One moment he just wanted to drive home and speedrun the game before the DLC dropped. The next came a crash, a warm light, and then nothing. When he opened his eyes, he was standing in the middle of the Holy Roman Empire. The same world he had only ever known as a game.

He arrived as Wolfgang, a fifteen-year-old lower noble knight with nothing but a tarnished family name, empty pockets, and a sword he didn't know how to use. To survive the filth and chaos of medieval life, he had no choice but to lean on a mysterious system that handed him quests, money, and access to a shop stocked with skills, swordsmanship manuals, and resources he never could have gotten otherwise.

The system had one condition: write the story of a great hero this world would remember. Wolfgang didn't disagree. He just had something extra in mind: power, wealth, and territory.

With no way back and nowhere to go, pushed by a gamer's drive and the risky belief that his modern knowledge could control this medieval world, he chose to rise from broke knight to ruler of his own empire.

What he didn't count on was that once a butterfly flaps its wings, no one can predict where the storm will go. This world doesn't follow game scripts, nobles plot in the dark, and being the smartest person in the room means nothing when steel decides the argument.

He never claimed to be a hero. But he refuses to just stand by and watch history get written without him.

I hit a traffic jam in the tunnel on my way home from work. Sure, it's usually pretty busy around here, but traffic never just stops like this—someone must've gotten into an accident.


If it were construction, there would've been signs. But there weren't any.


I just sat there, waiting for the backup to clear.


With a demanding work schedule, it was just way easier to enjoy my hobbies than to carve out time for a relationship. I'd built up such a negative view of marriage that even in my mid-thirties, I still had to put up with my mom nagging me to give her grandkids already. But honestly? I was perfectly happy with my life the way it was.


Still though, how long is this gonna be backed up?


I needed to get home and finally play [Medieval Knight], the game I'd picked up not too long ago.


Medieval Knight is a game where you actually become a knight yourself and live out the Middle Ages. It was basically a dream game: a mashup of simulation, action, RPG freedom, estate and family management, and an open world set across all of Europe.


On top of that, a Crusades DLC was dropping in a month.


I was so pumped and excited that I honestly couldn't even remember if I'd done any real work that day.


So there I was, gripping the steering wheel with a big dumb smile on my face, when suddenly, there was this massive boom. I glanced at my rearview mirror to see what was going on, and that's when I spotted a huge truck barreling forward, absolutely flattening everything in its path.


I was so shocked I had no idea what to do, and then the truck slammed right into my car.


The impact hit me like a freight train. After that, I have no idea what happened.


The world went dark, and my memory just... cut out.


So that's what dying feels like, huh? I can't wrap my head around it.


It was like watching myself from a third-person perspective.


But then a warm light washed over me, and before I knew it, my eyes opened.


I had woken up as the protagonist character I'd created in Medieval Knight's character customization.


Chapter 1 - So That's What Dying Feels Like