I am a seed, buried deep beneath the ground.
A promise, waiting for the day I shall bloom.
One who sleeps, yet never closes their eyes, despite the indefinite wait.
And so, I...
…Crack!
A spark of lightning bloomed.
From a quietly clenched fist.
From the blood trickling down a scratched hand.
From the very end of dulled pain.
The lightning spark bloomed, crawling up from the back of the hand, the fist, the forearm, the shoulder, and up to the chest. It engulfed his entire body. It agitated him, stabbed him.
Painfully. Vividly.
A blow so clear, it awakened his slumber.
"...Kuhk!"
His eyes shot open.
But he could see nothing.
Only the whisper of utter darkness.
And within it, ragged breaths poured out.
The moment his whole body jolted, a pendulum dropped in his chest.
Thump.
A fading life.
Thump.
The time of a heart that had almost stopped began flowing again.
Thump.
It awakened his consciousness.
"Kuh, kuhk! Kuhuk...!"
Kim Jangcheol coughed violently.
A situation of being buried alive in an instant.
A tremendous shock all at once.
His heart, which had nearly stopped, barely came back to life from the delayed impact of Bloody Lightning. Along with it came his near-faded consciousness.
The first sensation he felt upon regaining awareness was pain.
"Kuh, kuhuk! K-Kuhk!"
He couldn't breathe.
Suffocating darkness. Oppressive blackness.
It felt like his entire body was crushed under thousands of wet towels. He couldn't move. Even twisting his body was difficult. Violent coughing burst out repeatedly. But with every cough, dirt poured into his mouth and nose.
Instead of breath.
Instead of the air he so desperately wanted.
"Kuh, khuh! Kuhk! Khuu—!"
Shaking his head and coughing did nothing.
He was suffocating. He wanted to breathe. But it was impossible. At this rate, his lungs might fill completely with dirt.
Sudden pain and confusion.
What happened to me?
Why the hell am I in this situation?
Right.
I fell.
Into the collapsing underground of the Demon King's Castle.
Beneath crumbling buildings and earth.
And then, tens of thousands of tons of dirt and rubble rained down on me.
Which means I'm...
'...buried alive.'
Realization struck like lightning.
Terror reared its head.
Overwhelming hopelessness and despair.
A desperate urgency to do something, anything.
Even so, he couldn't breathe.
The oppressive sense of confinement in the pitch-darkness.
"...Huff! Haa! Ugh!"
He barely managed to regulate his panicked breaths by instinct. He tried to calm his racing heart.
He could feel it instinctively.
If he succumbed to fear now, he would die.
If he panicked and flailed, it would be over.
He had to stay conscious no matter what.
He had to hold onto his reason.
So he...
'Equipment inventory!'
The moment he clearly grasped his situation, the fear it brought, and the likely outcome, Kim Jangcheol clung to the last edge of rationality and shouted inwardly.
Then it appeared.
Ding-dong!
A system window appeared before his eyes.
It emitted its own light.
That light dimly lit the surroundings.
A landscape full of dirt, rocks, and rubble from collapsed buildings.
Still, it was better than nothing.
Better than absolute darkness.
It gave him some mental relief.
Of course, he didn't summon the system window just for comfort.
'Full unequip!'
He stripped everything he was wearing at once. Then he waited. Put on, then take off again. He hoped the glitch, a bug exploited in the game, would activate.
'If that works...'
Then buried alive or not, he could escape. He could crawl into the gaps formed by the debris buried underground. And using those gaps as stepping stones, he could climb back up to the surface.
He hoped.
But at that moment—
"Khuuu! Khuh, kuhk!"
The glitch didn't activate.
More precisely, the gear didn't come off!
'Why?'
Confusion and frustration struck his chest like a hammer.
An unexpected message filled his vision.
Ding-dong!
[The user's stamina has dropped below the threshold. Therefore, auto-equip/unequip functions are currently restricted.]
'Damn it...'
His heart sank.
And he remembered.
It was the same in the game.
In so-called "sliver HP," "dot HP" states, gear equipping/unequipping took much longer than usual. They said it was a system designed to realistically reflect a body utterly exhausted.
'Why, of all times... now...'
Unnecessarily realistic.
And now, it might get him killed.
A crushing sense of hopelessness.
Overwhelming despair.
But he didn't want to die.
Not like this.
He didn't want to die like this. In a place where no one knew, where no one would find him, trapped like this... he didn't want that!
'Damn it. Damn it. Damn it!'
He was terrified.
He thrashed.
In a mountain of dirt weighing thousands, tens of thousands of tons.
Just to move even a little.
He pushed the soil with his body. Dug with his arms. Moved his head back and forth. Bit by bit, he made space. Air found its way in.
"Huff...!"
A single breath of precious air. Breath. Life.
He moved again.
Maybe if he kept repeating this. Create space by moving. Breathe. Dig again. Push forward. Make space. Breathe in, breathe out, and survive.
"Hoo! Huff! Huuuph!"
Desperately.
Without rushing.
One step at a time.
He resolved to do it.
He kept moving like that.
Steadily advancing.
And in the midst of it all, a strange, irrelevant thought crossed his mind.
'If the Demon King's Castle really collapsed... are the others okay?'
Like Zephyros.
Or the Four Heavenly Kings.
Or the farming corps.
Tbong too.
What if they all got buried? What if, just like me, they're struggling in the face of being buried alive?
'I hope... not.'
They were all good people in their own way.
Once you got to know them, they each had something decent about them.
