The D-Rank Guild Master of the No. 1 Guild

Aria embraced Akata as if it were the most natural thing, wrapping her arms fully around his back. Akata stiffened, the veins in his rigid hands bulging. Soon, his arms lightly rested on her slender waist.

“……I waited for you, Aria.”

Countless thoughts clamored in my head, but I ignored them. Aria, still holding Akata, turned her head to look at me. Her expressionless face, identical to mine, was eerie.

“I’ll show you. Look carefully. You are nothing but my imitation.”

The next moment, a series of headaches pierced my brain. All she did was gaze at me, yet it felt as though I, a robot she created, must obey her commands unconditionally.

Akata’s face turned pale. Taking advantage of Aria’s upward gaze, he frowned at me. But that didn’t last long. Like me, his eyelids soon closed without warning.

Despite struggling, Aria caught his collapsing body.

Simultaneously, my vision went completely dark.

Of course, I had anticipated some physical confrontations with guards when Akata and I plunged into the enemy’s territory! But who could have foreseen that we would suddenly lose consciousness without even touching each other?

‘Could it be that Aria truly is my creator? Is that why I can’t defy her?’

A vague question flashed through my mind, but it was too late to find an answer.

* * *

‘I finally made it here.’

It had been a long wait, but I finally met her. As I looked down at the woman who looked exactly like me, memories from the past resurfaced.

Since I was five, I learned through my parents that I had a different temperament than my peers. I was a quiet child, not particularly noticeable and didn’t cause trouble. I preferred reading books to running around the playground, and I enjoyed playing alone with Montessori tools rather than chattering with peers over doll play.

Despite my unusually calm demeanor for a five-year-old, I would throw uncontrollable fits if certain boundaries were crossed. My parents described me as a child who had to realize what she wanted.

If someone tried to join or give hints while I was piecing together a beautiful puzzle, I would erupt in anger. This applied to any activity where I was creating something uniquely mine, like building blocks or drawing.

Especially since I was quite pretty and popular among kindergarten kids, I often faced interruptions during my solitary activities. Consequently, my parents had to meet with the kindergarten teacher multiple times and apologize to the parents of children whose hair I had pulled out.

“You seem to have your own fence, and you become particularly sensitive when someone tries to invade it.”

This sensitivity gradually improved as I grew, or at least it was hidden well. My parents never touched anything in my room, allowing me to live a relatively normal life.

“Programming?”

“It’s about creating programs on a computer. Computers can do countless things, you know? You can create programs that move exactly the way you want.”

Programming, which my parents suggested as an alternative, was a promising field in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The ability to create anything I desired greatly appealed to me. I immediately set my sights on studying computer science at a foreign university.

At the general high school in Korea where I was enrolled, the atmosphere in my class was exceptionally studious, even though we were just first-year students. I liked it, except for one student.

There was a boy with particularly outstanding looks. Girls from our grade and the upper grades all flocked to see him. As a result, the breaks were noisy for the entire first month of school, with spectators crowded around the windows. The boy, shy and introverted, couldn’t fend off the approaching girls or effectively disperse those congesting the hallway.

While I was busy laying the groundwork for studying abroad, I couldn’t help but think how perfect things would be if only that student disappeared.

One day, the resentment that had been building up in me reached its peak. We were on a field trip to a palace in Seoul. I found the boy alone, trying to retrieve his hat from the lake with a stick. Driven by the immature mind of a fifteen-year-old, I did something impulsive.

I pushed him hard in the back as he leaned precariously over the water. He fell, unfortunately hitting his head on a stone sculpture in the lake. The boy submerged and never resurfaced. A reddish hue spread across the water’s surface.

“Where did OOO go?”

“Did he run off and take the bus?”

Though I was slightly shocked by what had happened, I rejoined the group without drawing attention to myself, repeatedly reminding myself that there weren’t many CCTVs around the palace.

[“Breaking news. OOO, who went on a field trip, has been missing for three days…”]

It was strange. The body should have surfaced eventually, but despite a thorough police search, the boy wasn’t found. Apparently, there was one CCTV camera around the lake, but it was coincidentally malfunctioning at the exact moment I pushed the boy. 

The only thing the police could confirm was that the boy entered the palace with our class for the field trip and never came out.

After that day, as I tried to conceal my lukewarm, uneasy feelings and adapt to the now quieter classroom, something strange happened. Something I can only describe as odd.

The boy I killed appeared before me, looking exactly as he did when he was alive. The only difference was that I was the only one who could see him. He existed like a ghost and began haunting me.

Most people might have thought they were seeing things out of guilt. But I knew myself well. While I might regret my impulsive actions, I wasn’t the type to feel remorse for eliminating an obstacle.

