Standing amid the bustling streets of Zephandrel, he found himself lost in thought.
Am I truly a transmigrator, or have I become trapped in the game, unable to escape?
[Pendragon: A Symphony of Blood and Fire] was a wildly popular fantasy RPG, a holographic, online Virtual Reality sensation beloved around the world. And he, a professional VRMMORPG player of that very game, had inexplicably ended up here.
This world was almost an exact replica of the game's universe. The only difference? There were no players.No players meant the familiar facilities tied to their presence were missing. No online hubs, no safe zones, no resurrection points. In other words, if you died in this world... well, perhaps you'd really be gone for good.
His new body, a pre-assigned NPC avatar, was known as Marvin Fontaine, an aristocratic figure in the imperial heart of Zephandrel. His role. A high school history teacher at the local noble academy. Thanks to a generous ancestral inheritance, his family had once enjoyed great wealth, a true second-generation rich lifestyle.
But fate had taken a dark turn. One day, a mysterious female vampire hypnotized him, robbing him of his normal reasoning. Within mere months, his life unraveled, his parents were murdered, his property seized, and every servant in his household, be they butlers, maids, or other staff, had been transformed into vampires. Only he was left, forced to serve as a living blood reservoir for the creatures that now held his home captive. Had his body not been remarkably resilient, he likely would have perished long ago.
Then, one fateful night, the vampire mistress decided it was time to broaden her hunting grounds. She sent her maid to convert the neighbors, a modest family of three, a couple living with their young daughter. However, during the maiden's first attempt to embrace the little girl, something went awry. The startled homeowner's scream shattered the silence, and in a frantic response, the maid hastily killed the couple and set the house ablaze before fleeing. The blazing inferno was quickly smothered by the city's diligent fire brigade, but not before the fire threatened the vampire mistress's own mansion. Enraged, she returned to kill the errant maid.
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What no one knew, however, was that the neighbor's youngest daughter, Aurora, had been transformed into a vampire during that chaotic encounter, and thus wasn't completely consumed by the flames. On the very night of her burial, she managed to crawl out of the cemetery. After wandering the streets for several days, she encountered a player and issued a revenge mission.
That mission was promptly taken up by a guild player, who immediately reported the matter to his guild. The guild's leadership decided that the church should be informed first, not only to enlist its formidable power in exterminating vampires but also to secure the prestige and benefits that such an alliance would bring. Thus, the church dispatched a unit of armored paladins who, working alongside the guild players, swiftly eradicated that vampire family.
Amid the chaos, only Marvin, an ordinary human ensnared by supernatural manipulation, escaped the massacre at the hands of both the church and the players. Once the mission was complete, the church sold Marvin's mansion to the reporting guild as a reward. That guild became the very first to establish a base in Zephandrel, drawing a horde of new players. The entire episode was broadcast across forums, sending ripples of excitement and admiration throughout the server. For a time, countless guilds scoured Zephandrel in search of traces of vampires, werewolves, and witch NPCs.
As for poor NPC Marvin, his misfortune was pitiful. Stripped of his property and family, he was forced onto the streets, reduced to a beggar. Every day, he endured relentless harassment from players, taunting him with questions like,
"Do you know any other vampires?"
"Doesn't your wife have any siblings?"
"Aren't you a vampire too?"
In time, the constant torment wore him down. Eventually, amid the brutal chaos of a street gang clash, the battered NPC lost his mind entirely and was tragically killed.
That had been the plot of the NPC Marvin Fontaine in his previous life, a narrative he'd once known all too well. But things were different now.
Without players roaming this world, Aurora's mission would go unaccepted, and the church wouldn't soon become aware of any vampires. Most importantly, as a professional VRMMORPG player armed with complete knowledge of the mission's twists and turns, he would never simply sit by and wait for his fate to be sealed.
