Our protagonist, Tatiabella—whom we shall simply call Bella—was not born under a lucky star. Her life was a long, winding road of sorrow and abandonment. Before she found herself trapped in a world nothing like Earth, one filled with monstrous beasts and barren lands devoid of even a whisper of life, she had already known suffering intimately.
At 27 years old, Bella was a ghost of a person, drifting through the ruins of a life that had never given her a fighting chance. Poverty clung to her like a second skin, and everywhere she went, she was met not with kindness, but cold glares, whispered judgments, and blatant disdain. The world hated her, or so it seemed—and the origin of this hatred could be traced back to the woman who gave her life but never offered love.
Her mother, Edith, had once stood at a crossroads—both figuratively and quite literally. When Bella was just a baby, Edith made a bargain in the dead of night with something not quite human. A devil cloaked in charm and shadows. In exchange for eternal youth, endless fortune, and the admiration of every soul she encountered, Edith offered up something the devil found far more precious: her own child's love.
The contract was cruelly specific. Every drop of affection Bella might ever receive from anyone in the world—especially from her mother—was sealed away, siphoned off to feed Edith's cursed fortune. Bella would never know the warmth of a hug, the comfort of a mother's lullaby, or the simple joy of being wanted. She was doomed to walk through life unloved, unwanted, and unseen—all to make her mother shine brighter in the eyes of the world.
At the age of nine, as the contract fully took root, Edith discarded Bella like unwanted trash. No parting words. No tears. Just a taxi ride to a random orphanage and a slammed door that never reopened. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, the orphanage took her in. But even within those walls, she was different. People avoided her as if she carried a curse, and maybe she did. Love simply couldn't reach her—not anymore.
When she aged out of the system, life did not get kinder. Bella bounced from one job to the next, like a leaf caught in a storm. She never stayed longer than a month in one place—her coworkers exploited her kindness, and the managers simply didn't care. They saw her exhaustion as laziness, her silence as weakness. No one defended her. No one saw her.
Then came the breaking point. Overworked, underfed, and running on borrowed time, Bella collapsed at her latest job. She had been logging over 60 hours a week, and her body, screaming for mercy, finally gave out. The diagnosis: dangerously high blood pressure. The doctor's words were like nails in a coffin—if she didn't stop working and rest immediately, she could die. But what choice did she have? Who would pay her bills? Who would care if she lived or died?
That night, in the sterile chill of her hospital room, Bella lay on the bed in silence, staring at the ceiling as if searching for a reason—any reason—to keep going. Then, without warning, she screamed. A long, raw, soul-shaking scream that tore through the walls and echoed with every ounce of pain, sorrow, grief, and betrayal she had bottled up over the years. The scream was not just a release—it was a funeral cry for the part of her that still dared to hope.
After that, she stopped screaming. She stopped talking. She stopped trying. Days passed in a gray haze. She only left her bed for food or the bathroom, moving like a puppet with cut strings. She waited. Not for recovery, but for the end.
And then—on a night darker than the rest, when even the moon turned its face away—something unexpected happened.
Ding.
A soft chime rang out in the silence. Bella blinked. Her body was heavy with fatigue, but one eye slowly opened. Before her, suspended in the air, was a glowing blue window, its text shimmering like frost on glass.
[Do you wish to be transported to a new world? Y/N]
She stared at it. Her brain, dulled by despair, barely registered what she was seeing. Was this a hallucination? A dream? A final mercy from a dying mind?
Another message followed.
[Warning: Upon agreement, you will be sent to an alternate world. A tutorial shall commence. No return. Do you accept?]
Bella gave a broken, bitter laugh. A new world? Could it truly be worse than this one—where love had been traded away before she could even speak her first word?
Her fingers trembled. Then she pressed YES.
And everything turned white.
---
When Bella opened her eyes, she was met not with a warm welcome or soft transition—but with violence written across the heavens.
The sky above her bled crimson, as though the clouds themselves were torn veins spilling into the horizon. An unforgiving cold wrapped around her skin like icy chains, sinking into her bones. The air was sharp, metallic, and filled with the stench of decay. She stood slowly, body trembling, not from weakness, but the sheer shock of it all.
Then came the sound—a low, guttural growl behind her.
She turned.
There, only feet away, stood a creature that could hardly be called a dog. Its blackened skin was stretched too tightly over its bones, glowing with veins of molten red. Its eyes burned like coals, its fangs dripping with saliva that sizzled as it touched the ash-covered ground. Its body twisted unnaturally, like it had been sewn together from nightmares.
It lunged.
Instinct took over. Bella's hand reached to the side and seized a jagged stone—jagged, sharp, and heavy. As the beast's jaws neared her throat, she roared, swinging with everything she had. The stone connected with the creature's skull with a sickening crack, and it collapsed, twitching once before going still.
She stood there, panting, her hands covered in steaming black blood.
Ding.
A bright blue window appeared before her, flickering gently in the death-stilled air.
[You have slain a Level 6 Lesser Hellhound. +300 XP earned.]
[You may now level up.]
Bella blinked in disbelief. A system interface? It was just like the old RPGs she used to play—except this wasn't a game. The blood was real. The terror was real. The kill had been real.
More windows popped up, one after another, flooding her with information.
[Welcome to the Tutorial Realm.]
[Your objective: Reach Level 1000.]
Bella's eyes widened. Level 1000? That was absurd. In the twenty years she'd poured into her favorite game "Destiny shall find us," She had barely scraped past Level 98. This? This would take decades—centuries, maybe.
And yet, the system's voice remained void of emotion as it flickered once more.
[Good luck.]