Merchant Crab - Chapter 1: Stepping Stones

The main character is reborn as a character from a game he played in his previous life. This character falls into ruin along with the villainess, spending the last of their years together. A man named Kururi Helan.

...[Inside an underground basement]“You are going to die for nothing, hahahaha,” the old man's voice thundered through the room, sending chills down my spine.Step.With a swift and ruthless motion, he lunged forward, his sword slicing through the air and slashing my throat, crimson droplets staining the darkness.“We'll see,” I whispered defiantly, my final words escaping as a mere breath against the impending darkness.Slowly, inexorably, my consciousness slipped away, and I descended into a deep, unfathomable slumber.“Huh!?” My eyes fluttered open, and I found myself seated in a bustling tavern, the air thick with laughter and the clinking of glasses.In front of me stood a captivating lady, her beauty juxtaposed with an angry furrow upon her brow, threatening to shatter the harmony of the jovial scene.“Don't follow me around!” Her words pierced the air like shards of ice, the intensity of her emotions palpable as she cast a resentful glare in my direction, before swiftly departing from the tavern....Am I trapped within the confines of a game? The fragments of my shattered common sense scattered before me, leaving me to question the very fabric of my reality.

Vance is a young man who worked hard to bring his Sword Mage to the top to become one of the best players in all of Alantina Online.

While trying to solo the final boss, Vance dies and wakes up not at a spawn point but in an old rustic room?

“Hmmm? Where is the logout button? No, wait! What happened to my level!?”

With no idea how things turned out the way they did.

Vance must start out from the beginning as the weakest NPC to find out why he was suddenly sucked into the game.

All while surviving in a game that has become more real than the real world itself.