Whoosh.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.
Fists cut the air. Soles scraped against rubber.
Under the harsh white spotlight, a lean figure moved inside the ring; Silent. Focused.
A sequence on repeat: jab, straight, hook, swing. Each punch sliced through the stillness. Footwork tight. Movements clean. Every strike a correction of the one before it, just a little faster, a little sharper.
Until even the air seemed to dodge him.
"Riku! Help close the club!"
The voice snapped through the gym.
"Coming," he said, breath steady despite the sweat clinging to his brow.
He stepped off the ring, grabbed the mop and bucket tucked by the ropes, and began wiping down the mat the same way he fought: quiet, efficient.
"You're really good at boxing, y'know? The students couldn't even touch you."
His colleague leaned on the ropes, grinning.
"Though if your face gets messed up, we'll probably lose half the female members…"
Riku didn't respond.
He slung his bag over his shoulder and walked off, the mop still dripping behind him.
Outside, the city flickered faintly under the night sky. Neon signs humming. Streetlights twitching like they hadn't slept either.
"Finally off work!"
"Let's go get a drink."
"Can't. Gotta pick up my girl."
Voices echoed down the hall. One by one, they vanished with the sound of timecards clocking out.
Silence crept in.
Riku checked the wall clock.
21:35.
Still early.
Hot shower time.
Inside the staff shower room, water rushed out like rain.
Steam rose. Muscles relaxed.
Ten minutes later.
Riku stepped out of the showers, clean shorts clinging to damp skin, soles pressing against the mosaic tiles with soft slaps.
The lights above the mirror buzzed bright, sterile and unforgiving.
His reflection stared back.
Slender shoulders. A little too bony. Skin pale, drained of warmth. But the lack of color only made his features sharper, the high bridge of his nose, the thin line of his lips. Delicate. Almost breakable.
His dark hair clung to his forehead, half-matted, hiding one eye. Strands dripped slowly, carving lines down his cheek.
He didn't linger.
Threw on his coat. Bag over the shoulder. Out the door.
The night outside was all blur neon signs sputtering against fog and exhaust. The words "Elite Fighting Club" buzzed in red above the door like an open wound.
As soon as he stepped out, the wind greeted him.
Not a breeze. A cut.
Thin needles of cold pricked at his face, slipped through his sleeves.
People on the street moved fast, heads tucked down, buried in scarves and coats. No one wanted to be out longer than they had to.
Under the bus shelter, a few passengers stamped their feet, breathed clouds into the air like they were trying to stay alive.
The city had been tense lately. A gang clash just last week made the headlines.
Riku adjusted his coat collar, exhaled white breath.
"Just like the dreadful weather…" he muttered.
The bus hissed to a stop.
He climbed aboard, bag slung across his shoulder, and disappeared into the night.
This was a chilly, rotting old Japanese house.
The air hung heavy, damp and sour with mold.
Ceilings veined with mildew, walls blotched with black stains, floorboards creaking under invisible weight. The kind of place where a ghost showing up wouldn't even be the most surprising thing.
"This should be about it," Riku said, standing in the living room, eyes scanning the rot and shadow.
Past midnight. The world was dead quiet.
And in a place like this, even a breath felt loud.
Any human noise in a place this still felt unnatural. Wrong.
Creak.
Something shifted near the entrance.
Like fingers gripping the old handrail.
Like someone watching with bulging, cold eyes.
Riku turned.
Pitter-patter. Pitter-patter.
A little girl in white ran past the doorway.
No voice. Just motion.
"In fact, a little girl running past isn't that surprising," Riku thought, unmoved.
He'd been in this courtyard long enough.
Someone was bound to show up eventually.
He turned calmly, as if waiting for it.
A full-length mirror stood across the room, large, smooth, out of place.
His phone light caught the reflection.
He saw his own face.
Slender. Damp hair clinging to his forehead. Eyes clear.
And a smile.
Too wide. Too sharp.
He wasn't smiling — but the reflection was.
Pale lips stretching, twitching.
Grin pulling to the base of his neck, red as blood.
It kept going. Jaw opening wider, smile growing grotesque.
His whole mouth stretched across his jawline, teeth splitting the calm.
Even Riku's expression flickered, just slightly.
His fist moved.
The mirror shattered with a crack that echoed down the hall. Glass rained across the floor.
