"Vibricar?"
Damien froze for a second, fragments of game lore flashing through his mind like a broken reel of film.
He knew that name.
In the MMORPG's lore, Vibricar was a god—if you could even call him that—who only existed in the background stories.
No questlines. No dungeons. Not even a single cutscene.
Just whispers in obscure collection quests, buried in ancient tomes, cracked stone tablets, and the ramblings of half-mad bards.
But every time his name came up, disaster followed.
Plagues. Wars. Earthquakes. Kingdoms falling into ruin.
Legend had it that during one of his "descents," half of humanity was wiped out.
He was the embodiment of catastrophe, the whisper of chaos, a being so feared that even other gods refused to speak his name.
And now, that same mythical Evil God was perched on Damien's desk… in the form of a one-eyed crow.
"Of course," the crow dipped its head slightly, wings folding neatly across its chest in a surprisingly elegant, aristocratic bow. "You may also call me Vaelric. That's the name I go by these days."
Damien didn't respond right away.
He wasn't sure if the bird was insane… or if he was.
But one thing he did know: in the game, getting involved with gods—especially the kind that only existed in the background—was never a good idea.
Especially not this one.
He stared at the crow in silence, trying to read something in the way its feathers shifted, looking for a tell.
Vaelric didn't seem to mind the silence. He gave his wings a small shake, adjusting his posture like he had all the time in the world.
"Interesting," he said with a low chuckle. "So you have heard of me."
"Never heard of you," Damien replied flatly.
He knew the calmer he acted, the more control he'd have over the situation.
Vaelric tilted his head, that glowing, eerie eye locking onto him.
"You're not Damien," he said, voice low and gravelly, like it was echoing up from the bottom of a well. "Your soul… it's too clean."
Damien didn't flinch.
He knew beings like this could see straight through to your soul. Playing dumb wouldn't help. Denying it wouldn't either.
"Gods can see the patterns of a soul," Vaelric continued. "But that's not important. You're the one I came for."
He gave his wings another shake, and a single jet-black feather drifted down, landing softly on the desk.
The moment it touched the surface, it transformed into a sheet of black parchment. Twisted white letters began to crawl across it, like some ancient dialect—or maybe a demonic contract in disguise.
Damien glanced down at the paper, frowning slightly.
He'd only been in this world for less than a day, and he'd already signed two contracts.
One with the Arcanis Royal Academy.
And now… one from an Evil God.
He picked up the parchment and skimmed it. His mouth twitched.
"You're a god, right?" he said dryly. "And you're out here hustling contracts just to get room and board?"
Vaelric didn't look offended. In fact, he looked like that was the most reasonable thing in the world.
"Most of my power is sealed," he said. "I need a protector. If you sign this contract, you'll become my agent in the mortal world."
"Sounds like something a door-to-door insurance salesman would say," Damien muttered, flipping through the terms.
The contract was simple—almost insultingly so.
He'd be responsible for feeding Vaelric, giving him a place to stay, and helping him establish a church to gather followers.
The more followers, the stronger Vaelric would become.
And Damien? He got nothing.
No power boost. No new skills. Not even a damn feather.
Damien: "…"
This was worse than a scam.
He looked up at the crow, who was now preening his feathers like he was royalty.
"You expect me to do all this for free?" Damien raised an eyebrow.
Vaelric paused, his single eye glancing sideways. "You'll gain the friendship of a god."
"Is that supposed to be useful?" Damien shot back.
"It could save your life," Vaelric said simply.
Damien was quiet for a beat.
Then, without hesitation, he signed his name at the bottom of the contract.
He wasn't stupid.
In a world like this, having an Evil God owe you—even just on paper—wasn't a bad deal.
And honestly, he could use someone who could pull him out of the fire when things went south.
The moment he signed, he felt something shift—some strange connection forming between him and Vaelric.
It wasn't magic. It wasn't telepathy.
It was deeper than that. A resonance.
He knew, from now on, with just a thought, he'd be able to sense exactly where that crow was.
Vaelric fluttered lightly onto Damien's shoulder, pecking at his own feathers with casual indifference.
"My sister was right," Damien sighed. "Keeping a crow as a pet really is kind of trashy."
Vaelric didn't respond. He just stared at him with that single, glowing eye—silent, unreadable.
Damien turned his gaze to the other contract on the desk.
The official appointment letter from Arcanis Royal Academy.
A formal offer to join the faculty as a professor of magic, complete with title, salary, and his own private research lab.
That's when it hit him—Damien might've been a villain, but he was also a genius.
In the game's lore, Damien had broken into Tier 3 by the age of twenty, making him one of the youngest high-tier mages in the kingdom.
Most mages never even made it past Tier 2 in their entire lives.
