The world turned white.
Then—warmth.
Not the searing blaze of fire, nor the divine radiance of an artifact unleashing its power, but something gentler. Subtler. Familiar.
Damon's eyes fluttered open.
Above him stretched a soft ceiling—white, smooth, untouched by smoke or rot.
He blinked.
The bedsheets beneath him felt strange—almost disorienting. His joints no longer throbbed with pain. His lungs filled effortlessly, without a wheeze. The crushing weight of leadership—the endless struggle, the blood-soaked wars—had all vanished from his shoulders.
He was... in a bed.
In a room.
Alive.
A word so simple, yet overwhelming—as if waking up from a nightmare that had lasted a lifetime.
Slowly, he sat up. His head throbbed faintly as memories surged—battlefields, betrayals, fire, Tiamat's final scream, the Clown's laughter... and the wish.
The wish.
His hands trembled as he pressed them to his chest. Smooth skin. No scars. No armor. Just a plain white T-shirt, clinging to a younger body.
Across from the bed stood a mirror.
He rose unsteadily, like a man relearning how to walk after decades of crawling, and staggered toward it.
Staring back at him was a face he hadn't seen in decades.
Sharp black eyes, unclouded by loss. Jet-black hair. Firm jaw. Clear skin, not yet weathered by hardship. His youth.
It worked. It actually worked.
"I'm back," he whispered. "August 1st... 2018."
The date flashed in his mind—confirmed by the small calendar on the nightstand. His heart thundered. He hadn't just gone back.
He'd been reborn.
Turning toward the window, he noticed the blinds still drawn—sunlight glowing faintly at the edges.
With trembling fingers, he stepped over and raised them.
Pale morning light flooded the room, casting honey-colored beams across the floor.
He unlatched the window and opened it.
And then—he saw it.
The sky.
A vast ocean of blue stretched endlessly above, unmarred and pristine. Wisps of clouds drifted lazily, their edges aglow with golden light.
Damon's breath caught.
The sight was beautiful. Devastatingly so.
For over forty years, the sky had been crimson—choked with ash and demonic miasma. A permanent scar. An omen of ruin.
But this?
This was the world before the fall. Before the system. Before dungeons split the earth and monsters feasted on mankind.
Tears welled in his eyes.
How many times had he looked up at that blood-red sky, trying to remember what blue even looked like? Wondering if he'd ever see it again?
He had forgotten.
"Oh my God..." he breathed. "I forgot how much I missed you."
The air was clean. No stench of rot. No iron tang of blood. Just summer—warm, golden, real.
He leaned out the window, letting the wind brush across his face.
No alarms. No screaming. No gunfire.
Only birdsong.
And then he laughed. Soft, unguarded, raw.
Not the laugh of the Sword Demon.
Not the laugh of a man who carved his name into the bones of a dying world.
But the laugh of Damon Kyriazis—young, unbroken, alive.
And for the first time in over forty years... he allowed himself to believe in hope.
---
Damon's fingers lingered on the windowsill, the breeze brushing through his hair like an old friend.
He closed his eyes.
"The air... it's real. The warmth. The silence. The sky."
For him, this scene was like waking up from a nightmare that had lasted a whole lifetime.
"Forty years of war... blood... death... and for what?"
He drew back from the window and stared down at his hands. No scars. No blood. No trembling weight of guilt. Just clean, youthful skin.
"I really did go back."
The thought echoed in his head like a whisper through time.
Damon moved to the small desk in the corner of the room. The surface was cluttered—half-finished notebooks, a cracked phone charger, an old laptop with stickers peeling off. Everything was just as he remembered it.
"This really is 2018..."
His eyes fell on the calendar pinned above the desk.
August 1st.
The exact date he had asked for.
He reached for a pen—just to feel something familiar—and held it tightly.
"Calm down. Think. No time for nostalgia now."
He turned to the mirror once more.
Jet-black hair. Sharp black eyes. No sign of the monster he'd become. No trace of the Sword Demon who had ruled the apocalypse from his blood-soaked throne.
"I've been given a second chance. A real one."
"I have to prepare. The dungeons will open in a few years. The world will change. And this time—"
His expression hardened.
"This time, I'll be ready."
---
Just then—
The lights flickered.
A faint hum passed through the room, like the soft pulse of a server booting up.
Damon froze.
"What...?"
Suddenly, his vision blurred.
A soft, translucent screen flickered into existence before his eyes—clean, structured, unmistakably artificial.
He knew this sensation.
His heart skipped a beat.
And then—
---
[ERROR DETECTED]
[Analyzing cause...]
[Bug identified. Initiating termination sequence...]
[TERMINATION FAILED. Access privileges locked.]
[Deactivating emergency protocol...]
[Welcome back, Player: Damon Kyriazis]
[Initiating synchronization... Synchronization completed]
[Status: Restored.]
---
The screen vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving Damon blinking in stunned silence.
"What... was that?" he muttered, his eyes narrowing as he searched the empty room.
