The lights buzzed overhead. Kim Min-jae stared at his computer screen, eyes burning. His fingers hurt from typing all day.
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Fwd: Q3 Asset Integration Timeline
He couldn't read anymore. Everything looked blurry.
"Just… one more email," he said to himself. The same lie he'd been saying since 6 PM. The clock showed 11:47 PM. Friday night. Normal people were out having fun. Min-jae was drinking his fourth energy drink, trying to finish work that didn't even matter.
His phone buzzed. Mom calling. He ignored it like the last fifteen times this week.
Pretty funny when he thought about it—he worked on a fantasy game where players went on adventures, fought dragons, fell in love. Meanwhile, his own life was just work, instant noodles, and sleeping under his desk.
StatusQuest Online, the game was called. He'd helped make the class system, how characters got stronger, the spirit pets. Millions of people played it worldwide.
And here he was, slowly dying in a gray office thirty floors up in Seoul.
Min-jae reached for his drink. His hand shook. When did that start happening?
You have: (1) New Email
He clicked it without thinking.
From: [email protected]
Subject: You are already dead
His heart jumped. Spam? Someone messing with him? But the email was empty except for one line:
Time of death: 11:52 PM. Cause: Heart attack. You have 3 minutes left.
"What the hell?" Min-jae stood up fast. The room spun. His chest felt tight.
Oh.
Oh shit.
The pain hit hard. His left arm went numb. Something crushed his chest like a giant hand squeezing. He tried to yell, but everyone had gone home hours ago. Only crazy people stayed this late, and he was alone on this floor.
Min-jae fell. His head hit the desk on the way down. Blood spread across the cold floor. Everything got dark around the edges.
This can't be it. I'm only twenty-eight. I haven't… I haven't done anything.
He never told his mom he loved her. Never asked out that girl from accounting. Never went anywhere. Never took any chances. Never actually lived.
His whole life was just preparing for a future that would never come. Study hard, get into college, get a job, work your way up. But he forgot to actually live between all that.
If I could do it over…
The thought came as darkness closed in.
If I got another chance, I'd do things different. I'd take risks. I'd care about people. I'd find something that actually matters.
His vision went black.
Kim Min-jae died at 11:52 PM on a Friday night, alone on an office floor, surrounded by empty energy drinks and work that would get given to someone else by Monday.
The last thing he heard was those lights, still buzzing.
And then—
…
Pain.
Different pain. Not the crushing feeling of his heart stopping, but a deep ache like his body had been sick for a long time.
Wait.
Min-jae's eyes opened.
Wrong ceiling. Not the office. Not his apartment. Wooden beams overhead with gaps showing the roof. Actual sunlight—not those office lights—came through a small window.
He tried to sit up. His body screamed. Too weak. Too thin. He looked at his hands.
Small. Pale. Shaking from fever. These weren't his hands. His hands had been bigger, rough from typing, with a scar on the left thumb from when he was a kid.
These hands were clean. Young. Weak.
What the hell is going on?
Memories flooded in—not his memories, but someone else's. A boy named Aren. Sixteen years old. Sick with fever. Dying in a small village called Thornhaven in a kingdom called Cairn.
A world with magic. With monsters. With something called the System.
No way. This is impossible.
But the memories kept coming. Aren Valewood, youngest son of a hunter family. Dad Garret, dead two years from a dungeon monster. Mom Elara, working too hard as a village herb seller. Brother Torrhen, trying to keep the family together. Sister Lysa, married and moved to the next village.
And Aren himself—weak, sick, no talent. A problem for a family that barely had enough food.
Min-jae felt something wet on his face. Tears. But whose? His or Aren's?
The boy died, he realized. Aren died three days ago. His family doesn't know. They think he's just sleeping.
And somehow, Min-jae's soul ended up in the empty body.
Transmigration. Going to another world. That thing he'd read about a thousand times in web novels when he had free time.
It actually happened to him.
I died. And I woke up in another world.
He laughed, weak and rough. Of course. Of course this was his second chance. Not in his own world, with his own family, fixing his own mistakes. No—thrown into a completely different place, in a body already dying, in a family that didn't know him.
The door opened.
A woman came in—thin, tired-looking, with dark circles under her eyes but a kind smile. Late thirties but looked fifty from hard work. She carried a bowl of something hot.
"Aren, you're awake!" She sounded so relieved. "Thank the gods. The fever's down. I was so worried…"
Elara Valewood. His mother. No—Aren's mother.
She sat on the bed, touching his forehead. "Still warm, but better. Much better. Here, you need to eat. Just soup, but it's warm."
She helped him sit up, holding him. Min-jae—no, he needed to think of himself as Aren now—let her. The body moved slow, weak from not eating.
The soup was thin, mostly water with a few vegetables and a tiny bit of chicken fat. But for a body that hadn't eaten in days, it was amazing. He drank it all.
"That's it, slow," Elara said, brushing hair from his face. The touch was so motherly, so gentle, that Aren's throat got tight.
His real mother had tried calling him fifteen times. He ignored every call.
I'm sorry, Mom, he thought, even though she was in another world, another life, and would never hear it. I'm so sorry.
