Later that night – Sector 0 outskirts
The campfire cracked quietly.
Jiwoon sat alone, knees drawn up, eyes watching the stars as if they were trying to speak to him.
In the child's body he now inhabited, emotions hit harder.
Loneliness. Wonder. Dread.
He wasn't used to feeling all of them at once.
System Update
Recovery complete: 84%
Sin Core Stabilization: In Progress
Visitors approaching… 1 Entity detected
Suddenly, the wind shifted.
Not cold. Not warm.
Just… ancient.
Jiwoon stood. "Who's there?"
From the darkness beyond the trees, a figure emerged.
A woman, draped in a veil of shadow and silk. Her footsteps left no trace.
The Veiled One Speaks
"You shine too brightly," she said.
"It's not safe to glow in a world that remembers gods."
Jiwoon narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"
She didn't answer.
Instead, she knelt — her hands glowing faintly with golden script — and touched the ground.
A seal emerged beneath them. Complex. Divine.
"You are not the only one being watched," she continued.
"Something in the old code stirs. Something even the System forgot."
Jiwoon's Insight
He focused — letting the system run a scan.
But there was no data. No name. Not even a trace.
[Error: Undefined Entity]
His heart pounded.
"Are you… friend or enemy?"
The woman tilted her head. "Neither."
"I'm the question no one dares to ask."
Then, she pressed a single object into Jiwoon's small hand — a black shard, warm and breathing.
System Notification
[UNKNOWN RELIC ACQUIRED: The First Sin]
Effect: Locked. Requires Emotional Synchronization to activate.
Before Jiwoon could ask anything more, the woman faded — not vanishing… just slipping out of reality.
Gone.
He looked down at the shard.
And somehow, in its pulsing warmth…
He felt someone else's sorrow.
Jiwoon's Thoughts
"They were watching before the sins began."
"But why… are they helping now?"