Chapter 1: Chapter 1 – The Useless Extra

“Again…?”

The crimson moon hung low over the demon’s citadel.Black flames licked the fractured walls. The air trembled, heavy with magic and blood.

The Hero stood before the throne, sword cracked, armor scorched, chest heaving.Beside him, his last allies — Kael the Spear Saint, Aris the Saintess, and Selene the Ice Witch — clung to life, barely.

At the far end of the hall, the Demon Lord descended the stairs with unhurried grace.His obsidian armor pulsed with veins of molten red. Eyes burning like furnaces.

“Still standing, are we?” the demon murmured.”You’re persistent. But you already know how this ends.”

“Not this time,” the Hero growled. “This time… we finish it.”

“How dramatic.”

The demon snapped his fingers.

The earth exploded.

Kael was flung backward, ribs shattering against the stone.Aris raised her staff with trembling hands — a prayer half-formed on her lips — but cursed chains of flame wrapped around her limbs and wrenched her down with a sickening crack.Selene tried to cast — but too late.

A torrent of black lightning tore across the hall. The barrier shattered like glass.

“Protect Aris!” the Hero shouted, leaping forward, blade raised.

Steel met claw. Light clashed with darkness. Sparks flew. Magic howled.

But strength alone wasn’t enough. Not here. Not now.Not in this broken, rigged game.

Kael fell first — spine pierced clean through.Then Aris — her blessing undone mid-prayer as her throat was crushed beneath a clawed boot.Selene unleashed her final cry: “Absolute Fr—”

She was burned away before the spell finished forming.

The Hero dropped to one knee, bleeding, broken. Alone.

Kian clenched his jaw as the final scene played out — again.

Kael… Aris… Selene…

He’d seen them die more times than he could count.Fought beside them. Failed beside them. Cursed the devs, the mechanics, the AI. The world.

It never hurt less.

Not because they were real — they weren’t.But to him, they might as well have been.

He knew their stories, their habits, their favorite idle lines.He knew exactly how they’d fall. The exact second they’d scream.He’d tried to change it. Every permutation, every strategy.And still, they died.

The Demon Lord raised a long, cruel finger.

A black spear formed in the sky — enormous, swirling with death.

“Try again, little knight.”

“No—”

SHUNK.

The spear impaled him, pinning him like an insect.

Darkness fell.

[You have died.][System Log: Attempt #1432 – Failure]

The screen dimmed. Silence filled the room.

Kian sat motionless in his chair, staring blankly.His right hand trembled slightly on the mouse.

“Damn it.”

The hero fell. The party wiped.The same end, again.

Five years.Hundreds of resets.Thousands of sleepless hours.

And still, he hadn’t cleared End Realm.

The game had once swept across the world like wildfire.Created by a mysterious indie developer calling themselves only Aeon, it had no flashy trailers. No sponsors. No publisher. Just a sudden viral release — and one impossible promise:

“A world more real than your own.”

And it delivered.

No points. No stats. No UI.Every action had consequence. Every character remembered you.If you broke a wall, it stayed broken.If you lied to a king, the kingdom fell.The world moved, whether you played or not.

It was genius. It was madness. It was hell.

People played for years.

Then one day, an update wiped it all.The ending vanished.The dev disappeared.

Everyone quit.

Everyone but him.

Kian powered off the monitor and leaned back into his chair.His room was dark and stale. Cold coffee. Half-eaten meals. A flickering monitor screen and the faint, rising hum of morning light beyond the curtains.

“I’ll nap. Just a bit.”

He closed his eyes.

And the pain came.

A sharp jolt tore through his chest.His breath caught. His limbs locked, dead weight.It radiated outward — from his sternum to his spine, searing hot.

No. No, no, not now.Not like this.

The fear came fast — not of dying, but of absurdity.

“I didn’t even beat the damn game…”

That was it.

No dramatic farewell.No loved ones at his side.Just regret.And the soft flicker of his screen in an otherwise silent room.

He expected darkness.

Instead—

Pressure.Noise.A strange, distant warmth.A falling that felt like rising.

And then—

Birdsong.

Too sharp. Too vivid.

The sky above was crystal-clear blue.Sunlight spilled across white-stone walkways and rune-carved towers.Floating staircases drifted lazily over marbled courtyards.Students in ornate uniforms laughed, cast spells, read beneath flowering trees.

Kian blinked.

Grass brushed his fingertips. The air smelled too clean — like something out of a memory he never had.

He sat up, slowly.

There it was.

Arcadia Academy.

The starting point of every major catastrophe in End Realm.

He stumbled toward a nearby fountain and caught his reflection in its gleaming water.

Not Kian.

A stranger stared back.

Dark violet hair. Crimson eyes. Sharper features. Slim build.

Luca Von Valentine.

A name buried deep in the lore — a forgotten side character.No quests. No stats. No skills.No dialogue past Chapter 3.

Just… gone.

But Kian remembered him.

A noble from a declining house. No screen time. No relevance.

He leaned closer to the water, heart pounding.

“No… this isn’t character creation.That’s not me. That’s not even—”

He stumbled back from the fountain, mind racing.

“Wait… I didn’t reincarnate…I possessed someone?”

The realization hit harder than the heart attack.

Not reborn.Not chosen.Just inserted.

This was someone else’s body.Someone else’s life.And yet—

“Why him?””Why not someone useful?”

He spun, half-expecting a system popup.A UI window. A level screen. Anything.

“Alright, game. Tutorial. Mission start. Something?”

Nothing.

He blinked.

Once. Twice.

Still nothing.

“Seriously? No stats window? No skill tree? No omniscient voice in my head?”

A single leaf rolled past his foot like a disappointed shrug.

“What kind of knock-off possession is this…?”

The wind whispered through the courtyard, unimpressed.

Kian dragged a hand down his face, trying to calm his breathing.

Slowly, it all began to settle in.

The warmth. The mana in the air. The weight of someone else’s limbs.

This wasn’t a game.

This was reality.

And he was wearing a disposable NPC’s skin.

But he knew this world.

He knew the systems. The monsters. The factions. The ticking death flags.

And now… he was living it.

There would be no save points.No second retries.

He couldn’t afford to die.Not again.

“Luca.”

A calm voice cut through the courtyard — clear, composed, and oddly… familiar.

Kian turned.

A tall student in a senior uniform stood a few paces away.Silver hair. Cold grey eyes. The sharp, elegant poise of a noble-born swordsman.His coat bore the gold-stitched crest of a top-tier dueling house.

Kian froze.

Vincent.Vincent freaking Valentine.

The swordmage prodigy.Empire arc legend.Top-tier duelist. Future general.A player-favorite and boss-killer — capable of ending mid-tier fights in a single spell combo.

In the game, Vincent was untouchable. Unapproachable.

Vincent walked up, scanned him once, then adjusted Luca’s crooked collar without hesitation.

“Still a mess, as usual,” he said, coolly. “Let’s go. You’ll be late.”

Then turned and walked off, expecting to be followed.

Kian just stood there.

Why would Vincent Valentine talk like that?Why would he… fix my collar?

Wait.

Vincent Valentine.

His name here…Luca… Von Valentine.

He blinked.

No.No freaking way.Vincent’s… my brother?

The realization landed like a hammer to the skull.

How did I miss that?No one ever talked to Luca in the game. He was barely present — a side piece at best.But if he’s from the same house as Vincent…

Kian looked up, pulse quickening.Vincent was already halfway across the courtyard, not looking back.

Of all the people I could’ve ended up as…

I got shoved into the extra who’s related to one of the strongest characters in the game.

This is either a cheat code…

Or a death sentence.

[End of Chapter 1]

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