Ficool

Chapter 3 - Ezekiel

Jin Young's apartment — May 6, Year 2100

10 AM.

The smell of cold pizza hit Jin Young the moment he cracked open the fridge.

He grabbed a half-eaten slice, gnawed off the edge, and let out a small sigh.

When did I even fall asleep?

He had woken up on the cold tiled floor. His body felt sluggish, bones stiff, like he'd aged ten years overnight. A dull ache pulsed behind his eyes. Months of drinking, late nights, and zero exercise had reduced him to a husk—a far cry from the sleek, confident heir he used to be.

He tossed the pizza box on the counter, rubbing at his jaw.

No more messing around.

Changing into one of his old tracksuits, Jin Young stepped out of his apartment and went for a run around the block.

The air was dry and stale, tinged with the faint stench of chemical runoff from the nearby processing district. His shoes struck cracked pavement, weaving through uneven tiles and potholes that hadn't seen repair in decades.

The apartment complex he lived in was part of a forgotten corner of the city—Gwangjin Sector 9, a crumbling township once meant to be a haven for low-income families. Now, it was a ghost of failed promises.

High-rises loomed like aging skeletons, their metal exteriors stained with rust and urban rot. Most balconies were patched with plastic sheets, broken glass, or old cardboard. Power cables dangled like vines, buzzing erratically. The few remaining streetlamps flickered weakly, casting pale shadows over the road.

A small children's park sat on the corner, its swings rusted and tangled, its sandbox filled with broken glass, discarded cans, and synthetic snack wrappers. A single slide remained, smeared with graffiti.

It was a place long abandoned by the government—too underfunded to repair, too inconvenient to care about. Rumors said the area was marked for demolition in the next five years, to make way for another government-sanctioned smart district: endless skyscrapers and AR marketplaces.

But for now, it was a graveyard of the forgotten.

Jin Young spent the next hour running.

By the time he returned home, the young man was drenched in sweat. He quickly took a shower and prepared a humble meal of noodles and a boiled egg to satisfy his hunger.

Jin Young then set an alarm, and spent the rest of the noon and evening documenting the fresh stream of data inside his head. His fingers seemed to fly onto his tablet as he typed passages after passages of raw, unfiltered information.

Hours bled into one another. Only after the sound of alarm coming from his AI assistant reached him, did Jin Young wake up from his trance.

His stomach grumbled in negligence as Jin Young looked at the time.

11 PM.

The game would go live in an hour.

He still had much left to document, not even halfway through the sheer amount of information implanted into him by the anonymous sender.

But it would have to wait for now.

Dinner was a simple affair: a pan-fried egg, a bowl of rice, some reheated kimchi jjigae from a day old takeout. He sat on the floor, chewing slowly, eyes half-lidded.

His fingers flexed instinctively. Weak. Thin.

His body had certainly atrophied over these past months of neglect. A single day of run wouldn't miraculously undo the past.

But inside ReLife, the rules were different. Inside the game, his neural enhancements, his reflexes, his intelligence—all would sharpen the more he leveled up.

More importantly, improvements in the game could ripple back into the real world.

He didn't fully understand how that worked—no one probably would.

The Opera system's proprietary tech was shrouded in mystery. It was the child his genius mother created with her own hands, after all.

Jin Young intended to test it to its limits.

11:57 PM.

Jin Young climbed back into the Crash V3 pod, his heart hammering.

The interior was snug, smooth polymer lining cradling his body. Cool blue light pulsed softly above his head as the neural sync engaged.

{ReLife server connection established}

{Launching in 5… 4… 3… 2.

His breath caught.

...1}

The darkness dissolved.

A vast sky unfolded before him — crystalline, endless, the color of dawn light washing over the clouds.

And there, hanging in the middle of the air, massive and bold, floated one word:

ReLife

The logo shimmered, refracted, then burst apart like glass, sending ripples across the sky.

{Please choose a name for your character}

A blinking cursor hovered in an empty box.

Jin Young's fingers hesitated for a moment.

His mind reflexively reached for an alias—some cool-sounding moniker like most players used. Something edgy, anonymous. But then, like a ripple across his thoughts, a name surfaced.

Ezekiel.

A name from his childhood. The main character from his mother's favorite fantasy series—The Shepherd King.

She'd loved that story so much she used to quote lines from it while brushing his hair or tucking him into bed.

"You should've been named Ezekiel," she once said, teasing. "It suits you more than Jin Young."

He'd scoffed back then, a haughty ten-year-old. "That name sounds like it belongs in a church."

