The evening air in Seoul still carried the heat of late summer, even with the sun long gone.
Kang Daehyun stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked. The familiar streets of his neighborhood passed in a blur of convenience store lights and late night snack bars. He knew every corner of this route. Every pothole. Every store that left their cat out at night. Every ajumma who would yell at him for loitering.
He had lived here for two years now. Two years since the orphanage shuffled him into the highschool hostel with a bag of clothes and a pat on the head. "You are on your own now," they had said. As if he was not already.
Daehyun did not mind. The hostel was small. The room was smaller. But it was his. He had earned it.
His shoulder ached from his backpack. Not from books. Three hours of tutoring meant three hours of explaining why quadratic equations mattered when everyone knew they did not. His friend Minjae had stared at the whiteboard like it was written in ancient Greek. Daehyun had charged him forty thousand won anyway. Friends discounted, but not that much.
The backpack held twelve cups of ramen. Three for two thousand won. Sale of the century. He had cleaned out the convenience store near the hostel and the ajumma there had called him a menace to society. He had called her beautiful and generous. She had thrown a roll of tape at his head.
He smiled at the memory.
This was his life. Wake up. Attend classes. Study. Eat cheap food. Tutor Minjae. Read novels. Sleep. Repeat.
It was not glamorous. But it was steady. And steady meant safe.
---
Daehyun had learned early that the world did not give things away for free. His parents had died when he was too young to remember their faces. The orphanage had been functional but cold. Food appeared at set times. Bedtime was enforced. Affection was not on the schedule.
He had learned to rely on himself.
By middle school, he was tutoring younger kids for pocket money. By highschool, he was tutoring his classmates. Math. English. Sometimes science if the material was easy enough. He was not a genius. He just worked harder than everyone else.
The hostel matron said he reminded her of her son. Busy. Always moving. Never asking for help.
He did not know if that was a compliment.
---
The convenience store ahead glowed fluorescent white against the dark street. Through the glass, he saw Ajumma Kim rearranging the cigarette display. She was in her sixties, round faced, sharp tongued, and the closest thing to family he had in this neighborhood.
She spotted him. Pointed a finger. Made a shooing motion through the glass.
Daehyun grinned and waved.
She yanked the door open. "Yah! You still owe me for that banana milk last week!"
"I will bring it tomorrow! With interest!"
"Liar!"
"Beautiful and perceptive, Ajumma!"
She grabbed a dish towel from the counter and threw it at him through the doorway. It hit the glass frame and slid down to the pavement.
Daehyun laughed, picked it up, and tossed it back to her. "Keep this energy for the morning customers. I am too tired to fight."
She caught it. Mumbled something about disrespectful kids. But she was almost smiling.
He waved again and kept walking.
---
The street widened briefly where a small park sat between two apartment buildings. A few benches. Some sad looking bushes. A single streetlamp that flickered every third night.
Daehyun sat on the nearest bench. Just for a moment. His feet hurt. His shoulder hurt. His brain hurt from watching Minjae struggle through calculus.
He pulled out his phone.
11:47 PM.
Blood and Steel updated at midnight. The author had promised a new chapter. A big one. Something about the him finally finishing the academy arc.
He had been waiting all week.
Blood and Steel was his escape. Not just entertainment. Something to look forward to when the days blurred together. A world where magic existed and people mattered and the hero always won in the end.
He scrolled through the novel's comments section. Fans speculating. Theories about the system. Arguments about which female lead was best. The usual chaos.
Forty seven more minutes.
He could wait.
He clicked the app anyway.
No update yet.
"Traitors," he muttered. "All of you."
A cool breeze passed through the park. Rare for late summer. He closed his eyes for a second and let it wash over his face.
---
He thought about Minjae. About how his friend's parents paid for tutoring because they worried about his grades. About how Minjae complained about the pressure while Daehyun silently calculated how many meals forty thousand won would buy.
He thought about the hostel. About the matron who left extra rice on his desk sometimes when she thought he was not looking.
He thought about the novel. About Elijah Flores and his system and the academy and the demons and all the things that made him forget, for a few hours, that his own life was small and ordinary and exhausting.
Maybe that was why he read so much. Not because he hated his life. But because it was nice to imagine a world where one person could change everything.
He opened his eyes.
Looked up.
Clear sky. Stars faintly visible through the light pollution. A plane blinking red as it crossed the darkness.
"No update yet," he said to no one. "But maybe..."
The world tore.
Not a sound. Not a feeling. A tearing, like reality itself ripped open down the middle.
White light.
Everywhere.
Daehyun did not have time to scream. Did not have time to move. Did not have time to think about anything except the sudden, overwhelming brightness that erased the park, the streetlamp, the stars, the world.
No pain.
Just light.
