The Archduke's Songbird - Chapter 5: Nightmares

Suddenly exposed on all the top news websites and social media platforms globally, 'Return Order's Notes' leads to a revolutionary virtual reality game.Game Name: 'Dark Sand'Game Type: Oriental fantasy historical theme, featuring a certain degree of soulslike difficulty and roguelike gameplay in a role-playing game.Requirements for recruiting beta players: Good mindset, quick reactions, strong stress resilience, a certain amount of historical knowledge, excellent physical condition.The most crucial requirement: superb acting skills, preferably at an Oscar-winner level!Special Reward: Among the beta players, the one with the most excellent simulated completion performance can undergo the ultimate trial and, after a perfect recording, have it presented to the public in film form, fulfilling your dream of becoming an Oscar winner!Players are complaining, they have never seen a game with such high entry barriers!What they don't know is that their every action in the game will truly affect both history and reality.

Alternate Title: Kumo Desu Ga, Nani Ka? - Game SystemElliot? Yeah, he got isekai'd. Bam! Straight into the world of “So I'm a Spider, So What?”. And guess what? He wasn't some puny human or, well, a spider. Nope, he lucked out and got reborn as a freakin' Earth Dragon!But wait, it gets better. Ding! He awakened the 'XX Worlds Game System'. You know what that means? Skills! Skills from all sorts of crazy games!And the kicker? His new neighbor in the sprawling Great Elroe Labyrinth was none other than the little spider gal herself, Kumoko!So, what happens when two totally broken characters end up living next door to each other? They team up, duh! Their genius plan? Hit all the poor monsters in the Labyrinth with a two-pronged attack! A good ol' fashioned sandwich maneuver!But Elliot had a little secret. “Heh, sorry folks,” he probably smirked to himself, “but your boy Elliot here? He's playing with cheats activated!”Skill Acquired! [True Man's Slash]!Skill Acquired! [Skull Splitter]!Skill Acquired! [Planetary Devastation]!

When I woke up, I found myself inside a spaceship.

I guess you guys think I’m talking nonsense here, but I also have absolutely no clue about what exactly happened to me.

I was really close to completely losing it, but fortunately, I managed to notice that this place was really similar to the world featured in a game I was playing recently.

Am I dreaming? Nope, it’s no dream. Maybe I actually got sent to a different world or something?

But didn’t those things usually involve getting sent to a magical world with elves, dwarves, dragons and whatnot?

In any case, I don’t know what caused this, but I guess I’ll just have to suck it up and live properly in this world from now on.

It’ll be okay. I got my trusty spaceship so I can probably make some money. It’ll work out! It has to!

This is the story of a man abruptly thrown into space along with his private spaceship. He runs around with it and saves damsels in distress along the way, flirts with said damsels, earns money as a merc-for-hire and uses his gaming knowledge to work his way into living freely and easily.

The world had shown Baines every possible lesson it could teach; from familial love, joy, and peace to hate, rage, betrayal, and pain.He got detached from his family by the wimps of others.But, before he began his journey to find them, he was forced to witness that scene that haunted him once more. The destruction of his home.He was about to give up on life when an unforeseen opportunity presented itself.There, he vowed, “The world will bleed for what it has done to me.”Using the greatest collections gathered by his ancestors, he set out on the thorny path to revenge.Little did he know, the result of his actions followed other cascading events that then threatened his world.Does he refuse to help the world because of the pain it had caused him? Or, will he join in the destruction?