The world outside screamed like it had been torn open.
Sirens echoed between buildings.
Dogs barked.
People shouted from balconies.
Somewhere below, a car alarm wailed without rhythm—its honking drowned by the distant roar of something inhuman.
But Kwon Jae-hyun didn't move.
He sat on his bed, palms on his knees, breathing slowly through a trembling chest. The holographic window hovering in his room flickered faintly, casting pale blue light on his face.
"...There's no way," he whispered.
His heart thumped too loudly. His breaths felt sharp. His thoughts twisted between disbelief and rising panic.
This isn't real.
This has to be a dream.
Or I finally snapped after ten years behind a visor.
His fingers dug into the thin mattress. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to make the floating windows disappear… but when he opened them—
STATUS WINDOW
still hovered there.
Unmoving.
Real.
He stared blankly at it.
If this was insanity, it was the most detailed hallucination he had ever imagined. The system's holograms cast shadows. They reacted to eye movement. They hummed, faint but rhythmic, vibrating through the air like digital heartbeat.
Still… reality bending like this?
Monsters crawling out of portals?
A decade-old dead VR game merging with the real world?
He didn't trust his own senses.
"...There's only one real test," he muttered, reaching for his phone.
His hands shook slightly. He hadn't used the device in weeks. The screen lit up with a blinding glare as notifications flooded in—dozens per second.
He opened the app for social updates.
Instantly, his feed exploded.
BREAKING NEWS: Unidentified Creatures Sighted in Seoul
LIVE: Government Confirms Dimensional Rifts
URGENT: Martial Law Declared in Multiple Districts
WARNING: DO NOT APPROACH VIOLET GATE-LIKE PHENOMENA
[VIDEO] Strange Beasts Attack Pedestrians
His breath caught.
His chest tightened.
This wasn't a glitch.
Not a hallucination.
Not even some dark prank.
It was real.
Everything—monsters, portals, the system.
"All of it…" he whispered. "It's really happening."
The phone slipped from his fingers and landed softly on the bed. The window outside flashed again with bright lavender light—another portal opening somewhere nearby.
People down on the street cried out in terror.
But Jae-hyun forced himself to look away.
There was something he needed to inspect first.
Slowly, he lifted his gaze back to the holographic window floating before him.
---
A New Reality
His STATUS window floated obediently at eye level. But now that the panic was slipping away—just barely—he noticed something else blinking in the corner.
A small icon.
Shaped like a diamond.
He blinked at it.
The system responded instantly, pulling open a new translucent interface.
[SHOP — CATEGORY FILTERS]
Rows of tabs appeared like pages in a digital catalog. Weapons, armor, accessories, consumables, enhancements… and many categories greyed out because of his low level.
But one thought cut straight through his confusion:
Shop Points.
The 5,000,000 points he earned for being Rank 1.
He exhaled shakily.
"So this is where they're used…"
He tapped the Consumables category.
Instantly, hundreds of items appeared—but all the high-level ones were locked behind glowing red warnings.
> [REQUIREMENT: LEVEL 30]
[REQUIREMENT: RAID CLEARANCE]
[REQUIREMENT: SPECIAL CLASS PERMISSION]
Jae-hyun clicked through a dozen menus.
Everything useful seemed locked.
Weapons too advanced.
Armor too heavy.
Artifacts too unpredictable.
Support items too rare.
But he didn't give up.
Ten years in Eschaton had taught him one thing:
Hidden advantages always existed for those willing to dig.
So he scrolled deeper.
Past basic potions.
Past beginner gear.
Past temporary buffs and expendables…
Then he saw it.
OGRE BLOOD VIAL
Cost: 100 Shop Points
Effect (Permanent): +0.01 Natural Regeneration Rate
Jae-hyun froze.
"…Permanent?"
He sat upright, adrenaline crawling through his veins.