He murmured a command under his breath, and a familiar game interface flickered to life in front of his eyes:
[Name: Damien Thornevale]
Level: 39
HP: 1000 / 1000
MP: 4900 / 4900
Class: Glass Cannon Mage
So it was real. He really had crossed over into his favorite game world.
Tier 3 matched levels 30 to 39.
Beyond that was Tier 4—Archmage level.
But according to the game's backstory, Damien had been stuck at Tier 3 for nine years. His reputation as a prodigy had long since faded into obscurity.
Now, though, Damien finally understood.
He hadn't failed to break through.
He'd been hiding his power.
His EXP bar was already maxed out. He could ascend to Tier 4 anytime he wanted.
But he hadn't.
Because he was playing the long game.
Damien's reputation might've been in the gutter, but his title as a "genius mage" wasn't just for show.
This offer from Arcanis Royal Academy? He had to accept it.
Not just because the position had been secured through the combined efforts of his sister Selene and his fiancée Gwenna, but because it gave him something far more valuable—protection.
As long as he wore the Academy's badge, even a duke couldn't touch him without consequences.
At least not publicly.
No more "you seduced my underage daughter" excuses to send troops to his doorstep.
Come on. Who hasn't been young and good-looking? Your daughter's not gonna stay single forever.
Damien picked up the pen and signed his name with a flourish, then called for a servant to deliver the contract to the Academy.
After that, he stood and headed toward the manor's backyard.
Vaelric—the so-called Evil God in crow form—finally stopped preening and tilted his head. "Where are you going?"
"Starting at the Academy tomorrow," Damien said without looking back. "Need to shake off the rust."
"Take me with you," Vaelric flapped his wings and landed back on his shoulder, instantly slipping into chatterbox mode.
The training yard behind the manor was quiet. Several massive stone targets stood in the open space, etched with glowing magical runes.
Damien looked up at the familiar stone monoliths, a wave of nostalgia washing over him.
In the game, player-owned estates had similar setups—training dummies that displayed damage numbers and skill feedback.
Every spell cast would trigger a visual readout, helping players fine-tune their DPS.
He hadn't expected the world to be this accurate.
Vaelric, seeing him just standing there, assumed he was intimidated by the size of the targets and immediately launched into "tutorial mode."
"Magic isn't something you just throw around," he said seriously. "You need to pay attention to chant timing, rune structure, mana flow direction… If my powers weren't sealed, I'd show you a proper high-tier forbidden spell right now."
Damien ignored him and silently pulled up his skill panel.
A smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.
As the final boss of Chapter Two—The War of Crowns—he knew Damien's skillset like the back of his hand.
After all, he'd been the kind of player who got every class into the top ten of the leaderboards.
The moment a boss raised its hand, he already knew what spell was coming.
Vaelric was still rambling, "You can't just brute-force your way through spellcasting—"
BOOM!
A sharp crack of thunder cut him off mid-sentence.
A bolt of black lightning shot from Damien's fingertip, slamming dead-center into the target.
[Tier 1 Spell: Black Thunder Lance]
Damien's expression didn't even flicker. It was like he'd just snapped his fingers.
Then, without missing a beat, he raised his hand and unleashed a barrage of Tier 2 and Tier 3 spells—fireballs, ice spears, chain lightning, a rain of shadow arrows—each one slamming into the stone targets with explosive force.
The entire yard lit up like a fireworks show, dust and debris flying everywhere.
Vaelric, still perched on his shoulder, went completely silent.
Damien glanced at his nearly empty mana bar and frowned.
"This mana pool is pathetic," he muttered.
That was the trade-off for being a boss-tier glass cannon—insane damage output, but HP and MP as fragile as tissue paper.
If he were a player character, he could just slap on a few MP-boosting items and break ten thousand mana easy. No worries about running dry mid-fight.
Vaelric finally found his voice again, sounding genuinely stunned. "You… you cast spells without drawing a single rune?"
Damien didn't bother answering.
In the game, players didn't need to draw circles or chant. Just hit the hotkey, wait for the cast bar, and boom—spell fired.
And as someone who'd mastered every class, Damien had long since perfected the rhythm of every spell.
For him, casting was as natural as breathing.
He was about to call it a day when Vaelric suddenly piped up again.
"Wait, don't stop yet! I haven't finished analyzing your casting method. Come on, just a few more—"
Damien rolled his eyes. He was about to tell the bird to shove it when he suddenly felt a strange warmth on his shoulder.
He looked down.
Vaelric's single eye was glowing with a deep, eerie blue. A beam of light shot from it, wrapping around Damien like a cocoon.
A surge of energy flooded into his body, like some kind of link had just been activated.
He immediately pulled up his status panel.
[MP: 9,996,000 / 9,999,999]
Damien stared at the number, then slowly looked down at Vaelric.
"…Did you just give me a cheat code?"
...