#001

In fantasy action RPG games where you ruthlessly slice through enemies, there is a villain that almost always appears.

The cultists who serve an evil Evil God!

No matter where they appear, the things these cultists do are all the same. They sacrifice innocent people, mutate ordinary folk into horrific monsters, and seek to summon a wicked Evil God to this land to bring about the end of the world.

I can’t understand why they do such things, but because I can’t understand it, I can slice them down without a moment’s hesitation.

Pure, 100% evil that ensures you never have to wonder, “Is what the protagonist is doing truly justice?”

Cultists are never given backstories like, “Actually, this guy was a good person.”

Even if they were originally good, there is no room for extenuating circumstances once they become part of a cult that performs human sacrifices and tries to destroy the world.

There might be victims mixed in who were brainwashed or forcibly modified, but the only way to save such people is also to kill them. If you find a monster wailing for help, kill it as quickly as possible to relieve its suffering!

A cultist? Verdict: Hell! Execution: Death!

A victim? Verdict: Heaven! Active euthanasia!

[Heretic Slayer]—called ‘Idan-salhaeye-ja’ in Korea, or ‘Die Heretic!’ for short—is an action RPG where, as the name suggests, the goal is to refreshingly slice and exterminate these cultists.

Featuring a taciturn Heretic Inquisitor who sweeps away cultists, this game sold over ten million copies and spawned a massive fandom of fanatics.

Riding on that popularity, several sequels, DLCs (Downloadable Content), and spin-offs were released, along with comics, novels, and artbooks based on its world-building.

Among them, there was one spin-off game that drew immense attention even before its release due to its insane concept: [Conclude: Apostle of the Othergod].

[Try becoming the Cult Leader of the cultists you used to rip apart!]

[Spread heretical faith and brainwash your followers!]

[Offer burnt sacrifices to the Othergod who wishes to destroy the world!]

[Capture Heretic Inquisitors and put them to the stake!]

With these crazy promotional slogans and a trailer, [Conclude] garnered an explosion of interest.

Everyone playing this is a heretic. Just burn them all together.

Now where is my war hammer…

Cult Leader (was).

Once it’s out, I’m going for a stealth run. I’ll kill all the cultists myself and then kill the evil Cult Leader at the end lol.

That’s just suicide.

Until then, most fans thought it was just a large-scale April Fool’s joke of a project.

This was because the genre was an unexpected strategy simulation.

Strategy? What strategy? Have they ever made a strategy game? It’s not even outsourced…

If there are multiple branching paths, it would be hard to make it an action RPG. If it’s a strategy game, they can handle events with illustrations or text.

I wouldn’t expect much in terms of quality… maybe it’s a free distribution game?

Strategy! A game only a heretic would play! The brain is for those who lack faith!

However, when [Conclude] was released, it turned out to be a fully realized strategy simulation, and the fandom fell into chaos.

I thought they were crazy for charging full price, but the crazy part was the game quality;;

It wasn’t just for bait; it’s a proper strategy game…? Why is this actually real?

Why is this fun…?

Where did my time go?

My playtime for ‘Heretic Love’ is now longer than ‘Die Heretic’;; This is insane.

Of course, the sales of [Conclude] didn’t even reach one-twentieth of the main game’s sales, but it gained unique popularity as a spin-off and created a fandom known as the ‘Apostates.’

Those who chose to be a ‘Cult Leader’ rather than a ‘Heretic Slayer.’

People whose playtime in [Conclude] was longer than in [Heretic Slayer].

I was one of those ‘Apostates.’

Actually, it’s only natural. In an action RPG, where there’s nothing to do but replay once you’ve seen the ending, 200 hours is considered a lot. But 200 hours in a strategy game isn’t even that much.

Especially since [Conclude] has a fixed setting and timeline, but becomes a completely different game depending on which Othergod the ‘Contractor’ believes in, so there was always something new to discover.

Othergods are deities from outside the Dark Realm, cosmic horror entities similar to the Outer Gods or Great Old Ones from the Cthulhu Mythos.

Each Othergod governs a specific Domain, and since Faith Points accumulate when you gain fear or awe related to that Domain, the Domain of the contracted Othergod determines the overall playstyle of the game.

For example, if you believe in the [Plague God], the main boss of the original game, you must spread plagues as widely as possible so that many people suffer from disease and come to fear it.

To do this, you have to keep a close eye on things like the movement of logistics and the direction of rivers on the map. You have to find where to start spreading the disease so that many people get infected without the cult being detected.

After just a few rounds with the [Plague God], I could memorize which territories had the most trade and which had the strictest quarantine measures.

On the other hand, if you believe in the [War God], you must ensure as many wars as possible break out.

To achieve this, you first identify the power dynamics of the nobles and seduce low-ranking heirs to trigger endless territorial wars to gather points, and later, you must incite a civil war within the empire to sweep up points.

Besides these, there are 14 other types of Othergods in [Conclude]. In total, there are 16 types of Othergods.

There is one trashy Othergod that I’m not sure was added for gameplay or just for meme generation, but even excluding that, 15 different styles of play are possible, making the playtime of [Conclude] infinitely long.

Even playing through every Othergod once easily exceeds 120 hours, so players with under 200 hours were treated as newbies who just started the game, and you had to have around 600 hours to be considered someone who had actually played the game.

So, the fact that I played [Conclude] for about 1,300 hours is something I couldn’t even brag about.

There are plenty of veterans with over 2,000 hours, quite a few with over 4,000, and even some lunatics who have played for over 10,000 hours.

Specifically, for someone who played over 10,000 hours, considering the release date, it calculates to playing [Conclude] for 13 hours every single day. At that point, isn’t [Conclude] more than just a favorite game—isn’t it their entire life?

I believe that if someone were to be possessed into the game, it should be a person like that.

