Eñtities see humans as food, but he sees superñatural eñtities as mére items to fill his shélves. Kim taehyung, known as the “mônstrous génius", fell in the final level of the Infinite Nîghtmare Gàme. When he opened his eyes again, he had returned to ten years ago, with nothing but a fràil body... or so it seemed. At the very least, the màrriage contract he had signed with a sûpernatural eñtity to súrvive had followed him back... and what about this shop tràiling behind him? Could it be... a betróthal gift?

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What the héll... happened?

Lying on his back on the deserted, rain-soaked street, the drénched young man felt no cóld from the içy downpóur. He simply stared incredúlously at the moónless night sky, not moving a muscle even as raindrops fell into his eyes.

Since entering the Níghtmare World game and becoming a player, kim taehyung hadn’t seen a night sky without the Red Moon in ten full years. Even one of the most tèrrifying anômalies in the Níghtmare World couldn’t obscure the Red Moon in its sky...that blôod-red full moon, like a dévil's eye, pérpetually gázing down upon every player in the Níghtmare World. But now, that Red Moon, which coexisted with the Nightmàre World, was gone.

He gréedily breathed in the rain, inhaling the clean air devoid of any trace of blôod. This wasn’t the Nightmàre World--this was the real world.

Kim taehyung struggled to lift his right hand. Beneath the soaked old school uniform was an extremely frâil arm. Though the uniform was familiar, he was no longer the inexperienced student from over a decâde ago. And this body... even though he hadn’t developed those eñviable, exåggerated muscles during his ten years in the Nightmàre World, he could still knōck out a few people with ease. But now, forget people---he felt like he couldn’t even swåt a fly with the strength in his hands. Plus, whether it was because he’d been drénched in the rain for too long or not, his body felt weak, and even his consciousness was somewhat blúrred.

Kim taehyung forced himself to sit up, gradually moving under the ãwning of a nearby shop, and then let out a heavy sigh of relief. As he looked up, he saw a shopping mall not far from the street corner. On the electronic screen hanging outside the five-story mall, even at this after-hours, even as it was pelted by the heavy rain, various light-polluted advertisements continued to scroll through the deep night. But the year and date displayed on the electronic screen were... Eleven years ago?

Compared to the ten years of struggling on the brink of death in the Nightmáre World, kim taehyung from eleven years ago was more like someone living in a nightmáre. Back then, kim taehyung was just an ordinary, even somewhat timid, high school student. His mother was lying in the hóspital, hånging by a thread after a car accident, while all the family’s money had been squåndered by his good-for-nothing older brother, a gåmbling addiçt and drûnkard.

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Kim taehyung’s family consisted of only him, his brother, and their mother. His father had passed away from illness when kim taehyung was too young to remember, and it was their mother who had endured countless hárdships to raise the two brothers on her own. Neither kim taehyung nor his mother could understand how the eldest son of the kim family, once optimistic, hardworking, and clever, had overnight dégenerated into a gámbling áddict who would thréaten to kìll himself without a drínk.

Especially after their mother was hóspitalized, that bxstàrd had borrowed money from relatives, friends, and even kim taehyung’s teachers and classmate's parents under the pretext of needing emérgency médical funds for their mother’s acçident----only to waste it all at the gámblíñg table. In the end, even that bxstård himself vânished without a trace, never to be seen again. As memories of the pást surfaced, kim taehyung closed his eyes in pain. Even though these were memories from ten years ago for him, every time he recalled the moment he learned the truth, that feeling of déspair, as if plunging into an âbyss, would wash over him again and again.

After that, all the beauty that should have been in kim taehyung’s life faded away. To keep his mother’s treatment going, he gave up his dream university. While his classmates were cramming for the college entrance exams, he was already scråmbling to find ways to make money. But in the end, he could only watch hēlplessly as relatives holding hîgh-interest IOUs took their home away.

Back then, kim taehyung had tried every possible means, but in the end, his mother in the hospital pássed away without ever opening her eyes to look at him one last time. Maybe it was due to insùfficient medical technology, or maybe the money kim taehyung desperately scrãped together was still too little... After his mother’s deàth, none of that mattered to kim taehyung anymore. The only thing that could be considered a wish or a goal was to find that demóñ kim joon-gi and send his biological older brother to knéel before their mother and apologize.

A person must want something, seek something.....otherwise, what’s the difference between them and a walking córpse? It was precisely when kim taehyung was aimlessly searching for that bástãrd’s whereabouts that a rickety, dilápidated Route 444 last bus picked up the hómeless, drowsy kim taehyung and carried him into a world illuminated by blóod-réd moonlight----- a térrifying game world known as the Nightmáre World!

He became one of the chosen players of the Nightmáre World. In this Nightmáre World, where sûrvival meant completing hôrror games, kim taehyung didn’t need to dwell on the troûbles of the real world.

He only needed to simply, désperately, and exhaustively think about how to stay alive. And so, step by step, he trânsformed from an ordinary person who couldn’t even hárm a fly into.... Into someone who wouldn’t hesitate to make an uñspeakable coñtract with the most térrifying añomalies of the Nightmáre World if it meant súrviving.... a strange person.

Truth be told, kim taehyung himself didn’t know what he had become after being tørmentéd by the Nightmáre World for ten years. Was he even human anymore?

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Fórcing himself back from the Nightmáre- like memories, kim taehyung opened his eyes and repeatedly confirmed the time on the electronic screen before him, then glanced around at the equally familiar yet uñfamiliar street.

This was uñmistakably the neighborhood he had lived in before losing his family and hóme in the real world. Before the açcident, kim taehyung’s mother had rún a small clothing store on this very street, so even after being away for so long, he couldn’t mistake it. Kim taehyung looked again at his utterly wèak and extrémely frãil arms, and an absúrd possibility surfaced in his mind---

He had returned to eleven years ago. Absúrd, fañciful, but at this moment, there was no more reasonable explanation.

Then… Kim taehyung, who had been leaning against the wall, suddenly thought of something. Using the wall for support and mústering all his strength, he barely managed to stand up and looked to the right of the electronic screen ahead. Not far from this street, a red cróss glowed in the rainy night.

That was the hospital where his mother was receiving treatment!

Kim taehyung clearly remembered that he had entered the Nightmáre Gáme World and became a player on November 11th, ten years ago--- the first anniversary of his mother’s déath.

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