And in the last fragment of a second, as his body dissolved into nothing, one thought floated through Kang Daehyun's mind.
Absurd. Pointless. Perfectly him.
"The chapter... I did not get to read it..."
--
Pain.
That was first. A dull, throbbing ache across his entire body, concentrated on his face, his ribs, his left shoulder. The kind of pain that existed in every nerve, every bone, every breath.
He tried to move. Failed.
Ceiling.
Wooden beams. Dark aged wood, polished but old. The kind of ceiling that belonged in historical dramas or expensive hotels, not in a Seoul hostel with peeling paint and a broken water heater.
He tried again to sit up. His arms gave out. He collapsed back onto something soft. A bed. Thick blankets. Expensive sheets that smelled faintly of lavender.
"What..."
His voice. Wrong. Deeper. Rougher. His throat felt raw, like he had been screaming for hours without stopping.
He looked at his hands.
Not his hands.
The realization hit slowly at first, then all at once. These hands were paler. Longer fingers. Clean nails, no, manicured nails, like someone actually cared about them. No calluses from holding pens for hours. No tiny scar on his knuckle from that time he fell in middle school. No familiar shape, no familiar lines, no familiar anything.
"Not my hands."
He said it aloud. The voice confirmed it. Not his voice either.
Panic rose. Cold and sharp and real.
Not his room. Not his hands. Not his voice. Where was the park? Where was the streetlamp? Where was Seoul?
"Not my hands not my room not my voice what the hell what the hell what the..."
The door opened.
---
A woman entered.
Mid thirties. Brown hair pulled back in a simple bun. A face etched with worry lines, like she had spent years perfecting the expression. She wore a simple dark dress, old but well maintained, the kind of clothing that said servant without needing a label.
Her eyes landed on him.
Relief flooded through the worry first, softening her features. Then something else. Confusion. Caution. A sharp alertness that did not match her gentle appearance.
"Young master." Her voice was soft, warm. "You are awake."
Daehyun stared.
Young master?
She crossed the room quickly, reaching for his face. He flinched. Could not help it. His body reacted before his brain caught up, pulling away from the stranger's touch.
She stopped immediately. Hands hovering in the air between them.
"The swelling has gone down," she said quietly. Studying him. Searching his face like she was looking for something specific. "But... your eyes."
She paused.
"They look different."
Daehyun's mind raced. Servant. Young master. Different eyes. She knew him. She knew whoever this body belonged to. She knew...
Leon.
The name surfaced from somewhere. Not his memory. Someone else's. A fragment floating in the chaos.
Leon Ardent.
He knew that name. He had read that name. In Blood and Steel. Leon Ardent, forgotten son of House Ardent. Overlooked. Bullied. Extra. The one who gets kicked out in disgrace.
No.
"I will bring broth." The woman was already moving toward the door. "Do not move. If anyone asks, you are still asleep."
She left.
Urgency in every step.
---
Alone.
Daehyun forced himself to breathe. In. Out. Ignore the pain. Ignore the panic. Think.
Okay. Okay. He was not home. He was not in his body. He was in someone else's room, in someone else's body, and a servant had just called him young master, and he knew that name, he knew that name from a novel, from Blood and Steel, from the story he had been reading when the light came.
That was insane. Impossible. Delusional.
Then he saw it.
At the edge of his vision. Faint blue light. Translucent. Like a game UI hovering in the air.
He blinked.
It stayed.
--
[Name]: Leon Ardent
[Mana Core Rank]: E
[Attributes]
Strength: E
Agility: E
Endurance: E
Intelligence: A
Charm: B
Mana: E
[Skills]
Cognitive Acceleration
--
He waved his hand through it. His fingers passed through the light like it was nothing. Like it was not even there.
"What..."
Then the memories hit.
Not his.
Fragments. Sensations. Images that belonged to someone else, flooding his brain without permission.
A brother with cold eyes. Taller. Older. Golden hair styled perfectly. A smirk that never reached his eyes. Marcus. His name was Marcus.
A father who looked through him like he was furniture. Harrison. Marquis Ardent. Distant. Tired. Always somewhere else.
A birthday. Today. His sixteenth birthday.
A public humiliation. Hours ago. In front of servants and visitors. Marcus's voice, loud enough for everyone to hear: "Worthless like your mother."
Laughter.
Pain.
Running to this room. Hiding. Crying. Falling asleep.
Daehyun's head pounded. The memories kept coming, too fast, too many, a lifetime of neglect and loneliness compressed into seconds.
Leon Ardent.
He knew the name. He had read it. A background extra. A footnote. The younger brother of a minor arc villain who existed only to lose to Elijah Flores and get kicked out.
Blood and Steel.
The novel. His novel. The one he stayed up reading. The one with the update he never got to see.
He died.
And he woke up inside the story.
---