Darkness. Silence. Nothingness. I didn't feel any pain. I felt absolutely nothing. I didn't even have a "physical body" to feel with. I was just formless consciousness in the middle of an eternal void. Was this the afterlife? It was so... empty.
Suddenly, in the middle of that nothingness, the familiar bluish-white texts reappeared.
[DEATH CONFIRMED]
[MAIN OBJECTIVE ACHIEVED]
[TUTORIAL MISSION COMPLETE]
[Processing Reward...]
[Fully Activating Player System...]
[Initiating Emergency Recovery...]
[Reloading from Last Checkpoint...]
I opened my eyes.
The first thing I saw was the dingy ceiling of my apartment, with a small spider web in the corner I'd ignored for months. I blinked. Then blinked again. The smell of stale instant ramen and dirty socks greeted my nostrils. I could feel my thin, hard mattress against my back. I... was alive again?
Panicking, I sprang up into a sit. My heart was pounding. I felt all over my body my arms, my legs, my chest. No broken bones. No blood. No pain at all. I jumped out of bed, my legs shaking violently. I ran to the mirror on the closet. Han Ji-woo's face stared back at me, pale, eyes wide.
'A dream? Was all of that just a nightmare?'
I grabbed my phone from the desk. My hand was shaking so badly I almost dropped it. I turned it on and saw the date on the lock screen.
October 10th.
Three days before I went to that rooftop.
My breath hitched in my throat. This was real. All of it was real. I actually jumped. I actually died. And I was actually alive again. That's when the pain hit. Not physical pain, but the mental echo of it. The agony of every broken bone, the horrific sensation of my body shattering, still felt fresh on my nerve endings. My stomach churned violently. I ran to the stuffy bathroom and threw up everything I had inside into the toilet.
Gagging! Heaving!
After a while, with my body weak and cold sweat soaking my forehead, I went back to my room. With a trembling finger, I opened the only app that mattered now.
Death and Life.
The interface instantly popped up, and a large notification greeted me.
[TUTORIAL COMPLETE!]
Congratulations, Player. You have taken your first step.
Rewards have been added to your account.
YOUR POINTS: 500 P
[STORE] is now open.
[STATUS] is now open.
Your First Mission will be available in 24 Hours.
I sank down weakly onto the cold floor, staring at the screen. This was all really happening. I... I actually died, and I came back to life. My crazy laughter from yesterday returned, this time quieter, hoarser, filled with horror and wonder.
I was still sitting on the floor, my back leaning against the rickety bed frame. The cold of the floor crept through my sweatpants, a real sensation that somehow felt calming. My hands were no longer shaking. The initial shock had turned into something else... a cold, analytical curiosity. The gamer side of me, which had been buried by depression, was now taking over. I had an interface, currency, and menus to explore. Panic could wait.
I looked back at my phone screen. My eyes locked onto one of the newly opened options.
[STATUS]
I touched it. Instantly, a transparent holographic window appeared before me, floating in the air, displaying a portrait of myself standing straight on one side and a series of statistics on the other. This was the character status screen I'd seen in thousands of games, but this time, the character was me.
PLAYER: Han Ji-woo
LEVEL: 1
TITLE: [None]
POINTS: 500 P
BASE STATS:CONDITION:
Strength (STR): F
Mental Exhaustion
Stamina (STA): F
Mild Malnutrition
Agility (AGI): E
[Death Trauma: Lv. 1 (Effect: Nightmares, Random Panic Attacks)]
Intelligence (INT): D
Charisma (CHA): E
I could only stare at the embarrassing line of red letters. F, F, E... even my Charisma was only one step above a total failure. The only decent one was Intelligence, probably the remnants of my abandoned college years. The Condition description was a brutal diagnosis of my life. This app didn't just know who I was, it knew how pathetic I was.
'But this can be changed,' a small voice whispered in my mind. 'Stats are there to be upgraded.'
I closed the Status window and switched to the most interesting option.
[STORE]
The interface was far more complex. There were several tabs at the top: [Item], [Skill], [Weapon], [Information]. I opened the [Item] tab first. My eyes widened at the list. There were Healing Potions, Stamina Drinks, various temporary Boosters... all priced so high that my 500 Points felt like pocket change. A Small Healing Potion alone cost 1,000 P.
I switched to [Skill]. The list was even crazier. [Martial Arts Basics (Passive) - 5,000 P], [Lying Technique (Active) - 3,500 P]. These were abilities I could learn and downloaded directly into my brain. I even saw [English Language Level 1] for 2,000 P. I could buy talent. This was god-like power. Power sold like clearance items.
After the initial shock subsided, I started thinking strategically. I couldn't afford a skill or a healing item. But I needed proof. One more piece of evidence that all of this was real, that the thing in my hand wasn't just a hallucination. My eyes scanned the bottom of the item list, the cheapest one.
[Energy Bar - 50 P]
Description: Restores a small amount of stamina and removes hunger for 6 hours.
Fifty Points. Cheap enough for an experiment. I pressed it, and a confirmation prompt appeared. I hit 'YES'.
