NOVEL NEXT Ch. 1
Chapter 1: Eugene Carter (1)
“This goddamn trash of a game!”
I almost slammed my keyboard out of habit but stopped short.
I’d already wrecked over thirty keyboards playing this cursed game. I had to hold it in.
Instead, I grabbed the stress ball beside me and squeezed it with both hands.
“Ah, fuck! I’m done with this crap!”
I spammed ALT + F4, closing every window, and leaned back in my chair as if collapsing into it.
When I double-clicked the small icon at the bottom of the monitor to open the homepage, a single line of text greeted me.
― You have completed 999 out of 1,000 achievements. (99.9%)
The moment I saw it, all my past efforts flashed before my eyes again.
“…Is there really no way around this?”
Probably not.
It had already been ten years since I started chasing this one goal out of sheer stubbornness.
But I already knew the truth.
No strategy, no stroke of luck could ever clear this mission.
At first glance, it looked like your typical academy-raising simulation game, but depending on the modes and conditions, its goals and difficulty would swing wildly.
The game, whose acronym shared the same as the President’s campaign slogan, had one simple premise: to restore a failing academy to its former glory.
And the mode I was currently obsessed with was the most brutal of them all—Apocalypse Mode.
In [Apocalypse Mode], the objective was to raise the [Imperial Royal Academy ‘Carbena’] and its [five main characters] to an [S-Rank] comprehensive evaluation within [two years] and maintain it for [at least five years].
That was the only achievement I had never managed to clear.
Anyone who had ever tried to finish this game would know exactly how impossible that sounded.
Through four years of madness, I’d managed to fulfill five of the required conditions—but the final one always held me back.
And it was no mystery why.
By the third year, one of the five was guaranteed to die.
Edel Ribenia.
Michelle Bernhardt.
Karen Rosefield.
Francia Brida.
Luvia Magnus.
For the next six years, I’d tried saving them—over and over again—but one of them would always die, no matter what I did.
It was impossible to save them all.
No matter how clever, desperate, or lucky I was.
…Maybe that was what the developers had been trying to say all along.
That the world couldn’t be saved without sacrifice.
“Bullshit. You just gave up, didn’t you?”
Even the last bug fix had been three years ago.
It was a dead game now, abandoned even by its veteran players.
That was MAGA’s fate.
I guess it was time for me to quit too.
EugeneC | 2022.04.18 02:22:29
Been playing this shitty game for way too long.
Wish I could go back to when I didn’t even know MAGA existed.
The last post besides mine on the message board was from thirteen months ago.
Of course, no one was going to comment, and no one would ever read it.
Still, I wanted to leave one last record.
That was how I really felt.
So this was how I said goodbye.
After spending most of my twenties with this game, seeing it end like this… there was nothing funny about it.
While I was lost in those thoughts, the screen flickered.
I must’ve pressed F5 without realizing, or maybe it refreshed on its own.
My eyes instinctively moved to the comment section.
Total comments: 1
Anonymous (???.??) | So I sent you off^^
“…Huh?”
That was the last thing I remembered from my previous life.
---
Eugene Carter. Born in Parsel, Livenia Empire.
A 16th graduate of the Imperial Royal Academy ‘Carbena’, youngest officer in the Imperial Special Task Force, youngest battalion commander, and youngest recipient of the Imperial Medal of Honor.
Once hailed as the future of the Empire, he lost everything because of one reckless act.
During the Beast Eradication Operation in the borderlands, he was ambushed by an S-Rank beast—“Incurable Sabnac.” His mana heart was destroyed by ninety percent, leaving him in a coma.
Though the already-wounded Sabnac perished in the following battle, the beast’s “Incurable Curse” never released him.
“You’ll be able to live an ordinary life, but… your days as a soldier are over.”
After that, he spent his days drowned in drugs and alcohol.
The brilliant man he once was disappeared within a single year.
His once-solid, muscular frame had withered to skin and bones.
His eyes had lost their focus, staring at nothing in particular.
His cracked lips trembled faintly, a symptom of withdrawal.
Even his comrades, who had watched over him for years, all said the same thing—
He would never return to the field again.
And so, after many long years, six years later—
At the tail end of a late February, he suddenly reappeared.
In the Empire’s most elite organization.
The Imperial Special Task Force.
---
Shit. Shit.
The curses clung to my tongue and refused to let go.
“Now I’ve gone and gotten possessed by a typo, huh.”
I kept grumbling under my breath as I stood rigidly before the front gate of the Task Force Headquarters.
I could barely keep myself upright, leaning on a cane that looked like it would snap at any moment.
A farewell post marking the end of my ten-year journey, and that single strange comment that followed it.
My consciousness had drowned as if submerged underwater—and when I opened my eyes, I was here.
It didn’t take me long to grasp the situation.
The familiar surroundings.
