"…Huh?" I mumbled, my voice barely more than a whisper, swallowed by the void around me.
The darkness peeled away, like curtains being drawn, and suddenly I was… somewhere. Not a street, not a room—just an endless, barren stretch of nothingness that seemed to stretch beyond forever. The air was cold, but not in any way I could describe. It was like the chill seeped straight into my bones, reminding me I was alive… or at least, I thought I was.
My hands trembled as I lifted them into view. Pale. Shaking. They didn't even feel like mine. Who am I? The question tore through my head like a knife. I searched my mind, clawing for memories, but everything was smoke and static. No name, no face—just emptiness.
Panic clawed at my chest. My breath quickened, uneven, every inhale scraping against a growing sense of dread. Where the fuck am I? What happened to me?
And then—
Words.
Floating right in front of me, glowing faintly in the darkness. Letters stitched together from light itself, hanging in the air like some cruel joke.
My throat tightened. "What… what the hell is this?
Gamer's Mind Activated
[Gamer's Mind Activated]
Gamer's Mind (Passive): Allows the Gamer to remain calm, suppress unnecessary emotions, and analyze everything around them with clarity.
"…The hell?"
And as if on cue, the storm inside me quieted.
The panic clawing at my chest evaporated, leaving nothing but stillness in its wake. My heart slowed. My breathing fell into rhythm. My thoughts, once scattered and frantic, aligned themselves into perfect order, each idea sharp and clear, as though my brain had been polished into a machine built for logic.
But there was something off.
I wasn't just calm—no, that word was too gentle. This wasn't peace. This was emptiness.
I realized, with a start, that I didn't feel anything. No fear, no relief, not even curiosity—just the awareness of what those emotions should have been, like looking at a painting and only seeing the outlines with all the colors stripped away.
I knew I had been panicked moments ago. I could recall what fear felt like. I could label it, analyze it, dissect it. But the emotion itself was gone, distant, as if behind glass.
I wasn't out of control. In fact, I was perfectly in control—perhaps more than ever. Yet the lack of feeling made everything surreal, like I was a spectator inside my own head, watching myself function without the usual noise of being human.
Efficient. Clinical. Empty.
Gamer's Mind huh? Like… those in "The Gamer"? In… my previous life?
I froze. Wait. Previous life?
The thought slipped out so naturally that it took me a second to even process it. My brow furrowed as I tried to untangle it. Did I… transmigrate? Or reincarnate? Like in those novels I somehow know about?
That's the weirdest part. I shouldn't know any of this. I have no memories, no concrete experiences to draw from. And yet the concepts—"games," "systems," "previous life," even "reincarnation"—they feel familiar. Natural. Like instincts carved into me before I ever opened my eyes here.
I ran a hand down my face and let out a groan. "Arghhh… this is so damn complicated."
Still, beneath the confusion, the calmness of Gamer's Mind kept me from spiraling. No panic. No breakdown. Just steady, clear thinking—whether I liked it or not.
I let out a long sigh. "Whatever… sitting here thinking in circles won't get me anywhere."
After what felt like minutes of contemplation, I realized the obvious: overanalyzing with zero information was pointless. I had no memories, no answers, just questions stacked on questions. And questions without data? Nothing but dead ends.
That conclusion wasn't mine alone—it was Gamer's Mind, whispering in the back of my head, streamlining my thoughts. Stop wasting energy. Gather information first. Then analyze.
Efficient. Cold. Logical.
And, annoyingly enough… correct.
And so, I moved.
I stepped forward onto the endless stretch of white, snow stretching out in every direction like a blank canvas with no horizon. The wind howled, sharp and merciless, each gust biting into my skin as if to carve me apart. The cold wasn't just in the air—it seeped into me, crawling past skin, past muscle, straight into bone.
Any ordinary person would have curled up, trembling, desperate to escape the frost's embrace.
But me?
I shrugged it off as if it were nothing, a courtesy of Gamer's Mind. The chill registered—I knew it was dangerous, knew hypothermia was no joke—but the fear, the desperation, the urge to panic… they were absent. All that remained was calculation. Endure. Move. Survive.
First step. Second. Third.
Each step followed the last with mechanical precision, leaving shallow imprints in the snow behind me. No direction. No map. No clue where I was heading.
Only one goal: to walk straight. To find something.
A place that could shield me from the biting wind. A cave, a hut, the ruins of some forgotten building—anything that could protect me from this merciless cold. Four walls, a roof, and even the faintest promise of warmth… that was all I needed.
No grand purpose. No destiny waiting to unfold. At that moment, survival was the only quest that mattered.
I walked.
And walked.
And walked.
The endless white stretched on without end, each step sinking into the snow like it wanted to swallow me whole. The land was a vast, suffocating plain, an ocean of snow so thick and deep it erased all sense of direction. Every gust of wind lifted flurries into the air, stinging my face and blurring the horizon into a shifting haze of white.
Far in the distance, dark silhouettes clawed up toward the gray sky—mountains, their jagged edges softened by the thick blanket of snow clinging to them. They seemed impossibly far away, more illusion than salvation, painted shadows against a canvas of storm and frost.
Occasionally, the flat expanse gave way to low snowdrifts and rolling hills, their soft curves like waves frozen mid-crash. Each step across them dragged at my legs, the snow swallowing me up to the shin, sucking away what little strength I had left.
Frozen trees stood scattered here and there, their branches heavy with frost, bent and brittle. They looked less like living things and more like gravestones, silent sentinels marking a land abandoned by warmth.
And so I moved. Forward. Always forward.
Step after step, hour after hour, the snow crunched beneath my boots in a rhythm that never changed. The land around me remained the same no matter how far I walked—white plains, scattered drifts, the faint silhouettes of mountains that never seemed any closer. It was as if the world itself mocked me, trapping me in a frozen loop with no progress, no destination.
My legs grew heavier with every stride, each movement a battle. My shoulders sagged beneath a weight that wasn't there, the invisible burden of exhaustion pressing down harder than the cold itself. Time blurred—minutes, hours, I couldn't tell anymore. The sun hid behind a ceiling of endless gray, offering no clue of day or night.
But I kept walking. Not because of hope, not because of courage—because Gamer's Mind left me no other option. No despair. No panic. Just the logic: move forward, endure, survive.
When it felt like forever—when my mind was on the verge of fading completely—
A voice rang out.
"Well, what do we have here? Might've been hell for you to get this far, eh?"
It was feminine, smooth, and oddly playful, yet beneath it lingered a depth of wisdom that didn't belong to youth. Not old, not frail—just… timeless.
Rationality screamed at me not to trust it. Strangers mean danger. Unknowns are threats. That was the logical conclusion.
And yet… something in that voice tugged at me, warming the frozen corners of my chest. A comfort I couldn't explain, a familiarity tied to someone I could no longer remember. Whoever she was, her voice reached me in a way nothing else had since I woke in this place.
And then—
Darkness spread from the corners of my vision, swallowing everything. My body gave in at last, collapsing into the snow.
The final thing I heard before the void claimed me was the chime of the system, cold and indifferent:
Ding!
[Cold Resistance +1]
End