Chapter 1: Prologue (Patreon)

Raised as an orphan in an orphanage, enduring harassment, bullying, and the harsh beatings of society from a young age, I always had a wish.

"God, I want to reincarnate into a fantasy world and become the main character..."

It was a childish dream, but in this cruel reality, it was my only thread of hope, the sole flicker of innocence in an otherwise bleak existence.

No matter how delusional it seemed, I wanted it to come true more than anything.

Even when an unfortunate accident at the construction site crushed my lower body with heavy steel bars, leaving me at death's door, I desperately clung to that wish.

"Please... if there's a God... Hear me... I want a better life... I also... want to be a protagonist.''

With that final plea, I exhausted my last wisp of strength. As my eyes closed, my consciousness plunged into darkness.

God or Satan—I didn't know who at that moment heard my naive wish—but somehow, my childish dream came true.

My eyes opened, and I found myself in the body of a newborn baby, cradled in the arms of a giant-looking woman who gazed at me with tender affection and love.

She was my mother; I knew this instinctively.

I had been reincarnated.

Such a nonsensical, fantasy-like situation had actually happened to me.

That said, this world was different from what I had expected.

It wasn't the fantasy world I imagined; it was Earth, a normal Earth, in the year 1999.

'I... reincarnated... 3 decades... into the past?'

That was my initial thought and the most plausible explanation. I believed that my knowledge of how humanity would progress in the coming decades was my cheat, a sure path to great success.

Even if it were a normal world, my story, in which I would be the protagonist, would be a great one.

Not to mention, I had loving, living parents in this world.

For someone who had been an orphan in my previous life and had never known love, their presence was like an oasis to a man dying of thirst in the Sahara Desert.

So what if they weren't rich or affluent?

For me, their presence was enough. I felt a sense of happiness, as if the pain I had endured in my past life was finally paying off.

That was what I thought, at least until I was a year old, when a cosmic wave descended upon the Earth.

It was the year 2000—a cataclysm—the year of calamity, or at least that was what people called it.

But I, who had read countless novels in the past to escape reality, knew exactly what it was.

"Revival of Mana!"

A phenomenon where the Earth's mana, which might have been dormant or depleted, suddenly resurfaced due to some supernatural event.

In this case, that phenomenon was the unknown "cosmic ray."

Although it was just a hypothesis, as a man with a wild imagination and a love for fantasy, I assumed that this cosmic ray might have destroyed some sort of ancient seal on Earth, reintroducing mana from the void back into it.

Why did I come to this conclusion?

Because not long after the mana was revived, animals and plants mutated into powerful, intelligent monsters, and portals to other worlds opened, inviting invasions from powerful species.

Monsters and strange creatures roamed the planet, preying on the human race.

All of this caught humanity off guard, and it appeared that there was no hope left. That was until people began to awaken the ability to use mana to become stronger.

Some even started manifesting superpowers that defied the known laws of physics.

Nevertheless, no one was in the mood to find reasons for it.

What mattered to everyone was survival.

Fortunately, once the first group of people who awakened the ability to use mana appeared, others followed.

Humanity began to fight back against the waves of foreign creatures that had taken over the majority of the planet and reclaimed their land.

As time went on, humanity once again established a stronghold on their home planet, despite the ongoing danger.

Even though the loss was unimaginable, the existence of mana and the ability to use it granted humanity incredible abilities, unlocking a future of endless possibilities. Even those things that once seemed impossible became possible.

Naturally, society's balance shifted, and people began to navigate the complexities of a transformed reality.

Some things remained the same, some vanished, and others changed with time.

People who awakened the ability to use mana were called Slayers, and the extremely few among them who manifested superpowers, known as Gifts, were called Gifted Slayers.

As for me?

My life, like those of many others who went through this cataclysm, became a ride through hell filled with endless suffering, suffocation, and despair. In the end, it left me devastated and fundamentally changed me as a person.

Lying on the ground with a knife stabbed in my stomach, the 18-year-old me, Ryan Caldwell, had my blood gushing out like a flood.

My body was becoming colder by the second, but my heart was turning colder even faster.

"Since the world insists on making me suffer and fate is determined to make me its puppet, then I too shall no longer care for this world."

In that moment, I no longer wanted to be the protagonist of this tragic tale.

"If, through some miracle, I could survive today, then I swear on my soul and on my love for my mother that from this day forward, I will be the nightmare this world deserves."

On that day, a hero fell, and in his place, a villain was born.