A cold floor pressed against his cheek, wet and sticky. Somewhere in the distance, he heard muffled screams — hunters shouting, the echo of blades, the screech of monsters. His vision blurred, then cleared.
He was… inside a dungeon.
"…What… what the hell?" he whispered, his voice trembling.
He pushed himself up slowly, head throbbing. When he looked down, he saw hands — thin, pale, and trembling. Definitely not his. The familiar blue glow of a hunter's badge blinked faintly on the back of his hand:
Name: Sung Jinwoo
Rank: E
A cold realization struck him like lightning.
He wasn't himself anymore.
He had reincarnated as Sung Jinwoo — the weakest hunter in the world.
His heart raced. He remembered this place. This dungeon — the Cartenon Temple. The very dungeon where Jinwoo nearly died and awakened the "System."
He turned his gaze around. The other hunters were preparing to advance, unaware of the slaughter waiting ahead. Statues lined the hall like silent gods, each holding weapons that gleamed under the eerie torchlight.
He knew what came next.
He knew every death that was about to happen.
"...So it's really happening," he muttered, a small, grim smile forming on his lips. "I actually got reborn into solo leveling world."
He clenched his fist. His pulse quickened with a mixture of fear and thrill. In his past life, he had been ordinary — powerless, dying without ever achieving anything. But now? Now he had a chance.
A second life.
A second chance to rise.
He looked up toward the massive double doors at the end of the hall. Beyond them lay the true test — and the Chance of the System which can change fate.
"If this is fate…" he whispered, eyes burning with determination,
"…then I'll make it my own.
Just as he was thinking this, a sudden rush of pain exploded inside his skull.
"Urgh—!"
He staggered, clutching his head as a flood of memories poured into his mind — foreign, vivid, and all too real.
Images flashed one after another:
A small apartment with a sickly mother lying in bed.
A younger sister studying late into the night, worrying about hospital bills.
Endless days of barely surviving E-rank dungeons, getting injured for a few hundred won.
The cold eyes of guild members who called him "the weakest hunter alive."
Each memory struck like a blade, cutting deep into his heart.
"Damn… these are— his memories…!" he gasped, falling to one knee.
His vision blurred, heartbeat pounding painfully in his chest. The emotions of the original Sung Jinwoo merged violently with his own — sorrow, fear, frustration, and that desperate will to survive.
He could feel it.
The pain Jinwoo carried all those years.
The humiliation of being weak, mocked, and left behind.
The helplessness of watching his mother fade away while he risked his life for pocket change.
It was overwhelming.
His breath came in ragged gasps as two souls slowly intertwined — the man from another world, and the broken hunter who had fought against fate.
"So… this is what you felt, Jinwoo," he whispered, voice trembling. "No wonder you never gave up."
A tear slipped down his cheek — not from sadness, but from the weight of a life he now carried.
When the storm of memories finally subsided, he felt hollow… yet strangely whole.
He was no longer just a man reborn.
He was Sung Jinwoo, completely — body, soul, and memory fused into one existence.
His hands still trembled, but his eyes… they no longer held confusion. Only quiet resolve.
"Don't worry," he murmured under his breath, glancing toward the other hunters preparing to open the dungeon gate.
"You may have died here once… but this time, I'll make sure we live."
He stood up slowly, a faint, determined smile forming on his face.
Somewhere deep within him, the power — still dormant — seemed to stir, sensing something different about this version of Sung Jinwoo.