Li Han was discharged the next morning.
There were no ceremonies, no dramatic goodbyes. Just a nurse handing him a plastic bag with his belongings and reminding him—three times—not to overexert himself. He nodded each time, polite, compliant, and entirely uninterested.
Overexertion was a luxury he no longer possessed.
Outside the hospital, the city greeted him without enthusiasm.
Cars passed by in steady lines. People moved with purpose, headphones in, eyes glued to glowing screens. No one looked at him twice. No one sensed anything strange about the boy who had died once and come back wrong.
Han Li—no, Li Han—stood still for a few seconds longer than necessary, letting the noise wash over him.
This world was loud.
Not with screams or battle cries, but with constant motion. Engines, voices, distant horns, footsteps overlapping until nothing stood out. In Murim, silence had always meant danger. Here, silence simply didn't exist.
"So this is peace," he muttered under his breath.
It felt… flimsy.
A memory surfaced—thin, borrowed, not his. A route home. A bus number. A street name that meant nothing to him but guided his feet anyway. He followed it, trusting the body's leftover habits more than the city itself.
Halfway down the block, someone slapped his shoulder.
"Oi! You alive or what?"
Li Han nearly reacted on instinct.
His body shifted slightly, weight moving, muscles tensing—then stopping. No killing intent. No hostility. Just noise.
A young man grinned at him, hands in his jacket pockets, eyes tired but sharp in a lazy way.
"Seyon," Li Han said, the name coming naturally.
"Wow," Seyon laughed. "You remember me. Thought the hospital fried your brain or something."
Li Han studied him for a second longer than normal. Male. Similar age. No threat. Poor posture. Slightly hunched like someone used to carrying weight.
Friend.
An unfamiliar concept… but not an unpleasant one.
"You look terrible," Li Han said honestly.
Seyon snorted. "Yeah? Try looking for a porter's job these days. Every place says the same thing—'busy at present.' Like that explains why I'm still broke."
Li Han blinked. "Porter?"
"Yeah. You know. Carrying stuff. Heavy stuff. Stuff that makes your spine scream." Seyon rolled his shoulders dramatically. "I swear, I carried more bags this week than a moving truck."
Li Han nodded slowly. "I used to carry bodies."
Seyon laughed loudly. "Man, your jokes got darker."
It wasn't a joke.
They walked together for a while. Seyon talked. A lot. About money. About work. About how unfair it was that effort didn't equal reward in this world. Li Han listened, occasionally responding with short comments that somehow kept the conversation going.
This world ran on complaints instead of blades.
Strange.
When they reached the apartment building, Seyon stopped. "I gotta run. Interview. Porter again. Wish me luck."
"Luck," Li Han repeated.
Seyon waved and jogged off.
Li Han watched him go.
No ulterior motives. No hidden blade. Just… a man struggling to live.
"…Interesting," he murmured.
The apartment was small. Quiet. Clean in a way that suggested no one truly lived there.
Li Han closed the door and stood still.
Only then did the translucent blue window appear.
Not dramatic. Not sudden. Just… there.
He exhaled through his nose.
"So this is my condition," he muttered. "Is this only for me… or is everyone walking around with invisible nonsense floating in their face?"
He waved a hand through it. Nothing.
He checked the mirror.
Nothing.
"…Good," he decided. "I'd hate to explain this."
The window faded without ceremony.
Li Han sat down on the bed, rolling his shoulders. His body still felt wrong. Too light. Too responsive in the wrong ways, yet fragile where it shouldn't be.
He stood again, testing balance. Threw a short punch into the air.
Fast—but weak.
"Tch."
He could work with that.
Just as he reached for a glass of water, the air changed.
Not violently. Not obviously.
Just… pressure.
Li Han froze.
This wasn't unfamiliar.
In Murim, moments before an ambush felt exactly like this.
The lights flickered.
The temperature dropped.
A circular distortion appeared in the center of the room, swallowing light like a hole punched into reality itself.
Li Han stared at it.
No panic.
Just evaluation.
"This isn't an assassination attempt," he said quietly. "Too inefficient."
The pull began—gentle, persistent.
He grabbed the edge of the table.
His grip slipped.
"…Annoying."
The world folded inward.
Cold stone.
The smell hit first—damp earth, iron, rot.
Li Han rolled instinctively, coming to his feet in one smooth motion that ended with him slightly off-balance.
Weak body.
He adjusted immediately.
The cavern stretched ahead, lit by flickering torches that burned without fuel. Walls uneven. Ground rough. Sound carried strangely, echoing where it shouldn't.
This wasn't Murim.
And it definitely wasn't Earth.
A sound echoed.
Scrape.
Drag.
Li Han crouched.
From the darkness, something crawled forward. Small. Gray. Limbs bent wrong. Eyes glowing with dull hunger.
Monster.
His lips pressed into a thin line.
"So that's how it is."
It lunged.
Li Han sidestepped—but misjudged by half a step. Pain shot up his ankle as he stumbled.
"Damn."
He recovered instantly, grabbed a loose stone, and drove it into the creature's throat with precise force.
It collapsed.
Dead.
Li Han exhaled, chest rising faster than he liked.
Not fear.
Fatigue.
He leaned against the wall briefly.
"…This body is a problem."
The blue window appeared again.
Not surprising this time.
He glanced at it like one might glance at a bruise.
"So you're back," he said. "Figures."
Text scrolled.
He didn't smile.
But his eyes sharpened.
"So the world isn't peaceful," he murmured. "It's just hiding it better."
He straightened, ignoring the ache in his limbs, and looked down the dark corridor ahead.
Unknown enemies.
Unknown rules.
Unknown limits.
And yet…
A familiar calm settled in his chest.
"Fine," Li Han said softly. "Let's see how long this world lasts."
He stepped forward.
The dungeon swallowed him whole.