1.
After hastily eating breakfast, I ran to the capsule room.
Since it was also a holiday, the place was packed with people.
"Wow, this is the virtual-reality device? Damn, it looks sick."
"They say it only reproduces a tiny fraction of real sensation… but if it's legit, it's gonna be insane."
Crowds gathered around the streamlined white capsule that looked like it came straight from the future.
"Hyung, aren't there any seats for us?"
"Kid, use your eyes. Think there would be? We're struggling just handling the reservation customers."
"Pleeease. I really wanna try it—can't you do something?"
A few middle-schoolers clung to the part-timer, but there really were no seats.
"We have a reservation."
"Yes. What's your reservation number?"
I gave him my reservation number, and the part-timer guided me to my seat.
"Right this way."
"…Is this correct?"
In front of me was a black capsule.
Not the standard model, but the premium capsule.
"Yes, that's right. We don't have many of these in the whole capsule room—you're lucky with your reservation."
"Thank you."
The premium model was not only more comfortable, but it also increased physical efficiency, even if only slightly.
Considering you'd be lying down for hours, it was a significant advantage.
'A good start.'
Feeling refreshed, I lay down in the capsule.
8:50 a.m.
After going through familiar steps—biometric scan, account verification, and the rest—
9:00 a.m.
At last, I began that insane game again.
2.
— Swoooosh.
From a lofty height in the sky, the player's soul began its descent.
"Holy sh*t, this is crazy! Hahaha!"
"Yaaaaahooooo!"
"Trainee No. 11, jumping!"
"Yeong-mi, oppa's coming!!!"
All kinds of nonsense echoed around me.
The famous parachute-drop time!
A small event meant to make you feel like you'd arrived in another world.
People descended into the village square along with streaks of light.
— Welcome to the complete world, UNITY.
— [Episode 1: The City of Beginnings]
— A new land, and delightful adventures await all travelers.
— Pioneer, fight, and grow!
But no one had the attention span to listen to the messages.
"These sensations are for real? Damn, I thought the ads were lying."
"Forget graphics—how the hell did they reproduce touch and smell? It feels actually real."
"Hey, punch me once."
"Okay!"
Some friends were even smacking each other's cheeks in wholesome excitement.
"Honey, you look sooo beautiful today!"
"Really?"
"Of course~!"
"So that means I wasn't pretty in real life?"
"N-no, that's not what I meant—"
There was also an unbearably cringey couple exchanging incomprehensible banter.
"Heh heh, the world sure has improved."
"Dear, living long truly lets you witness all sorts of things."
An elderly couple leisurely enjoyed the sightseeing.
There were giggling little kids, high-schoolers burning with the desire to become heroes…
The square was packed with all kinds of beginners.
'At this stage, VR integration should only be around 3%.'
UNITY operated with a system where feature restrictions gradually unlocked as the episodes progressed.
At this current stage, the world was similar to reality but still clearly distinguishable.
Even so, people couldn't hide their awe and excitement.
But I was different.
'To me, all of this is real—no, even more than real.'
[Authority: Real Mode]
Realization of Reality
The boundary between reality and the game disappears.
Synchronization rate increases to the highest level.
Stat-growth rate rises explosively.
However, you cannot resurrect upon death.
(Locked)
(Locked)
The wind brushing past my cheek, the acacia-scented flowers filling the air—everything felt vivid.
No, thanks to the amplified synchronization, it felt more real than reality.
Of course, there weren't only good points.
'If I die, it's over.'
That didn't mean just my game character—It meant I would really die in real life.
This made the common strategy of challenging monsters, dying, learning from it, and trying again completely impossible.
'Harsh. But expected.'
Because I knew all too well how hard it would soon become just to raise a single stat point.
There were also other functionalities shown as locked.
'I've never heard of these. Worth investigating.'
Enjoying the more-real-than-real sensations, I left the square.
Right in front of it stretched a large shopping street.
"Wow, I can actually taste things."
"There's no way it has taste… damn it, it tastes good!"
"This is better than half the restaurants in real life."
Some happily enjoyed grilled skewers at street stalls.
"How much is this bread?"
"One silver."
"The starting settlement fund is 1 gold, so… wow, I can buy 100? That's cheap!"
"For a loaf this big? Wow, that's a steal, a STEAL."
Others enjoyed the aroma of freshly baked bread from a bakery.
'You, you, you…! Ugh. They don't even know how valuable their money is.'
I sighed in pity.
I knew too—how delicious that bread was.
But the price was far too expensive!
1 gold.
We call it "1 gold" for convenience, but in reality it was mostly brass, and the amount of actual gold—True Gold—was tiny.
A 1-gold coin contains only a tiny amount of True Gold.How much?
'About the size of a fingernail. No—more like the grime under a fingernail.'
And a 1-silver coin…?
'About as much as an ant's tear.'
And 1-copper?
'They just rubbed it against gold to get the smell on it.'
Paying 1/100 of that precious gold for a loaf of bread?
Do they even realize that a single meal now is equivalent to a whole house in the future?
The 1 gold jingling faintly in my pocket caught my eye.
'I'm never spending it.'
Grrrr.
I was hungry, but I held it in.
I needed to lose some weight anyway—perfect timing.
'If things get really bad, I can always hunt a rabbit or something…'
I spotted a hunting ground at the edge of the village.
"Hey, catch it, catch it!"
"That one! That one's ours!"
"What, is this your first game? First to get it wins."
Crowds rushed toward a few rabbits.
'What a peaceful sight.'
After the Great Upheaval, "hunting" meant risking your life for a sliver of experience—it was pure torture.
To someone like me, this scene was warm and heart-soothing.
Then it happened.
From a shadowy cave crawled a grimy-looking green creature.