"The Class Ceremony is tomorrow," Elara said quietly. "I know you're still sick, but… we can't delay it. The System only gives classes on the scheduled day."
Right. The memories got clearer. At age sixteen, everyone in this world got a Class from the System—a magic thing that controlled levels, abilities, and power. It showed up five hundred years ago during something called the Great Awakening.
Warriors, mages, craftsmen, farmers—everyone got something. Your class decided your future. Good classes meant money and power. Bad classes meant hard work and poverty forever.
And Aren, weak and from a poor family, would probably get a trash class. Maybe Common-rank at best. Probably Laborer or Farmer. Something that would keep him poor his whole life.
"It's okay, Mom," Aren said, his voice rough from not talking. The word felt weird to say. He'd avoided saying "Mom" for years in his past life. "I'll be there."
Elara smiled sadly. "Your brother Torrhen got Ranger at his ceremony. D-rank. It's not great, but it's okay. He can join the Hunter's Guild, make decent money. I just hope…" She stopped, but Aren knew what she meant.
I hope you get something useful. I hope you don't become a problem.
She'd never say it. Too nice for that. But he could see the worry in her eyes.
"I'll be fine," Aren said, trying to sound confident.
After Elara left, Aren stared at the ceiling, thinking hard.
A second chance. An actual, impossible, fantasy-world second chance.
He died with regrets. Died doing nothing important. Died alone.
This world had a System. Magic. Adventure and danger. Everything his old life didn't have.
If I get a decent class, I can make something of this life, he thought. I can help this family. I can actually matter.
But a voice in his head whispered: What if you fail again? What if you're just as useless here?
Aren pushed the thought away. Sleep pulled at him, the body still healing.
Tomorrow, he'd get his class. Tomorrow, his second life would really start.
He just had to live until then.
…
The dream came that night.
Aren stood in white nothing. No floor, no ceiling, just white everywhere.
"Hello?" His voice echoed weird.
An old man appeared—wearing leather and bones, face painted with tribal marks, holding a staff with feathers and carved wood. His eyes were solid white and glowing.
"You are not Aren," the old man said. Not a question. Just a fact.
"I… who are you?"
"Better question is who are you." The old man walked closer. "A soul from somewhere else. A stranger wearing a dead boy's body. The System should have kicked you out. Instead, it let you in. Interesting."
"Are you… are you God? The System?"
The old man laughed like wind through trees. "I am an echo. A memory. The last bit of what came before."
He raised his staff, and the white space filled with visions—
Huge forests full of spirits you could see. Shamans talking to nature itself. A world without the System, where power came from understanding, not levels.
Then fire. Disaster. Reality ripping apart.
The System coming down like a cage, bringing order but demanding control.
Shamans disappearing, forgotten, hunted.
"You carry two souls now," the old man said. "The boy who died, and the man who failed. Both want a second chance. Both got one they don't deserve."
The images changed. Aren saw himself—older, powerful, with spirits around him. But the path to get there was written in blood.
"Tomorrow, you get a class," the old man said. "Not the class the System planned for Aren Valewood. You showing up broke things. The System is big, but it's not perfect. There are cracks. Places where the old ways still exist."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean you have a choice." The old man's eyes blazed. "Take what the System gives you—a simple class, a simple life, safe and boring. Or…"
He moved his hand, and a different vision showed up. Aren saw himself with power beyond anything, spirits bowing to him, reality itself bending.
But the cost—he saw himself covered in scars, crying over graves, making impossible choices.
"Or take what was lost. Walk the path of the Ancient Shamans. Be the bridge between what is and what was."
"I don't understand. How do I—"
"You'll know when it happens. The System will give you a choice. Most people never see it. But you… you broke the rules. And rule-breakers can access what should stay hidden."
The old man started fading.
"Wait! Who are you? Why help me?"
"I am the First Shaman. I am the Last Shaman. I am everyone who walked between worlds before the System made it impossible." His voice got quiet. "And I help you because the world is dying, stranger. The System was supposed to save it. Instead, it's slowly killing everything."
"Only a shaman can sense the truth. Only a shaman can fix what broke. And there haven't been shamans for five hundred years."
"Until now."
The dream broke.
…
Aren woke up gasping. Dawn light came through the window. His heart pounded. The dream felt more real than being awake.
Just a dream, he told himself. Fever and stress mixing with memories from the game I made. Nothing else.
But he couldn't shake the feeling that something big had changed.
Today was the Class Ceremony.
Today, his future would be decided.
Aren dragged himself out of bed, still weak but ready. He could hear noise in the other room—his mother making breakfast, his brother Torrhen sharpening his hunting knives.
In a few hours, he'd stand with all the other sixteen-year-olds and get judged by the System.
Whatever happened, there was no going back.
This was his second chance.
He wasn't going to waste it.
…
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION - HIDDEN]
Anomaly detected: Soul doesn't match
Original plan: Aren Valewood - Class: Farmer (F-rank)
Current soul: Unknown - Origin: [ERROR - OUTSIDE WORLD]
Recalculating class…
…
…
…
Ancient files accessed
Restriction broken
Hidden class found: ▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓ (???-rank)
Waiting for user choice
Time until ceremony: 4 hours, 23 minutes