Before he could protest, another message followed.
System Error Detected.
Compensation Granted: One Additional Summon Attempt.
James exhaled slowly.
"Fine."
"Random gacha summon."
Initiating Summon...
This time, his vision remained clear.
Congratulations! You have pulled an: SR (Super Rare)!
James's eyes widened slightly.
He switched skills.
"Designated Summon."
He scanned the boxes until he found one labeled clearly.
[SR – Sampon]
He selected it.
The moment he did-
Information flooded his mind.
When James clicked the box, the world did not simply show him information.
It dragged him into it.
His consciousness was torn apart and reassembled somewhere else, somewhere cold, ancient, and steeped in spiritual power.
He stood on scorched ground beneath a blood-red sky.
Talismans burned in the air like dying stars, paper seals floating and disintegrating as black flames licked their edges. The ground was carved with ritual circles, cracked and broken, their power long since exhausted.
And at the center of it all-
Sampon.
He was once human.
James knew that immediately.
Sampon had been born in a small village nestled between mountains, a place where spirits were feared and shamans ruled quietly from the shadows. From birth, Sampon could see things others couldn't—whispers in the dark, figures standing behind people, hands reaching from mirrors. The villagers called him cursed.
Only one person ever reached out to him.
His master.
A wandering shaman who saw not madness, but potential.
Sampon was taken in, trained relentlessly. He learned forbidden rituals meant to control evil spirits, not cleanse them. He was taught how to bind ghosts into his body, how to let hatred flow through his veins without losing control.
But control… was always fragile.
The more power Sampon gained, the more unstable he became. Spirits whispered constantly in his ears. He laughed at inappropriate times. He smiled while killing. His master began to fear him.
Yet when enemies came, it was always Sampon who was sent.
Bandits. Cultists. Even knights blessed by holy orders.
James saw it clearly-
A battlefield soaked in rain and blood. A high-ranking holy knight, clad in divine armor, chanting prayers as light descended from the heavens.
Sampon didn't pray.
He lunged.
Ghosts screamed as they burst from his body, tearing through holy barriers like paper. The knight never finished his chant. Sampon's blade pierced his throat. Sampon and the Holy Knight clash. After some time Sampon remain victorious, but severely wounded, as for the holy knight, it lay motion less on the ground and holy light died with a gurgling sound.
That was the moment everything changed.
The strongest sect of shamans, the absolute authority over spiritual law, declared Sampon a heretical existence.
An abomination.
A weapon that had gone too far.
His master knew what was coming.
And when the sect launched their invasion, when thousands of seals darkened the sky and chanting shook the mountains—
Sampon waited.
He waited for his master to stand beside him.
To give an order.
To fight together, like they always had.
But his master never came.
James felt it, the moment Sampon realized.
The betrayal didn't break him immediately.
It hollowed him out first.
Still, Sampon fought.
Alone.
Against the strongest shamans in existence.
He slaughtered dozens, spirits tearing through barriers, his laughter echoing across the battlefield, wild, cracked, desperate. His power pushed past sanity, past reason, past humanity.
But even madness has limits.
Chains of divine script wrapped around his body. Talismans pierced his flesh. Seals burned into his soul.
As Sampon was finally subdued, pinned to the ground by countless ritual stakes, he looked toward the horizon-
Still hoping.
Still waiting.
His master never returned.
Sampon died screaming.
Not in fear.
But in rage.
In abandonment.
In the realization that he had been nothing more than a burden to be discarded.
The vision shattered.
James staggered back into his body, heart pounding violently, breath ragged. His hands trembled, not from fear, but from the overwhelming weight of what he had just witnessed.
"…Sampon," he whispered.
An insane spirit.
A murderer.
A betrayed disciple.
A weapon thrown away when it became inconvenient.
James slowly clenched his fist.
For the first time since the world changed, he didn't see a summon as a reward.