. It was a "Game Over" screen.
I didn't wake up in a hospital either. I woke up with a mouthful of freezing mud.
I pushed myself off the ground. My hands were small, filthy, and covered in calluses. I stared at my reflection in a dirty rainwater puddle.
Brown hair.
Sunken cheeks.
A ratty burlap tunic.
There was no name tag hovering over my head. No health bar in the corner of my vision.
I looked up.
Past the soot-stained roofs of the city, the obsidian peaks of the Dragon-Back Mountains pierced the sky like broken teeth. 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. The "render distance" wasn't a setting anymore. It was real.
The air smelled like wet cobblestone and cheap ale.
I was a nameless villager. An extra meant to die off-screen.
But I didn't care about my stats. I only cared about the clock ticking in my head.
In exactly ten minutes, the "Third Calamity" was going to be born. Alisa von Blood-Rose.
To the rest of the fanbase, she was just a mid-game boss you beheaded in Chapter 2. To the Church, she was a demon.
But to me? She was the only reason I played the game.
I ran.
My bare feet scraped against the stone. I shoved past armored mercenaries and screaming merchants, ignoring the chaos of the Capital. I knew exactly where her tragedy started. I'd watched the cutscene a hundred times.
I found the alleyway just as the sun began to set.
There she was.
She was tiny, maybe ten years old, backed into a corner and wrapped in an oversized black cloak. Three noble-born boys circled her like stray dogs.
"Show us the eyes, monster," the blonde leader sneered.
He grabbed the edge of her cloak and yanked it away.
Silver-pink hair spilled over her shoulders. And her eyes—deep, haunting crimson.
In this empire, red eyes were the mark of a curse. A literal death sentence. It was the reason her father, the terrifying Duke of the North, locked her away.
It was the reason the whole world hated her.
Alisa refused to back down. She bit her lip so hard it bled. Dark sparks of magic began to flicker around her knuckles.
This was the trigger.
If that mana went off, she'd kill them all. She would be labeled a monster, and her path to the guillotine would be set in stone.
"Let's see if demons really bleed black," the blonde boy laughed.
He drew a silver-hilted training sword and pointed it at her throat.
I looked at my empty hands. I had no weapon and no magic system to save me. I was just a guy who knew how the story ended, but I wasn't going to let the axe fall on her again.
"Hey!" I yelled, stepping into the alley. "Drop the toothpick, you blonde piece of trash."
The blonde kid froze. He turned around slowly, looking at me with pure confusion.
It was like he couldn't believe a peasant was actually breathing the same air as him.
"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" he asked, his brow furrowing in genuine anger.
"Leo?"
She suddenly called out a name. But that wasn't my name. Was she calling to someone else? I was just a guy who'd died in front of a monitor.
I didn't even know my own last name in this world, so instead of lying, I just said whatever was in my mind.
"Just... just leave her alone!" I shouted, trying to keep my voice from cracking.
One of the other boys snickered, stepping forward. "Aww, look at that. Is this your friend, Blood-Rose? A little street rat?"
The blonde leader curled his lip. "How disgusting. A monster and a peasant playing house in the mud. It's enough to make me vomit."
"I said move!" I snapped, trying to scare them away. At least, that was the plan.
The leader didn't even look at me when he gave the order. "Kill him."
What!?
Two of the lackeys lunged immediately. Luckily, I knew their movements from the game. These guys always used the same standard AI attack—a lunging right hook. I knew the frames by heart, but my new body was sluggish.
I barely ducked, feeling the wind of the punch graze my hair. I didn't counter-punch because I wasn't a fighter. Instead, I just threw my weight into the first kid's knee, targeting a weak spot in the physics engine.
Crack. He tripped over his own momentum and slammed into a pile of trash.
The second one tried to grab me, so I grabbed a loose cobblestone and shoved it into his stomach. He wheezed and doubled over instantly.
"What are you even doing, you little shit?" the blonde leader roared, his face turning red.
"You're literally defending a demon! Use your street-dog brain to understand something for once, moron! Or did you misunderstand the situation and try to act the hero? You're such a dumb bitch."
I stood my ground, breathing hard.
"You don't know anything about her! You don't know anything about her life!"
Behind me, I heard a small gasp. I didn't look back, but I could feel Alisa's eyes on me. She was shocked. Maybe even blushing a little.
