Baek Ilwoo's body moved before his mind caught up as he lunged forward, wrapping his arms around Sena tackled her down behind Mr. Park's desk.
Shards of glass whistled overhead like deadly rain, embedding themselves in the opposite wall with sharp thunks.
"Stay down!" he shouted, pressing Sena's head against his chest as more glass cascaded around them.
The sound stopped as abruptly as it had started. In the sudden silence, Ilwoo could hear car alarms wailing outside, distant screaming.
"Ilwoo?" Her voice shook into his chest."What just—"
"Don't move yet." His hand tightened protectively on her back. He peeked over the desk.
Mr. Park hadn't been as lucky.
The older man lay crumpled beside his overturned chair, a large shard of window glass buried in his chest.
His eyes stared at the ceiling. Blood pooled beneath him, soaking into the beige carpet.
Ilwoo's breath caught. "God… damn it."
His stomach twisted, and a cold sweat broke out on his face at the horrifying sight before him.
"W-What just happened?" Sena tried to lift her head, but Ilwoo forced it back down.
"Don't look. We need to go. Now.
"Is Mr. Park—"
Ilwoo met her eyes and shook his head.
"He's gone."
She blinked hard in disbelief. His words came out empty, like he was just stating a fact.
Some distant part of Ilwoo's mind noticed how easily he'd accepted what happened something he didn't want to admit.
He helped Sena to her feet, keeping his body between her and the corpse, without trying to look at the corpse.
He nudged her toward the door, stepping over the broken glass.
Through the shattered window frame, Ilwoo caught glimpses of the street below, overturned cars, people running, and strange figures darting between buildings that clearly weren't human.
"We can go in the elevator," Sena said, trying to sound calm, but her hands were trembling.
But when they opened the office door, they walked straight into chaos.
The hallway was packed with panicking employees, all crowding toward the elevator like it could still save them.
Ms. Jung stood in front of the closed elevator doors, her usually perfect hair disheveled, frantically pressing the call button while others shouted behind her.
"Why isn't it working?" someone shouted.
"The stairs!" someone yelled. "Take the stairs!"
"They're blocked!" another voice answered. "Something's in the stairwell!"
"What do you mean something's in the stairwell?"
Ms. Jung's usual calm was shattered as a wet, ripping noise came from the emergency exit, followed by a scream that stopped dead halfway through.
The crowd surged backward, people trampling each other to get away from the stairwell door. One man in a suit fell, and others stepped on him without stopping.
"This way." Ilwoo grabbed Sena's hand and pulled her toward the opposite end of the hall, away from both the elevators and the emergency exit.
"Ilwoo, where?" she gasped, trying to keep up.
As they pushed through the panicked crowd.
"Service stairs. I saw them when we came in." His body moved on instinct, like it always did when plans went to hell.
"Every building's got a back door."
They reached an unmarked door near the copy machine. Ilwoo tried the handle. Locked.
"Back up." He raised his foot.
"You're seriously gonna—"
He kicked the door. The frame splintered, but held. Another kick, and it flew open, revealing a narrow stairwell lined with pipes and electrical conduits.
"How did you know to do that?" Sena stared at him with something between admiration and concern.
"Video games teach you weird stuff." He stepped inside, testing the stairs.
"Like how to open locked doors without a key."
Behind them, the sounds of panic grew louder. More screaming, running footsteps, and that wet, tearing noise getting closer.
"Don't look back." He wasn't sure if he was talking to Sena or himself.
They descended quickly, the stairwell clanging with their footsteps. Ilwoo paused at a moment, a narrow window, and looked outside.
The street was a war zone.
Cars lay scattered like tossed toys, some flipped completely over. Fires raged in several storefronts, pouring thick black smoke into the sky.
The streets were crawling with monsters.
Then he saw creatures like wolves, if wolves stood seven feet tall and had too many teeth.
Their fur was matted and dark, and their eyes glowed with an unnatural red light. One of them was crouched over something in the street, like something that had been human moments ago.
"This isn't going to—"
DING!
[WELCOME USER: BAEK ILWOO]
[LEVEL: 0]
[HP: 100/100]
[MP: 50/50]
A faint blue screen popped up in Ilwoo's view, showing his health and mana bars in the corner of his eye.
