Radiation levels: 89% BRL (1 point decrease)
Damn. How glaring.
She was still F-Rank, but her gift was star-class.
Her mental strength measured 199 points—a rare high rate, enough to be classified as B-Rank on the ZepeNet system.
That was her only saving grace, proof that despite the radiation eating away at her body, her mind carried a brilliance the scanner couldn't ignore.
It was her mind that made her dangerous, her mind that might let her rise above the weight pulling her down.
But in Jang Iseul's case, it had been eighteen long, embarrassing years of nothing.
A late bloomer.
Until recently, she'd felt nothing—no burst, no surge, no psychic echo.
Then, two months ago, strange things began.
Small signs.
Small things, like once dreaming she was at the park with her siblings, wearing a black-and-baby-blue dress with a polka-dotted bow in front.
She had jolted awake in that very dress—only to leap from bed in panic and see herself back in pajamas.
For a moment, she thought she was still dreaming.
The next morning at breakfast, though, her siblings were all laughing and chattering.
"Wasn't it weird? We all dreamed the same thing," one of them said between bites.
"Yeah—at the park, right? And Nonna looking all fancy in that dress," another teased.
"Guess we're all just too connected, huh?" they joked, brushing it off with laughter.
Isuel froze at their words, spooked to her core. Because she knew—deep down—it probably hadn't been a dream at all.
After that, she couldn't sense it anymore for a few weeks.
The next incident happened during a nap with her youngest brother, Jang Yong-woo. She had dozed off beside him and woke up in his dream world.
Maybe flying cars or cartoons—but not this.
Yong-woo, who once declared, "Nonna, I'm 6 now, and I don't watch Zepoman anymore.
That's baby stuff," was now in full costume, riding a dinosaur through a city, pretending to be Zepoman while roaring like a monster.
Iseul smiled at the thought. It was innocent, weird, and adorable.
She chuckled and imagined him riding his slypr-bike levitator.
The dream around her shifted instantly—morphed into her thoughts.
Confused, she stumbled, her body trembling.
Before she could even process it, the world around her reshaped into exactly what she imagined.
She panicked and jolted awake, startling Yong-woo beside her.
"Did Nonna have bad dreams?" Yong-woo asked her in a sleepy voice as he threw his small arm over her.
"Hmm," Isuel only hummed in agreement, quietly processing her shock.
"Don't worry. Woo-woo is here to protect you," he mumbled, snuggling deeper into her embrace.
He woke up the next day telling her,
"I dreamed of you again. You were in my dream."
That was the first time she realized her power was more than just a fluke.
Dreamwalking—entering her siblings' dreams, pulling fragments of thoughts at random.
That's what Isuel named it.
She discovered she could pull fragments of thoughts from their heads.
It had been an accident, but she realized that if someone's thought was vivid enough, she could see it.
Maybe it was more than dreams.
Maybe it was something deeper—something dangerous.
She tried to practice in secret since then.
But no matter how much she pushed, it wouldn't respond the way she wanted.
Once, she even tried creating a small glass marble she saw in a dream.
It had worked for a few seconds before crumbling into smoke.
Every attempt left her bleeding, shaking, and mentally exhausted—though whether it was her Gift's cost or the radiation slowly eating her, she couldn't tell.
Still, her gift never showed any signs of breaking through or growing stronger.
But she kept going.
The scanner didn't know what she was.
It couldn't detect the strange energy pulsing inside her.
It had no record of a Gift like hers in the Gifter's Encyclopedia.
The system had labeled her something—anything—because it couldn't handle the unknown.
Red-Locked meant more than just blocked advancement—it meant social death.
She stared at the result, not very shocked.
A technician leaned forward and raised a brow.
Radiation levels: 89% BRL (1 point decrease).
"Hmm," he stared at the screen for a while before speaking. "Star-Class? But still F-Rank?! How rare."
He scratched his nose, pushing his face closer to the screen. "Wow… permanent Red-Locked? Sorry, kid. Bad luck."
He looked flabbergasted but awkward, like he didn't know whether to pity her or move on.
She already knew. The system refused to understand her Gift. It didn't just misclassify her—it locked her out.
Because it had never seen any gift quite like her.
Jang Iseul nodded without looking at him.
He tried to sound kind and find the right words.
