Do Your Own Revolution

“I’m fucked.”

After hours of being beaten.

While walking down the street with my tattered body, I instinctively covered my mouth, startled by the words that had escaped.

“……”

“……..! ……!”

Fortunately, Saul’s gang was far away, and they didn’t come back trying to catch me.

“Phew.”

After taking a deep breath and thinking it over two, three times, I spoke again with a clear and lucid mind.

“I’m absolutely fucked.”

[Revolution Empire] is a game that combines a diesel-punk world view with dark fantasy genre.

The time period is set in the transitional period between World War I and II.

Science and magic coexist, wars never end, and monsters and mutants swarm outside the cities. It’s literally a world like a sewer.

As if the world setting wasn’t shitty enough to live in, I possessed the protagonist.

Into a sewer life where no one could match its misery!

What? You’re asking if I’m not excited about falling into the world of a game I liked?

To whoever thinks that way, I sincerely hope you wake up tomorrow morning as Isaac Clarke in the Ishimura’s hangar.

Try having a deep kiss with a Necromorph, and then you can do a backflip while saying “Wow, game possession is so amazing!” Right?

Let’s stop. I feel like I might actually commit suicide from self-loathing at this rate.

Like a madman, I slapped both my cheeks, trying to get a grip somehow.

“Right, let’s get it together, Yu-jin. You can’t keep acting pathetic like this forever.”

This unexpected second life, I can’t just die.

While thinking that, an old piece of paper flew to my feet.

“This is…?”

A red wing symbol printed in the corner of the old paper. It was propaganda distributed by the Revolutionary Army.

[Those who want revolution, come anytime! The red flag is always waiting for you!]

Text scrawled with low-quality charcoal. Reading it, I let out a bitter laugh.

“Right. The protagonist picked up this flyer too.”

[Revolution Empire]. As the title suggests, the main story of this game is about starting a revolution against the Empire.

The story of a hero who joins the Revolutionary Army at a young age, meets comrades and grows, and takes down the corrupt officials of the Empire one by one.

And this flyer in my hands right now was, without exaggeration, the beginning of that heroic epic.

“However, things are different now.”

I grabbed the Revolutionary Army’s flyer with both hands.

And tore it in half.

Not just once.

Twice, three times.

After tearing the poster into complete powder, I scattered it into the air.

“When I already know the game’s ending, you want me to follow the main story and join the Revolutionary Army? Did you get shot in the head?”

If I dare guess, there must be some reason why I was possessed into the protagonist’s body.

Maybe to save the protagonist’s unfortunate life, or to succeed in the revolution and save the world, something like that kind of mission.

If so, I would confidently answer this:

Go fuck yourself with all of that.

‘I don’t know who dumped me here, but they seriously misjudged me.’

Salvation of the masses? National cause? Go fuck yourself.

World-saving protagonist? Hero? You guys can do that all you want.

The goal of Eugene who experienced an unexpected game possession is just one thing: survival.

Revolution or whatever, you guys can do that amongst yourselves.

‘First, what’s important is that the point I possessed isn’t the main story but the prologue.’

I recalled the original game’s story.

The story of [Revolution Empire] begins when the protagonist turns fifteen.

That’s when he beats up Hans and Saul’s gang, and while fleeing from their revenge, joins the Revolutionary Army.

But my current age is eight.

What this means is that according to the story, the protagonist has to do errand work and pay tribute money to those bastards until he turns 15.

In the game, they might gloss over that time with a narration saying “7 years later…,” but how could that work when the game has become reality?

“I need to deal with Saul and Hans.”

Getting a stroke while playing games and getting possessed into the protagonist’s body is already hopeless enough.

And now you want me to do errand work in this damn back alley for 7 years? Don’t fuck with me.

As fast as possible. If possible, I needed to escape this back alley life right now.

“The problem is how to deal with them…”

The opponents are stronger than me, and there are more of them.

Plus, they had the backing of the gang that controlled this area.

Was it even possible for a powerless eight-year-old kid to defeat those guys?

Though the conditions were overwhelming just thinking about them, I knew the answer.

“I need to awaken my magic power.”

The method the protagonist used to defeat them in the original.

The only way for a back alley beggar to suddenly subdue gangs.

Right now, I needed to become a magician as soon as possible.

***

If I had to name one of the few advantages of this game world, it would be that the time period is roughly after the Industrial Revolution.

At least in name, there exists a “Continental Human Rights Charter,” and thanks to that, even a slum beggar like me could enter a hospital and see a doctor’s face.

“Look elsewhere, kid. I don’t have a hobby of clearing away child corpses.”

The place I ran to was the ‘Karl Hiram National Hospital’ located in the middle of the Grey Quarter district’s downtown.

The doctor, adjusting his glasses while looking at the chart, waved his hand without even looking at me.

“There’s no other hospital nearby.”

“I’m telling you not to accept you, you idiot!”

As if annoyed by my talking back, the doctor looked up from the chart and started yelling at me.

“That damn propaganda is ruining all the kids’ behavior! What awakening surgery without even a magic power test? Go back right now!”

The doctor’s voice ordering me out grew increasingly louder.

Judging by his irritation, it seems many people like me had visited before.

“There won’t be any legal issues. And magic awakening is better the younger you are…!”

“You young brat, even so!”

The doctor frowned at my retort and looked at me.

