The strange phenomena had started exactly three years ago—starting not long after he’d been sucked into the game.
From then on, localized climate changes of unknown cause were observed all over the world, and at the same time, buildings and natural environments with unclear origins popped up out of nowhere.
The locations varied wildly too—some were right in the middle of cities, and some were deep in remote mountain backwoods where it was hard for people to even travel.
The newly formed places were blocked off as if by some kind of barrier, making it impossible to enter, but human curiosity wasn’t something anyone could suppress.
Naturally, even though no one knew what they were, every country poured huge capital into them and kept trying to get inside, pushing past repeated failures.
Then, as if they’d been waiting for it, a few unusual individuals started appearing among people—people who claimed they’d been dragged into something like a game or a novel for years and then returned.
Of course, at first the public didn’t pay attention to such far-fetched claims.
But magic, martial arts, psychic powers, and even abilities no one could explain. Powers that looked like they belonged only in all kinds of content were actually unfolding from their hands.
And most importantly, only people with abilities could enter those abnormal regions and bring back new resources from inside.
From that point on, the world was completely flipped upside down. After that, on top of the first abnormal regions, instant Gates started popping up like mushrooms after rain, and monsters that burst out because they couldn’t be dealt with, and accidents. Like that, countless people died.
And then those ability-users started stepping up again.
In that era of chaos, they became, in an instant, idols people admired—or vicious criminals. People started calling them, all together, by the name Hunters.
“But after a while, Hunters started appearing without any dream-like abnormal phenomenon, and the Age of Great Hunters unfolded…. Jesus. This isn’t even a comic.”
Jeong Sihyun snorted at these ridiculous stories, but deep down, it bothered him, because what he’d gone through seemed like it had to be connected to all of this.
Possession, or whether you had an ability or not.
“But people say they woke up like it was a dream and had abilities with no time delay, so why was I the only one with three years having passed?”
But there was one decisive difference. The time that had passed only for him.
And on top of that, other people usually experienced another world for at most one or two years, but he’d spent a full ten years there. His head got a mess.
Still, he could roughly tell that meant his skill level was in the upper ranks.
Even if the world changed, the pecking order made of money and power was similar everywhere, so he felt reassured that even in this flipped world, he wouldn’t get shoved around and die.
Of course, it was strange that his dantian had hardened, but he had experience. Sihyun believed that if he just looked into it a little, he’d be able to solve it quickly.
“Ah…. So there is a status window here too. And…. I should call it ‘stats,’ not a status window….”
[A new user has been confirmed.]
[Error! Error!]
[An unexpected user has been added. Re-scanning.]
[Configuration error. Readjusting stats.]
“Ghk! Wh-what the hell is—!”
At that moment, at the words Sihyun had carelessly let out while looking at his phone screen, familiar blue translucent System Windows started popping up in a swarm as if they’d been waiting.
And then, in an instant, a chill like all the blood was draining out of his body, and pain so intense his hands and feet trembled, came rushing in.
“Hngh! My dantian!”
With a groan full of pain, Sihyun bent over sharply and clutched his abdomen.
At first, it felt like the pain was squeezing his whole body, but little by little it gathered into his lower belly. And the dantian that had been filled with the Demonic Cult’s distinctive dark, destructive internal energy started shrinking rapidly.
“Th-this… crazy…”
It was extreme pain, like living flesh being crazily carved to pieces.
Living in that world, he’d destroyed other people’s dantian plenty of times, but this was the first time he’d ever been harmed in his own. For a moment, he even found himself automatically feeling sorry toward the bastards whose dantian he’d destroyed with his own hands, thinking he’d been showing mercy.
“Guhk! Ngh!”
His limbs shaking violently, Sihyun finally collapsed face-down on the floor. Pain and resentment mixed into a mess, and small tears formed at the corners of his eyes.
Ten minutes passed like that.
After a while, Sihyun—who’d endured the pain to the end, half-losing consciousness—twitch-moved his body that had been slumped and sprawled out.
The pain vanished in an instant, but his whole body felt limp, and his limbs were unbearably heavy, like he had one-ton weights strapped to them.
And in an instant, he understood the situation. In the end, he’d returned to a body no different from an ordinary person’s.
“Th-this… fuck!!! What the hell is your problem with me!!”
He felt wronged. Nothing ever worked out, and if this was how it was going to be, he should’ve just stayed there with Taewoon and eaten and played and lazed around for the rest of his life.
But then when he thought about it again, wasn’t even leaving something he’d come over because of the system’s coercion and threats? His blood pressure shot up and his anger burst out.
Just then, his vision flashed slightly, and a familiar stat window rose up in front of his eyes.
Jeong Sihyun [One Who Splits the World (S)]
Title [Beginning of Ruin]
Health-10
Strength-10
Agility-10
Intelligence-10
Inner Power-10
Luck-5
“…What’s with the title. This kind of thing didn’t exist.”
Still sprawled on the floor, Sihyun only moved his eyes to look at the status window, and lightly furrowed his brow. That name that felt ominous as hell—what the hell was it? It left a bad taste in his mouth for no reason.
