At first, he was mistaken, partly due to the existence of Martial Arts.
He thought some strange phenomenon had occurred in Murim Online because of a game bug.
However.
After weeks of observation, Dong Bongsu became certain that it was not the case.
This place was real.
He was certain.
There was no longer any room for doubt.
He couldn't figure out the principle behind how he had come to this place, but the fact that this place was real was absolutely undeniable.
He felt pain, he was vividly alive and moving, and he was exuding a raw wildness.
So much so that it was hard to suppress the urge to kill Machil every time he saw him.
Was Machil a Player? Or an NPC (Non Player Character)?
Of course, he was neither.
He had met several people here.
The first was Machil, and occasionally, Machil brought others with him.
They would mount their horses with lightning-fast movements and disappear from the stable.
Each time, Dong Bongsu checked their eyes.
It was to see if they had emotions or not.
Everyone was alive and moving with their own emotions.
There was no way those with such eyes could be NPCs.
Then what about him? What was he? A human? A Player? Was he even alive?
Dong Bongsu didn't know either.
He was just certain of one thing: he was different from the others here.
He moved like a human, just like them, but there was a crucial difference.
It was those hologram words, 'Murim Online'.
In other words, he, Dong Bongsu, was 'Half-Man, Half-Character'.
He had the ability to open all the windows that were available in Murim Online, such as the Status Window, Skill Window, Inventory, and Map.
However, not all functions were working properly.
Most of the windows were displayed with a '?' due to errors, and the only window that worked 100% correctly was the Inventory window.
He still didn't know how to use any window besides the Inventory.
That was something he planned to figure out gradually.
After all, just as it said Lv.1 in the status window, he was still just a Level 1 Beginner.
Dong Bongsu slowly raised his upper body.
The wound on his chest throbbed, but not so much that he couldn't move.
He slowly unwound the straw rope that was pressing against his chest.
Then, he scraped the rice gruel off the rope and put it back into the bowl.
It was still hot, burning his hands and chest, but he paid it no mind.
Once most of the gruel was back in the bowl, he lifted it and poured the contents into his mouth in one go.
It was food worse than what dogs ate on Modern Earth, but Dong Bongsu didn't mind.
To him, food had always been something to eat simply to live, not something to be enjoyed for its taste.
To him, the best food was a nutritionally balanced diet.
In that respect, this gruel was the worst possible food.
It had almost no calories.
It would take a long time to fully recover his health by eating something like this.
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So, he had prepared other food for a quick recovery.
"Inventory."
A translucent Inventory hologram appeared before his eyes.
In truth, this Inventory was also quite different from the one in the original Murim Online.
The original Inventory window was a slot-based system where one item went into one slot.
But.
Here, it had changed from a slot-based system to a space-based one.
The current Inventory allowed Dong Bongsu to examine every nook and cranny inside as his hand moved.
The inside of the Inventory was incredibly spacious.
He wouldn't know the exact size until he filled it up, but he thought it was at least a hundred pyeong.
This was the first rule of this new 'game' that he had figured out.
Inside the Inventory were hundreds of ants, dozens of fly larvae---that is, maggots---and hundreds of other nameless insects.
That's right.
The food he had prepared for a quick recovery was insects.
Insects took up little space and were very high in protein.
Wasn't that why they were hailed as the food of the future on Modern Earth?
With the same amount of feed, one could raise several times more insects than cows or pigs, and their nutritional value was far superior to that of cows or pigs of the same volume.
Naturally, to Dong Bongsu, insects were excellent food.
Low volume, high protein.
That was all the explanation needed for insects.
Without hesitation, he took out all the insects from the Inventory.
Not caring about the type, he grabbed a handful and tossed them into his mouth.
Crunch.
An unpleasant sound echoed in the stable, but that was by a normal person's standards; to Dong Bongsu, it was nothing.
For a while, Dong Bongsu shut down his brain activity and focused on eating.
All of this was also proof that this world he was in, while a game, was also not a game.
In a game, you couldn't eat food, have bowel movements, or have genitals.
But for the past two weeks, since waking up here, he had eaten gruel and insects every single day, and had defecated and urinated.
