I didn't expect the train to have seats.
Much less comfortable ones.
The moment I stepped inside, the doors slid shut behind me with the softest hiss, like the world was exhaling. Warm light flickered along the walls, shifting between gold and pale blue, and the floor looked like marble polished by gods with too much free time.
I picked the first empty seat I saw. No point being picky when your transportation is made of light and metaphysics.
The moment I sat down, the train moved.
No rumble. No squeak. No engine roar.No reality.
We just drifted forward as if gliding across a sky that wasn't even pretending to follow physics. Outside the windows, shapes formed—whirling clouds, faint silhouettes of things that looked almost alive, and streaks of luminescence that curved like brushstrokes on canvas. I couldn't tell if we were going up, down, sideways, or diagonally through someone's dream.
Whatever this place was, it didn't care about my sense of direction.Or gravity.Or my sanity.
I leaned back, rubbing my face with both hands.Death never gives you time to breathe. But this? This was new.
Reincarnations usually dumped me straight into a crying infant body, some battlefield, or the occasional medieval soup line. But now I was riding some divine KTX through a sky that looked like a watercolor meltdown.
"What the hell is this place…" I muttered.
"To be precise, this is the Interspiritual Transit Line — The Train of Light."
The voice came from the seat across the aisle.A man sat there, if you could call him a man. He was tall, slim, wearing what looked like a conductor's uniform made from glowing threads. His face was… blurred. Not absent, not masked, just blurred, like someone smeared Vaseline over his existence.
The only clear thing about him were his eyes—two bright points, like lantern flames.
"...You're the conductor?" I asked.
He tilted his head slightly. "A title, not a profession. I manage passengers like you."
"People who die too often?"
"Passengers whose paths cannot be defined by a single life."
I blinked. "So what, I have a subscription plan or something?"
A low chuckle. "You have something far rarer."
I waited. He didn't continue.
Of course. Mysterious NPCs never explain anything unless it's plot-relevant five chapters later.
"Fine," I sighed. "Then explain the sign outside. 'Seven Stops.' What does that mean?"
"It means exactly what it says," the conductor replied. "This train will stop seven times. At each stop, you will live a life—complete and uninterrupted—as you always have. When that life ends, whether through age or circumstance, you will return to the train."
"So it's reincarnation," I summarized, "but with a scheduled return trip."
"Correct."
"And after the seven stops? I get a reward? A final boss? A free coffee?"
The conductor didn't move. "After the seventh stop, you will receive what you have been prepared for."
"Which is…?"
He went silent again.
I sighed. "Right. Forget I asked."
I turned to the window again. The sky outside shifted from blue to amethyst, then to a swirling nebula of gold. If I stared too long, I felt like falling into it. Like it wanted me to.
"So these seven worlds," I said. "Are they normal worlds? Like the ones I've been through before?"
"They are worlds formed from the essence of spirits. You have visited human worlds—realities defined by flesh, matter, and death. These are different. Light shapes them. Memory sustains them. Purpose gives them form."
"Meaning they're… dangerous."
"They can be," the conductor agreed. "But more importantly… they are meaningful."
Meaningful.What a dramatic word.
"Why me?" I asked.
"You already know the answer."
"I'd like to hear it from someone who isn't me."
The conductor's blurred face turned slightly toward me."You survive."
"...That's it?"
"You survive," he repeated. "You adapt. You learn. Most lives you lived should have ended long before they did. Yet each time, you extended the thread. You endure longer than fate intends."
"So I'm… difficult to kill?" I asked.
"If you wish to put it inelegantly, yes."
I scratched my cheek. "You should've just said I'm stubborn."
"You are more than that, Jaemin."
He said my name the way someone speaks to a chess piece moving exactly the way they predicted.
Before I could question him, the lights above us dimmed. The ambient glow along the train walls pulsed, gentle but insistent, like a heartbeat shifting tempo.
"Prepare yourself," the conductor said.
"For what?"
"For the First Stop."
The train slowed—without noise, without wind, without inertia.Outside the windows, the nebula folded inward like curtains being drawn. Light gathered, coiled, and then burst into view.
A gate appeared.
No. A world appeared.