[Purchase Successful. 50 P deducted.]
[Your Balance: 450 P]
[Your Item will arrive in 5 minutes.]
Five minutes? Arrive? What did that mean?
I got up and walked to the locked front door of my apartment. I peered through the peephole. The dimly lit hallway looked empty as usual. I waited. One minute. Two minutes. My heart pounded again, this time with anticipation.
Exactly at the five-minute mark, I heard footsteps approaching. Someone stopped right in front of my door.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
A soft, polite knock. I held my breath. I hadn't ordered anything. Nobody ever visited me. I slowly unlocked the door and opened it slightly, just wide enough for the security chain.
Standing at the door was a man wearing a uniform with no logo, his face covered by a hat and a mask. He didn't say anything, just handed me a small brown cardboard box.
"For... Han Ji-woo?" I asked hoarsely.
The man just nodded, placed the package in my hands, then turned and walked away without a word. I quickly closed and locked the door. With trembling hands, I opened the package. Inside, neatly wrapped, was an energy bar with a plain, silver, unbranded wrapper.
I devoured it in three huge bites. It tasted bland, like cardboard with a hint of sweetness. But the effect... the effect was instant. A strange warmth spread from my stomach through my entire body. The weakness in my legs disappeared. My previously foggy mind now felt clear and sharp. This was far more powerful than any energy drink or the strongest coffee.
This was really happening...
I looked back at my phone screen. The notification for the first mission in 24 hours now felt like a death knell and a chime of opportunity. I had less than one day to prepare for something unknown. And this time, I wouldn't fail.
I stayed on the cold floor of my apartment for what felt like a very long time. The empty silver wrapper of the energy bar... the proof of the system's existence... lay beside me. This wasn't about believing anymore. This was a fact. This was my new reality.
And in this reality, I was very, very weak.
I opened the [STATUS] screen again. The rows of 'F' and 'E' ranked stats seemed to mock me. My first mission was coming, and I would face it in the condition of a man who struggled to climb two flights of stairs without getting winded. Death in the tutorial was horrifying, but at least it was fast. I didn't know what kind of horror awaited me in a real mission.
'I have to get stronger,' I thought. 'Right now.'
But how? I didn't have enough Points to buy a skill or instantly raise a stat. Waiting for the mission to come in my current condition was the same as committing suicide, and this time there was no guarantee of return. Then, a fundamental thought occurred. If this was a game connected to the real world, then logically... real-world actions should affect the game, right?
I got up. My body still felt energized thanks to the energy bar. I cleared the pile of dirty instant ramen bowls from the smallest empty area of my room. I took a deep breath, then lowered myself into a push-up position.
One. My arms shook violently.
Two. My chest felt like it was going to explode.
Three. I collapsed onto the floor, panting heavily.
Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. But I didn't stop. I got up, trying again. I did sit-ups until my abdominal muscles cramped. I did squats until my thighs felt like jelly. Sweat drenched my body, soaking my dingy shirt. The sour smell of sweat mixed with the stuffy aroma of my room. This was torture, but for the first time, the pain felt... productive.
After pushing myself to my absolute limit, I lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling, my chest rapidly heaving. With the last of my energy, I reopened the [STATUS] screen.
And there, next to the Stamina (STA): F stat, was a tiny, almost invisible progress bar, filled about [2%]. A small notification popped up in the system log.
[Physical Activity Detected. STA EXP +2]
I did it. A smile crept onto my lips. I actually did it. I wasn't completely reliant on missions. I could get stronger on my own. This was a loophole, a hope.
Suddenly, my phone vibrated violently. Not an app notification, but an incoming call. The name on the screen made my heart clench.
[Mom]
I cleared my throat, trying to control my breathing so I didn't sound like I'd just run a marathon. I pressed the answer button.
"Hello, Mom," I greeted, trying to sound as normal as possible.
"Ji-woo? Are you okay, sweetie? I called you yesterday, but you didn't pick up," my mother's soft voice sounded, full of worry. Yesterday. The day I should have died.
"Ah... yeah, Mom. Sorry. I overslept. Just a little... tired," I replied, a bitter lie.
"You sound different. More... energetic. Have you eaten?"
I swallowed. "I have, Mom. I'm fine, really. Just... cleaning the apartment."
The short conversation felt like a mission in itself. Every lie was heavy, but I managed to convince her that everything was fine. After hanging up, I fell silent. That call was a reminder that I still had ties to the real world, a world that knew nothing about the life-and-death game I was now playing.
I spent the rest of the day training like a maniac, only stopping to scarf down one more energy bar to recover. I didn't reach god-level. The progress bar on my stats barely budged. But mentally, I felt different. I wasn't resigned anymore. I was ready to fight.
I sat cross-legged in the middle of my room, staring at the phone screen where the countdown kept running.
00:00:03
00:00:02
00:00:01
Right at zero, my entire phone screen lit up, and a new notification appeared with a sharp, clear chime, announcing the arrival of my destiny.
[New Mission Available]
Open to view details?
I took a deep breath. Preparation time was over.