A cold, sticky wetness pressed against his cheek.
Somewhere in the dark distance, muffled noise echoed off stone walls—the desperate shouts of men, the clashing of steel, and the guttural shrieks of beasts.
His vision swam, blurred, and then slowly snapped into focus.
A dungeon.
"…What… what is this?" he choked out, his voice trembling as he pushed himself up off the damp floor. His skull throbbed with a dull, agonizing ache.
When he looked down, he froze. Thin, pale, and calloused hands trembled in front of him. They were definitely not his own. Then, a faint blue glow caught his eye—a hunter's digital badge embedded on the back of his wrist:
[ Name: Sung Jinwoo ]
[ Rank: F-Rank ]
A wave of icy realization crashed over him.
He wasn't in his old body anymore. He had become Sung Jinwoo—the weakest hunter in the world.
His heart hammered against his ribs. He knew this place. The towering stone pillars, the oppressive air, the eerie silence hiding absolute horror… The Cartenon Temple. The double dungeon where Jinwoo had nearly been slaughtered before unlocking the System.
Looking around, he saw the raiding party gathering near the back. They were laughing and checking their gear, completely oblivious to the massacre waiting through the doors. Statues lined the chamber walls like silent, brooding gods, their stone weapons gleaming faintly under the torchlight.
He knew what was waiting through those doors. He knew every single death that was about to happen.
'I actually got thrown into this world…' he thought, a grim, breathless smirk touching his lips.
He squeezed his hands into fists. In his past life, he had been ordinary. Powerless. A nobody who died without achieving a thing. But now? He was standing at the precipice of a second chance.
He raised his gaze toward the massive double doors at the end of the hall. Beyond them lay the God Statue.
"If this is fate…" he whispered under his breath, "…then I'll tear it apart."
Before he could even finish the thought, a searing spike of pain exploded inside his head.
"Urgh—!"
He collapsed back onto one knee, clutching his temples as a violent deluge of memories flooded his mind—vivid, foreign, and painfully real.
A cramped, dimly lit apartment.
A pale, sickly mother lying helpless in a hospital bed.
A younger sister studying by a desk light, her face pale with worry over unpaid bills.
Endless, bloody days scraping through low-tier gates, getting mangled for a few hundred won while the high-rankers laughed.
Each memory slammed into his psyche like a hammer, tearing through his ego.
"Damn it… these memories…!" he gasped, his breath coming in ragged hitches.
The emotions of the original Jinwoo surged up, fusing violently with his own—the suffocating fear, the crushing humiliation of being the "weakest," and the desperate, burning urge to survive for his family.
He felt every ounce of the pain Jinwoo had carried. The helplessness of watching his mother slip deeper into a sleep-like coma while he risked his life every day just to buy time.
Two souls melted together, boundaries dissolving until there was no line left between the man from another world and the desperate E-rank hunter.
"So… this is what you carried, Jinwoo," he whispered, a single tear cutting through the dirt on his cheek. Not out of pity, but out of sheer respect for the life he now owned.
When the mental storm finally cleared, the lingering confusion was gone. He wasn't just a reader trapped in a story. He was Sung Jinwoo. Body, soul, and memories—completely whole.
He slowly pushed himself to his feet. His legs were still weak, but his eyes were sharp.
"Don't worry," he murmured, looking at the heavy stone doors ahead as the raid leader prepared to open them. "You died here once… but this time, we survive."