It was noon.

The strange phenomenon of people coming to an unfamiliar world occurred again. It was already the 372nd time it had happened. Dimensional travel worked in strange ways; everyone who had arrived this time was Korean. In addition, they each had a strange-looking device on their wrist when they were summoned.

The first message to pop up on the device was...

[Killing the Demon Lord is the only way back to reality.]

Nobody knew what a Demon Lord was or who the Demon Lord was, but at least for the people who had been summoned, common goals had been established: To level up, obtain a strong class, and kill the Demon Lord who would appear in the future.

However, the new world did not warmly welcome them. On the very first day, a minotaur—a monster with the head of a bull, carrying a large warhammer—started massacring people wherever it went. Many people died, and those who survived ended up scattering and going their own ways.

***

“Where do you think this place is?”

“Why were we dragged into this hell? Damn it!”

The survivors sat down in one corner of a deserted area with serious expressions on their faces. Around twenty of them were gathered together, but nearly tens of thousands had been summoned to this world. It was a very dark night.

“Let’s organize our thoughts and the situation first.” A middle-aged man calmed his rowdy comrade down. “My name is Hwang Yong-Ho; I’m grateful that all of you have decided to listen and follow me. Although we should be introducing ourselves to each other, I believe discussing the surreal experience we just had should come first.”

Hwang Yong-Ho was a middle-aged man, as large as a bear with a thick beard. He was the eldest among the people present.

“Actually, I made a team and scouted the nearby area as soon as I came to this place this afternoon. It was an overgrown forest filled with plants I’ve never seen before. Sigh... I don’t believe there’s such a place in South Korea,” said Hwang Yong-Ho. The young men with him nodded in agreement. He slowly continued, “We were climbing up a mountain to search for food and acquire a vantage point of the landscape. Suddenly, we saw something we couldn’t believe.”

At that point, the others started to intently listen to Hwang Yong-Ho’s story.

Hwang Yong-Ho lowered his voice as if he were sharing a secret and said, “I think it was a person who had the same idea as us. Perhaps he came to search for food, because he was climbing up the mountain like us. Just when we were about to call out to him, a large and vicious orc suddenly came out of nowhere.”

“An orc? Do you mean the creatures with green skin and tusks?” a bespectacled man asked with a surprised look. The others were just as surprised as the man.

On the other hand, Hwang Yong-Ho nodded with a serious expression. “That’s right. That kind of orc. It was a large and ferocious one; we didn’t dare to fight it even with the five of us. It had a large club, and started to beat the man with it. One side of the man’s head was torn open and he just dropped dead. The orc ate the corpse, as if it were a piece of meat.”

The people listening had cold sweat running down their backs and their foreheads. There was such a monster in the mountain behind them as well? This place was a vicious, lawless land, and there was an orc on top of that. In fact, this place should have been a world that only existed in medieval fantasy.

“That wasn’t the only strange thing,” Hwang Yong-Ho continued.

“There’s more to it?” the others asked with a mix of worry and curiosity, looking toward Hwang Yong-Ho.

At that moment, as Hwang Yong-Ho sat in front of the campfire, he received more attention than any other storyteller who had ever existed. He tapped the device that was on his left wrist and began, “I’m sure everyone knows that this device we have has a special function.”

The others nodded in agreement. When they had come to this world, they were each given a piece of strange equipment that had some sort of ability on it. For instance, they could have a knife coated in a weak poison, or a shin guard that had sharp thorns on it.

The device would provide them with the details of the equipment if they held or equipped it. It would also give other details when touched, such as the amount of experience points they had obtained, the date, the surrounding topography, and other useful information. It would not be damaged or broken if hit with a strong impact, or if the wearer rolled along the ground.

“As you might have noticed, we can gain experience points when we kill another lifeform. We may also be able to advance to a class, although the way to advance is still uncertain. But unfortunately... It’s the same for ‘monsters’ like that orc,” Hwang Yong-Ho continued.

Suddenly, the faces of some of the listening crowd turned pale white. One of them hurriedly asked,  “What are you trying to say? That this system also applies to monsters? Are you saying it isn’t an ability given only to us?”

“That is, unfortunately, the case… The moment the orc killed that person, a message popped up on our device. ‘The wandering orc Ashrem has leveled up.’ That was definitely a level-up message, no matter how you look at it.” Hwang Yong-Ho had a grave expression. In contrast, the others just had despair written all over their faces.

Even monsters could level up by hunting? This was completely different from the games they had played back in reality. It meant that they, as the players, were actually prey to be hunted down by monsters.

A woman couldn’t cope with her despair and started to cry; but then she asked, “Then… What should we do?”

“It’s simple. We should level up as well. We just have to get strong enough that nobody can kill us,” Hwang Yong-Ho answered.

“But how? We’re weak. The orcs inhabit the mountains right behind us; people like us will just get hunted down even before we’re able to do something,” a man said feebly.

In response, Hwang Yong-Ho merely smirked and laughed. The others were envious of Hwang Yong-Ho, who had the luxury to laugh in these circumstances. However, his laughter had a strange hint of cruelty to it. “Then we just have to hunt something weak, right?” he remarked smugly.

“Eh?” The others let out gasps of surprise.

“If the monsters are too strong to hunt, we can just hunt other humans and increase our levels,” Hwang Yong-Ho added.

Silence suddenly filled the place.

Someone eventually broke the silence and asked, “You mean we should commit murder?”

“It’s the most efficient way for us to survive in this place,” Hwang Yong-Ho explained.

Those present couldn’t say anything, but instead just looked at each other. Surprisingly, nobody dared to mention anything about conscience or morality. In fact, they had seen people dying at the hands of monsters, and didn’t want to end up like them.

Hwang Yong-Ho had expected that to happen and gathered only the cunning ones. Just the fact that no one voiced any opposition to Hwang Yong-Ho’s suggestion proved how amazing his eye for people was.

A man gulped, then gathered his courage to ask nervously, “Then… How should we kill another human?”

“First, we should move during dawn, and it must be someone who’s alone or away from their group. To figure out how the experience points are distributed, we’ll tie and gag them up, then we’ll have as many people as possible cut the person we caught. The one who contributes the most will get to keep the equipment and loot from the one we kill.”

Although it was simple and brief, Hwang Yong-Ho had established a rule among them; the others were relieved just from the simple fact that a common goal had been established for the first time among them.

A woman asked somewhat excitedly, “Then who will be our target?”

“Actually, I already have one in mind.” Hwang Yong-Ho pointed at a wooden structure on the edge of the horizon. It was a worn-down and dusty smithy. A flicker of light could be seen from within, as if announcing there was someone inside it.

“I took a peek when I heard the sound of something breaking, and some guy was staying alone inside that smithy. He didn’t seem to be alert at all, and his eyes were soulless as if he had given up on life. What do you think of having that man as our first prey?” he suggested.

Everyone in the group nodded in agreement with Hwang Yong-Ho’s suggestion, as if camaraderie had been formed among them.