Darkness. That was all I saw when my eyes opened.
Not the comforting darkness of sleep, nor the endless void I expected after death. This was a suffocating, humid darkness, like being buried alive. My nose filled with the stench of damp wood, straw, and something… far worse.
"Oi! Hwang Cheol! Stop lazing around and get up, you good-for-nothing brat!"
A voice bellowed from above me. My head rang, like bells crashing against each other, and then
WHAM!
A fist slammed into my cheek.
"Ugh!" I groaned, clutching my face. The pain burned hot and sharp, spreading through my jaw.
Wait. Pain?
My eyes widened. I could feel it. This wasn't a dream. I could feel the dust on my lips, the throbbing in my skull, the rough straw beneath my back.
"You think I'll let you sleep while everyone else is working? Get up and clean the stables before I throw you out myself!" the man snarled. His breath smelled of sour wine.
I staggered to my feet, wobbling as if I'd just stepped off a rollercoaster. My vision swam. I wasn't in my office building. There were no monitors, no keyboards, no fluorescent lights. Instead, there were wooden beams, horse stalls, piles of straw, and, dear god, the overwhelming stench of horse manure.
The man glared at me. He was in his late thirties, broad-shouldered, wearing simple old-fashioned clothes, loose trousers and a faded robe tied with rope. His hair was tied back, and a thin scar ran across his chin.
"Don't make me repeat myself. Get to work, Hwang Cheol."
Hwang… Cheol?
That name rang in my ears like a foreign sound. Was he calling me? My lips moved before I could stop them.
"…Who…?"
Before I could finish, the man cuffed me across the head.
"Don't play dumb! You think you can slack off just because you're nineteen? Ha! You're barely worth feeding! Now get to work."
Nineteen.
I froze. My heart thudded.
I was supposed to be a thirty-year-old office worker. A man beaten down by life, buried in reports, deadlines, and the dull ache of wasted years. But now… I looked down at my hands.
They weren't the same hands I remembered. They weren't pale from fluorescent lights or soft from lack of exercise. These were rougher, leaner, younger.
Calloused, but full of strength.
My breath caught. This… this wasn't my body.
I stumbled toward the stables, still half in shock. A broom was thrust into my hands, rough wood scratching my palms. And then the humiliating truth hit me: I was being ordered to clean horse shit.
Not just ordinary droppings, either. Piles. Mountains. A landscape of steaming filth that reeked so strongly I nearly gagged.
For a long moment, I just stood there, broom in hand, staring at the mess.
Just yesterday, no, just hours ago, I'd been sitting at my desk, sneaking chapters of Nano Machine on my phone while pretending to work. I had dreamed of living in murim, of joining the Demon Cult, of wielding blades and cultivation techniques. Of being worshipped.
And now…
Now I was literally sweeping shit.
I let out a bitter laugh. It was so absurd I couldn't even cry.
---
Hours passed. Or maybe it was minutes, I had no sense of time anymore. My arms ached, my legs burned, my lungs screamed with every breath. The stables were endless, the filth unending. Sweat dripped from my forehead and mixed with the grime on my face.
No one helped. No one even looked at me. The other workers passed by, muttering things I didn't understand, sometimes sneering, sometimes spitting in my direction.
By the time the sun dipped toward the horizon, painting the wooden beams in shades of orange and crimson, I was half-dead on my feet.
The same man who punched me earlier appeared again. He eyed the mostly-cleaned stables and snorted.
"Hmph. Barely passable. Don't slack tomorrow, or you'll regret it."
He turned and left.
My hands trembled as I leaned on the broom. Barely passable? My back felt like it was breaking, my arms like they were going to fall off. And this was just one day?
I stumbled outside, breathing in the evening air like a man escaping prison. The sky was wide, painted in deep reds and purples. Wooden houses lined the dusty road, people in old robes and straw hats walking by, merchants closing their stalls, children running with sticks.
It was like I'd stepped into the pages of the manhwas I used to read.
No, this was murim.
And I was living in it.
---
That night, after forcing down a bowl of watery porridge at a small inn, I finally dared to ask the question that burned in my chest.
"Excuse me," I said to the innkeeper, a middle-aged man with a round belly. "Have you heard any news… about the Demon Cult?"
The man blinked. "…The what?"
"The Demon Cult," I repeated quickly. "Or… maybe the Heavenly Demon Cult? Blood Cult? Divine Cult?"
He frowned. "What kind of nonsense are you talking about? You trying to curse my inn?"
"I, I'm just asking if they exist," I said, trying to smile.
The man shook his head like I was mad. "Never heard of such a thing. Now eat your food and stop spouting nonsense."
My heart sank.
Later, I tried asking a group of travelers in the common room. They gave me strange looks. When I asked a drunk mercenary, he laughed in my face and called me insane.
By the time I crawled up to my room and collapsed on the straw mattress, despair had sunk its claws into me.
The Demon Cult didn't exist.
I lay in silence, staring at the cracked ceiling. My mind raced. If there was no Demon Cult, then what world was this? Which murim story was I in? Or was this something entirely new?
I wanted to cry. To scream. But exhaustion drowned me first.
Still, as I drifted into
uneasy sleep, one thought burned in my chest:
If the Demon Cult didn't exist here…