The wind had no smell.
That was the first thing Ha-joon noticed.
He opened his eyes on an endless plain.
Not green.
Not dead.
Alive.
The grass rippled with no visible wind.
The ground breathed—almost imperceptibly—beneath his feet.
He was alone.
No corpses.
No ruins.
No screams.
Just an organic silence.
[Territory of Influence detected.]
[Domain: Primordial Origin]
[Observation in progress.]
Ha-joon swallowed.
“…Rin?”
No one answered.
He dropped to one knee.
He touched the soil.
Warm.
Not like an artificial surface.
Like skin.
His interface vibrated faintly.
His power activated on instinct.
Disaster Calculation.
Effects: can perceive risk in an environment, the chances of success or failure for each action, and “force” a situation toward the worst or best outcome according to his will.
Probability lines appeared around him.
Translucent trajectories.
Potential risks.
Unstable zones.
But… they didn’t lead to death.
They led to choices.
Ahead of him, three directions seemed possible.
Left:
Higher vegetation density.
High survival probability.
Slow progression.
Right:
Clearer area.
Risk of underground collapse.
Unknown potential gain.
Straight ahead:
Absolute silence.
No calculable data.
Ha-joon frowned.
“Why can’t I see?”
He pushed harder.
The probabilities blurred.
Then vanished.
A notification appeared.
[Superior interference detected.]
The earth vibrated softly.
A voice didn’t echo in the air.
It rose from the ground.
Calm.
Vast.
Patient.
“You look at the future like an equation.”
Ha-joon sprang to his feet.
“Wh—who’s there?”
The grass bent.
The roots beneath his feet shifted subtly.
“Equations are born after life.
I am before.”
A silhouette formed a few meters away.
Not a woman.
Not an anthropomorphic goddess.
A figure made of branches, vines, and filtered light.
Not imposing.
Enveloping.
[Observing Entity: The Mother of All Things]
[Status: Dominant influence over this territory]
[Contract offer: potential]
Ha-joon felt his heart accelerate.
But not from fear.
A different pressure.
As if something were assessing not his strength…
but his growth.
“You manipulate probabilities.”
He clenched his fists.
“I… I’m just trying to survive.”
“Everyone tries.”
The ground lifted slightly under his feet.
Seeds surfaced.
In seconds, they sprouted.
Flowers.
Then they withered.
Then they turned to dust.
A full cycle.
Before his eyes.
“Survival is not the goal.
Continuity is.”
Ha-joon activated his power again.
Disaster Calculation.
He tried to see the risks tied to this entity.
Nothing.
No probability of immediate death.
But a strange line appeared.
If pact accepted →
Exponential growth.
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Partial loss of independence.
If refusal →
Increased solitude.
Slower development.
He inhaled deeply.
“What do you want me to do?”
The silhouette drew closer.
Not threatening.
“Observe.
Grow.
Do not burn too fast.”
It wasn’t offering destructive power.
No weapons.
No domination.
It offered stability.
Patience.
Resilience.
Ha-joon thought of Rin.
Rin always moved by calculation.
But sometimes… he forced it.
He bent the rules.
Ha-joon survived by anticipating.
But if he could… strengthen continuity?
A new notification appeared.
[Proposal: Germination Pact]
Effect: Progressive amplification of abilities linked to the contractor’s adaptation and evolution.
Condition: Refuse to manipulate probability for major destructive ends.
Ha-joon blinked.
“So… I can’t save someone if I have to cause an accident?”
Silence.
Then:
“You will be able to save.
But not destroy in order to save.”
He stood still.
His power thrummed faintly.
Disaster Calculation analyzed the situation.
If refusal →
Decent survival probability.
If acceptance →
High long-term impact probability.
He bit his lip.
“I… I want to become strong.
But not like that.”
The silhouette fragmented slightly.
No anger.
“Then don’t sign.
Observe longer.”
The offer didn’t vanish.
It went on hold.
The Mother of All Things didn’t recruit soldiers.
