I died on a Tuesday.
Not in some epic, heroic way. No saving children from burning buildings or taking a bullet for my true love. I died because I fell asleep at my desk after a 48-hour coding sprint, and my heart just... stopped.
Pathetic, right?
The worst part? My last thought wasn't about family or regrets or some profound life revelation. It was: *Damn, I didn't save my work.*
That's the kind of person I was. Kim Jinhyuk, age 27, mid-level office drone, dead at his desk with a half-eaten cup ramen and three empty coffee cans. The janitor probably found me slumped over my keyboard, drool on the Enter key.
At least I hoped it was the janitor and not my boss. That would be embarrassing.
I didn't notice I was dead until the blue screen appeared.
---
[SYSTEM INITIALIZED]
[Welcome, Player]
[Calculating reincarnation parameters...]
---
"Wait."
The word came out in a voice that wasn't mine—younger, uncertain, with none of the exhaustion that had colored my last few years. I blinked at the translucent blue window floating in front of my face, its text sharp and clear despite the fact that I was apparently lying in tall grass under an unfamiliar sky.
My hands—young, unblemished, definitely not my 27-year-old office worker hands—trembled as I lifted them.
"What the hell is this?"
The screen didn't answer. It just kept scrolling, indifferent to my confusion.
---
[Reincarnation Complete]
[Name: Kim Jinhyuk]
[Age: 17]
[Class: None]
[Special Attribute: Reincarnator]
[Loading tutorial...]
---
Oh no.
Oh no no no.
I knew exactly what this was. I'd read hundreds of these stories during my commute—back when I had a commute, back when I was alive. Reincarnation. System. Fantasy world. The protagonist gets OP powers, builds a harem, becomes the strongest, saves the world, blah blah blah.
I'd *read* about this.
I'd never wanted to *live* it.
"This is a joke." I sat up, grass rustling around me. The sky above was too blue, the clouds too perfect, like someone had cranked up the saturation in Photoshop. "This has to be a joke. I'm in a coma. That's it. Brain damage from oxygen deprivation. I'm hallucinating."
---
[Tutorial Quest Assigned]
[Quest: Survive Your First Day]
Objective: Stay alive until sunset
Reward: Beginner's Package
Failure: Permanent Death
---
The screen pulsed an aggressive red on those last two words.
And that's when I heard the growling.
I turned my head slowly, already knowing what I'd see. Every reincarnation story started the same way—weak protagonist, immediate danger, dramatic first fight.
Sure enough, twenty feet away, a wolf the size of a motorcycle was stalking toward me through the grass. Its fur was matted and dark, its eyes an unnatural yellow, and its teeth were very, very visible.
"Of course," I muttered. "Of course there's a wolf."
---
[Enemy Detected: Dire Wolf - Level 5]
[Warning: Enemy level exceeds your own]
[Recommended Action: Run]
---
"Yeah, thanks for the tip," I said to the system window. My legs were already moving, scrambling backward through the grass. "Real helpful. Next you'll tell me water is wet."
The wolf's growl deepened, and it lowered into a crouch.
I did the only logical thing.
I ran.
My new body was younger, lighter, but also completely untrained. Within seconds, my lungs were burning, my legs were shaking, and I could hear the wolf's paws thundering behind me. The system window bobbed in my peripheral vision, unhelpfully displaying my plummeting stamina bar.
Seventeen years old and already out of shape. Fantastic.
A forest loomed ahead—thick trees, dark undergrowth, terrible visibility. Every survival instinct I had screamed not to go in there. But between "dark forest" and "giant wolf actively trying to eat me," the forest was looking pretty good.
I crashed through the tree line, branches whipping at my face. Behind me, the wolf snarled, closer now. Too close.
*Think, Jinhyuk. You've read about this. What do protagonists do in this situation?*
They find a convenient weapon. They awaken hidden powers. They get saved by a beautiful mysterious girl.
I had none of those things.
What I had was a rock.
I grabbed it without thinking, spun around, and hurled it at the wolf's face with all the strength my teenage arms could muster.
It bounced off the wolf's snout.
The wolf paused, looking more offended than hurt.
"...Worth a try," I said.
Then it lunged.
I dove sideways, hitting the ground hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. The wolf's jaws snapped shut where my throat had been a second earlier. It wheeled around, yellow eyes locked on me, and I realized with absolute clarity that I was going to die.
Again.
On my first day.
*This is so stupid.*
---
[Critical Danger Detected]
[Emergency Protocol Activated]
[Awarding: Basic Skill - Desperate Strike]
---
The blue window exploded across my vision, and something hot surged through my right arm. Without thinking—without even understanding what I was doing—I grabbed a fallen branch and swung.
