Chapter - 1 - Woke Up As An Extra

"-ngh..."

In a dark room devoid of any extra furniture, a small child was sleeping on a crooked bed. Due to the bed being the size of two adults, the kid looked so small that one might think of him as a porcelain doll in comparison.

Finally, after fluttering for a while, his closed eyelids opened slowly, revealing the two amethysts behind them.

"-Huh?"

Blinking a few times at the sight of an unfamiliar ivory ceiling that greeted him, he turned his head to the side, only to end up being more confused. He tried moving his body that was covered with dark-coloured silk and started to inspect the room he was in.

What surrounded the gigantic bed were plain yet by no means cheap furniture. Just looking at them made him think of the numerous zeros one could see on their price tags. If there was one more thing to take note of about those furnitures, it would be the fact that nearly every one of them were in tones of gray.

"...Wow."

Finding his own voice a bit weird, the boy raised his hand to cover the back of his neck out of habit. He felt a very unfamiliar, soft and chubby hand which was the complete opposite of his scarred one, causing him to look down to his hand. As he did, his eyes went round. His already confused complexion turned a bit more complex.

Immediately, he jumped out off the bed and ran off to the cheval glass that was right next to it with sluggish and disorianted movements.

"No way..."

In front of him was a reflection of a kid that looked no older than 11. He had shoulder-length black obsidian coloured hair and two purple eyes that were neither too light nor too dark. Under his eyes were two dark circles which were quite noticeable given his light-tanned skin. They made him look like a zombie of some sort. If not for his sickly appearance, there was no doubt he could've been considered as an otherworldly beauty. It was really a shame.

"Wait. Why does he look familiar?"

Finally recalling something, the boy moved his face closer to the glass as his right hand rested on his chin. After looking around his own body for a while, he made a surprised face before he lifted his own shirt, revealing a skinny body with half of it covered in black lines.

"-Ahh!"

However, just at that second, as if hundreds of needles struck to his brain at the same time, he felt an unbearable wave of pain hit him. Before the shock could even spread through his body, he fell down to the floor.

-𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥!

"Aarrgh..!!"

Feeling countless information entering his mind, the kid felt like he was going crazy as his body kept convulsing on the floor. In the end, his small body couldn't handle the pain as he lost his consciousness on the spot.

/-----/

Forcefully opening his heavy eyelids after what felt like an eternity, the kid looked at the mirror in front of him before slowly getting up.

As the curtains of the room were drawn, there was no way of telling how much time has passed. Well, not that he knew what time it was when he first woke up.

"It seems like I was right... albeit fortunately or unfortunately..."

Letting out a long sigh, he murmured to himself. Unlike his self from before fainting, he looked completely calm and collected.

Unfitting of his age, he rubbed his temples as he let out another sigh.

"Ha... So, thanks to some kind of possession or transmigration I'm in the body of this death magnet guy? No wait, I guess it can also be considered as reincarnation in this case."

He suspected such a thing but after looking through the memories implanted in his brain, he was sure of it now.

Joshua Courtner

That was the name of the body he possessed (?) right now.

"How am I supposed to deal with this really..?"

If the same thing were to happen with someone else, he would be screaming with joy right now. However, as the luck would have it, starting from physical and psychological disorders to poor family ties, this kid had it all.

'-And when I'm saying <poor family ties>, I mean it exactly.'

Even though Joshua was born as the third and the youngest son of Marquis Courtner, since he was an illegitimate child from a maid with a humble background, he was cast aside.

"I guess I still should be grateful that we aren't in the middle ages when they threw the children out and stuff. That would make it even worse."

Just the fact that the Marquis provided him with a shelter after his mother's death was something to be grateful for, given his situation.

Other than a single attendant, who was his mother's only friend when she was alive, nearly everybody else treated him as non-existent.

But if it only did end there...

The problem was, with Marquis Courtner being an influential person in the Anhel Empire, quite the number of people were eyeing his position. Given that, an illegitimate child with no backing was like a meal prepared in a 5-star restaurant for them to dine on.

Adding the Second Concubine of the Marquis to that number of people, with getting harassed from every sides, Joshua in no way had a smooth childhood at all!

'If I remember correctly, there was even a time when it had gotten to the point that he was kidnapped and tortured for a long time...'

When his thoughts reached that point, he closed his eyes and surveyed through the memories that were implanted in his mind and apparently, just like he thought, it has been 3 months since Joshua was rescued from that hellish torture by a mercenary group whose archer was also kidnapped.

"...It's even worse than I thought."

Looking back at the memories of the original Joshua, he spent nearly a year and a half with those kidnappers. During that time, there wasn't even a second that passed by peacefully. Especially considering that he was a 14 year old kid with an underdeveloped body at the time, it was no different than hell itself.

As he was going through Joshua's memories, he could feel the child's feelings deep in his heart.

'Hatred, disgust, impatience, rage'

And slowly but surely...

'Angst, helplessness, melancholy, despair...'

...all of those feelings left their place to one.

'Numbness.'

After being chained, enslaved, tortured and starved alone in a dark room with no furniture or texture which drived him crazy for so long, he eventually lost his last strand of hope for salvation.