"G-Goblin!"
"Finally, a monster!"
"Now it finally feels like a real game."
People swarmed toward it like hornets.
'Dear god… a Goblin!'
The Great Upheaval.
The Day of Great Integration.
I could never forget the overwhelming magic the Goblin Shaman had displayed.
With a wide-area flame spell, it had turned Seoul into a hell of fire in an instant.
How could a mere goblin do that?
'Because players weren't the only ones who grew.'
As the main episodes progressed, monsters grew as well.
Actually, monsters grew much faster.
It became common to see an Orc Warrior flipping a tank over its head.
Recalling the last Goblin Shaman I saw, I trembled.
It had slaughtered an entire apartment complex and, atop a mountain of corpses, let out grotesque laughter—a demon incarnate.
A memory etched as trauma, or PTSD.
And yet…
"Nice! Skull-crack!"
— Thwack!
Two little kids squashed it like a fly.
"Easy money!"
"LOL!"
The shocking sight froze me on the spot.
'E… elementary schoolers…?'
They looked maybe eight or nine years old.
Noticing my stunned expression, they proudly grinned at me before happily continuing their hunt.
"Skull-crack! Skull-crack!"
Do you kids even know what that means?Where that phrase even comes from?
I swallowed hard. Maybe I looked pitiful.
"Mister, this is easier than it looks."
One of the kids walked up to explain.
"There's a critical spot on the back of the head, and blunt weapons are better than swords…"
A kid who was maybe in second grade rattled off strategies.
Knowledge I had only learned through painful trial and error.
"H-how do you already know all that?"
"Mister, don't you watch YouTube? There are guides on the homepage too."
…Past me wasn't even on par with an elementary schooler.
— Thwack! Thwack!
The kids skillfully hunted rabbits and goblins.
If you're under 12, there's no pain and no graphic scenes.
Thanks to that, children could enjoy the game as a game.
"Kids, you got this!"
I cheered with a bright smile.
"Mister—uh, hyung, we'll count on your cheering!"
The future of Korea looked bright indeed.
"Aren't you going to hunt, hyung?"
"Hyung can't die."
"It's a game, so who cares? You can just redo it."
"He's right! There isn't even a resurrection penalty right now."
"Hahaha, thanks, but I'll pass."
Unlike them, if I died, I would really die.
And there was no way to grow properly in a place swarming with players.
I wasn't gifted physically to begin with.
My long years as a slave had weakened even my willpower.
Acknowledging my weaknesses, I thought of the only path left.
No matter what, I could never catch up to geniuses through normal means.
'I'll take the hidden path—the blocked path!'
I made a drastic plan.
For the sake of my parents' and my own happiness…
For a brilliant future…
I grabbed a shovel.
3.
The world is full of all kinds of people.
Among them was a curiosity-driven otaku who once dug up every nook and cranny of the starting village.
"I'll find it—Hidden Piece!"
"Hiiidden~ Piece! Hiiidden~ Piece!"
He sang weird songs as he dug the ground for over a year.
Turning the entire village into a construction zone didn't earn him any praise.
"What a nutcase."
"This is the beginner village—why would something like that be here?"
Most people mocked him.
But…
…It actually was there.
— The Golden Goblin's General Store!
A shop where all items could be traded without restriction.
It even carried rare items you couldn't see even in black markets.
Rumor had it that opening boxes from that store brought great fortune.
That was the starting point of my plan.
How could I become strong quickly?
Talent? Hard work?
'Nonsense. The answer is… cash!'
P2W!
In a world where money was everything, what could be better?
A place where you could earn and spend money most efficiently!
Just thinking about the boxes I'd buy there filled me with energy.
Thunk, thunk.
I continued digging with vigor.
And I made some decent side income in the process.
— Ding, ding!
— Strength increases by 0.01!
— Stamina increases by 0.01!
[Status Window]
Strength: 4.05Agility: 3.00Stamina: 2.05
Stats so pitiful they didn't even reach the adult male average of 5.
But my heart was pounding with excitement.
'You can get stats this easily?'
Even if you hunted elite monsters or cleared dungeons, your stats barely went up, if at all.
And those precious stats were increasing… from shoveling dirt?
"Kill the pheasant, eat the egg, and burn the nest to chew on it too!"
Singing happily, I continued digging.
The first step of a grand life—no, a grand gaming life!
A glorious shortcut leading toward the splendor of dungeons…
"Mom, what's that man doing? Gross."
"Shh, don't go near him."
The mother glanced at me, then pulled her child away.
I looked down at myself and flinched.
My once pristine beginner's linen shirt was covered in dirt, and my fancy pants were torn and ragged.
The shiny beginner's dagger had long since been replaced by a vicious field shovel.
After skipping several meals, even my face had hollowed out.
Like this, no one would call me a promising adventurer—I looked more like a shady grave robber.
"Mom, that man is looking at us."
"Gasp—don't make eye contact. He's crazy."
She whispered in a low voice.
I can hear you, you know?
"Mom, I'm scared."
"He might bite."
Am I a dog…?
"It's dangerous. Let's get away from here."
Mother and child fled with hurried steps.
A surge of emotion welled up inside me.
'This is a Hidden Piece, okay? A Hidden Piece!'
I felt like Hong Gil-dong, unable to call his own father 'Father.'
…It was unfair.
— Through long, repeated labor, you have learned a new skill.
— [Skill: Digging (F)] acquired.
'…'
A skill is a skill.
It was a precious new skill, and yet—
'Why am I so depressed?'
Frustrated, I dug more fiercely.
Thud. Thud!
Clang!
"Damn it…"
The moment the shovel snapped—
Shiiing!
'…!'
A golden door revealed itself.