'Hah… what? … It seems my miserable life will end here.'
He closed his eyes and felt nothing afterward, until his breathing slowly began to stop.
He woke up in a small bed just big enough for one person. Looking around, he found himself in a small, empty white room with a single tightly locked door.
Song Won got down from the bed, looking around in confusion. Then he looked at his small feet, his expression filled with surprise.
"Huh! Why is my body so small?"
'What's going on? Why am I small? Where am I?'
'Impossible! I must have died because of the truck… Is this the afterlife?'
He examined his surroundings, then sat back on the bed.
'There's nothing here, even the door is tightly shut.'
'… Maybe this is death, and I'm in the afterlife. Did they throw me into this cell because they didn't like me here either?'
He hugged his knees and stared sadly into the void.
After a while, he tried to recall some novels he had read to distract himself, until an idea crossed his mind.
'Or maybe… I reincarnated like in those novels.'
He frowned.
'Have I really read that many reincarnation stories that I'm thinking like this?'
'I think in reincarnation stories, the protagonist usually has a status window… Should I check?'
"… Status window."
"…"
"Hm… nothing?" He felt slightly embarrassed and disappointed.
Suddenly, a blue screen appeared in front of him.
He was shocked.
"Huh?"
"This… it's really a status window!"
'It really appeared!'
He sighed. "I guess I really did reincarnate."
He looked at the status window and read its contents:
**Name:** Steven
**Age:** 7 years
**Race:** Human
**Status:** Awakened
**Talent:** SS
**Magic:** A
**Mana:** G
**Strength:** G
**Intelligence:** S
**Skills:**
*(Swordsmanship Beginner) Level 1:* Increases as your understanding of sword basics improves.
*(Author):* Allows you to view the status windows of main characters from the novel *The Search for Hope.*
*(Memory ???):* Locked — unlocks when certain conditions are met.
*(Time) Level 1 (Beginner):* Allows you to stop time for one second. Duration increases with level.
"What is this? Viewing the status of the main characters from *The Search for Hope*!? Am I inside my own novel?"
"Impossible!! Out of all the novels I've read, why did I reincarnate into the tragic one I wrote myself?"
He sighed.
*The Search for Hope* was a story about the world after the year 2023, when enormous, strange monsters invaded Earth through cracks that appeared out of nowhere.
Cities were destroyed and millions of humans died. Weapons couldn't pierce the monsters, and humanity lived in fear for five years — until a small number of people awakened supernatural powers and fought back. They were called *Awakened*.
Some powerful Awakened gathered others to form organizations called *Guilds*, whose purpose was to protect humanity from extinction and maintain control over the Awakened.
From time to time, spatial cracks appeared across the world. Inside them were realms filled with monsters ruled by powerful leaders — these were called *Dungeons*, and they were ranked according to the monsters' strength.
Many other races also appeared on Earth — elves, dwarves, and vampires — their own worlds destroyed.
They didn't wish to live among humans but sought places similar to their original homelands:
The elves moved into forests.
The dwarves built underground cities deep within mountains.
The vampires wanted to enslave humans, seeing them as weak.
But humanity resisted fiercely. A war broke out between humans and vampires. After great massacres that affected even the elves and dwarves, those races sided with humanity. The war lasted for 300 years, until a peace treaty was finally signed.
The largest academy ever built, uniting all races, was founded — *Hope Academy*.
Around 200 years later, the novel began within that academy.
But eight years into the story, a great war broke out between demons and all other races on Earth.
The protagonist and his friends fought bravely — yet one by one, they all died, leaving him to fight alone.
Driven by vengeance and the desire to protect his world, he confronted the Demon King… only to learn that all his sacrifices were meaningless.
He couldn't defeat the Demon King and died easily at his hands. The world was destroyed.
Many readers cursed the author endlessly in the comments for that ending.
Yes — it was a tragic story. Everyone dies, and the demons win.
'So… I'm inside my own novel.'
He sighed. "Hah… how annoying."
As soon as he said that, he felt a sharp pain in his head — as if thousands of needles pierced his skull.
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"
He fainted from the pain.
When he opened his eyes again, new memories flooded his mind — memories that weren't his, yet felt familiar.
They belonged to *Steven*, the 7-year-old boy with black hair and green eyes.
His family was poor, and it seemed they hated him too. His mother had left when he was three, leaving him with his older brother. Two years later, his father sold him to a laboratory for experiments.
As for his brother, Steven didn't remember what happened to him — his face was blurry in his memory.
Steven was sold at age five, and after two full years of inhuman experiments, his once-black hair had turned pure white.
The lab conducted brutal experiments to implant monster powers into human bodies. They used children for these tests, and Steven was one of the few who survived — only two others made it through.
Those who survived apparently possessed rare talents.
"What kind of hell am I in?"
Steven sat on the floor and covered his eyes.
'Wasn't my previous life's suffering enough?'
'Why… am I destined to suffer forever?'
Steven's eyes turned lifeless.
'I'm tired… should I just kill myself?'
He tried to calm himself.
"No… I need to find a way to escape."
'Wait! Was there any character with this kind of talent in the novel?'
'I don't remember writing one. Could he have died before the story began?'
