I Became An Eldritch Horror Chapter 1: Prologue

Efforts Never Betray You.

It was a famous quote from my favorite novel, but I thought it was BS. Effort may not betray you, but it sure loves wasting your ti.

So why even work hard when you can work smart... or better yet, not at all?

That was my life motto: "Put in effort, but just the right amount to make people not think you’re lazy, anything more is just a waste of ti."

Perhaps that’s the reason why, even though I have a dream of becoming a web novelist, I haven’t gotten past my newbie stage after two years of test writing.

I guess effort is important... but who cares? I’m still not planning on putting any in.

"Why did the author suddenly make the plot dark?" Scrolling through my phone in my kind-of-neat apartnt, I cursed at the author for the second ti today. "Bastard just had to ruin my mood."

I tossed my phone on the bed and stared at the ceiling that was barely visible through the darkness surrounding my room.

The switch was right above my bed, but I didn’t have the energy to roll that far.

Putting in effort is such a shitty thing. I grabbed my phone and switched on the torchlight. There are always easier ways to go about things.

Of course, setting my example aside, there were others that the first quote worked on — but it seems I’m not one of them.

Ding!

The sound of a notification rang in my ears. As I picked up the bright phone, fully in dark mode, I saw a ssage from a Webnovel account called Milk__dry. Such a weird userna — well, almost everyone on that damn app had a weird one. And then there was always the Daoist gang, which made up half the readers.

Reluctantly, I tapped on the ssage, which turned out to be a reply to my paragraph comnt on my favourite book.

The ssage was a bit lengthy, but to summarize, the person was an aspiring author who wanted to beta test their book. Sure, I liked reading random books with coins, but that didn’t an every new author had to ssage to check out their novel.

Honestly, I usually ignored such ssages, but today was different. Today, I wanted to put in a little bit more effort.

Ren_Dover_Fan: Okay, see my Discord link. Chat up.

Within a minute of sending it, another notification popped up from Discord, and I tapped on it. And just as anticipated, it was the sa guy — no "hi," no greeting — just the EPUB file.

"At least he doesn’t waste ti."

I opened the file and started my binge reading. To be completely honest, it was an enjoyable story about a hero blessed by the heavens and given the mission to kill the Devil King With No Army.

Naturally, he went to an academy, but unlike most academy series, this one didn’t have world-ending chaos every arc and was actually chill, though the protagonist was a bit annoying.

The synopsis promised lots of adventure, and it didn’t disappoint. With four missions per sester, the academy gave the school life I loved, the adventure I wanted, and a relaxing slice-of-life atmosphere on top.

Within a few hours, I had gone through 99 Chapters, and decided to stop at an impressive cliffhanger, grab a drink, and continue from Chapter 100.

With a stretch, I got off the bed and moved toward the kitchen.

"It sure is dark here. Maybe I should get a cute Japanese maid?" I chuckled at my own words. Hearing my voice echo in the house lit a fire in . "Yeah, baby!"

The mont the words left my lips, they echoed through the hallway. I kept singing and shouting until I reached the kitchen and grabbed a drink.

"Oh, I might also need a snack." I turned toward the fridge again to grab sothing, that’s when I felt my legs slip on sothing, and my whole world tilted upside down.

"Shit!"

The only thing I heard at that mont was the echo of my own voice and the sound of my head slamming against the ground.

I wasn’t sure... but I think I’m dead.