So I hope they're all safe. I hope I'm the only one going through this. I hope only the main castle of the Demon King's Castle collapsed and that I alone got buried while the others are all fine, and I'm just the one suffering like hell.
Please.
Let it be so.
Wishing.
"Hmph! Huh! Huhhh!"
He kept moving.
He was getting the hang of it.
More and more soil was dug out.
His body steadily pushed forward.
Breathing became easier and easier.
He saw hope.
There, in the distance, like a faint light.
There, far away, like hope beckoning.
'I can see it…!'
An exit.
If he could just get there.
Strength returned to his hands, feet, and entire body.
He dug harder, pushing forward.
He felt his heart leap with joy.
He took a deep breath.
He reached out.
Toward the exit.
Toward the light pouring in from there.
"Ugh…"
Kim Jangcheol's outstretched hand went limp.
In truth, he was still deeply buried underground. Still in the exact same place where he first opened his eyes and regained consciousness.
His limbs, which had barely flailed just a few centimeters, lost strength. His lungs, long deprived of oxygen, began to spasm. His eyes shut. His consciousness faded.
'I…'
He was sure he saw the exit.
Was it just… an illusion?
Did he just see a mirage of hope?
And so I am…
A seed, deeply buried in the earth.
A pledger who longs for the moment of bloom someday.
A guide who endures the winter despite promises with no return.
And so I…
…Crack!
A spark of lightning bloomed.
From the scratches made during his desperate thrashing.
From the blood newly drawn at the end of it all.
From the remnants of hope that had already grown faint.
The lightning spark bloomed, trailing from the spot where his nail had torn off, up his palm, his arm, shoulder, and chest. It wrapped around his whole body. It stabbed and tore into him.
Painfully. Clearly.
A whip-crack of clarity, a blow to awaken him from slumber.
"...Kuhk!"
His eyes shot open once more.
Still, there was nothing to see.
Only the muttering of pitch-black darkness once again.
And within it, a clinging regret for life.
"...Ku, ugh! Haaa, kuhk!"
Kim Jangcheol thrashed with even greater pain than before.
He realized, all over again—
'I... I'm not dead yet.'
It seemed that way.
He must have thrashed so fiercely, desperate to live. And though his circumstances were miserable, he still had strength left. So his struggles had been intense.
In the midst of digging through the dirt, one of his nails must have been torn off. And the blood flowing from there must have triggered the lightning.
'That… must've restarted my heart.'
It was ridiculous.
To be brought back to life twice in a row like this.
And to go through such pain again.
'It's like I came back to life just to suffer again at this rate.'
It was absurd.
A cold realization struck.
It was so painful, so agonizing.
So brutally merciless.
And yet—he could see a way to survive.
"....."
He thought—he had advanced a few more centimeters. Desperately flailing just before blacking out, he had probably moved at least a handspan forward.
'Though I passed out and brushed the edge of death at the end…'
The blood he'd shed in that desperate struggle seemed to have saved him.
And so.
And so I—
'If I just keep repeating what I did, maybe… I can survive.'
It was starting to seem possible.
Doing nothing meant certain death.
Then it was better to try.
"......"
Would he have to do it hundreds of times?
Maybe a thousand?
Dread settled in.
He was afraid.
But before he knew it, his body was preparing to struggle again.
Even if it was pathetic.
Even if it was desperate.
If he could survive—
If he could grasp the future he might one day enjoy—
'…Gladly!'
Crack!
He ground his molars tight, as if chewing through something.
A vow that he could not end it here.
And from that moment on—
He dug.
Even if it was only a few centimeters, it didn't matter. The suffocating breath. The pressure crushing his entire body. Amidst it all, he moved. Desperately. With all his might. He struggled to move forward.
The skin on his fingertips peeled off.
His nails tore out.
He didn't care.
Until the air was gone, he thrashed and flailed.
And then—his breath stopped.
"Kheugh…"
His entire body sagged.
In a spot about ten centimeters forward from before. Still buried. His limbs lost all strength. His pounding heart began to slow.
His vision dimmed.
Consciousness blurred.
'This…'
It's too hard.
It really hurts.
Can I… come back again?
Please. I hope I can.
And so I—
'Grandma, why do we keep living even though it's this hard?'
…Suddenly, a memory floated faintly to the surface.
Was it when I was in fourth grade?
One day, I asked Grandma.
Why we keep living.
When it's so hard.
With no mom or dad.
With Grandma suffering every day.
Waking up each morning felt like hell.
Are we alive just to suffer?
It must've been the evening after I got cruelly bullied by my classmates, called a "beggar brat," crying my eyes out as I asked her that.
What did she say again, Grandma?
Right.
She stroked my head and said—
'Well, I guess this old woman lives just to plant one seed.'
That's what she said.
Back then, I didn't understand.
What that "seed" was. Why she looked at me with such aching eyes.
Back then, I didn't know.
And now, as I am now.
So then, as I will be—
A seed, deeply buried in the earth.
A vower who hopes for the day it will bloom.
A guardian who doesn't back down, even from a vow with no hope.
And so I—
…Crack!
A faintly bursting lightning spark.
Within it, Kim Jangcheol saw it—dimly.
[You are enduring the pain of repeated death and revival, solely with the determination to survive.]
[In the process, your instinct for survival is pushing your body's mana circulation beyond its limits.]
[The unyielding repetition of your will is invoking a miracle.]
[A miracle that brings new hope.]
[A tremendous, unprecedented potential is being engraved upon your heart.]
[The Mana Seed system has bloomed.]
[T/L: Please support me and read extra chapters: https://ko-fi.com/revengerscans ]