In the game, regeneration rate determined how fast one recovered from injury, fatigue, or energy loss. An extra 0.01 wasn't much—
Until you stacked it.
He glanced at his points.
5,000,000.
He could buy 50,000 vials if he wanted.
But he didn't need that many.
He needed just enough to get a noticeable, long-term advantage.
His mind raced.
Long-term regeneration meant survival.
Survival meant leveling.
Leveling meant control.
Without hesitation, he tapped Purchase x10,000.
> [CONFIRM PURCHASE?]
[COST: 1,000,000 SHOP POINTS]
"Yes."
The vials materialized on his desk—thousands of small crimson-glowing tubes, stacked neatly like miniature blood containers.
A normal person would have fainted.
But Jae-hyun?
He had seen stranger things in the game.
He lifted the first vial and drank.
A bitter metallic taste burned down his throat.
Then warmth followed—spreading down his spine like liquid fire, pulsing through every limb. Immediately after, a deep fatigue vanished from his bones as if someone wiped away years of exhaustion.
He opened his hand.
It didn't tremble anymore.
He drank another.
Then another.
Ten.
Fifty.
Hundreds.
He felt the changes as subtly as quiet ripples—each dose smoothing rough edges inside him. His breathing steadied. His pulse normalized. His vision sharpened. He felt… alive.
More alive than he had in years.
Then, after the 10,000th vial—
Something shifted.
The mirror across the room caught his reflection:
not the gaunt, sunken-eyed shut-in from earlier.
His cheeks weren't hollow anymore. His skin had color. His posture straightened. Muscles returned where there had been none. Fat filled in the sharp edges of his frame.
He looked like someone who ate real meals.
Someone who slept.
Someone normal.
He exhaled shakily.
"...This is insane."
But the shock didn't end there.
Because another item caught his eye when he scrolled deeper.
GOLEM ESSENCE VIAL
Cost: 150 Shop Points
Effect (Permanent): +0.01 Physical Resistance
Resistance.
In Eschaton, resistance was king.
Even low-tier monsters could break bones if your defense was low.
Jae-hyun tapped the purchase button before hesitation could find him.
> [YOU HAVE BOUGHT 10,000 GOLEM ESSENCE VIALS]
The vials materialized with a heavy thud—thicker, stone-like containers holding a faint grey glowing liquid.
He didn't hesitate.
He consumed them one after another.
The effect wasn't warm like the ogre blood.
It was dense.
Heavy.
Like invisible armor layering itself into his muscles, his bones, his skin.
When he finished the last vial, he felt… anchored.
Rooted.
Like a blow that once would've shattered his ribs would now land like a punch against a brick wall.
A soft chime rang.
> [PHYSICAL RESISTANCE MAXED: 100%]
He stared blankly at the message.
In the game?
Reaching 100% had required legendary gear, rare drops, and raid-exclusive rewards. Players spent years chasing it.
He had achieved it in ten minutes.
His breath trembled—a mixture of awe and fear.
He had just turned his frail body into something close to an unbreakable tank.
---
Stepping Into Chaos
He closed the shop menu.
There were more items he could explore—maybe agility boosters, mana expansion, special traits—but for now, he had two essentials:
Regeneration.
Resistance.
The foundation of survival.
He stood, stretching his arms. His joints no longer cracked like brittle wood. Instead, they moved smoothly, filled with a new strength he didn't fully understand yet.
Outside, more screams rose.
Something slammed into a car down the street.
The faint echo of claws scraping metal reached his ears.
His heart thumped hard, but not in fear—
not entirely.
It was familiar.
Like the feeling before a raid boss.
Like the moment he entered a dungeon alone.
Like those late nights when he faced impossible challenges with nothing but instinct.
He was scared.
But he was also—
Alive.
Excited.
He grabbed the handle of his apartment door, gripping it tight.
His voice came out quietly, almost a whisper.
"…Let's see what ten years prepared me for."
And with that—
He stepped outside.
The real game had finally begun.