D.I.O

“Die, witch!”

“Avenge Jooyoung!”

They all charged with their own unique weapons in hand. Although their fighting aura was fierce and mighty…

Crack! Crack!

They had no chance of winning. In the end, they were all brutally slaughtered.

Heavenly Flower’s eyes, which shone as if they were bright jewels, slowed and eroded the attackers’ movements once they entered her field of vision.

“Hahaha! So weak! Weaklings! Oh, this is so fun and exhilarating!”

Heavenly Flower laughed loudly amid the scuffle as blood splattered and bones broke audibly.

Just like that… heroes with prominent names in the lower worlds perished one by one like flowers falling to the ground.

***

Miho woke up. After blinking her eyes for a moment with a blank expression on her face, she looked around quietly.

“Are you okay?”

“Oh? Ah yes. Ugh… I-I’m… okay.”

“How are your memories?”

“Yeah… I got them back. I seemed to have been a fox monster before entering DIO.”

Tan, who was initially an NPC and who later became the main operator for DIO, had sent Miho to Earth to deteriorate the relationship between Merlin and Arthur.

Having fully awakened after regaining her previous life’s memories from before DIO, Miho nodded with a bewildered expression.

She wanted to show a calm demeanor, but her mind was unorganized and scrambled.

Merlin, who noticed Miho’s state of mind, spoke up as if something had just popped into his mind.

“Oh, I have something I need to work on, so you don’t mind if I step out for a moment, right?”

“Ah! O-oh, of course not! Hurry and go!”

“… Yeah.”

Click.

Merlin closed the door behind him and left. The fact that he suddenly left despite having waited for her to wake up showed how considerate Merlin was being. However, Miho, who was unsettled by her previous memories, did not pay attention to or notice Merlin’s consideration.

“Really… I really was an evil monster…”

Miho recalled the words that Sungmuk had once stated.

“Bear in mind… Those who dared to accept basic NPC contracts, which were no different from slave contracts, had reasons for doing so.”

The contracts that general NPCs, which made up the majority of DIO, had with Noblesse were relatively straightforward. DIO offered these beings a second life as these beings had already died in the real world. Moreover, these beings existed in limbo as wandering ghost souls in the real world, so continuing to live while handling relatively menial tasks in Dynamic Island was a considerably good opportunity for them.

The situation was similar for hero monsters like Sungmuk. Of course, existences like Sungmuk had to constantly fight with users—or, in other words, they had [no choice but to experience death] as a result of their positions within DIO. Nevertheless, death in DIO was not very painful, and they could live freely when not engaged in battle.

Additionally, beings who took on the position of hero monsters did it of their own accord, so the roles they were given usually fit their natural warlike tendencies.

‘But for the vast majority of slave-like indentured general NPCs, the situation is different…’

NPCs who didn’t know that DIO was a virtual world and who performed assigned roles were so-called slave contractors who had to lose their memories of their previous life. This was quite a harsh condition because losing one’s memory was the same as losing one’s sense of self. So these NPCs would be put in a position where they were no different from beings who were reincarnated after dying. Hence, it was better to go to the Netherworld than to work as a slave in DIO.

“Absolutely. For certain. Surely. In any case, only those who are guaranteed a one-way ticket to hell would sign such a slave contract. That’s why I despise DIO contractors.”

Because of Sungmuk’s words, Miho had braced herself to some extent regarding the truth of her past. She had some idea that although she might look cute and innocent now… she might have been a serial killer who killed for pleasure in her life before DIO. Perhaps, her original self… might have been a villain that her current self couldn’t even imagine.

However, the truth was even more unimaginable than what she had braced herself for…

A sigh escaped Miho’s lips.

She had been a nine-tailed fox, an evil monster beyond her wildest imagination. She had slaughtered hundreds of thousands of beings and robbed them of their souls and energy. She had been an existence that would have looked down and scoffed at even the evilest of serial killers.

Miho, who had been sighing nonstop, suddenly stopped sighing.

“Eh? Wait… But why is my ego intact?”

Of course, Miho didn’t want to become someone else, so she had placed various defenses and used a variety of defensive techniques on herself so that she wouldn’t succumb to her past life’s memories.

However, how was it that she remained largely unaffected despite realizing that she hadn’t been a mediocre existence in her previous life and instead a transcendent nine-tailed fox? Even if it wasn’t to the point of being robbed of her ego, wouldn’t it make more sense for her to be tainted or influenced to some extent due to reconnecting with her past life’s memories?

“It was like I observed everything from a third-person perspective. Ah, but I’m sure it was me… Wait, what is going on?”

Miho felt confused.