The familiar names.
The way the world reacted when I absentmindedly muttered “Status.”
The people around me who didn’t even flinch at the sight of a floating window before their eyes.
It didn’t take long to realize—
This was that so-called “possession loop.”
And that this world was the world of MAGA.
Remaining Challenge: Clear the game while fulfilling the following conditions.
[Mode: Apocalypse] [Affiliation: Imperial Royal Academy]
[Condition 1: Ensure survival of all main characters]
[Condition 2: Achieve S-Rank or higher in the comprehensive evaluations of the Academy and all main characters] [Condition 2–1: Within 2 years]
[Condition 3: Maintain rank] [Condition 3–1: For at least 5 years]
“Of course the damn challenge is still here. Figures.”
My anger flared for a moment—but then I reconsidered, slowly nodding to myself.
No, this wasn’t bad at all.
It was the mission I couldn’t clear even after six years of hell in reality.
And now, they were giving me one last chance. How could I possibly refuse?
The problem was that this world was already doomed—the Apocalypse Mode.
In MAGA, the total playtime lasted exactly six in-game years.
Normally, all evaluations would conclude in March of the sixth year, followed by “GAME CLEAR,” but that was back when I was in reality.
At least for me now, this wasn’t a game anymore—and there was no “restart” button.
I didn’t have any loop or regression ability either.
So this run was, for all intents and purposes, my first and final attempt.
For some people, that might have been enough to crush their will before they even began.
But for me, MAGA’s most seasoned veteran, there could be no greater motivation.
“I’ll make sure to survive until the very end.”
If there had at least been some kind of notice saying, Don’t worry if you die! You’ll just wake up back in the real world!—then maybe I could take it easy.
But if I made a careless mistake and that actually was my real death?
Shit, I’d be lucky not to come back as a vengeful ghost.
“Even if I die, I’ll clear that final challenge before I go.”
If I was going to clear it anyway, I might as well figure out a way to survive in the process.
And maybe, just maybe, save the world along the way. But that wasn’t the priority right now.
The ones I had to save weren’t the world—they were the girls.
As those thoughts crossed my mind, I looked ahead.
A group of uniformed soldiers in ceremonial dress was approaching.
“Vena Livenia!”
The soldier at the front saluted as he shouted the phrase.
It was a salute meaning “Honor to the Empire.”
Almost every nation used a variation of this greeting, attaching “Vena” before their country’s name.
“We’ll escort you to Command, Colonel.”
“Let’s go.”
Gripping my cane tightly, I started to move.
---
Imperial Special Task Force, 3rd Floor Command Headquarters.
For a moment, the soldiers present wondered if they were seeing a ghost.
Once hailed as the greatest talent in the Empire, he had squandered that gift on arrogance and pride, ultimately meeting a disgraceful downfall.
He was the cautionary tale every Imperial soldier knew by heart.
Eugene Carter had returned to the field.
Had he run out of money?
Or maybe he was here to sneak off with the alcohol and drugs confiscated by the Task Force?
What other reason could he possibly have for showing up here again?
Not just the enlisted men—even the officers shared the same thought.
Especially those who had served in the same era as him.
That included Colonel Eric Belfort, his fellow Academy graduate and Task Force comrade.
“That piece of trash came back?”
Upon hearing the report, Belfort immediately rushed to the Task Force Commander’s office—where he finally came face-to-face with his old colleague.
The moment he entered, he saluted the Commander.
“Vena Livenia!”
“Yes, yes. What is it, 3rd Battalion Commander?”
“I heard that former Colonel Carter has returned, sir.”
Of course, his real purpose lay elsewhere.
His gaze never left Eugene.
“Still got that shameless face, huh, Carter.”
“You’re one to talk, Belfort. Still got those smug eyes and that stupid smirk.”
Twitch.
For a split second, Belfort felt the urge to shove that frail body to the ground and crush his skull beneath his heel.
But he forced himself to remain composed.
The man before him was the Empire’s fastest burnout in history. Once, he’d been so far above that no one could touch him—but now, the tables had completely turned.
Just a glance told the whole story.
His once-broad shoulders were hunched. His eyes had lost their light.
His pupils were dull, his lips cracked and scarred.
He hadn’t even done the basics of rehabilitation; his legs trembled, and even the hand gripping the cane shook uncontrollably.
Compared to his prime, he was a shadow of a man—heaven and earth apart.
It was a miracle he’d even managed to walk here.
Feeling rivalry toward him now would be nothing more than bullying the weak.
Ahem.
The Commander’s dry cough cut through the tense air between them.
“You can catch up later. So, Carter, what brings you to me, Colonel?”
“I figured it was about time I quit living like a bum and tried getting my life together.”
“…Hmm?”
Eugene glanced between the two of them and then smiled faintly.
“Sir, I’d like to be reinstated.”