"Life is good, but you can make it better."
If I was ever given the chance to meet whoever created this quote, I'd punch them in the face with the highest force possible.
I died anyway...
But I think you all would like to hear my story. No, it was the last moments of my life on Earth before I suddenly found myself in a strange, old world filled with mages and demons.
The Fifth World War between Selvania, the weak country I happened to come from, and Rusnia, a neighboring country, began just a few days after I won a lottery.
No one was ready for it... And most especially, the four million dollars I won from the lottery became useless.
The war became so intense that it was compared to an apocalypse.
The Rusnians were stronger, better armed, and more populated. They got support from other countries too, but Selvania was just a small, weak country that unfortunately got herself into trouble by angering the Rusnians.
It was the first time I saw a national problem affecting both the rich and the poor. All borders were closed, including air travel. Perhaps only the leaders managed to escape. But we, the masses, were left with no choice but to fight for our country.
We decided to keep hiding at first, but unfortunately, hiding points were the places the Rusnian soldiers attacked most.
At one point, all males above the age of eighteen were forced to join the Selvanian army. I was twenty-six then, which made me very much included in the mess!
Every night, we were asked to keep watch in the army camp somewhere in the northern city. That was the job of the men who weren't actual soldiers, but it never meant we wouldn't pull out our rifles to confront our enemies anytime they attacked.
For real, we were the ones who suffered the most, while the actual soldiers stayed back and... well, took advantage of innocent, beautiful women who sought safety under their protection.
Keeping watch had always been successful. Sometimes we'd find something suspicious and report it to the commander. Nothing bad had actually happened to us, except for the overwhelming weight of fear.
I thought I'd never die after the war had lasted for three years, and I was still standing, alive.
However, on one fateful night...
I was reading my favorite fantasy novel inside the camp house when the commander urged us to go out and keep watch.
Apart from being a jerk who loved playing lotteries, I was also a lover of web novels. Ahhh, I had read a lot, but none was more interesting or better than Fallen Mages, a novel serialized on a popular platform called PeakNovel.
This was where I spent my hard-earned money apart from lotteries, and it was truly worth it. However, that day felt entirely different from any other day since I started reading web novels.
In the novel, the mages—a certain group of humans who could use magic—were in a great war with demonic figures called Negators.
The Negators were terrifyingly strong to the extent that magic spells couldn't even cause a scratch on them. They possessed strange powers that negated magic. Anytime a mage was near them, he or she would be unable to feel or use mana.
Humans failed in their attempts to save their world—until the MC showed up.
Hehe, I was waiting for this moment to come, and it finally came at the 245th chapter. That's when the MC graduated from the Mage Academy and joined the Defense Council.
He was so strong that he could defeat higher-ranked mages ten years older than him. He was the best in the academy, and I admired him so, so much.
He had prepared himself a lot, knowing how powerful the Negators were. Fortunately, he became a Gold Level Mage and mastered all four elements along with one Arcane Art.
I thought he'd win against the Unholy Six-Winged Demonic Dragon and defeat the Archdemon of Death.
But unfortunately, my guess was wrong.
The MC was defeated and enslaved!
To cut the story short, I was pissed off and left my phone in the camp house while I went to keep watch with my comrades.
I never wanted him to lose.
No!
Of course, why would he?
He was the main character, for god's sake!
Somehow, my anger and disappointment made me inattentive, and I didn't realize when some Rusnian soldiers spotted me alone at my watch post.
I noticed them a few seconds later and tried to escape, but a single bullet to the back of my head sent me into extinction.
Yes, I died.
What do you expect after having a bullet crush into your skull?
Anyway, I know the others would have been dead by now...
SMILES EVILLY
There was no way they could confront the Rusnian soldiers. I saw them. There were up to a hundred men, and we were just thirty.
That's the story of the last moments of my life, and I'll say this again:
I'd like to meet whoever made that quote.
Life was never good, and it could never be better. I had suffered all through my life as an orphan, and when the moment I'd become wealthy finally came, a goddamned world war began.
Tell me, how is life good with that?
How could it be better with that?
Bullshit!
SIGH
I'm calm now... Because... because I think I...
Gosh...! Just let the narrator finish this up!
I was Keith, by the way...
---
Keith opened his eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling. No, it was an aged, wooden roof structure made of pure, brown timber.
In a rush, he quickly sat up and scanned the area.
All he could see were wooden chairs, another mattress made of cotton, some black clay pots, black armor hung on the wooden wall, and a sword.
Bows and arrows too...
Keith gasped in confusion.
"Where the heck am I?!"
Suddenly, he heard footsteps approaching from outside the room. Moments later, the wooden door creaked open.
Keith spotted a woman with a mature physique, dressed in a tattered white gown. Her pale skin and long dark hair framed a face of undeniable beauty.
"What are you saying, Elon? Did you have a nightmare?"
The lady approached him closely despite the strange look on his face and patted his back with a noticeable expression of care and love.
Nonetheless, Keith's thoughts were elsewhere.
'Matilda Haas. The closest servant to the king's second wife... Wait... What?!'
Keith's eyes widened.
'Did I transmigrate into Fallen Mages???'