'And that *Time* skill — it's amazing.'
The sound of a lock clicking stopped his thoughts. A man in his thirties wearing a white coat entered the room.
'Damn! Must be experiment time,' Steven thought.
The man looked at Steven's blank expression with a mocking smile, then grabbed his arm roughly and dragged him out of the room. Steven didn't resist.
As they walked through the corridor, Steven silently observed, noting the locations of the cameras and calculating their blind spots and the ventilation ducts.
Finally, they arrived at a room. The man opened the door and pulled Steven inside.
There were three beds — two already occupied by restrained children.
One had blue hair and black eyes — labeled *Experiment No. 268*, brought in six months after Steven.
The other, with half-black and half-white hair, covered in wounds, was *Experiment No. 142*, brought in a year and two months after Steven.
Steven himself was *Experiment No. 66.*
The man tied Steven to a bed and injected him with a strange fluid, causing unbearable pain. His body convulsed violently as he struggled, unable to move. After an hour, the pain began to fade.
He couldn't see what the experimenter was doing anymore — everything blurred from agony.
The man standing beside Steven's bed spoke to his partner:
"Looks like he survived, but it seems he didn't gain any new skill," he said, glancing at a strange device.
The other man replied, "Hah, another failure. What a waste of rare chameleon-beast essence."
"The Orchid Phantom Nectar experiment was useless — I shouldn't have used it; it's too rare."
He sighed. "What do we do now? At this rate, we'll never get promoted to the main facility."
"Hey, don't lose hope. Maybe we'll succeed eventually."
Only these two men ran experiments on the children who survived more than six months — making them the best researchers in this lab.
From Steven's inherited memories, during the first six months, children were kept together in a large, empty room without even beds. They were only given pieces of moldy bread.
After Steven survived six months, he was moved to a private room with a bed — and slightly better food: tasteless soup. But the experiments became more frequent and more painful.
After several hours, the men stopped.
"Damn, I'm hungry," one said.
"Me too. Let's take a break and eat," the other replied.
They left the room.
Steven thought,
'That was really painful… how did the original Steven endure this for two years?'
'Good thing they left. I should talk to the other children.'
He looked around with an emotionless face. The blue-haired boy didn't move — his eyes closed.
'Hah… how pitiful, he's dead.'
He turned to the other boy, who was staring at him with empty eyes — clearly broken. Steven thought for a moment, then spoke:
"Do you want to escape?"
The boy looked at him, his expression blank.
"Can we really escape from this hell? We can't. I tried many times," he said, his body trembling.
Steven glanced around the room, analyzing it. He said calmly,
"Don't worry. I have a plan."
'Though it's not a good one… it's the only one I have. If it fails, that's fine. I just hope I don't reincarnate again.'
The boy's eyes filled with tears. "You really have a plan? Will it fail?"
Steven reassured him, "No. It won't fail."
The boy smiled weakly through his tears. "That's great."
Steven said, "Don't cry. I need you to do something."
He thought, 'I need to know his skills. He must have good talent if he's still alive — the average survival time is six months.'
The boy asked, "What is it?"
Steven said, "Say *Status Window*, and tell me what the blue screen in front of you says."
Then he frowned. "Wait… can you read and write?"
The boy replied, "Yes! My old grandpa taught me some words on the street."
The boy gasped, "Ah! A blue board really appeared!"
Steven said, "Tell me what it says."
The boy answered, "Uh, it says… Strength G-, Intelligence A+, Mana G, Magic B+, and skills: *Beginner Piercer* Level 1, and *Beginner Stealth* Level 1."
Steven thought, 'That's good. He'll be useful.'
'I must use everything I can.'
He said, "Tomorrow, when they bring us back here, we'll carry out the plan. Don't do anything until I move. And don't act suspiciously, understand?"
The boy nodded eagerly. "Okay! Okay!"
An hour later, the men returned and resumed their experiments, then sent the children back to their rooms.
In his room, Steven tried to control his mana — using a method he had described in his own novel, though the character who used it had died early in the story.
He sat cross-legged on the floor, closed his eyes, and began to feel warmth in his lower abdomen. He guided the mana throughout his body, channeling it into his bones.
The pain was intense — but nothing compared to that caused by the strange injections.
Most humans stored mana in their hearts, making them stronger. But Steven's method — infusing it into his bones — was far superior.
After three hours, he finally stood up, drenched in sweat, and said:
"Status Window."
**Name:** Steven
**Age:** 7 years
**Race:** Human
**Status:** Awakened
**Talent:** SS
**Magic:** A
**Mana:** +G
**Strength:** +G
**Intelligence:** S
**Skills:**
*(Swordsmanship Beginner) Level 1:* Increases as your understanding of sword basics improves.
*(Author):* Allows you to view the status windows of the main characters in *The Search for Hope.*
*(Memory ???):* Locked — unlocks when certain conditions are met.
*(Time) Level 1:* Stops time for one second. Duration increases with level.
*(Disguise):* Allows you to change only hair and eye color, and slightly increase your height depending on your mana.
'What's this? A new skill?'
'Did I get it because of that strange liquid?'
'It's really useful.'
He sat back down and continued meditating. After a while, he lay on the bed and went to sleep.