His mind raced. A part of him recognized the digital interface—something not of this world, yet deeply familiar.
He looked down at his hands again: young. Alive. Real.
But this—this was something else entirely.
The reality he'd returned to was not as simple as waking up from a nightmare.
Suddenly, a calm, mechanical voice echoed softly in his mind.
[Welcome back, Player Damon Kyriazis. Would you like to view your status window?]
Damon froze. His heart thundered.
"Status window?" he whispered, his voice barely audible.
The voice was patient, unyielding.
[Yes. Access your current level, attributes, and skills.]
Damon hesitated for a moment. Then he nodded slowly, though no one could see it.
A translucent panel appeared before him, filled with lines of data and unfamiliar symbols.
---
< Player - Damon Kyriazis >
◆ Level: 0 (Locked)
◆ Innate Trait: (Locked)
◆ Title: 『Pioneer』
◆ Constellations: None
◆ Skills: None
◆ Artifacts: None
< Attributes >
◆ Strength: 0.4
◆ Dexterity: 0.3
◆ Constitution: 0.5
◆ Spirit: 20
◆ Luck: 2
---
Damon stared at the panel, his brow furrowed.
"Level zero... locked," he muttered. "No skills. No artifacts. Nothing."
His eyes drifted down to the attributes section. The numbers were abysmally low—except for one.
Spirit: 20.
That stood out.
"What the hell is Spirit doing that high?" he whispered.
In his previous life, attributes rarely started above 0.8—1 in any stat was considered the theoretical peak of what a human could achieve without system augmentation.
By that standard, twenty wasn't just high—it was absurd. Practically world-breaking.
The others—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution—were decent, especially considering that, at this point in time, he'd only been hitting the gym for two years.
But Spirit?
That wasn't normal.
He drew a steadying breath, forcing himself to calm down. Panicking wouldn't help. He needed to think.
"The system is already active—but this isn't the same one as before," he thought.
Back then, the interface had been different—clunky, cold, rigid. This one was refined. Responsive. As if it had evolved with the world.
Or perhaps... it had been tailored to him.
He scrolled back through the panel, stopping at the title.
『 Pioneer 』
"A title..." he murmured. "Why do I have one?"
In the future, titles were only earned through monumental achievements—like clearing dungeons, slaying monsters and surviving calamities.
But this title—'Pioneer'—implied something else.
"Does it mean I'm the first?" he asked aloud. "The first to return? Or the first to awaken?"
---
『 Pioneer 』
◆ Title Grade: Unique
◆ Title Description: You have awakened the system despite existing outside its designated parameters. In recognition of this anomaly, you have been granted a Unique Title.
◆ Title Effect: Allows you to locate, enter, and exit unawakened dungeons without triggering their awakening.
◆ Note: You cannot level up before the apocalypse begins. However, you will still accumulate experience, which will be applied once it starts. You may also use an Awakening Stone to unlock your innate trait.
---
Damon reread the title description, his eyes narrowing as a cold realization settled over him.
"Existing outside the system's parameters…?" he muttered. "So even the system doesn't fully understand what I am."
That alone was unsettling.
The system was absolute. It categorized everything—monsters, skills, stats, even souls—with ruthless precision. For it to recognize an anomaly… meant his return had triggered something unprecedented. Something that defied logic, fate, and the natural order.
But if the system didn't understand him, at least it still acknowledged him.
And the title's effect was clear.
"Locate, enter, and exit unawakened dungeons without triggering their awakening…"
His pulse quickened.
In his past life, unawakened dungeons had been silent time bombs—unstable, undetectable, and lethally unpredictable. No one ever knew when or where one would erupt. An S-Class dungeon could awaken beneath a quiet town overnight and swallow it whole.
Entire cities had vanished in moments. Whole guilds, gone in the blink of an eye—all due to bad timing or a stroke of misfortune.
But now?
This title bypassed all of it.
"It's a scouting ability," Damon murmured. "No... more than that. It's control."
He clenched his fists.
"With all dungeons currently unawakened—and with years before that changes—this title gives me unrestricted access. I can clear them before anyone even realizes they exist."
Loot. Resources. Opportunities. Power.
And more importantly—knowledge.
"I can chart the locations of every dungeon. Study their cycles. Track their evolutions. Learn which ones will collapse and which will spawn monsters capable of razing nations…"
He could build a map.
A blueprint of the apocalypse.
He could plan.
Prepare.
And when the world finally began to fall apart... Damon Kyriazis would already be ten steps ahead.
His breathing slowed, gaze sharp.
"This isn't just a second chance," he whispered. "It's a head start."
He took a step back. The status panel hovered dutifully at the edge of his vision—semi-transparent, unobtrusive, waiting.
The system hadn't rejected him.
It had recognized him. Begrudgingly, perhaps. But officially.
He was a glitch in the world's order.
A pioneer.
And as the silence of the room stretched around him, Damon felt it deep in his bones:
This time... the end of the world wouldn't catch him unprepared.
This time... he would be ready.