Just as he finally gave up on hoping, ridiculous as it may sound, enduring the harassment he received became way more easier.

But as if the world was laughing at him, a mercenary group who invaded the building to rescue their captured comrade discovered his presence at the last second and took him with themselves.

And the rest was obvious.

A knight from the march, who came down to that town to visit his family for the weekend, noticed Joshua and reported it back to the soldiers on duty. At first, the mercenaries were seen as the suspects of crime but after listening to their story with related proofs provided, they let them go.

Looking at the soldiers in front of him handing few pouches of gold to the mercenaries, Joshua at the time found the situation laughable.

After being subjected to harassment for so long, he couldn't believe that leaving that hell hole was this easy. Not only that but also looking at the pouches of gold in the hands of the leader of the mercenary group, he refused to believe that all the things he had went through were at the cost of a few gold coins no bigger than the size of a baby's hand.

However, there wasn't anything he could do about all of this as he was just a powerless child.

It was just what it was.

The truth is, it was because he was 'written' that way.

Reaching that conclusion, Joshua paused in his train of thoughts for a while.

'Those were a mixture of original Joshua's and my memories but... my name... what was my real name again?'

He racked his brain for a moment but failed to remember something as simple as that. Shaking his head from side to side defeatedly, he decided to shove this matter to the back of his head. Even though his brain was still foggy after overworking itself so much, he could clearly tell that his 'ego' wasn't that different from the original Joshua anyways. So, no matter who he was before, he was Joshua now.

Unless some kind of a god appears out of nowhere, screaming 'Who are you?! How did you invade my planet, you parasite?!?!' and shot a lightning his way, sending him to either heaven or his old body back on Earth.

Well... let's just hope that such thing doesn't happen anytime soon.

...

Anyways...

It was also thanks to those 'foggy' memories that he had an idea of who Joshua was right before passing out.

Not because he was the oh-so famous 'weakness' of the Courtner household but rather because of a completely another reason.

<[The Eternal Winter]>

It was a MMORPG game that he had been working on for nearly a decade. Unfortunately, the game project failed due to the main author losing her life right before they were near completion. Without the author being there, all of the pressure was passed down to him, the co-author. But unlike the previous author, he neither had the vast knowledge nor an imaginative mindset needed to lead the story. After a few months, the company decided to announce the cancellation of the project.

But that didn't mean he was incompetent. There was a reason why he stayed as the co-author for nearly a decade after all. The only problem was, the author's death hit him harder than he thought which resulted in him feeling lost and not knowing what to do.

With the author, the only person he could depend on being dead, even after the project failed, he kept on working on the game's storyline to keep his mind away from breaking down.

"Considering the situation I'm in right now, I guess they weren't all for naught."

<[The Eternal Winter]> was a game that took place in a continent called <Pangea>.

Of course, the players had the chance to choose another world for them to start from too but eventually, <Pangea> was the place where most of the main events took place in.

If one were to ask what was special about this classical MMORPG game, the answer would be its multidirectional and flexible storyline.

From a hero who saves the continent from evil forces to a villain who drives the continent to chaos, there was a role fitting for everyone's taste!

'I thought it was really cool back then but now that I'm in this situation, I don't know if I should laugh or cry...'

The thing was, even though one could play as whoever they wanted, that wasn't the case for every character.

Some of the characters or NPCs as you may call it, had an impact on the main storyline, resulting in them being non-playable characters.

Joshua was an example for that.

His role was being used as a fuel for the war between races, the second main storyline, to begin. He was nothing more than a 'sacrifice'.

So, if the things went according to the storyline, there was no doubt he would be dead even before he could see the world he worked on for years!

He has already failed once when the game was cancelled, there was no way he would let some random guy kill him without fighting back properly. Especially since he could now see the epilogue with his own eyes! It would be such a shame!

Even though he was worrying about the rent pay and living expenses just a day ago, his expression now was as if he had the world in his hands.

"Wait... since this is the world of the game, the system should be working, right?"

The second he said the word 'system', a black screen surrounded with light cyan symbols appeared out of thin air.

Looking at it, Joshua's smile deepened. With his doubts cleared off, he started to read the letters displayed on the screen.

======================

[Maintenance Alert]

<The system is currently under server maintenance aimed to ensure further service stability.>

We ask for the user's understanding and patience ^^.

Time Left=> 4d / 21h / 39m / 7s

<Would the user like to be notified when the update is over? Y/N>

======================

Without even sparing it a second glance, he clicked "Yes".

Since he confirmed that the game interface was still linked to this world in a way, he was sure the same could be said for items, <dungeons>, <ruins>, <towers> and many more.

With this, he now had a way of escaping his death flag thanks to his nearly a decade worth of knowledge about the world-setup.

After calming his racing heart, he sat down on a gray coach not too far away from the cheval glass. Closing his eyes slowly, he tried to collect his thoughts. If he were to let his excitement get the best of him, it would only result in him making irreversible mistakes.

Unlike what he first thought, he realized that Joshua's situation as the abandoned and uncared child was actually quite favorable for him. Not only would there be no need for him to act like a small child, he didn't really have any attachments that he needed to take care of later on either.

