“What is this?”
Staring at the hologram-like image floating right in front of me, I was completely stunned.
The text inside the transparent window was so densely packed that no ordinary human could read it clearly, no matter how many times they closed and opened their eyes.
“No matter how advanced and convenient the world gets, isn’t this something you only see in games or anime?”
It sounded ridiculous, but I carefully read the text displayed before me.
Name: Kim Solo
Race: Human
Achievement: None
Level: 1
Stats: Strength 10, Agility 10, Stamina 10, Mana 10
“This is obviously a status window. A game’s status window at that.”
No matter how many times I looked again, it was unmistakably a game’s status window.
Beyond the transparent hologram, I began to recognize one thing after another.
There were buildings that looked straight out of the medieval era, and the large fountain right in the middle of the Central Plaza was surprisingly familiar.
“Is that a castle in the distance?”
It felt oddly familiar, like a scene from an 800-level game.
There I was, standing alone in the middle of the Central Plaza.
“But where is this? Who am I? Where am I? Why am I here…?”
A flood of questions arose in my mind.
But the questions only lasted for a moment.
“Ugh…”
A sudden, piercing pain shot through my head, as if someone was stabbing a sharp needle deep inside, splitting my brain apart.
‘What the hell kind of pain is this? Damn it!’
I clenched my teeth and endured the agony, praying for it to end.
When the pain finally subsided, I realized something.
“I’m… dead.”
I was dead.
***
My name is Kim Han Sol.
A 30-year-old ordinary man working for a small-to-medium-sized company, living a monotonous life day by day.
I went to work at the same time every day, took breaks at fixed times, ate meals regularly, and left work on schedule.
The only hope and joy I had in my life was playing an online game after work.
It was a game I had been playing for a full ten years—no new players, but enough existing players to keep it alive.
I was even considered a Guild Elder on the server, and it usually took about twenty minutes to exchange greetings with other players after logging in.
After ten long years, a new package was finally released.
Not just a typical six-star character, but a paid character with three special skills.
As expected from a game with veteran players, the balance was completely broken, and character synergy was nonexistent.
But!
As a veteran player, there was no way I wasn’t going to buy it.
After purchasing the package, I logged in with the new character, moved to the Central Plaza, and headed toward a nearby convenience store to kill time.
Passing by a construction site, I suddenly got crushed by a collapsing building.
‘I’m dead. That’s for sure.’
That’s what I thought.
But I was alive.
Here I was, alive.
At that moment, sounds came from around me.
Murmurs, whispers.
Everyone’s eyes were on me, kneeling down in the middle of the plaza, letting out groans.
Judging by their looks, they seemed to think I was either strange or crazy.
‘Well, let’s sit down somewhere and think this through.’
I looked around for a place to sit.
Still clutching my aching head, I dragged my barely functional legs to escape the gazes of people around me.
Thud.
I sat down on one of the many benches facing the Central Plaza fountain.
“Okay, let’s think again.”
Pressing hard on my temples with my fingers, I tried to organize the chaos in my head.
I had indeed died by accident.
But after death, I was revived as the paid game character I had purchased before dying.
And not in my original world, but in an entirely different world—the Creseria Continent.
‘This is insane…’
As soon as I accepted that I had come to this world, fragments of new memories flashed through my mind.
“Shin Yu Sik…”
One of the three gods who oversee this world, the god who listens to wishes and grants them.
He had told me he would grant my wish.
‘Well, even if it was a wish, when I was a kid, everyone dreamed about becoming the best in a game world, right? But no one actually expects that to become real!’
When I first started the game, I had similar thoughts.
It was a world with stunning scenery and beautiful aesthetics.
“Of course, reality was boring and dull, so I sometimes thought if I could be reborn, I wanted to be someone extraordinary.”
That was a thought any modern office worker would have had.
And of course, it applied to me as well.
‘But seriously, why me?’
My thoughts were tangled.
No matter how much I thought about it, I was nothing special, nor was I particularly skilled.
Lost in my complicated thoughts, I gazed blankly ahead and noticed my status window was still floating.
‘If there’s a status window, then there should be a skill window too, right?’
Naturally, I summoned the skill window in my mind.
And it appeared before my eyes.
Skills
Language Mastery (MAX)
Mental Strength (MAX)
Transcendental Health Regeneration (Lv.1)
Transcendental Mana Recovery (Lv.1)
Genius Talent (Lv.1)
“Hmm..”
Instead of the expected three skills, there were five.
The original three—Transcendental Health Regeneration, Transcendental Mana Recovery, and Genius Talent—made sense.
But the two new skills were absolutely astonishing.
