I’ll Be the Boss Myself
Copyright© 2026 by lucifer_nov
Chapter 1: Reality
【You have died】
【You will be revived at the last shrine you visited in 30 seconds ... re ... sys ... tem... 】
Pain! Nolan jolted awake from the chaos, his whole body aching, his left cheek damp. Where ... was this? He instinctively reached up. His hand came away dark red, and he flinched.
Before his eyes, the health bar flashed red. Less than 15% HP—a near-death warning.
The UI projected onto his retina was the all-too-familiar interface of the fully immersive game Glory, yet the very real pain on his face told him something was wrong. Had something gone wrong with the neural sync in the game pod?
The surroundings were deathly silent. In the distance, a faint, flickering firelight was the only illumination in the dark. His mouth tasted of blood. Straining, he pushed away the weight pinning him down, the coarse burlap scraping painfully against his skin. Only after freeing himself did he realize it was a corpse, its eyes wide open, staring blankly at the night sky.
He was lying in a pile of bodies.
Forcing himself to calm down, he listened closely. Not far away came a creaking sound, like bones grinding, mixed with the noise of something heavy being dragged.
Nolan felt dazed. His last memory was of being betrayed by his allies, surrounded by the Undead Overlord’s legion in the Sighing God Gorge in the northern Vaughn Continent. He, commander of the independent anti-undead regiment “Radiant Sun,” a level 140 legendary heavy warrior, had been pierced through the chest and had his soul torn apart by the twelfth-circle forbidden spell “Soul Disintegration,” bathed in green light.
He should have revived in the warm white glow of the Temple of Mother Sethis. But here, there were no sacred chants—only biting winds and corpses.
With the situation unclear, Nolan suppressed the pain wracking his body and slowly lowered himself, hiding within the shadows. Survival came first.
He noticed the corpse from earlier seemed to be a militia soldier. Wearing a dead man’s gear felt unsettling, but this was no time to be picky. Gritting his teeth, he carefully crawled over, preparing to strip the leather armor from the body. His body was riddled with wounds, every movement sending sharp pain through him, yet he forced himself not to make a sound. The moment the leather armor finally came off, a line of pale blue text appeared before his eyes.
【Shire Town Militia Leather Armor】
【Defense: 1】
【Durability: 3/10】
Nolan froze. What shocked him was not how utterly worthless the equipment was, but the words “Shire Town.”
He knew this place.
Shire was a small southern border town on the Vaughn Continent within the Elfin Kingdom in Glory.
His heart clenched, the pain sharper than the wound on his face.
The Elfin Kingdom ... hadn’t it already been wiped off the map by the undead Shiva Empire?
Just as he stood stunned, the sound of approaching footsteps grew clearer.
Damn it—had he been discovered?
Nolan immediately dropped flat and turned, pressing himself lower as he peered through the gaps between the corpses.
A pair of pale, slender legs came into view. Looking up, he saw pale thighs, pale, thin arms, and beneath a low-hanging collar ... pale ribs.
Skeletons!
Two of the lowest-tier skeleton warriors. In their hollow eye sockets burned faint blue soul flames.
Without hesitation, the skeletons, having found a living target, raised their rusted swords and thrust straight at Nolan’s head.
His body reacted before his mind. He rolled sharply to the side, the blade grazing his abdomen before stabbing deep into the dirt beneath him.
Ignoring the pain, Nolan sprang up in one swift motion. From the corner of his eye, he spotted an iron sword stuck in a nearby corpse. Without thinking, he lunged. Before the other skeleton’s strike could land, he yanked the sword free with a sharp pull and, with a backhand motion, forcefully blocked the incoming blow.
Clang! A perfect parry.
The battle instincts of a top-tier warrior, tempered through countless trials, remained precise even in such a desperate and clumsy situation. Yet the gap in strength was painfully real. At his peak, both the rusted sword and its wielder would have been shattered in a single strike.
Seizing the skeleton’s brief stiffness, Nolan thrust forward, the blade piercing straight into its eye socket.
Pfft! The soul flame flickered violently, then went out.
The other skeleton showed no hesitation at its companion’s fall. Its rusted sword was already upon him.
Nolan raised his blade to block, the impact numbing his hand as he staggered back. “Damn it,” he cursed under his breath. His mind supplied at least five ways to instantly counterkill, but this frail body lacked the stamina. He could only roll aside in a clumsy dodge, weaving around the pile of corpses to keep distance while recovering what little strength he could.
After several loops, the skeleton still pursued relentlessly, but Nolan had no intention of dragging it out any longer. He stopped abruptly, lowered his center of gravity, and seized the moment. As the skeleton swung, he reversed his grip and drove his sword through the gap in its ribs. The blade thrust upward into the skull, then twisted hard.
Crack! The soul flame extinguished, and the bones collapsed into a heap.
Leaning on his sword, Nolan gasped for breath, his arms trembling and numb. Defeating two of the weakest skeleton fodder had nearly drained his already depleted stamina. This sense of weakness felt even more suffocating than being betrayed by “allies” and killed instantly by a twelfth-circle forbidden spell.
【Skeleton Warrior defeated. EXP +6】
【Skeleton Warrior defeated. EXP +6】
Several lines of pale blue text appeared.
Wait ... that’s not right.
In Glory, skeleton warriors, as beginner mobs, always gave a fixed 3 EXP. That rule was part of the game’s core logic and had never changed in twenty years.