"Well… better late than never. Happens sometimes. You might qualify for logistics or harvest support."
She stood silently. Not because she was powerless, but because she knew what to do next.
She walked out of the testing room and didn't look back.
She didn't know what she had expected—but it wasn't hope.
She left the scanner room in silence.
Other students whispered as she walked past:
"Still a leakshit I see hmm. Tsk tsk" Hwang Tae a student from class 4-C mocked Isuel eyeing her in contempt.
—
{leakshit: pathetic mess; or leaky pipe}
—
"Forever crudespawn much, huh? Wow. Even at eighteen." An Nari a lower classmen blocked her way chiming in.
—
{Crudespawn:Born from slime; or useless spawn}
—
Iseul steps around her unfazed but she clenches the straps of her bag tighter.
"She's uselag. No squads'll take her seriously now."
"Even at eighteen, she is zeropite? What a disgrace to the Jang name."
—
{Zeropite: Literally nothing contributes zero}
{Uselag: always behind; or deadweight}
—
Iseul didn't respond. Didn't look back.
Didn't try to explain.
Because she'd seen what she could do.
And she knew she was close.
So damn close.
She passed up two fellow seniors Choi Areum and Yoon Aera leaning against a vending drone.
One of them Yoon Aera , a girl with synthetic nails and neon hair, sneered at Iseul.
Isuel walked by without making eye contact. Though she knew their attention was on her.
"Hey mudrat, Iseul! Who are you pretending to be now, queen of the lowlatches?"
—
{lowlatch: low tier scapers clinging on}
{mudrat: filth rolling in mud with rats}
—
Iseul didn't slow down. She didn't even turn her head.
But the girl moved aside anyway.
There was only one test left before she'd be defined—or discarded.
The Trial of Courage.
——
On the outer rim of the city, in a stacked housing block patched with code walls and decades‑old wiring, the Jang family's small rooftop glowed orange beneath flickering neon signs.
The skyline shimmered with hovercrafts and light-streaked towers plastered in Dominion logos or combat academy ads. Synthetic rain hissed against solar tarps overhead.
Iseul stepped quietly up the access ladder and pulled off her Academy-issued visor. Her brothers sat in a circle, steaming dumplings between them, laughing over a bootleg comic stream.
Jang Haneul looked up and immediately stood.
"Noona. You're back."
She smiled seeing them. "Hey, I'm back," she spoke softly, setting down her school bag.
Jang Chang grinned, leaning back.
"So? Did you break the school?"
Jang Hyun‑woo, adjusting his tablet glasses, scoffed.
"They didn't promote her. Her ZepeNet still says F-rank."
The boys all glared at him and he was elbowed in the side.
"Owww! What?!" Hyun-woo glared back, not afraid.
Ignoring their slow brother, they focused elsewhere while Jang Beom-seok took the lead.
Jang Beom‑seok gave a dramatic salute.
"She probably demolished a building and they'd still label her 'low yield.'"
She smiled faintly and sat down beside them without a word.
Then came the smallest voice.
Jang Yong-woo, still in his sleeping onesie, crawled onto her lap.
"You did okay though… right?"
Iseul brushed her hand across his hair.
"Yeah, I got Star-class potential," she murmured the last part, almost to herself. "And got my rank locked at F permanently."
"What?!" This caught everyone's attention.
They crowded her instantly.
"Woah really? You got star potential for your gift class, but then why are you now a permanent F-rank?"
Jang Haneul was most interested, maybe thinking there was a way to help with his own Gift.
None of them understood why—even Isuel herself wasn't exactly surprised to see her profile locked.
Her Gift was indeed different from the normal Gifts seen.
She named her Gift: DreamWalker.
Her power didn't look like anyone else's.
No flame. No knockout punch. No flashy power.
She still couldn't fully define her gift.
No training manual, no academy record matched it.
Even her gift itself didn't respond to her or follow the norms.
It was a complete mystery to her.
She figured she has in grass, but the true power of it which is why it won't respond.
She wasn't sure she just made speculations.
All she knew was that sometimes her sleep blurred into reality—and more than once, she woke with her body rebelling against her: nose bleeding, stomach twisting, the kind of dizzy nausea that left her half-conscious.
Her Gift came at a cost.
But it was real.