The branch connected with the wolf's jaw with a crack that shouldn't have been possible from a piece of rotting wood. The wolf yelped, stumbling sideways, and I swung again. And again. Each strike felt *right* in a way that made no sense, my body moving with a precision I'd never had in my old life.
The wolf, apparently deciding this wasn't worth it, turned and fled into the forest.
I stood there, panting, holding a broken branch, watching it disappear.
---
[Enemy Defeated: Dire Wolf - Level 5]
[You Have Gained: 50 EXP]
[Level Up!]
[Kim Jinhyuk: Level 1 → Level 2]
[+5 Stat Points Available]
---
"I didn't even kill it," I wheezed. "How is that defeated?"
The system, as usual, didn't answer.
I collapsed against a tree, my new teenage heart hammering against my ribs. My hands were shaking. The branch clattered to the ground.
This was real.
This was actually real.
I'd died. I'd been reincarnated. I had a system. There were monsters. And according to that quest notification, I had to survive until sunset or face "permanent death"—whatever that meant.
"Okay," I said to no one. "Okay. Don't panic. You've read about this. You know how this works."
I did know how it worked. The protagonist gets a system, levels up, gains skills, becomes powerful. Finds companions. Defeats the demon lord or whatever. Standard isekai plot.
Except...
I looked at the system window, really looked at it this time. The text was crisp, the interface clean, the game mechanics familiar. *Too* familiar. It wasn't just that I'd read stories like this. It was that this specific system looked exactly like the RPGs I'd played back on Earth. The stat distribution, the skill format, even the font.
A cold feeling settled in my stomach.
---
[Quest Update: Survive Your First Day]
Time Remaining: 7 hours, 43 minutes
Current Objective: Find shelter
---
Another notification. Another objective. Another perfectly timed quest advancement.
Almost like someone was watching.
Almost like someone was... playing.
I pushed the thought away. I was being paranoid. This was just how system reincarnation worked. The system gave quests. You completed them. That was the genre.
But as I forced myself to stand, to start looking for shelter, I couldn't shake the feeling that the system's timing had been too perfect. The skill had activated at the exact moment I needed it. The wolf had fled at the exact moment the fight would have become interesting.
Like someone was writing a story.
And I was the main character.
*Stop it,* I told myself. *You're overthinking. Just survive. Figure out the rest later.*
I started walking deeper into the forest, keeping one eye on the system window. My minimap had activated at some point—apparently a basic feature—showing my position as a blue dot in a sea of gray fog of war.
Convenient.
Too convenient?
I shook my head and kept walking.
Sunset was in seven hours. I had time. I could find shelter, maybe some food, figure out my status screen, allocate my stat points. The basics. Survive the tutorial, just like every other protagonist.
The system pinged again.
---
[New Skill Acquired: Identify - Level 1]
Effect: View basic information about objects and creatures
Cost: 10 MP per use
---
I focused on a nearby tree, and information bloomed across my vision:
---
[Oak Tree - Level 0]
A common tree. Provides wood.
---
Useless, but expected. At least it worked.
I was about to dismiss the window when something caught my eye. A flicker in the corner of the Identify skill description. The text glitched for just a fraction of a second, replaced by something else:
---
[̷̡̛̳̦͕̈́́D̴̢̗͚̈́͜o̸̧̹̮͌̄n̸̰̊'̶̧̯̐̀t̸̰̀̒ ̵̼̈́̑͠t̵̝̼̒͂r̷̖̓͝ù̶͚͋͜s̷̱̾͝t̷̳̀̂̕ ̸̨̺̎t̴̢̳̔̈́̋h̸̝̪̉̑e̶̜̥͝ ̷̦̓s̶̨͆y̸̛̳͙s̶̨̿t̴̜̊̂̓e̸̥͌m̸̧̛̞̫̐]̴̗͂
---
Then it was gone.
I stared at the skill description, my blood running cold. Had I imagined that? Some kind of stress hallucination?
I tried to activate Identify again, but the text was normal. Just the standard description.
"Great," I muttered. "Now I'm seeing things."
But I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. That this wasn't just a generic reincarnation story. That someone—or something—was watching me.
And they'd just sent me a warning.
---
[Quest Update: Survive Your First Day]
Time Remaining: 7 hours, 38 minutes
Current Objective: Find shelter
Bonus Objective: [̴̧̯̐̀R̸̰̀̒̚Ë̵̼́̑̚D̶̅Ą̴C̸͝T̷̖E̷D̸]̷
---
I stopped walking.
The bonus objective. The glitched text. The impossible timing of everything.
This wasn't a game.
This was something else.
And I had seven hours to figure out what.