My eyes opened, and the first thing that struck me was the light. Not the cosmic nebulae from before, but a soft, diffuse glow filtering through… something. A familiar light. I blinked several times, trying to clear the fog still clinging to my mind. The air I breathed was fresh, carrying a faint scent of detergent and… dust?

  Where was I?

  I tried to move, and a wave of soreness flooded through me. My limbs felt heavy, numb, as if I’d slept for a week on a concrete floor. With a grunt, I managed to lift a hand. My hand. Five fingers, slightly short nails, the tiny scar on my middle finger from trying to fix my bike as a kid. This was *my* hand.

  My heart—yes, I could distinctly feel it beating in my chest, a steady *thump-thump* that was both comforting and utterly bewildering—began to pound harder. I had a body. A functioning body. But how? The truck… the impact… the cold…

  With considerable effort, I pushed myself up onto one elbow. The room around me began to take shape. Faded white walls. A cheap wooden desk cluttered with books and papers. A chair. A small window letting in that morning light. My room. My student dorm room.

  I sat there, half-propped up, my mind overheating as I tried to reconcile the irreconcilable. The memory of my death was vivid, *real*. The pain, the smell of blood, the sensation of consciousness slipping away… And yet, here I was. Alive. Unharmed, apparently.

  A dream? A nightmare so detailed and terrifying it felt real? That was the logical explanation, the only one that wouldn’t shatter my sanity. I must’ve fallen asleep at my desk after gaming, and my overworked brain had cooked up this gruesome scenario. Yeah, that had to be it. The spicy ramyeon, probably.

  I ran a trembling hand over my face. No blood. No wounds. I patted my skull. Intact. I took a deep breath. Air filled my lungs without pain. I felt tired, slightly nauseous, but undeniably alive.

  A wave of relief so powerful it left me gasping swept through me. I was alive. It was just a bad dream. I nearly laughed, but the sound that escaped was a strange, high-pitched whistle echoing directly in my skull.

  I froze. That sound… it wasn’t external.

  Then, I saw it.

  Hovering in the air about a meter from my face was a semi-transparent blue rectangle. White text, crisp and precise, glowed on its surface in a font eerily reminiscent of *Aethelgard Online*’s interface.

  [Welcome, Player Kang Min-joon.]

  [Ludic Nexus initialization complete.]

  [Host synchronization successful.]

  I gaped, eyes wide. My heart, which had barely settled, began galloping again, threatening to burst from my chest. I waved my hand through the rectangle. It passed through without resistance. Not a hologram I recognized, at least.

  “What the… hell is this?” I croaked.

  More text appeared, as if answering my question.

  [You have been selected to participate in the Ludic Nexus.]

  [Your previous existence has ended. A new opportunity is granted.]

  [Status: Awakened. Level: 1.]

  *Your previous existence has ended.* The words hit me like a punch. So it wasn’t a dream. The accident… it was real. I *had* died. And this… this was something else. A “new opportunity”? Selected to participate? It sounded like the premise of one of my webtoons. Except now, *I* was the protagonist. And the game UI was hardwired into my vision.

  Panic, raw and irrational, gripped me. I shot to my feet—or tried to. My legs, still weak, nearly buckled. I grabbed the desk to steady myself. The blue “window” followed, staying perfectly positioned before my eyes no matter how I moved.

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  “No, no, no… This can’t be real,” I panted. I pinched my arm hard. The pain was sharp, undeniably real. Not a dream. Definitely not a dream.

  I paced the room like a caged animal, the blue interface stubbornly floating in front of me. Everything was in place: my unmade bed, K-pop and gaming posters, a pile of laundry in the corner. Outside the window, students crossed the courtyard, likely heading to morning classes. Sunlight glinted off the buildings. Everything looked… normal. Except me. Except *this*.

  [To access your main menu, think or speak “Status.”]

  The new notification startled me. *Think or speak?* I swallowed hard, anxiety tightening my throat.

  “S-Status,” I stammered.

  The blue rectangle shifted instantly. New details appeared, organized into sections:

  NAME: Kang Min-joon

  TITLE: [Newly Awakened Player]

  LEVEL: 1 (XP: 0/100)

  CLASS:[None]

  AFFILIATION:[Neutral]

  HP: 100/100 (VIT x 10)

  MP: 50/50 (INT x 5)

  **ATTRIBUTES:**

  Strength (STR): 10

  Agility (AGI): 11

  Vitality (VIT): 10

  Intelligence (INT): 10

  Wisdom (WIS): 9

  Luck (LUK): 7

  Soul Resonance (SPR): ???

  UNALLOCATED STAT POINTS: 0

  **SKILLS:**

  [No Active Skills Acquired]

  [No Passive Skills Acquired]

  **EQUIPMENT:**

  Head: -

  Chest: [Ordinary Student T-Shirt (Common)]

  Legs: [Worn Jeans (Common)]

  Feet: [Basic Sneakers (Common)]

  Hands: -

  Main Weapon: -

  Off-hand: -

  Accessories: -

  I read and reread the screen, my mind racing. This was a character sheet. My character sheet. My stats were… average. Weak, even. Especially Luck and Wisdom. Maybe that explained the truck incident. And “Soul Resonance” with three question marks? What even was that?

  “This… this is really happening,” I muttered, collapsing into my chair. My gaze fell to my desk—specifically, to where my ramyeon bowl should’ve been. Instead, placed centerstage where the morning light hit it almost theatrically, was a dagger.

  This wasn’t an ordinary dagger. It was deep obsidian black, smooth and cool to the touch—yes, I’d already grabbed it without realizing. The blade, about 20 centimeters long, was slender and double-edged, seeming to absorb light rather than reflect it. Intricate, almost organic engravings ran along its surface, glowing faintly violet when tilted. The hilt was simple yet ergonomic, and the pommel held a dark gem that shimmered like a distant star. It was beautiful, dangerously elegant. And it… *vibrated* faintly in my grip, a nearly imperceptible pulse, like a tiny heartbeat syncing with mine.

  The moment my fingers closed around the hilt, a new notification flashed:

  [You have equipped: Umbra Shard (Unknown Artifact)]

  [Soul Link established with Umbra Shard.]

  [Initial Affinity: 0.01%]

  [Latent Ability Detected: Essence Absorption (Locked)]

  [Latent Ability Detected: ??? (Locked)]

  [Latent Ability Detected: ??? (Locked)]

  An artifact? Soul Link? Essence Absorption? It was too much. My head throbbed. I’d died, been reincarnated—or at least my soul had been dumped into some real-life RPG—with a game UI and a magic dagger materializing out of nowhere. This was the plot of my wildest fantasies, yet all I felt was abject terror mixed with jittery excitement.

  I stared at the dagger, then the interface, then out the window at the world continuing as usual. Was I alone? Were there other “Players”? Was this “Ludic Nexus” just for me, or had the whole world changed without anyone noticing?

  My dorm door suddenly flew open, making me jump so violently I nearly dropped the dagger. Park Seo-jin, my loud, athletic neighbor studying engineering, barged in.

  “Min-joon! Finally awake, you hibernating sloth! We’re gonna be late for Professor Kim’s accounting class, and you know how he gets when—”

  He froze mid-sentence, staring at something over my shoulder—or rather, where the blue interface hovered. His eyes widened, jaw slackening.

  “Dude… what the hell… is that floating thing?” he asked, voice shaky. He pointed a trembling finger at the interface.

  My blood turned to ice. *He could see it.* He could see the interface.

  So it wasn’t just me. The world had changed.

  And with dawning horror, I realized: the “game” had already begun.