Chapter 1: The First Day of Possession
“Then, are you saying we need to scrap the project? Did I hear that right?”
Kang Ji-hoon, age 32. A man who graduated from a 4-year university and has walked a single path of game planning and development ever since.
He couldn’t fully contain his emotions and raised his voice harshly.
“Team Leader Kang. You seem to have misunderstood a bit. Strictly speaking, we’re not completely scrapping the project. We’re just postponing it indefinitely.”
Park Dae-seok, age 43. A middle-aged man in charge of the planning and development division at Fantasy Soft, a fairly famous game company in Korea.
With a face full of exhaustion, he let out a deep sigh and tried to calm Kang Ji-hoon.
Dae-seok was getting old, and for the sake of his family, he often compromised with reality.
But once upon a time, he too had walked the lonely road of a game developer.
In his late 20s to early 30s, he had burned with passion, pulling all-nighters without rest.
So it wasn’t that he didn’t understand how Kang Ji-hoon felt…
But this was the best option now.
“If the business division declares indefinite postponement, then it’s as good as scrapping it altogether. You know that better than anyone, sir.”
Kang Ji-hoon poured out his rising feelings without filter.
He almost let some harsh words slip out in frustration, but luckily, he didn’t cross the line he’d set for himself.
He was overwhelmed by emotion, sinking into injustice and anger.
But even if he vented all his feelings in front of Park Dae-seok, he knew nothing would change.
Once the business department makes the final decision, even the division head wouldn’t be able to reverse it.
Raising his voice here and continuing the argument would only worsen emotions between the two of them.
“Team Leader Kang. You know what to do, right? Handle it by procedure. If we’re lucky, there might come a day when we can bring it back.”
“With all due respect, sir, unless this company’s policy changes, I don’t think this project will ever be revived.”
“No one knows what might happen, Team Leader. I’ve got paperwork to do too… so please take care of everything within three days.”
There wasn’t much time left.
The AAA-level RPG project he had poured his soul into for years was now essentially gone.
But sadly, Ji-hoon didn’t even have time to wallow in despair.
“Understood.”
Kang Ji-hoon was a rational and practical person.
Even if swept up by intense emotion, he could quickly calm himself down when he realized it was pointless.
People around him often said it gave them chills.
This time was no different.
Realizing that staying emotional wouldn’t help, he quietly accepted the situation.
“I’ll head to the office and take care of it immediately.”
Without hesitation, he walked toward his office.
Appealing emotionally in this situation was a waste of time.
That’s how the adult world works.
Entering the darkened office, he sat down stiffly at his desk and turned on his work computer.
Then he checked the fragments of data he had handled with such excitement just yesterday.
“Haha… man…”
A sigh full of complicated emotions escaped him.
From planning to design, every corner of the fantasy world he saw on screen was filled with his footprints.
He joined the company, worked relentless overtime, and earned recognition.
How happy he had been to finally be put in charge of a major RPG project?
Everything he’d built since entering the industry was there.
And now, it was time to let it go.
“Feels like a waste.”
With a dazed expression, Kang Ji-hoon muttered to himself.
From planning to coding, his touch was everywhere.
To say he wasn’t attached would be a lie.
“I really wanted to play it myself and see the ending. It’s a shame.”
His simple wish to play through to the main story’s ending was now an impossible dream.
“Sigh…”
Letting out a deep breath, he began merging the code stored on a separate server with the existing data.
No conflicts.
That was natural. He had already written it in a way that wouldn’t conflict, simulating it dozens of times.
Some might ask if he’d spent too much time on it despite being busy.
But this wasn’t just a hobby.
This data was a kind of “ark,” temporarily removed to balance with a DLC in development.
He had even been updating and reviewing it regularly so it could be added back in any time.
But then…
“What’s this?”
During the final review, Ji-hoon discovered a piece of unfamiliar code.
Strangely, there were no conflicts.
“This doesn’t make sense…”
He muttered in confusion.
Someone else might’ve thought it was just a bunch of data…
But to him, this data was a small world filled with his years of experience.
He knew it inside out. He had built every detailed part of it.
“There’s no way there’s a piece of code I don’t know…”
Just as he was about to search the database for logs—
“Why am I so sleepy?”
It felt like he’d taken a powerful sleeping pill.
A heavy drowsiness blurred his sight.
He rubbed his eyes and downed his iced americano—but to no effect.
In the end, Ji-hoon collapsed face-first onto the keyboard.
“Ugh…”
***
A man, frowning through a terrible headache, lifted his body from the bed.
The moment he woke, he realized something felt different from usual.
He couldn’t say for certain why, but something about his state felt off—and he couldn’t clearly recall last night.
He quickly threw off the blanket and checked his hands.
“These… don’t feel like my hands…”
They looked different.
With slow, careful movements, he shifted his gaze to check his surroundings.
The room was dark, covered by what looked like blackout curtains, but as his eyes adjusted, the surroundings began to take shape.
This wasn’t the small room of a typical Korean apartment.
What he saw was an ornate, medieval fantasy-style bedroom filled with luxurious furniture and decorations.
“What… is this?”
A strange room, no memory of yesterday.
It felt like being possessed—but he stayed calm.
“Where’s a mirror?”
He thought he needed one to understand the situation more clearly.
Soon, he found a small hand mirror on the bedside table, picked it up, and took a deep breath.
“Whew…”
Then he looked into it.
[Welcome, traveler. You have entered the world of Empire Heroic Legend.]
[The character you have possessed is: Kain Felberg.]
“Ah…”
He couldn’t help but be stunned.
The face reflected in the mirror wasn’t his usual Korean one.
Instead, it was the face of a blond young man with blue eyes—and overlaid on his sight was something that could only be described as a “system message” straight out of a game.
“What the hell… is this like one of those ‘possessed into the game’ tropes?”
In disbelief, he muttered to himself.
Even with his packed schedule as a game developer, he used to unwind in bed with a few chapters of a web novel before sleeping.
So it didn’t take long to recognize that this situation was uncannily similar to a typical game-possession novel.
“A system window opened? This is straight up something from a novel.”
Though he was born in modern Korea, now he found himself possessing someone in another world.
Yet he didn’t scream or panic. Kang Ji-hoon was a rational and cool-headed person to an extreme degree.
He took a moment to organize his thoughts.
“Kain Felberg.”
He recalled what he remembered about the character.
Kain Felberg was a character from Empire Heroic Legend, the game world he himself had been developing.
In the setting, he was the spoiled youngest prince of the Felberg Empire—one of the two major empires on the Vandel Continent.
He was a troublemaker, rotten enough to be exiled, but he wasn’t one of the main villains who must be defeated.
So unless things went off rails, he was a character who always survived until the end of the story.
“Then I don’t have much to worry about.”
Felberg was an ancient empire that treasured the bloodline of the starborn royals above all else.
“Just lay low in the corner and stay quiet. That shouldn’t be hard.”
Soon, the continent would fall into chaos.
But according to the game’s story, the protagonist would prevent the apocalypse.
Even if flames of war swept across the land, they wouldn’t reach this remote exile territory.
And the empire would do whatever it took to protect its few remaining royals.
So all he had to do was hide and wait.
Until the protagonist cleaned everything up.
But right then, a new message appeared.
A message even he—the main developer—was unfamiliar with.
[Hidden DLC ‘Secret Order of the Unseen Powers’ has been activated.]
[Hidden DLC ‘Prelude to Cataclysm’ has been activated.]
[Hidden DLC ‘March of the Dead’ has been activated.]
[Hidden DLC ‘Requiem of Annihilation’ has been activated.]
“…!”