Jisuk blinked a few times before opening his eyes completely, an unfamiliar scenery in front of him. A wide dirt road in front of him, all of the people wore silk hanboks of a multitude of colors, and on their waist was a blade, something like this you would only see in history books.
Jisuk rubbed his eyes with his palm, still he couldn't make out what was going on.
"Is this otaku meetup or a cosplay con?" he thought to himself, unable to make sense of the scene unfolding in front of him
He sat cross legged in a tattered potato bag sewn to be wearable as pants and a ragged burgundy collared shirt which collected dirt through days of wear.
Stalls of food, clothes and gemstones on each side of the wide road, where horses pulling carts had no issue passing by people walking past each other. The aroma of the food was in the air that swayed the branch of the tree under whose shade Jisuk sat, looking up at the clear sky devoid of clouds on a sunny day. I could get used to this, Jisuk let his intrusive thoughts wander in possibilities of where he could be.
A blue panel suddenly appeared with "quest" written in the header.
Jisuk, being completely startled by the blue box, starts waving his arms but they only slip through the existence of the blue box.
[ QUEST ]
EARN 1,000 GOLD 0/1,000
[ REWARDS ]
6 STAT POINTS
50 GOLD COINS
[ 1:23:55:39 ]
"a quest? is this some kind of a dream" Jisuk spoke aloud to himself, while rubbing his chin deep in thought, "I thought I was dead".
'What kind of dream sends you back to the past?' Jisuk thought, 'Is this really not a nightmare?'
He smacks his face with his hand to see if it were reality, "ow that stings", Jisuk yelped and jumped to his feet where his cheeks turned red.
"Well, if this is equal to reality, then a quest window should work just like how they do in video games" Jisuk affirmed before chanting, "close", which is when the window flickered and disappeared.
"Hey, What are you selling?" an elder stood before him pointing at the statues, his presence was so faint that Jisuk didn't even notice the man standing there, looking dumbfounded.
"Huh? Selling? ..." Jisuk eyed the man up and down, then looked at the statues in front of him.
The statues were delicately carved out of wood formed to look like mobs from RPGs that Jisuk used to play in his high school days. They were still crude, obviously made by an amauter in woodworking but Jisuk never remembered having such skills.
"What ... So are you not selling these?" the man looked up as if questioning Jisuk's sanity
"Of course, Of course, I am selling these haha..." he vigorously bowed before the noble man for his shameful act, "Please take a look, my finest curations."
"I've never seen these monsters before ... did you come up with these yourself"
the man picks up a minotaur statue that looked fairly accurate to what Jisuk had seen in video games
"yes... Yes." Jisuk hesitantly answered.
"Well, how much for this one?",
"a thousand gold" Jisuk smiled reassuringly, if this really is a game world then surely the npc will just give me whatever I ask for, he thought to himself.
"WHAT??" The elder's jaw hung open and his bloodshot eyes were wide open, bulging out of his head.
"HUH? .. I mean 5 silver 5 silver" Jisuk quickly corrected, shaking hands to correct the misunderstanding.
"Alright here it goes." The elder coughs embarrassingly and tosses a rag with some coins.
"Come to the doorsteps of the Mount Hua Sect if you want to earn some more" he looks in the direction of the mountains, there is a residence on the very top, Jisuk finds himself wondering if that is really Mount Hua, before he ask anything else the elder disappears into the crowd.