Not me, who only played for 1,300 hours.

* * *

“A piece of trash game like this… if I knew I’d be possessed, I wouldn’t have touched it.”

I clutched my head.

A handful of long, blood-red hair was caught in my grip.

“If you’re going to possess someone, at least put them in a game where they save the world…”

I felt wronged.

While I had destroyed the world over a hundred times while playing [Conclude], I never actually had a wicked desire to destroy the world in reality.

Does that make everyone who plays FPS games a prospective mass shooter?

Human sacrifice? Fratricide? Human experimentation? Spreading plagues?

How could I ever commit such things in real life?

Even if I did, the only result would be turning into a monster, so I have even less desire to do so.

Immortality is fine.

No living creature fears death.

But what’s the point of immortality if you turn into a monster?

Between receiving 100 billion won and becoming an immortal giant cockroach versus just living normally, I’d choose the latter.

Who cares about eternal life and wealth when you become a monster more disgusting than a cockroach?

Of course, cultists are the kind of people who would choose the former.

They are people for whom becoming a cockroach isn’t a drawback, but a desperate wish.

To think that getting closer to an Othergod, who is so hideous that just looking at them could drive you mad, is a blessing and a miracle…

As expected, cultists must all be insane.

Now that I think about it, it’s obvious.

If they had their heads on straight, they wouldn’t have fallen for this kind of cult.

“…If only Hell didn’t exist in this world, I would have surrendered to the Heretic Inquisitor.”

Unfortunately, Hell actually exists in this world.

If a cultist dies at the hands of a Heretic Inquisitor, they fall into Hell.

This is not a world where you can live with the mindset of, ‘I’ll just die then.’

[Become an immortal monster, plunge the world into chaos, and be worshipped by bizarre fanatics vs. be defeated by the side of justice and suffer eternally in Hell]

To think I have to choose between these options.

I’d rather choose death!

But even then, the followers would just bring me back, wouldn’t they?

There’s really no answer.

A Contractor of an Othergod hardly ever dies.

There is a reason why the Heretic Inquisitors, the elite of the church, step forward to ‘purify’ cultists.

Because if they are killed by a power that does not contain Divinity, they can be brought back to life.

As long as a human sacrifice is offered.

So, if I try to commit suicide just to quit the game, one follower will decrease, and I’ll just wake up on the Altar again.

Therefore, I had only one option.

“I have no choice but to become the most harmless and inconspicuous Cult Leader possible…”

I don’t want to become a monster, and I don’t want to go to Hell, so this is the only way.

Even if I’m a cultist, as long as I don’t do evil things, aren’t I just a member of a religious group?

I believe that depending on what I, the Cult Leader, do, the followers can become either angels or demons.

‘From now on, I am the leader of a peaceful alternative community.’

If I make these crazy followers sweat in the fields every day and feed them until they’re full, couldn’t they become virtuous farmers?

* * *

…And it didn’t take long to realize that was the stupidest idea in the world.

I am an idiot.

There was no way people who threw themselves into a cult like this would be normal in the first place…

‘Fuck…’

There really are only psychos here.

Psychos who consider it the greatest honor for the ‘Cult Leader’ to crave their blood and flesh!

One day, I woke up to find someone climbing on top of me.

A blade glinted in the faint moonlight, and I was startled, thinking, ‘Is this an assassination?’…

‘It was someone trying to slit their own throat…’

They decided to offer their own blood because I looked lethargic.

Saying that if I were drenched in fresh blood, I would be full of energy again like before.

‘Are they actually insane?’

That means if I had opened my eyes just a little later, I would have seen a scene with a pool of blood and a corpse.

Seriously, just because I said I wouldn’t ‘collect biological data,’ they react like this…

Truly, I put in a lot of effort.

Because I felt that, to some extent, it was my responsibility.

I never wanted to be this, but fuck, I did become the Cult Leader.

If I don’t stop these lunatics, who will?

But I decided to admit that I was outmatched.

Stop them? My foot.

‘…Let’s just quit.’

Hell or whatever, it’s better to just die at the hands of a Heretic Inquisitor.

They weren’t the kind of people I could fix anyway.

Having decided this, I deserted the cult to die.

Luckily, the first person I encountered was the most qualified person for the job.

“…Athanas.”

It wasn’t a situation to be happy about, but I couldn’t help but feel glad.

Who is Athanas?

The protagonist of ‘Heretic Slayer,’ Heretic Inquisitor Athanas!

The ruthless Heretic Butcher who cuts the throat of a heretic without blinking an eye, no matter how pitifully they beg for their lives!

There could be no one more suited to kill a cult leader.

The protagonist of the main story killing the protagonist of the spin-off.

‘He’s gotten even more handsome since I last saw him.’

Athanas’s jet-black hair fluttered in the wind.

With Athanas standing before me like that, it felt like I was watching a scene from the game.

‘It would have been great if I weren’t the one from the boss monster’s perspective…’

“…Do not call my name. You disgusting, hideous beast of a pagan. How dare you mimic a human.”

Hatred was overflowing in Athanas’s deep blue eyes.

My heart hurt a little, but I didn’t mind.

‘Yes, curse me. I am indeed a disgusting and hideous existence.’

The more hideous I feel to him, the faster he’ll kill me.

I intentionally smiled even wider.

But it seems I shouldn’t have done that.

“…You, at least, shall not die a peaceful death.”

Athanas spoke in a dry voice.

“First, I shall pull out your tongue and sear the root with a red-hot iron, so that you may never again dare to utter wicked and cunning words.”

‘…Excuse me?’

“Then, I shall gouge out your eyes and pour holy water into the sockets…”

‘Um, hello?’

“…And I will make you feel your filthy flesh burning from the inside out.”

‘No, wait a minute…’

I think I’m fucked.