A moment later, the handrail to the second floor snapped, ripped barehanded off the wall.
No panic. No rush.
Riku walked out of the building step by step, unfazed, as if he hadn't just trespassed or destroyed half a haunted house.
"System," he said quietly in his mind.
After a few seconds, a cold message rang out across his mind:
"Specter in the Mirror — skill points gained: 3."
Then it appeared — a glowing, ghostly green panel, floating silently before Riku's eyes.
He barely reacted. Just shrugged, then focused in on the data displayed across the screen.
Name: Riku Fukuda / Seo Jun-ho
Overall Physical Value: 30
Dead Energy: 30 / 50
Skills:
Boxing — Intermediate Entry
Basic Dead Energy Utilization — Beginner Dabbler
Jiu-Jitsu — Intermediate Entry
Bare-Handed Combat — Advanced Mastery
Trait:
Cursed: You are a beacon for the strange.
Remaining Skill Points: 3
Inventory: Spirit Talisman ×4
Below the panel, something stirred.
Stretching beneath it was an enormous tree branches webbing out endlessly, fractal and deep like roots tangled through the void.
It was a skill tree, but not the game-kind. This thing breathed.
Anything that had ever existed or been imagined by a human mind had a place here.
Smelting. Forging. Sewing. Brick-kilning. Ancient Japanese Swordsmanship, Modern Fencing, Western Saber Techniques.
Baji Fist, Five Animals Qigong, Tai Chi.
Even further up: magic, spiritual power, true yuan, source energy, ghost energy.
He could see them.
But reaching them? Another story.
Riku knew better. Those high-level branches weren't for people like him, not yet.
Just unlocking the basics of "spiritual power" or "true yuan" cost absurd skill point totals. Worse, leveling them up required real-world use… usually against things that wanted you dead.
He only managed to start learning Dead Energy Utilization after a near-death encounter with a mid-tier vengeful spirit — one that should've killed him.The only reason he survived was because the thing had been half-dead already. If it hadn't, he'd be fertilizer by now.
Riku exhaled slowly, rubbing his hands together as fog left his breath. He pulled his jacket tighter and started the long walk back through the Neon city blocks he now called home.
Just like the cliché start of a dime-store webnovel, Riku Fukuda was a transmigrant.
He'd crossed over two months ago into this body, a no-name Japanese man, likely homeless, found lying unconscious in a back alley. Before the crossing, Riku had been Seo Jun-ho — late twenties, Korean military, died during the Korean-Japanese war of 2027.
His final moments were filled with smoke, shrapnel, and silence.
Then — this.
Waking up in a stranger's body. No memories. No backstory. No one looking for him.
He adapted quickly.
First thing he did was apply for part-time work at a local boxing club. His skilled helped, they took him on as an assistant trainer. He got an advance, found a crummy place to live, and built his routine.
Second hurdle: language.
Thankfully, this body came pre-loaded with fluent Japanese, so Riku didn't have to struggle through it. That was a win, at least.
Once the dust settled, the second major shift came:
The System.
No prompt. No tutorial. No explanation.
At first, Riku thought it was a hallucination. Maybe PTSD.
He'd seen death before, but never ghosts. Never this kind of death.
But the next morning shut that thought down fast.
He woke in his cramped apartment dirt cheap and still reeking of cigarettes from the last tenant and looked up to see a livid face hanging upside down from the ceiling.
He ignored it.
Washed his face. Brushed his teeth with crimson water flowing from the faucet.
Later, during lunch, ink-like saliva dripped into his curry. He didn't flinch, just stirred it and ate.
He kept telling himself it was all in his head.
Psychological shock from transmigration. Residual trauma. He'd seen worse.
Then he used one of the System's Spirit Talismans on the hanging woman.
She vanished.
His body got stronger.
And his stat panel went up by 0.5 skill points.
That's when Riku stopped pretending.
The world he'd stepped into wasn't just strange, it was cracked wide open.
There's a saying: Some things in reality, even horror novels wouldn't dare write.
But this.
This was reality.
Riku Fukuda stood at the edge of a gateway.
On one side: the known world, ruled by physics, logic and human law.
On the other: a realm of strange forces, twitching nightmares, and eyes that watched from behind walls.
And every step he took pulled him deeper.