"What the hell?" He waved his hand through the space where the text should've been, but it passed right through, like nothing was there.
"Ilwoo?" Sena narrowed her eyes at him. "What now?"
"Can you see the blue text? The status window?"
She frowned.
"What status window?" She followed his gaze, but clearly saw nothing. "Ilwoo, you're starting to scare me."
DING!
[TUTORIAL QUEST RECEIVED]
[OBJECTIVE: ELIMINATE 3 LEVEL 1 SHADOW WOLVES]
[REWARD: BASIC WEAPON, 50 EXP]
[FAILURE: DEATH]
"No." Ilwoo staggered backward. "No, no, this isn't real. This is just a game. Why the hell is this even here?"
"What are you talking about?" Sena tugged his arm. "Ilwoo, pull it together. We have to reach the ground floor and find somewhere safe to hide."
"Safe?" He jabbed a finger toward the window at the prowling monsters. "You think those things are waiting for us to feel safe?"
Sena looked where he was pointing, and her eyes grew wide with fear.
"Those... those are real, right? Not just special effects or some kind of trick?"
"Yeah. Dangerous enough to kill us twice over." The quest window pulsed in his vision, insistent. "The system wants me to kill three of them."
"System? Ilwoo, tell me you're joking."
"Do I look like I'm joking?"
He descended the stairs again, his steps growing faster.
"We have to either kill those monsters or sneak past them before they reach us."
They reached the service door on the ground floor. Through the small window, Ilwoo saw a narrow back alley behind the building, tighter than the main street, but not empty.
Two of the wolves were sniffing around a dumpster, their massive heads swiveling as they searched for prey.
"Okay," he breathed, starting to piece together a plan. "I need to complete this quest to get a weapon. But fighting bare-handed against level 1 mobs is suicide."
"Fighting those things is asking to die!" Sena hissed. "Let's just hide until help arrives."
"Help? From the police? The army?"
Ilwoo shook his head.
"Sena, look around. This isn't some bombing or earthquake. No one's coming. If we want to survive, we have to do it ourselves."
She nibbled her lower lip, eyes darting away. "So... what are we supposed to do?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the maintenance closet. He slipped inside, where Ilwoo grabbed a heavy wrench.
"This'll have to do." He lifted the wrench, testing its weight.
"You're seriously walking out there with a wrench?" Sena's voice wavered with disbelief.
"I'm not planning to die out there. That's different."
He gave her a steady look.
"Stay inside. Lock the door after I leave. If I'm not back in ten minutes, find another way out."
"Like hell I'm letting you go alone."
"Sena—"
"No." She grabbed a smaller wrench from the closet. "We're family. We stay together."
"Don't be stubborn, sister. I can fight those monsters, but you can't. That's the difference."
"Then I guess you'd better make sure I don't die."
Ilwoo looked at her for a long moment, noticing something in her face he hadn't seen before, the same stubborn determination that had made her pull him away from his game, but now aimed at something important.
He let out a slow sigh.
"Fine."
He went to the door, hand gripping the handle, wrench in the other. "Don't be a hero. And don't fight fair unless you have no choice."
"Sounds like something you'd say in one of your raids."
"Yeah." He turned the door handle slowly. "Let's hope it works better in real life."
The alley stretched ahead, narrow and dark. The two wolves stood still by the dumpster, focused on the scent they had found.
"I'll quietly sneak up behind and kill that wolf," Ilwoo whispered, pointing at the closest beast just a few meters away.
"Are you sure about that?" Sena asked, staring at the creature she had never seen before.
"Can't we quietly sneak past them?"
He nodded. "We can't. If I did that, I'd be finished. All we can do is kill those monsters."
"What if everything goes wrong?" Sena asked, looking into his eyes.
He smirked. "Then just pray we meet the gods together."
They crept forward, staying close to the wall. The first wolf was only twenty feet away now, massive and terrifying up close.
Its fur seemed to ripple like it was moving on its own, and when it breathed out, small clouds of shadow drifted from its nose.
Ilwoo lifted the wrench, aiming for the back of the creature's head.
This was it. His first real fight. No respawns, no save points, no second chances.
Just him, a piece of metal, and a monster that wanted to chew his face off.
Time to find out if two years of gaming had taught him anything useful.