“Go back when I tell you to! If you do something useless, you want to live as a one-armed person at that age…!”

The doctor had to stop mid-sentence when he looked at my face.

“You…”

Upon seeing my face, his angry voice suddenly became calm.

Split lips, bruised cheeks, and even cigarette burn marks on my forehead.

My current appearance must have looked quite miserable even to the doctor.

“Did gang members target you?”

The doctor immediately mentioned gangs, especially after seeing the cigarette burn on my forehead.

In this world, cigarettes were quite an expensive luxury, and in the slums, only those bastards could afford to smoke them.

I nodded and said.

“It’s because of my father’s debt. They said if I can’t pay it back within a week, they’ll grind me up and sprinkle me in the pig pen.”

The “next to your dead father” that Hans mentioned earlier was precisely the pig pen.

Wow, thinking about it again, this life difficulty is really hell.

Why didn’t I commit suicide earlier? Should I just do it now?

“I’ll die anyway if things stay like this. If I’m going to die, I should at least try something before dying.”

“Hey, kid. Even so…!”

“I won’t blame you even if my arm flies off. It’s my responsibility even if I die! So please just do the surgery. Please!”

I quickly spilled out the words and bowed my head to the doctor.

After watching me for a moment, the doctor sighed “phew” and scratched the back of his head.

“…Fine, sit down. I can’t just send you back with those injuries.”

Saying that, the doctor asked a nurse to bring bandages and ointment.

“…Sigh, I really should leave this damn neighborhood or something.”

Watching him, I smiled inwardly with satisfaction.

‘Got it.’

Grey Quarter National Hospital’s doctor NPC, [Otto Klautz].

Despite his fierce appearance, his character alignment is [Good].

Especially weak to children’s pleas.

Everything was exactly as it appeared in the game.

***

“Magic awakening surgery is a dangerous procedure with a mortality rate exceeding 15%. Not everyone becomes a magician just because they have the surgery.”

A few minutes after treating the wounds on my face.

Following the nurse’s guidance, I sat on the operating table, and Otto slowly grabbed my right arm and fixed it to a machine called the ‘Circuit Opener’.

‘It looked brutal in the game, but seeing it in person makes it look even more savage.’

Dozens of awls were aimed in a circular pattern at various points of my arm, surrounding the mechanical device that encompassed my entire arm.

I gulped at that fierce appearance, but fortunately, Otto didn’t seem to notice.

“Starting from your fingertips all the way to your shoulder blade, we’ll insert 72 stimulus needles all at once. We’re forcibly opening magic nerves to create a path for magic power to flow.”

Is explaining the surgical procedure a doctor’s duty? Doctor Otto didn’t stop talking to me even while operating the machine.

“The opened nerves will maintain for 30 minutes. If magic power doesn’t flow by then…”

“The wounds in the arm will never heal. The right arm must be amputated before backflow occurs, right?”

“That’s right.”

Opening nerves by piercing various parts of the arm with stimulus needles, then healing the surgical site with the practitioner’s magic power.

I knew it from the setting, but it was quite a crude method.

Moreover, the unnecessarily detailed description suggested that Otto was hoping I would get scared and refuse the surgery.

‘But not a chance.’

I needed to awaken my magic power as soon as possible to see any light in this sewer life, there was no time to waste here.

And there was another reason why I was getting magic development surgery at such a young age.

‘Magic becomes stronger the younger you develop it. I’ll pass on messing around with output like in the original.’

A magician’s magic power depends on the output of the ‘magic circuit’ formed near the heart during first awakening.

In the original, the protagonist awakened his magic power at a late age, and because of that, he suffered from chronic magic power deficiency.

With low magic power, he couldn’t even use items that consumed high amounts of magic power, and had to hand over all the hard-earned items to his NPC companions.

‘And then those carefully nurtured companions stabbed the protagonist in the back.’

The more I think about it, the more it sounds like a sucker’s life.

But now it’s different.

At the prologue point, I’m eight years old.

If I awaken magic power now, I’ll become the Empire’s youngest magic awakener, and my magic circuit output will reach the Empire’s highest level.

It meant I could monopolize all the items that had to be handed over to NPCs.

“Tch, I thought you’d be at least a little scared, but you’re not even blinking. All preparations are done.”

While I was thinking that, Otto, who had finished preparing for surgery, attached restraints to both my shoulders and legs.

They say it’s because you might get hurt if you struggle from the pain, but it felt like being a patient in a mental hospital.

No, if I had to make a comparison, would this be Frankenstein?

Igor, Igor! Where did you put my brain!

…Let’s stop. This is embarrassing.

“I’ll say it again, but it’s still not too late to…”

“Please start.”

“…Fine. I’ll stop talking.”

I bit down on the bundle of cloth Otto handed me, and he silently activated the machine.

“Nnnghh—?!”

As dozens of steel needles pierced my arm simultaneously, terrible pain rushed in.

Even though I was biting down on the thick cloth bundle, it felt like a couple of molars broke, and due to using too much force, I could taste the sticky blood flowing from my nostrils and eyes.

However.

“Ha, haha…! Hahaha……”

The burning sensation felt near my heart along with the pain.

Feeling that, I could laugh even amid the pain.

‘Success.’

The magic development surgery received 7 years earlier than the original protagonist.

The result was a great success.