THE STRATEGIST: Monster of the game

The World I Escaped

Earth twenty years ago.

I was thirty years old then. A regular office worker. No special talent. No heroic ambitions. Just a man trying to survive deadlines and rent.

Then a woman calling herself a goddess appeared before me.

“Choose, Hero,” she said.

“Please save our world from monsters.”

I had read stories like that before. Everyone had.

An ordinary human summoned to another world. Given power. Given purpose.

But the world I was taken to was not a fantasy.

It was hell.

“Help me.”

“Please.”

People begged constantly.

But that world had no mercy.

The only way back was clear from the beginning:

Defeat the monsters. Save the world.

So I trained.

For twenty years.

Blood, bones, exhaustion, and death became routine. I survived battles that should have killed me a dozen times over.

Yet monsters weren’t the worst thing in that world.

“Hero,” the guards said coldly, blocking my way, “you are not allowed to break curfew.”

I ignored them.

I was carrying a boy in my arms. His body was burning with fever, his breathing shallow and uneven.

“I saved him from the village outskirts,” I said. “Let me in. He’ll die if you don’t help him.”

Their faces twisted with annoyance.

“You should have left him there,” one said.

“Don’t waste our medicine.”

That world ignored the wounded.

That was its nature.

The real nightmare came later.

“Hold him down,” a healer ordered. “We need to amputate before the infection spreads.”

I stared at them.

“It’s a mild infection,” I said. “He doesn’t need”

“Enough,” they snapped. “Healers are deployed on the battlefield. This is the only option.”

A child lost his leg that day.

For no reason.

And it didn’t stop there.

“Hero,” a priest said, narrowing his eyes, “this child was taken by the monsters. How did you get him back?”

“Alive,” I answered.

Murmurs spread.

Then came the verdict.

“He must be possessed by a demon.”

They dragged the boy away.

“We will exorcise him for you. We were purifying a few others anyway.”

I stepped forward.

“Stop.”

They looked at me like filth.

“Surely the chosen hero would not defy the will of God.”

That world had no concept of human rights.

Only control.

“Rid yourself of useless purity,” they told me.

“If you want him saved.”

I endured it all.

For twenty years.

And when I finally killed the last monster…

when the world was saved…

They smiled.

“It’s actually a relief that you caught on,” they said.

“We cannot let you live.”

I looked at them.

“I hate this world.”

They had tried to kill me in my weakened state.

Barely able to move. Barely alive.

In doing so

They created another monster.

I survived.

“I accomplished my mission,” I said.

“Keep your promise.”

The goddess descended again. The sky tore open without sound.

Light poured down not blinding, not warm, but absolute. It wasn’t sunlight. It was judgment made visible.

She descended within it.

A figure shaped like a woman, yet unmistakably not human. Her form was tall and flawless, carved from radiance itself. Hair flowed as if woven from liquid gold, drifting weightlessly in the air around her. Her skin glowed faintly, untouched by shadow, as though the world itself refused to stain her.

Her eyes were the most terrifying part.

They were beautiful. Endless. Empty.

Eyes that had watched civilizations rise and fall without blinking.

When she looked at me, I felt it

the distance.

Not hatred.

Not anger.

Indifference.

She hovered above the ruined battlefield, robes of light fluttering without wind, untarnished by the blood, ash, and corpses beneath her feet.

“Well done, Hero,” she said, her voice layered soft and vast at the same time, echoing inside my skull rather than my ears.

“You have defeated the final monster.”

Standing before her, I understood something clearly:

To her, gods and monsters were not opposites.

They were tools.

“Well done, Hero. You have defeated the final monster.”

I stared up at her.

“Remember what you promised,” I said. “Send me back to Earth. With my memories. My soul intact.”

She smiled thinly.

“You have grown powerful enough to threaten even me,” she said. “If you return, everything you achieved here will vanish.”

“Drop the act,” I replied. “You’re relieved I’m leaving.”

There was no place for a monster like me in that world anymore.

“Are you sure you won’t regret it?” she asked.

“I only want to go home,” I said. “Nothing more.”

She nodded.

“Your body on Earth has already perished. I will place your soul into another body. One fated to die soon.”

I didn’t hesitate.

“As long as I return to Earth,” I said. “I don’t care how difficult my life is.”

Anything was better than that world.

A flash.

Darkness.

Back Where I Belong

I blinked.

Light stabbed into my eyes.

I was lying on a bed.

Earth.

Present day.

I breathed in and froze.

Clean air.

I laughed under my breath.

I opened my eyes.

For a moment, panic seized me.

No iron smell.

No screams.

No pressure of blood-soaked ground beneath my back.

Just… quiet.

I sat up slowly, every muscle braced for pain that never came.

Then I realized

The air.

It didn’t burn my lungs.

It didn’t stink of decay or magic residue.

I breathed in again. Deeper this time.

My chest trembled.

“I’m… back?”

My legs nearly gave out as I stood. I staggered toward the mirror, heart hammering not in fear, but disbelief.

This body was unfamiliar.

But it was alive.

I turned the faucet.

Water spilled out instantly.

Clear. Cold.

I froze, just staring at it as if it might vanish.

No rationing.

No contamination.

No prayers before drinking.

I scooped it into my hands and drank.

Something tight in my chest cracked.

“…This is real magic,” I whispered.

Later, standing in the kitchen, I turned a knob and fire appeared.

I laughed once. Then stopped.

My hands were shaking.

I cooked without fear. Without survival instincts screaming in my head. When the chicken was ready, I tore into it like an animal then paused.

The taste hit me.

Oil. Salt. Heat.

Real food.

My vision blurred.

I bent my head forward, elbows on the counter, shoulders trembling as a breath hitched in my throat.

“…I missed this,” I murmured.

Tears fell not violently, not dramatically but quietly, as if my body was finally releasing twenty years of holding itself together.

No monsters.

No gods watching.

No one is deciding whether I deserve to live.

Just me.

Alive.

Free.

For the first time since I was taken

I felt like I had escaped.

“No matter how hard this life becomes,” I said quietly, “it can’t be worse than the other world.”

I didn’t know it yet

But Earth had changed.

And monsters had followed me home.