She cultivated.
The ground sealed beneath his feet.
Probabilities became visible again.
But finer.
More nuanced.
Ha-joon realized something.
She wasn’t pushing him.
She was letting him choose.
He raised his gaze to the horizon.
Other territories pulsed far away.
Other voices surely whispered elsewhere.
[Floor Stability: 91%]
Someone had just accepted a pact.
The sky tinted to a slightly darker green.
Ha-joon tightened his grip on his crossbow.
“I’ll survive on my own first.”
A discreet notification appeared.
[Growth potential: high.]
The silhouette disappeared completely.
But the grass under his feet kept breathing.
He wasn’t chosen.
Not yet.
But he was planted.
And somewhere, the Mother of All Things had decided he was worth watering… rather than replacing.
The ground was cold.
Not earth.
Not stone.
Ancient metal.
The sky above was gray and motionless, streaked with luminous scars like frozen wounds.
Dae-hyun was alone.
No Rin.
No Mi-sun.
No Ha-joon.
Just him.
And a petrified battlefield.
Warriors frozen in ash.
Broken spears.
Shattered shields.
And at the center…
A gigantic wolf.
Chained.
Not dead.
Still alive.
Its eyes burned with hateful intelligence.
A luminous chain ran through its jaws.
A severed hand lay on the ground, at the foot of the altar that held the creature.
Dae-hyun understood immediately.
This wasn’t an arena.
It was a scene.
A memory.
[Influence territory: Norse Pantheon detected.]
[The Oath Etched in Blood is watching you.]
He inhaled slowly.
He raised his shield.
The wolf yanked.
The chain vibrated.
A crack rang out.
One link split.
The ground trembled.
Dae-hyun’s throat tightened.
“No…”
The chain snapped.
The wolf hit the ground.
Free.
And immediately it lunged toward the frozen silhouettes around it.
Not toward Dae-hyun.
Toward the weakest.
Toward those who couldn’t move.
Instinctively, Dae-hyun ran.
He threw himself in the way.
Shield raised.
Impact.
He flew several meters.
His arm screamed under the shock.
[Reverberation activated.]
He replayed the attack in his memory.
He understood the angle.
The speed.
The trajectory.
He stood up.
He swung his mace.
Not to kill.
To divert.
The wolf growled.
Then ignored Dae-hyun.
It tried to circle again.
Again.
And again.
Always striking the most vulnerable.
Not the fighter.
The weak.
The immobilized.
Dae-hyun understood.
This wasn’t a trial of strength.
It was a trial of choice.
Protect or survive.
He could run.
He could dodge.
He could wait for the wolf to destroy the statues.
But he stayed.
Every blow cracked his shield further.
Every impact drove him back.
His breathing shortened.
His arm trembled.
He screamed.
“NOT THIS TIME!”
He activated Reverberation again.
He reproduced the attack he had just absorbed.
The wolf leapt.
Head-on impact.
Metal vibrated.
The ground gave way.
Dae-hyun dropped to his knees.
His shield split in two.
Silence.
The wolf stopped.
It could have killed.
It didn’t.
It backed away.
Then the chains reappeared.
They wrapped around it.
The severed hand began to glow.
A voice resonated.
Not loud.
Not divine.
Grave.
Ancient.
“You stayed.”
Not a question.
A statement.
Dae-hyun trembled.
He looked at his broken shield.
He looked at the statues intact behind him.
He understood.
He had failed physically.
But not morally.
A notification appeared.
[The Oath Etched in Blood is proud of you.]
[Artifact granted: Shield of the Last Rampart.]
A new object materialized before him.
Wider.
Denser.
Engraved with an ancient Norse symbol.
He grabbed it.
On contact, a skill etched itself into his mind.
Linked skill:
Oath of the Last Rampart
As long as the bearer holds their shield raised,
allies behind them cannot suffer a fatal blow.
All lethal debt is transferred to the bearer.
No listed drawback.
No contract.
No clause.