And if it was a title, normally it would come with bonus stats, but no matter how much he shouted things like “title” or “bonus stats,” nothing got explained—only stiff letters floated there.
He’d hoped, but of course, this world’s status window was just as crappy and unfriendly as before.
In the end, after a few tries, Sihyun gave up on figuring it out quickly, lowered his gaze, and stared with sad eyes at the pitiful stats that had dropped to not even ten percent of what they were.
What was the point of having an S. My stats were on the floor.
“Haah…. And what’s with Luck 5….”
And as his gaze went further down, the Luck stat—subtly lower than the others—made the uncomfortable feeling weigh even heavier. If you were going to adjust it, you could’ve just set everything to 10. It felt like it was mocking him.
Still, even so, the fact that the Inner Power stat remained was a huge relief.
If this place was also made of a system like the game, then just building that damn stat category itself would’ve meant rolling around like hell.
When he was first dragged into the game world, he didn’t know anything and had to follow the quests pouring down—he’d suffered so much he felt like he might cough up blood.
“Ugh, thinking about it makes me feel like puking again….”
Just thinking about back then made him feel like he’d take mental damage, so Sihyun hurriedly tapped his head and stopped reminiscing.
Then, still letting his drained body hang limp, Sihyun rolled on the floor, and soon pushed himself up and started sitting in a cross-legged meditation posture.
Maybe because he’d trained every single day for ten years without missing a day, his posture settled as smoothly as flowing water, not a single inch out of place.
Sihyun took a deep breath in and let it out very slowly. Then, lowering his eyes, he began to observe his insides.
He’d been worried because of what had happened earlier, but thankfully, the dantian was in an extremely solid state, not shattered or damaged.
‘I’ll build it back up. This is actually better. I need to fix the mistakes I made at the beginning and complete my martial arts.’
At first he’d started with a crappy cultivation method, following quests when he didn’t know shit, but now his head was full of countless peerless martial arts, whether orthodox or Demonic Cult.
And even if he’d had the system’s help, he was a martial artist who’d stepped into the early stage of the Profound Realm. So retracing what was already in his head didn’t seem like it would be hard.
But after a while.
“…What the hell. Why is this so hard.”
Thirty minutes passed. This was a body that, if he got absorbed, could enter a state of selflessness for days and circulate energy, but his focus ended at a mere thirty minutes.
Of course, there were plenty of likely causes.
His stats had been reset? Or the ten years he’d spent there? Or maybe the gap with the three years that had passed in his original world.
The confidence that had surged up to the top of his head dropped, squirming down fast.
In the first place, he’d come back to reality with his goal gone and his willpower cut off. Honestly, it was just a habit from ten years of training, and it wasn’t an era where martial arts had to be strong like before, and naturally, giving up was very fast.
“Ah, fuck. I don’t know.”
Jeong Sihyun trudged over weakly and threw his body onto the bed.
A puff of white dust flared up.
“Cough cough! Ah!”
The inside of the house he’d left for three years wasn’t dirtier than he expected, but dust had piled up quite a bit.
Sneezing over and over at the dust invading his mouth and nose, Sihyun let out a deep sigh, thinking something extremely textbook-murim-like—that if someone even hit him with poison, he’d die on the spot. He should probably clean first.
“…Since Taewoon always took care of everything, I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do first, now.”
Truthfully, Sihyun had never, ever had talent for housework, and to reduce how often he had to clean, he didn’t even bring in random stuff in the first place.
Of course, when he was there, he had tried cooking with expensive ingredients because he wanted to make something delicious for Taewoon.
But what came out was some unknown expensive trash, and when he found a new place to stay, he’d once stepped up to decorate the room and ended up drilling a hole in the wall.
He’d tried in his own way, but after that, Taewoon never entrusted him with anything again, and naturally, that meant Sihyun was still the same.
“Ahem! Well, not everyone’s good at housework……. Haah, I miss Taewoon.”
Our cutie is living well, right?
He unified the Central Plains, so now he can eat some good food too! Date a woman too! That’d be nice.
He suddenly remembered that little brat calling him “brother” and following him around, then at some point switching to “Master” and trying to act grown-up.
Sihyun lay down on the floor where there was less dust, muttering to himself, and intermittently snickering.
But as time passed, the smile gradually disappeared.
“I’m lonely.”
He thought he used to live fine alone, but what was ten years, that the terrifyingly silent house felt unfamiliar.
If he just turned his eyes a little, it felt like his puppy-like disciple would be there, smiling brightly and asking if he was hungry. Or like he’d seriously ask if he was tired and say he’d massage his shoulders.
“I’m hungry and I’m tired.”
After entering the Flower Realm, he hadn’t felt something like energy depletion for years. That was why the current state was even harder to endure.
Sihyun shoved the dizzy situation off for later and let his body fall into the sleepiness that was crashing over him.
In an instant, his breathing sank low and became regular.
Ding-
[You are faintly connected to the Energy of Chaos.]
At that moment, a window rose up in front of Sihyun’s face and vanished.
Of course, Sihyun—who had fallen deeply asleep in an instant—couldn’t see it.