He even got an erection every morning without fail.
"New Murim Online."
This was the name Dong Bongsu had given this 'game'.
As mentioned before, he didn't know where this place was.
But he clearly remembered the last words of the Murim Online operator.
> [SYSTEM MESSAGE]
> We hope you have a pleasant time with Murim Online...
They told me to enjoy it, so I will.
Dong Bongsu had no lingering attachments to the real world.
The comfortable mechanized civilization, the glamorous material civilization, the forest of gray buildings, the world of super-high-speed fiber-optic internet.
All such things were meaningless to him.
As long as he could maintain his own unique hobbies, he didn't care what world he was in.
Above all, he liked this world.
Unbefitting the clear air, this place seemed to be a heartless world.
The movements of Machil and a few others, and the Martial Artists he occasionally saw.
From all of that, he could get a glimpse of this world's ruthlessness and the law of Survival of the Fittest.
Here, wouldn't he be able to indulge in his hobbies to his heart's content? No, in the first place, there was no need to hide his true nature.
Because predators like himself were likely roaming freely in the jungle called Jianghu out there.
Thus, he named this place 'New Murim Online'.
A game for true predators, New Murim Online.
Dong Bongsu slowly got up.
He could feel his ribs rattling, but he stood up from his spot as carefully as possible.
There must still be many insects hiding in the stable.
Each and every one of them would be used to help his recovery.
Perhaps Dong Bongsu's insect consumption would not stop until every last insect in this place was gone.
Squeak, squeak.
As he caught insects with slow movements, rats came into his view.
If only he could catch a rat, he would be able to recover his health much faster.
But with a body that still didn't move as he wished, he couldn't catch the nimble, fleeing rats.
If he could catch a rat, he might be able to figure out a new rule of New Murim Online.
According to his experiments, killing insects, no matter how many, didn't raise his Experience Points.
But a rodent the size of a rat might affect his Experience Points.
But it was still impossible.
The moment he realized he still couldn't catch a rat, he stopped all his actions.
Dong Bongsu was not foolish enough to waste energy on something that wouldn't work.
There was nothing more for him to do in this filthy stable.
He let go of all his thoughts and fell asleep.
If he ate well and slept well, he would probably be able to recover his health completely within a few weeks.
From then on, he would be able to start exploring New Murim Online more seriously.
Before long, the stable was once again filled only with the quiet whinnying of horses.
A few weeks later, Dong Bongsu had almost fully recovered his health.
It was now to the point where his activities were not greatly hindered.
His chest still ached a little whenever he moved, but he could carry on with his daily life.
Nevertheless, when it was time for Machil to come, he would invariably lie down with the straw rope wrapped around his chest.
This was because he was not yet ready to go outside.
There was too much to learn: the language, customs, geography, and culture of this place.
The biggest problem was that 'this body' was still weak.
Dong Bongsu of Modern Earth was a powerhouse in that world, armed with various martial arts and all sorts of knowledge.
Then what about this body?
So-sam, the previous owner of this flesh, was from the lowest class of this world called Jianghu and had nothing, and his body was also insignificant.
It might have been tempered by various forms of labor, but due to hardship, various parts of his body were actually quite damaged.
Until he solved these problems, he had no intention of leaving this place, the Danri Family.
If he went out into the world called Jianghu in his current state, it would be difficult to guarantee his survival.
Dong Bongsu was not reckless enough to throw himself into an uncertain situation.
Even so, he couldn't just lie here indefinitely.
If he continued to be of no help to the family like this, he would eventually be cast out.
He had to hold on just enough not to let that happen.
Bide his time, but do not get kicked out.
During that time, he also had to gradually figure out the New Murim Online system.
He hadn't found out much yet.
What he had discovered was all related to the Inventory.
The other windows were still hiding themselves in armor of '?'.
Perhaps they would shed their clothes one by one as he leveled up.
But he couldn't be certain that would be the case.
In the worst-case scenario, everything besides the Inventory could be useless.
In that case, he would have to find another way to become stronger.
New Murim Online's First Law: The Inventory is not slot-based, but space-based.
The space is in the shape of a one-hundred-pyeong cube with equal width, length, and height.