Just the gift.
Dae-hyun stood still.
He didn’t understand.
“Why…?”
Silence.
Then:
“This isn’t a market. It’s a gift.”
The presence faded.
The gray sky stabilized.
The territory regained shape.
The wolf vanished.
Dae-hyun stared at the shield.
He understood something essential.
This god asked for nothing.
It waited.
Dae-hyun clenched his jaw.
He stood.
He raised the shield.
“Then… I swear.”
He dropped to one knee.
Not to submit.
To promise.
“If I have to protect,
I’ll protect to the very end.”
A new line appeared.
[A true exclusive contract proposal is initiated by the participant.]
[The Oath Etched in Blood accepts the offer.]
And for the first time since the tutorial…
Dae-hyun wasn’t trembling anymore.
The wind didn’t blow.
It whistled.
A suspended plateau, shattered into several chunks of rock linked by bridges too narrow. The sky above was gray, cracked with silent lightning.
Jin-woo walked without looking back.
He’d been separated from the others during the teleport.
He hadn’t panicked.
He never really panicked.
“Well… new floor, new mess.”
He stepped onto a stone arch.
The ground cracked.
Not under his weight.
Under something else.
A luminous line appeared beneath his feet.
[Instability detected.]
The bridge gave way.
Stone snapped clean.
Jin-woo fell.
The void opened beneath him.
Silence.
Then—
A chunk of rock broke loose above, struck a wall, ricocheted, wedged into a fissure, and formed an improvised platform exactly under his path.
He hit it hard.
Roll.
Heavy breathing.
He burst out laughing.
“Seriously?”
In the sky, something changed.
Not visible.
But perceptible.
An intention.
A red flare split the clouds briefly.
A voice didn’t speak.
It sighed.
A probability shifted.
A second rock fragment broke free.
This time, directly above the platform.
Too precise to be natural.
It was going to crush him.
Jin-woo looked up.
“Ah. That one’s for me.”
The block fell.
At the last instant, a vibration ran through the air.
The fragment cracked mid-fall.
Its trajectory shifted by a single degree.
A degree that was enough.
The block grazed his shoulder and smashed behind him.
Jin-woo stayed still.
Then tilted his head.
“Okay. That wasn’t luck. Must be because of that new skill I got after the tutorial.”
Unique Skill: “Shameless Luck”
Effects: Extreme luck—improbable survival, critical failures reversed into successes, obstacles bypassed by chance. Completely random; can cause catastrophic events for others; depends on absolute randomness; prolonged use destabilizes his perception.
The sky began to tremble.
No system alert.
No announcement.
Just laughter.
Light laughter.
Not cruel.
Amused.
In the upper mist, an indistinct silhouette watched.
It didn’t like losing.
It liked understanding.
It had altered three probabilities in under ten seconds:
Structural rupture
Vector deviation
Vertical crush
All three had failed.
Not canceled.
Diverted.
Rewritten by something else.
This wasn’t a blessing.
Not protection.
It was… narrative resistance.
The Higher Entity tilted its head.
“Interesting.”
It tweaked another parameter.
Finer.
More subtle.
A small landslide.
One unstable stone under the left foot.
Jin-woo took a step.
The stone rolled.
He lost balance.
Fell backward.
His arm slammed into a metallic outcropping hidden in the rock.
An old buried artifact.
The shock triggered the mechanism.
A translucent barrier snapped up around him.
The landslide stopped dead.
Silence.
Jin-woo stared at the barrier.
“Okay… I’m not asking questions.”
In the sky, the laughter broke out for real.
Not mocking.
Amused.
“You’re not normal.”
The entity had just understood something.
It wasn’t playing with Jin-woo’s luck.
Luck was playing with it.
The wind resumed.
Normal.
The sky stabilized again.
Jin-woo stood.
“If there’s someone up there… you’re not very good at this.”
He shrugged.
And walked on.
In the invisible heights, one last line appeared.
[The Crownless Trickster watches you with interest.]
