The time has stopped. All around me, I could see giant statues and one of them was swinging its weapon to hit me directly.

My heart was racing, and I felt pain all over my body. In my vision, a strange message was floating by.

[Completion requirements for the 'Secret Quest': Courage of the Powerless' have been met.]

[You have acquired the rights to become a Player. Will you accept?]

I knew the translucent blue screen very well. I understood what was happening.

[There is not enough time left for you to make your decision. Your heart will cease functioning precisely 0.02 seconds after you refuse to accept. Will you accept?]

'Damn it, I accept! '

With no time to think about it, I accepted.

Then I lost consciousness.

####

"Hey, Will, what are you doing?" A man approached me. His name is Yoonsung. He's a friend of mine from college who lives in the same apartment as me. I'm currently studying at the University of Tokyo.

I had just finished a project in the library and was about to leave when he approached me.

"I'm going home."

"Let's go together then. Aren't you hungry? We can stop by the convenience store and buy a lunchbox. I'm too tired to prepare anything when we get home."

"Sure, let's go."

We walked together and passed a busy intersection.

We bought two very large lunchboxes and returned to our apartment, which was less than 20 square meters. We shared a room with two beds.

There was no space for a computer, so I used a notebook when I needed to surf the internet.

My biggest hobbies are anime and manhwa.

I met Yoonsung long ago on the internet because of Korean novels and manhwas. We were part of the same community, and when I moved to Japan, he moved here too.

It was a coincidence.

If you're wondering where I'm from, I used to live in the United States. My mother is Japanese, and my father is a native of the United States. I was born in Japan and taken to the United States when I was two.

I came back here three years ago.

Unlike me, Yoonsung has Korean parents, although he is fluent in Japanese like me.

"The anime is good, but I still prefer the manhwa."

I had just finished episode seven of Solo leveling. As soon as I'd finished, I lay down to sleep.

'Seriously, it's so tiring. I do nothing but study and watch or read something before sleeping. Nothing different happens in my life. It's so monotonous.'

"Will, are you going to sleep already?"

"Did something happen?"

"Look at that." Yoonsung pointed to the window.

I could see a light rapidly approaching our apartment on the fourth floor. The light flashed wildly, and I felt like time had stopped momentarily.

BOOM~~

Breaaaakk~~

Boom~~

BOOOMM~~

Several sounds of explosions reached my ears.

I could see Yoonsung's body being torn to pieces and everything around me being destroyed. The building disappeared, and the giant plane that had crashed into the building turned into nothing.

I was still in the air without any injuries. I can't understand what's happening. What the hell is this?

I could hear screams as people burned among the rubble and pieces of the plane.

I could see people being torn apart by the impact.

Cold sweat poured down my body, and tears lit up in my eyes.

Then, I felt my body being torn apart.

When I blinked, I could see many statues and that nostalgic screen that I remembered seeing a lot of times—in the manhwa and the anime adaptation.

####

When I opened my eyes, I was in a hospital room.

Unlike Sung Jin Woo, I was pretty calm. The only thing on my mind were the grotesque scenes I had seen when that plane crashed into the building where I lived.

'Yoosung's body...' What the fuck, how could that happen?

My heart is racing, and I'm sweating non-stop while those images are still in my mind.

'I died... Yoonsung died... And now I'm in Sung Jin Woo's body? What the fuck?'

I pulled the blanket off me and stood up. Immediately, my legs felt weak, and I almost fell over. I leaned on the small table next to the bed in the room, and a loud sound was made, drawing the nurses' attention.

"Mr. Sung, what are you doing? You need to rest!"

A nurse grabbed me and tried to take me back to bed.

"Let me go. I don't want to stay in this place!" I shouted at her.

Soon after, more nurses began to appear. Among them was a man.

"Hold him down, put him back in bed. Mr. Sung, calm down!"

"You need to calm down. It's okay!"

"Please, you need to lie down!"

Listening to all the nurses, I lay back on the bed. For some reason, I had lost my mind.

'This can't be happening...'

Two men entered the room when everything had calmed down, and the nurses had left. They were two men from the hunters' association that I know very well. They are the same ones who came to check on Jin-Woo in the original story.

Woo Jin-cheol and the other one, I've forgotten his name. They appeared earlier than I remembered.

Woo Jin-Cheol is an A-rank hunter.

They entered quietly, and Cheol took a chair and put it next to my bed. I didn't look him in the eye and turned my face away, still thinking about the scene I had seen before I died and ended up in this place.

Cheol seemed a little annoyed.

"Mr. Sung, you-"

"I've been unconscious for four days."

"Huh?" Cheol's eyebrows rose.