Now, seated inside the Crash V3 pod, on the precipice of a second life, the name felt oddly fitting. A forgotten relic. A mask for who he used to be.

He typed it in:

Ezekiel

A chime confirmed the entry.

{Username Available}

{Welcome, Ezekiel}

Another prompt followed immediately:

{As a user of the Crash V3 (98% neural sync), your in-game appearance and attributes will be fully synchronized with your real-world profile.}

Jin Young's jaw tightened.

So he'd look like himself—same black hair, sharp jawline, unmistakable eyes. His exact stats, too. Weak, undertrained, unprepared.

That made stealth and anonymity all the more important.

I need to find a disguise item. Something with a masking effect, he thought. Until I'm strong enough… I can't afford to be seen. Not by them.

His parents' enemies were out there — in the real world and inside this one. Their reach extended far beyond corporate walls.

He couldn't afford to draw attention.

Jin Young felt his body drift forward, pulled by some unseen force.

As the light faded from his vision and the sense of weightlessness vanished, his feet touched solid ground.

The first thing that struck him wasn't the temperature, or the sensation of wind brushing against his skin—it was the vivid sound of livelihood.

Pure. Clean. Untouched.

He opened his eyes, and his breath hitched.

He stood at the edge of a vast cobblestone plaza, surrounded by whitewashed stone buildings with pointed, terracotta roofs. Ivy grew up the sides of the houses, and hanging flower baskets bloomed from wooden window frames.

People—players and NPCs alike—moved through the village with purposeful steps. Birds chirped in the clear blue sky, and the scent of fresh bread and tilled earth drifted lazily through the air.

Fwerah—a starting village on the edge of the Klarincè Kingdom—wasn't just realistic.

It was idealized—a world without rusted swings or buzzing power cables, without broken sidewalks or the stink of chemical waste.

Compared to the collapsing concrete jungle he had just run through that morning, this was paradise.

His old neighborhood was gray and choking.

Fwerah was vivid and breathing.

This place wasn't just a game. It felt like hope.

Beside the stunning surroundings, one other thing that Ezekiel noticed was just how vast the village was. The scale was staggering.

In fact, calling it a village almost felt like a disservice.

The world inside ReLife was expanded upto fifty times of Earth, crafted to accommodate humanity for an impossibly long term.

Looking around, Ezekiel noticed more and more waves of new players appearing at the square. Awe and fascination painted their expressions as they drunk in their surroundings.

Some did a few crazy maneuvers to get used to their movement and reaction speed.

Most immediately scattered — a portion of them running straight for the open gates, eager to kill monsters; others clustering around NPCs, shouting for quests, gear, or guidance.

The game gave no tutorials. No instructions.

The players were simply dropped into the world and left to figure it out on their own.

A complete noob would surely be frustrated enough to want to tear at their own hair.

But for those with even the smallest experience in RPGs, this hardly posed as a hurdle. Instead, they would feel like the entirety of the world had opened up to them.

They could make limitless choices and reach potential untouched by any other VR game in the market.

As for Ezekiel himself, information about the Fwerah village streamed through his mind, crystal clear, as if he were watching a movie in real time.

Quest chains, hidden triggers, grinding spots, important NPCs, precious items... perhaps a hardcore player would kill to have a peek at his memories.

Since the world of ReLife was completely generated and controlled by the AI—Opera—perhaps no other living person owned even a fraction of the knowledge that Ezekiel possessed.

Of course, the anonymous sender was the exception.

Ignoring the commotion created by the players all around him, he called on his status screen.

Name: Ezekiel

Age: 22

Level: 1 (0%)

Title: {Empty}

Class: {Empty}

Sub-Class: {Empty}

HP: 50/50

MP: 100/100

Vitality: 10 [1 VIT = 5 HP]

Intelligence: 20 [1 INT = 5 MP]

Strength: 2

Stamina: 2

Agility: 3

Wisdom: 18

Dexterity: 5

Luck: 9

Charm: 5

Skills: {Empty}

Equipment: White Tunic (Cloth); Brown Pants (Cloth); Leather Boots (Common) — Durability: 100/100

Inevntory: 0/50

He sighed. Seeing a quantitative proof of his poor health wasn't exactly a pleasant feeling.

However, most average player would start with basic stats between 1-5. In those regards, Ezekiel's Vitality, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Luck stats really stood out.

Having sorted out his itinerary for the next few hours, Ezekiel quietly slipped away from the crowd.

His destination was the elusive smithy in a hidden alleyway, separated by ten blocks from the square.

More Chapters