Ch.0Prologue

There’s a classic game called Dungeon & Adventure, commonly known as D&A.

It features pixel graphics,

no PC version to speak of,

and can only be played on outdated gaming consoles so old that repairs are impossible.

Despite these limitations, this game—developed over 20 years ago—has maintained a dedicated core fanbase,

simply because the game is incredibly fun.

With over 200 playable races and more than 1,000 job classes.

Though limited to single-player, this actually enabled a world that changes according to the player’s actions.

When I stumbled upon this highly open-ended game seven years ago, I was instantly hooked,

and have steadily played it since, developing various characters.

I once raised a dragon that went around causing havoc until it got beaten to death,

and another time I trained a traditional JRPG-style hero who set off with companions to defeat the Demon Lord.

Conversely, I started as a low-level demon, became the Demon Lord, defeated the hero, destroyed the world,

and received praise for serializing my survival story in that ruined world on a D&A community forum.

I’ve done everything from deliberately creating power-builds and min-maxed characters to raising non-combat production classes and entertainment builds just to fool around.

But well, after thoroughly enjoying it for seven years, I’m completely burned out now.

I’ve exhausted every conceivable concept play.

I’ve played through all the interesting mods available,

ultimately depleting all the content.

‘…Well, seven years is a long time. Maybe I should quit now.’

With that thought, I decided to gradually step away from the game,

and entered the save screen to take some screenshots of my last character before deleting the game.

As I scrolled through over a hundred save files,

I saw all kinds of characters.

There was my most enjoyable character from five years ago, my very first character from seven years ago,

and even the save file from when I played like a madman the night before my college entrance exam.

And then, a particular save file caught my eye.

‘Ah, this one… it’s still here.’

A few years ago.

When my parents passed away, I was so depressed I was on the verge of losing my mind. I turned on the game hoping to distract myself,

but ended up creating a character that made me even more depressed, and just saved the file.

I had chosen the Basic Middle Fantasy world that I often played in, with the race set as God and the job as Evil God.

“—A god of vengeance formed from the resentment, vindictiveness, and revenge-related emotions of intelligent beings. According to the world’s universal distinction between good and evil, classified as an Evil God, but by general standards, closer to a Good God.”

‘Ugh… cringe. So embarrassing.’

But in reality, this file is a terrible bundle of dark history.

I had filled the game’s non-influential setting text with all sorts of cringeworthy backstory,

and even used a custom mod to replace the default divine symbol with an amateurishly drawn, embarrassing emblem.

As a result, while I might have thought it was normal when I created it,

looking at it now, it’s like a middle school notebook preserving my past embarrassments.

‘…Wow.’

It seems past me went even further,

not only manipulating the basic world settings but also cramming in dense paragraphs of additional lore.

It was truly a mass of text representing the essence of my embarrassing past.

But now, looking at it again, I somehow feel like giving it a try.

It’s going to be my last game anyway, and revisiting these cringeworthy settings somehow feels nostalgic now.

‘…Should I play just one more round for the finale?’

So, while secretly thinking this to myself, I moved the mouse and clicked the “Start with these settings” button—

[You know, right?

-God of Chaos]

‘…Huh?’

I froze momentarily at the sudden popup on my monitor,

and as I stared at it, my consciousness gradually began to fade.

‘These days, novels start like th…i…s…’

And just before I completely lost consciousness,

I had the strange sensation that someone was waving their hand in front of me—

—THUD!

Collapsing onto my desk like a puppet with cut strings, I completely blacked out.