*"In a world where everything seems perfect, some prisons are invisible."*
Seoul shone brightly behind the penthouse's floor-to-ceiling windows. Daiki Ren gazed out over the city from the forty-seventh floor, but he would have given anything to be on the streets with ordinary people. Those who chose their lives.
At eighteen, he was what society called "a role model." A Japanese-sounding name inherited from his Tokyo-born mother, a pharmaceutical fortune from his Korean father, and an education in the best private schools. Everything was calibrated, programmed, perfect.
And that was exactly the problem.
Even his martial arts club was merely an imposed family tradition. Generation after generation, the Ren men practiced taekwondo and then iaido to "honor both cultures." He excelled, of course. He excelled at everything. But had he ever had a choice?
His room was a museum: swords, certificates, golden trophies lined up like soldiers. Everything was there to prove his worth. But locked, figuratively speaking. Because Daiki wasn't allowed to express what he really felt.
Evenings were the worst. Business dinners where he played the perfect son, conversations about his "promising" future in the family empire, forced smiles in front of guests who saw him only as a well-behaved heir.
He escaped at night, when the family tower emptied of its icy discipline. It was on an underground forum that he discovered Genesis: The Eternal Hunt. Total cognitive immersion, artificial intelligence generating quests on the fly, almost infinite freedom of action.
It wasn't just a game. It was an outlet. A world where social rules, expectations, and status were erased.
Without telling his parents, Daiki purchased a capsule through an offshore company. He had it delivered to a disused warehouse belonging to the family, near the Han River. No one would come looking for him there.
His avatar would not bear his name. He would not be noble, disciplined, or "exemplary." He would be raw, instinctive, unpredictable. A free warrior, without ties or burdens.
As he adjusted the capsule's settings, his hands trembled slightly. Not with fear, but with excitement. For the first time in his life, he would be able to be himself.
He didn't yet know that thousands of kilometers away, a young Beninese man was doing exactly the same thing for opposite reasons. One was fleeing wealth, the other poverty. One was seeking freedom, the other elevation.
In Genesis, two souls that were polar opposites were about to meet. And their collision would change the world. All worlds.