***

Merlin’s expression hardened after he left Miho behind.

He glanced back and murmured, “I’m worried…”

In truth, returning Miho’s original memories to her was a gamble for Merlin. It was because the Miho he knew was a pure and cute six-tailed fox, born and raised on the Phantom Monster Magic Islands; she was not a wandering ghost soul whose identity was mostly unknown.

“First off, it doesn’t seem like she’s changed considerably… but I’m unsure. Anyway, since I’m now DIO’s operator, giving the memories of her previous life back to her is an easy task, so I granted her request. But I’m not sure if I’ve made the right choice.’

Merlin turned around and sighed once more.

“Ugh, Sungmuk, why did he have to provoke her… Why did she suddenly want to regain her past memories?”

Looking back, Merlin felt that Sungmuk’s reaction to Miho was quite strange. As the Sword Sovereign, Sungmuk was an existence that singularly pursued power and didn’t care much about those around him, yet he always reacted sensitively and critically towards Miho.

“Does he have some sort of deep-seated resentment against the fox species?”

Merlin didn’t know, but he had hit the nail on the head. However, after mulling over this question for a moment, Merlin logged out from DIO.

Having obtained DIO management rights, Merlin was able to connect to DIO 24 hours a day. Nonetheless, he had many other things to do in reality, so he didn’t stay logged on for very long.

“Anyway…”

With a small sigh, Yongno got up from his bed. An observer would have found it strange to see Yongno waking up so suddenly after having fallen soundly asleep just a few seconds earlier, but for Yongno, this was nothing special.

In fact, most people who accessed DIO woke up in this fashion.

When a user logged into DIO, their body went into a half-sleep state, but their soul would be active in DIO. In the meantime, DIO’s system provided vitality to the logged-in user’s real body. This was the reason why their body felt refreshed after logging off and returning to their real-life body; it was as if they had woken up after a good night’s sleep.

“Hey, bro. The US Secretary of Defense is waiting for you. I believe his name is John Kingsley.”

The voice that Yongno heard immediately after logging off DIO belonged to Kwan Youngmin, a dimension-shifter who had firmly taken the position of Merlin’s chief secretary. Everything about Youngmin, ranging from his birth to how he grew up, was hidden behind a veil of mystery. Youngmin was known as the only access point for someone to connect or speak with Yongno, so he became a powerful person behind the scenes.

“… You’re… quite handsome.”

“What? Huh? W-what are you talking about all of a sudden?”

Youngmin, who was standing like a picture with a calm expression on his face, turned beet red as he made a puzzled expression. Youngmin had a slender frame and was 171 cm tall, so one wouldn’t say that he was a tall figure. Nevertheless, he had a small face and possessed body proportions that would make female models instantly feel a sense of defeat. Youngmin was basically a handsome young man with fine facial lines and porcelain-like skin.

Youngmin essentially acted as Yongno’s, or the Great Mage’s, sole agent, so his face was publicized here and there. This caused Youngmin to have a vibrant following, an active fan base, and a large fan club, which led to constant advertisement and modeling offers.

‘But who Youngmin truly is… Now that’s a completely different story.’

Youngmin, at least the Youngmin that Yongno knew, was a sword demon who wielded powerful swordsmanship abilities and skills. The only swordsman on Earth who was stronger than him was Arthur.

Although Youngmin looked naive and kind-hearted, he was a Master who wouldn’t be pushed around even if he faced the Sword Sovereign Sungmuk head-on.

‘Also, he possesses a murderous killing intent and spirit… I don’t know where that comes from.’

Youngmin’s swordsmanship, which was filled with killing intent and spirit, was incomparable to swordsmanship practiced by ordinary users, who practiced and trained under systematic pathways. It was to the extent that Yongno found it somewhat absurd that Youngmin, who initially introduced himself as a high school student, possessed such a bountiful amount of killing intent within him.

‘What kind of chaos and hardships did he experience?’

Although Yongno found Youngmin’s seemingly infinite killing intent a bit unsettling, Youngmin’s normal disposition was extremely calm. Had Youngmin been a blood-crazed madman, Yongno would not have kept him close no matter how great his ability was.

“Come to think of it, have you given up on the idea of returning to your hometown, your home universe?”

“No, I haven’t given up on that. It’s just that there’s no point in me constantly thinking of that while I’m stuck here, so I’m just doing what I can do for now.”

Yongno clicked his tongue after seeing Youngmin’s calm and cool logical demeanor.

Youngmin had fallen into an unknown parallel universe and a completely foreign planet out of nowhere, yet he adapted almost seamlessly. This went to show just how foundationally strong Youngmin’s mentality was.