Floating like a massive sphere woven from threads of radiant energy.Inside it, I saw forests made of shining branches, rivers that glowed like molten silver, and silhouettes of something moving. People? Spirits? Monsters?
The train glided toward the sphere, slowing as it neared a platform made of suspended light.
A sign materialized before the doors:
FIRST STOP — LUMINARAThe Realm of Shining Roots
I felt something stir in my chest.Not excitement.Not fear.Something quieter.Recognition, maybe.Or the strange sense that this world was already waiting for me.
The conductor stood. "Your first life in the Spirited Lands begins here."
"You're not coming?"
"I do not ride past the threshold. This is your journey. I guide only the transit."
"Of course you do," I muttered. "Why would anything ever be easy."
The doors slid open.
Warm light washed over me—gentle, bright, and unnervingly alive. It pressed against my skin like a soft breeze carrying whispers I couldn't understand yet.
As I stepped out, the conductor spoke one last time.
"Jaemin."
I paused.
"Not every spirit wishes to harm you. Some will help you. Some will remember you. And some… may follow you through lives."
"Meaning?"
"You will understand soon enough."
Again with the cryptic phrases.I didn't bother responding. What was I going to say? "Thanks for the existential tourism?"
I stepped off the train.
Light gathered around my feet. The moment my shoes touched the platform, it rippled outward like water disturbed by a pebble. Lines of brightness stretched across the surface, guiding me toward the only path forward: a bridge of woven luminance leading into the sphere that held the world.
As the train doors closed behind me, I glanced back.
The conductor raised a hand in a small, almost human gesture.
"Live well, Kang Jaemin."
Then the train dissolved—fading into sparks and drifting upward until it disappeared completely.
Just me now.
Me and whatever this shimmering world was.
I took a breath.The air tasted like clean morning wind.Almost too clean.
"All right," I muttered. "Let's see how long this life lasts."
With nothing else to do, I walked forward.
The bridge carried me into the sphere.
Everything shifted the moment I crossed the threshold.
—
The world of Luminara bloomed around me in a burst of sensation.
The sky wasn't blue—it was a pale, shifting silver, like dawn frozen in time. Trees towered in every direction, their trunks shimmering and their leaves scattering particles of faint light with every breeze. The ground was soft, luminous like moss that absorbed and released light in gentle pulses.
It didn't feel like nature.It felt like a memory of nature.
Something familiar yet not real.
Bird-like creatures soared overhead, their wings trailing faint glimmers like sparks flicking off a metal surface.
I walked through the forest, each step causing tiny bursts of light from the ground, as if the world recognized movement.Or acknowledged me.
"Great," I muttered. "A world that lights up when I walk. Very subtle."
But beauty rarely meant safety.
My instincts sharpened automatically.Years of dying and not dying train you well.
I scanned the trees, listened for irregular sounds, felt the shifts in air. Nothing aggressive yet, but something watched me. Not hostile—just curious.
Then I heard it.
A faint ringing sound. Like a bell.No—like glass chimes rattling softly.
Something floated from behind a tree.
A small creature.No bigger than a stray cat.Its body was round, translucent, glowing from within.Two soft, watery blue eyes stared at me without blinking. It drifted closer, hovering.
"...What are you supposed to be?"
The creature blinked, tilted its body, and brightened slightly.
A greeting?
Then it bumped gently against my leg.Like a kid testing if I was solid.
I sighed.First minute in the new world, and I already had a floating… light blob touching my pants.
"You friendly or you about to explode?"
It chimed again.
"I'm going to assume that means friendly."
It drifted up and circled my head, leaving a little trail of dust-like light that faded slowly.Then it motioned forward, bouncing slightly.
"You… want me to follow you?"
It brightened.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Fine. Lead the way, glowstick."
It chimed happily.
And just like that, I was following a floating luminous creature deeper into the Shining Forest, already feeling that familiar pull of inevitability.
A new world.A new life.Another chance to die badly or live well.
But one thing was clear:
This wasn't an ordinary world.This wasn't another random reincarnation.
This was deliberate.
As I stepped deeper into Luminara, the light creature drifting ahead like an overeager tour guide, I felt a strange, unwelcome sensation.
Hope.
I hated it already.
But I kept walking.
After all… this was only the first stop.
Six more to go.