‘Well, if I’d been dropped into a place where no language is understood, I suppose this much consideration is necessary.’
If the gods had dropped me here without this, I’d have to rethink my whole faith.
‘What is Mental Strength?’
It was something I couldn’t even begin to imagine.
Naturally, my gaze shifted downward to look at the original three skills.
“This explains why the balance is broken.”
Honestly, starting with those three ridiculous skills was insane.
Transcendental Regeneration.
While an average character regenerates 1 stamina per minute, this character recovered 1 every 10 seconds.
What’s more astonishing is that this was at skill level 1—at MAX, it would regenerate every second.
It meant I had the healing speed of a Troll.
Alongside that insane stamina regeneration was mana recovery.
To put it simply:
‘As long as I’m awake, I won’t die, and with overflowing mana, I can spam skills to my heart’s content and hunt endlessly.’
What’s more, this game didn’t have jobs.
All skills could be learned regardless of profession, and skills linked by proficiency could be learned or acquired.
As long as you had the ability, anything was possible.
‘I could be a magic swordsman wielding a sword and magic, a spirit swordsman fighting alongside spirits, a spirit mage, or even a blacksmith swordsman.’
With enough time, you could learn anything. My growth depended entirely on my effort.
‘The problem is, if you don’t use level 1 skills for a long time, they disappear.’
Of course, it didn’t matter if the skill was useless, but if it was a linked skill, losing it meant you couldn’t use other skills either.
‘But!’
This character, obviously created to wreck balance and drain money from remaining players, completely removed such restrictions.
Not only that, the skill proficiency grew over five times faster than any existing character.
‘That’s the Genius Talent skill.’
In other words, if I had time and effort, I could become insanely powerful.
“Hah…”
I sighed deeply.
Looking around, the sun was slowly setting.
I watched people linger around the plaza before gradually dispersing.
“So… I died and came back to life?”
I wondered why my life had to get this twisted.
I understood that this was a case where I somehow entered this world with overpowered abilities like in the novels I read when bored of games.
But I never expected it to happen to me.
“I never even asked for this.”
Well, maybe I did.
Since it was free after all.
Part of me kept denying it even as I thought about it.
“Alright, since I’ve already died and come back once… let’s live it up here.”
I made that decision.
“Hah…”
But I couldn’t stop sighing.
My pounding headache annoyed me still.
“Let’s just rest a bit.”
I slumped into the chair and tried to cool my head.
***
I’m not sure how much time had passed, but one thing was clear—the number of people around had decreased, so night had fallen deeply.
“Alright, let’s live. Since I’m here with my knowledge, at least it’s not like I’m starting from scratch—I can survive.”
Having confirmed the status window and skill window, the last thing I needed to check was the Inventory.
Thanks to the package bonus, my inventory was fully unlocked from the start, so I wasn’t worried.
I checked the items inside.
1 Gold
One Longsword
One Shield
One Grade-D Mercenary Badge
I was wearing Leather Boots, Leather Armor Top, and Leather Armor Bottom.
“It’s simple but the most basic set.”
The basic set given to every new character—useful for now, but usually discarded shortly after.
There were no set effects, so I needed to upgrade as soon as I earned money.
“Still, this world… I wish it was at least a game world I knew.”
I recalled information about the world.
There was no information about the Creseria Continent itself, but some basic economic data emerged.
The economy here used coins made of Gold, Silver, and Copper.
1 Copper was worth roughly 100 won.
100 Copper made 1 Silver, worth about 10,000 won.
Collect 100 Silver, and you’d have 1 Gold, worth about 1 million won.
“About a million won… so unless I’m eating at a high-end hotel or dining fancy, I should be able to live for a while.”
A hard grain bread—the staple food for commoners—cost about 10 Copper.
Munsup—a kind of food bundle eaten together—cost another 10 Copper, so a meal was around 20 Copper, or roughly 2,000 won.
A decent inn cost 5 Silver per night, so I had enough money in my inventory to survive for now.
“If you’re going to give info, then give it all. If this is a game character, shouldn’t I at least have a minimap or world map? Shin, you’re really making things inconvenient.”
Annoyingly, I had to find places by walking on foot.
Fortunately, I had the Mercenary Badge, which functioned as an ID here, so I wouldn’t be treated like a suspicious person no matter where I went.
“Wait, my name is Kim Solo? What if they see that name stuck on my Mercenary Badge? What am I supposed to do?”
My complaints about the gods grew steadily, but the important thing now was to survive this night and fill my empty stomach.
“Is there a cheap but decent inn nearby?”
I looked around and started walking.