"You just believe whoever tells you to hate her," I continued, pointing at the leader. "You don't even think twice. You just follow the crowd because it's easy, or is your lazy brain just spinning?"
"Enough!" the blonde guy screamed.
"How dare you talk to me like that!? How dare a filthy peasant address me. You're talking pure nonsense. Everyone in the kingdom—the Church, the nobles—they all know demons belong in hell. They shouldn't even be born! You got that!? And don't even try to act like you're the smartest one here!"
He stepped closer, his sword trembling in his hand.
"You think because she's a kid, she hasn't done anything bad? Demons are born for violence. They're thirsty for evil and the most disgusting torture you can imagine. Even a dog knows right from wrong when its master teaches them. You should know better, too."
I looked him dead in the eye.
"That's just a fairytale. Sure, maybe most demons are evil, but that's just the nature of things. If you raise a dog to protect a sheep, the dog becomes a hero. It earns love because it was taught to be good."
I took a step forward.
"But wolves? Wolves are forced to be the villains. They're hunted and hated just for existing. You're treating her like a wolf before she's even seen a sheep. You're the one making her a monster!"
The blonde kid's eyes narrowed into slits. "Oh my god.., such a pure nonsense again, I bet you will be the first sheep she see, and don't ya worry, I'll kill you, wait ain't that better than killed by demon right? so let me be, i'm serious."
"Huh!?" I gasped. My heart nearly stopped.
"Don't look so surprised," he sneered, raising his silver sword.
"Even if I kill you, I'll just tell my father to take care of it. Your life is worthless, peasant. You're just a bug I stepped on. I'm wasting my time even replying to you."
He lunged with the training sword. In the game, this was the "Scripted Death" for any NPC that interfered.
I couldn't dodge, so I jammed my palm against the hilt of his sword as it came down. It was a 'Guard-Break' glitch I'd seen in a hundred speedruns.
The sword clattered to the ground.
The alley went silent. The noble brat stared at his empty hand, shaking with pure rage.
"You... you touched me," he whispered. "A peasant... touched me!"
He pulled back his fist to finish me, but then the air died.
The temperature plummeted and a suffocating pressure settled over the alley. It felt like a mountain was sitting on my head.
Alisa was standing up, her pink hair whipping around her face. Her eyes were glowing a deep, terrifying red.
"Get lost, you three," she said, her voice sounding like it came from the bottom of a well. "And don't ever touch my friend again, you hear me?"
The boys did not even grab their sword. They scrambled out of the alley, screaming about demons and curses. The pressure vanished and Alisa swayed, her face turning as white as bone.
I caught her before she hit the mud. She was shivering, her skin feeling like ice.
"You're an idiot," she whispered, her red eyes looking at me with relief. "Why did you stay, Leo?"
I stared at her, my head spinning. What was she talking about?
"Look... who is Leo? And who are you? Do I actually know you?"
She blinked, her expression shifting to pure hurt. "What are you talking about? We've lived in the same village for five years. You're the one who gave me the wooden bird when I was crying in the woods."
"I... I don't remember any bird," I muttered.
She looked at me like I'd just slapped her. "Leo, stop it. This isn't funny. Did you hit your head?"
I didn't get to answer.
A heavy boot stepped into the light at the entrance of the alley.
I looked up, and my heart didn't just stop—it froze.
Standing there, draped in a coat of black fur and smelling of expensive tobacco and old blood, was a man who looked like he'd been carved out of granite.
The Duke of the North. Alisa's father.
In the game, this man was the "Final Boss of the Prologue." He was a monster who executed players for the crime of standing in his way. He didn't have a heart; he had a list of enemies.
My legs turned to jelly. I wanted to run, but I couldn't move. I was paralyzed.
The Duke looked at the discarded sword, then at his daughter, and finally, his cold, grey eyes landed on me.
"A villager," the Duke rumbled. His voice was like grinding stones.
He stepped closer, and the sheer 'Aura' of the man made me want to throw up.
This was the guy who beheads the Villainess later in the game. This was the man who destroys empires.
"Explain why you are holding my daughter, boy," the Duke said, his hand resting on the pommel of a very real, very sharp sword.
"Before I decide to remove your arms."
I couldn't even breathe. I was just a fan who'd played the game too much.
And now, I was about to die in the first chapter.