Thus, I soon started thinking, ‘Is he here to seek revenge?’

But that assumption quickly faded as I started conversing with him.

“Hi, what’s your name?”

He didn’t remember being my classmate or that I was the one who pushed him to his death. He didn’t know his name or his origins. Realizing that I was the only one he could talk to, he began to cling to me persistently.

It was incredibly annoying.

From then on, I began thinking of ways to get rid of him from my sight. 

Then, I discovered something. I could move this ghost anywhere I wanted. 

I started experimenting by gradually increasing the distance, and each experiment was a success. Soon, I started having another thought.

‘What if I could transport him to another dimension outside of this reality?’

Inspired by this new idea, I experimented with various methods and eventually succeeded in confining the boy’s ghost within my inner world, or dream world. That’s when I felt the need to further explore my mysterious abilities.

Curious if my powers worked on other humans, I decided to commit a second murder. I traveled alone to China, taking care to stay under the radar. Eventually, I found someone who wouldn’t be missed if they disappeared—an old homeless man living on a dark street. I managed to stab him while he slept.

The tramp disintegrated like dust after I killed him. This was proof that I possessed supernatural abilities. He soon became a ghost, similar to the boy, and started hovering around me. Thus, I invited my second guest into my inner world.

When I went to meet them in my dream world that night, I found the boy awkwardly trying to communicate with the tramp. I glanced at the boy, who had grown into his twenties alongside me, then fixed my gaze on the tramp.

‘This man is not beautiful. He’s filthy.’

Although I killed the tramp for the sake of my experiment, I felt no need to keep him around for long. I decided to test the limits of my powers on him and then erase him.

From this process, I learned several things:

First, I could extract the ‘soul’ of anyone I killed.

Second, I could brainwash or manipulate the extracted soul at will.

Third, I could transport the soul anywhere I wanted.

Fourth, I could completely erase the soul from existence.

Around that time, my university courses covered virtual reality. While working on a project, an idea struck me.

‘What if I applied my world to virtual reality?’

I found the controllable and transformable virtual reality more intriguing than my fluid, ever-changing dream world. It aligned with my childhood desire to create a perfect virtual reality where I could transfer and dominate the extracted souls.

For the next five years, my world changed. After continuous study, I succeeded in gamifying my dream world. To transfer the extracted souls into the virtual world, I created a single medium that connected my dream world to the data-based world.

This medium was the third artificial soul I created, named ‘Agatha.’ I altered it to be pronounced ‘Akata.’

One regret was that while integrating the souls into virtual reality, I, with a physical body, could no longer enter that world. Still, it was fine. I frequently visited China, creating more inhabitants for my virtual reality. Programming each person made modifying them easier than ever.

There was no longer any need to kill someone who wasn’t beautiful. I grew more ambitious.

‘I want this world I own to become the real world.’

I set a grand goal for my life: to manifest the virtual world I dreamed of into this reality. I wanted to become the ruler of the world. With the intelligent and beautiful beings I created, this dream seemed achievable.

“Are you really going back to Korea to start a game company right after graduation? You could stay here in the States!”

My college friends tried to persuade me to stay. However, I wanted my virtual reality to be based in the familiar setting of Korea.

Upon graduating from university, I immediately returned to Korea, bringing with me the beta version of my gamified world, ‘Ranking of Soul.’ 

‘To create a more realistic virtual reality, I need significant investment. Making a game that captivates people is the quickest way. Let’s prepare more souls and train them.’

My final act overseas involved starting a massive fire in a poor neighborhood in a developing country. The specific souls didn’t matter, as I would modify them anyway.

Around that time, as I was refining the game’s content, I transformed that first boy.

“Your name is Taggiros. You will play the special role of the first player.”

Back in Korea, I gathered people to work for me. They were mesmerized by the virtual world I showed them, believing it to be a real game. My number of assistants, whether employees or followers, steadily increased. My goal became gradually more feasible, and each step towards it made me feel truly alive.

However, not everything went smoothly in setting up the new company. The problem wasn’t the company itself, but me.

‘I wish my body were as strong and perfect as the characters I created.’

I couldn’t tolerate the idea that I, who would eventually rule over the characters coming into this reality, was as weak as ordinary humans.

While I was deep in thought, a pleasant visitor came to my office.

“Long time no see. I heard you returned to Korea. I’m just stopping by my hometown for a bit and thought of you.”

It was a female university peer and fellow Korean. She was also a programmer and had been the top student while I was the runner-up.

Over a cup of tea, I strategically brought up my proposal.

“Would you like to see the game I’m making? If you like it, join me and work together.”

“You make it sound intriguing.”

Unaware of anything, she showed curiosity.