Other than Ruby, the only maid that took care of him since his mother died while giving birth to him, there was no one the original Joshua cared for. He probably wouldn't care even if the world were to end tomorrow.

'This makes things a lot more easier...'

It took Joshua only an hour to decide on the path he would take.

Getting up from his seat, he went over to the desk across the bed. Just like any other furniture in the room, the desk also had a light-gray tone while the chair was completely black.

"For real though, if a child psychologist were to see this room, they would shed tears."

Pulling the chair and sitting down, he took a few papers and a pen from the drawer on his left. Right before he was about to start writing, he suddenly remembered something very crucial as his eyes caught the remote controller on the desk. Even though he gained og!Joshua's memories, he still wasn't that familiar with the symbols and the language so he chose to click the red button on the top right side of the controller which he deemed to be the on/off button. And just as he thought, the TV in the corner of the room lit up, showing a woman and man duo with an interviewer. Not even bothering to try to understand what they were saying, he looked at the bottom right corner where the date and the time were shown.

After nearly a minute, he was finally sure of the time.

[29th September 2203 // 19:14] [PS: 7:14 pm]

" 2203... Based on the 'hero's timeline, I should have around 3 to 5 years for the first arc to begin. No, wait."

"The first arc was planned as a competition between the academies for the players to familiarize themselves with the game and gather some comrades."

𝘵𝘢𝘱- 𝘵𝘢𝘱- 𝘵𝘢𝘱-

Joshua kept on tapping his fingers on the desk as he tried his best to plan his actions while his head kept on aching like hell. He kept on increasing his pace as the pain increased by every passing second.

"-Which means, I have 3 years at minimum and 7 years at maximum. In both cases, this is great. I have more than enough time to fix this broken body and get strong enough to protect myself from any future dangers."

He stopped tapping his fingers and started to write on the paper in front of him.

Even though Joshua was nothing more than an extra both in the game and now, power was bound to attract attention no matter how much one tried to hide it. That's why, he needed to be as meticulous as possible. He knew how the protagonists always ended up in some ridiculous misunderstandings no matter how big or small it was. Well, there wasn't a rule saying that he wouldn't end up like that but reducing the chances as much as possible or using those misunderstandings to his benefit was the best course of action he could take.

"Now, now. First things first."

Before that, he first needed a general idea of what he would do in the future to deal with those little details after all.

"I should do something about this body first."

His biggest problem was this body of his. It would have been fine if it was only underdeveloped but it was also cursed.

As always, this was also because of this precious(!) bloodline of his.

"The amount of such things this kid went through is absurd."

'I mean, no matter how much they hated the Marquis, he's only 5th in the ranks -excluding the royal family-. Isn't this just too much?'

The Anhel Empire had an archduke and three dukes but the problem was that their ancestors were people who helped founding the Empire. Meaning, no aristocrat could mindlessly take them as their enemy. In the end, they turned their attention to the marquesses. Being a war hero, it was only normal that Marquis Courtner would get targeted but this didn't mean it was okay!

Marquis Courtner couldn't even care less about his off-spring yet people tried their best to keep on harassing him just to satisfy their own egos! How was that fair at all?

'Ah, I've strayed off topic again.'

In any cases, judging by the way it enveloped half of his body, the curse he had was undoubtedly the [Cobweb Curse]. He didn't know the curse's rank but after the system finishes its upgrade, it wouldn't be too hard to learn.

Even though he doubted it, if by any chance the curse's rank was high, he could just rely on the system to somehow make it work.

'With that out, the second thing I should focus on would be... the hidden treasures in the march.'

Befitting of someone in Marquis' position, the march had quite the number of treasures in it. However, there was no way Joshua could take them with him as he wanted, with that being said, he shifted his attention to the 'hidden' ones. The so-called 'hidden' treasures were actually sealed items. No matter how much one looked, they would look like a normal daily tool one could find everywhere but Joshua had a cheat code.

The System! Yes, again!

When the player logs into the game for their first time, the game displays them 5 level 1 skill cards to choose from. As long as he chooses the [Observation] skill, he could easily find most of those treasures quickly.

"Well, I need the system's help for that again... let's move on to the third one. What will I do after I gather all those items? There's no way I'll be able to get stronger as long as I stay in the march."

Even though a part of him wanted to stay in the march and make his dear family go through the same hell he experienced, he knew that doing so would only hinder his growth. He simply didn't have the time. Three years may sound like a lot but it was nothing compared to what was about to come later on.

"If I were to run away, I could easily strengthen myself... actually wait, there isn't a rule saying that I can't come back."

As his thoughts reached that point, a creepy smile could be seen on Joshua's face.

"Fufu~ isn't this the best? As long as I become an OP fellow with authority and enough backing, I can easily take care of them."

As he laughed to himself while thinking about ways to make his precious family members suffer, he had another idea.

"Ahh, I have an even better idea~~."

Unlike his playful tone and joyous face, his eyes were that of a predator eyeing his prey. Adding the fact that he now had the appearance of a zombie, if his only maid, Ruby, were to see him right now, she probably would've fainted from shock.