He immediately focused on the lower-left corner of his vision. A familiar status panel appeared.
【Name: Nolan】
【Total Level: 1 (Militia 1/15, EXP 0/10)】
【Unassigned EXP: 12】
【Power Tier: Bronze (Level 1–25)】
【HP: 4/23】
【MP: 0/0】
Level 1 militia ... only 4 HP remaining...
Nolan’s mind raced, connecting all the clues: the wrong revival point, the long-destroyed Shire Town, and the missing logout option. There was a ridiculous, yet only possible conclusion.
I ... transmigrated into Glory? And into its launch era?!
The Elfin border raid ... this was the very first year of Glory, the conflict all players had dismissed, yet one that ultimately ignited the Second Mandala War and led to the destruction of the entire Elfin Kingdom.
That meant this was not year 320 of the Vaughn Continent, when he died—but year 270. Fifty years earlier.
With twenty years of real-world experience in the game, he had returned to this past that was both unreal and vividly real.
In reality, his life had been unremarkable, so he had retreated into the game. This magical continent and its highly intelligent NPCs had given him a chance to realize his ambitions, to earn recognition, and to find friendship. It was warmth and fulfillment he had never known before. He had devoted himself to the game almost entirely. Others might have dismissed everything he cared about as mere programmed illusions, but he did not care. Because his feelings were real. That was enough.
Especially the Elfin Kingdom, his starting land, which he regarded as a virtual homeland. He had poured everything into it—laughed for it, wept for it, and shed his last drop of blood for it.
The kingdom’s fall had once filled him with grief. But now, it lay beneath his feet, real and tangible. It had not yet fallen.
Before he could fully process the shock, faint sounds of fighting and shouting from the direction of the town gate snapped him back to reality. Leaning on his sword, Nolan staggered toward it.
Once, he and thousands of like-minded players had fought with everything they had, yet still failed to save this crumbling nation. They had watched helplessly as the capital fell, as Princess Flina’s blood stained the throne.
That pain would never leave him.
Now, fate had given him another chance. Whether this was virtual or real no longer mattered. What mattered was the present.
Save Elfin.
The thought seized his entire mind.
Nolan swallowed, his heart pounding at the discovery that could overturn everything. He had to find someone alive and learn what was happening.
At the town gate, two men in militia uniforms were working together to finish off the last skeleton.
One of them, a younger militiaman, shouted anxiously, “Captain! Let’s get into the town and check—there might still be survivors!”
The man called captain shook him off, his face full of fear. “Check for what? Those damned bones from the Shiva Empire could come back any moment! Shire is finished! Go look yourself if you want—I’m heading to Rosenberg to take shelter!”
With that, he turned and ran into the darkness beyond the town without a second glance.
“Captain! Come back!” the young militiaman called out several times, but the other had already vanished into the night.
Disappointed, he turned around and happened to spot Nolan limping toward him along the wall. He hurried over. “Brother! Are you alright? We just got back from patrol and saw this mess. Was it those bastards from the Shiva Empire raiding again—”
“I...”
Before Nolan could reply, a massive shadow suddenly dropped from above.
Slash! A huge, curved heavy blade came crashing down with a howl that tore through the air.
The kind young militiaman, still mid-step, was split cleanly in two. Scalding blood splashed across Nolan’s face.
The corpse was eclipsed by a tall figure slowly straightening.
It was a skeletal creature nearly twice the size of a normal skeleton, clad in tattered iron armor. In its hollow eye sockets burned a crimson soul flame that sent a chill down the spine. The massive curved blade it dragged still dripped with fresh blood.
【Elite · Skeleton Overseer LV .15】
Nolan’s breath caught. An elite among low-tier undead, a nightmare for all novice players in the early game. Even a five-man party of the same level could be wiped out if they were careless.
The Skeleton Overseer’s crimson gaze slowly shifted, locking precisely onto the only “living” thing still standing in the town.
Run?
Nolan dismissed the idea instantly. Undead had limitless stamina, while he had only 4 HP left and barely any endurance. He wouldn’t make it fifty meters.
The shadow of death closed in once more.
His will to survive surged. Nolan clenched his teeth until blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. “You damned pile of bones...” he growled, a nameless fury and unwillingness igniting in his chest. “You wiped out my kingdom once, and you think you can do it again?”
Do you know who I am? I was once one of the top warriors on the entire server, the commander of the Radiant Sun regiment. I’ve slain hundreds of thousands of undead!
Live.
I have to live. And then I’ll make this kingdom live too.
Abandon illusions. Prepare to fight.
Nolan flexed his numb wrist and slowly raised the standard-issue iron sword in his hand, its tip pointing straight at the towering monster before him.
The hilt wrapped in rough linen cord, the faint lion crest along the spine of the blade ... it was too familiar. An old companion that had stayed with him through half a year of his beginner days—the standard sword of the Elfin Kingdom.
“At my peak, I could snuff out your soul flame with a single step,” Nolan said with a self-mocking smile. “And now I have to stake my life on this level-one body against you.” He stepped forward and settled into a standard combat stance. “I’m not trying to prove how great I am...”
His voice was not loud, yet every word rang like steel, as if declaring war on the monster before him, or roaring defiance at this cruel fate.
“It’s that everything I once lost, I will take it all back with my own hands, piece by piece. And I’ll start ... by taking you down and avenging Shire Town.”
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