Park Jinwoo was having the worst Monday of his life, and that was saying something.
He stood in the middle of the convenience store, mop in hand, staring at the puddle of spilled cola that some teenager had knocked over and then run away from. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like angry insects. His back hurt. His feet hurt. His soul hurt, if he was being honest.
Twenty-six years old. Working at a convenience store for minimum wage. Living in a tiny apartment that smelled like mold no matter how many times he cleaned it. His mother called him a disappointment at least twice a week. His younger sister had just gotten promoted to manager at some fancy tech company. His father just sighed whenever he saw him, which was somehow worse than the yelling.
"Jinwoo! Stop daydreaming and clean that up!"
That was Manager Kim, a round man with a red face who seemed to exist only to make Jinwoo's life more miserable. He sat behind the counter, scrolling through his phone, while Jinwoo did all the actual work.
"Yes, sir," Jinwoo mumbled.
He pushed the mop through the sticky brown liquid, watching it spread rather than actually getting cleaned up. The mop was old. The bucket water was dirty. Nothing in this store worked properly, including Jinwoo himself.
A customer walked in—a businessman in an expensive suit. He looked at Jinwoo like he was something stuck to the bottom of his shoe. Jinwoo was used to that look. He got it a lot.
"Where's the soju?" the businessman demanded.
"Aisle three, sir. On your left."
The businessman didn't say thank you. They never did.
Jinwoo went back to mopping. His mind wandered, as it often did, to all the things he wished he could say. All the things he wished he could do. But he never said them. He never did them. He just kept his head down and worked and tried not to think too hard about how empty everything felt.
That was when the world ended.
Or rather, that was when his world ended and a new one began.
It started with a sound.
Not a loud sound. Not an explosion or a scream or anything dramatic like that. Just a soft hum, like someone had struck a tuning fork somewhere far away. Jinwoo felt it in his teeth first, then in his bones. The fluorescent lights flickered.
Manager Kim looked up from his phone. "What the—"
The hum grew louder. The lights flickered faster. The bottles on the shelves started to rattle, clinking against each other like they were having a conversation.
"Earthquake?" the businessman shouted, grabbing onto a shelf for support.
But it wasn't an earthquake. Jinwoo knew that somehow. Earthquakes didn't feel like this. Earthquakes didn't make your blood feel like it was singing. Earthquakes didn't make the air taste like metal and lightning and something older than time itself.
The floor beneath Jinwoo's feet started to glow.
He looked down, mop still in hand, and saw light spreading outward from where he stood. White light, pure and blinding, crawling across the dirty linoleum like living things. The same light was spreading from Manager Kim, from the businessman, from the old lady who had been quietly browsing the snack aisle.
"What's happening?!" Manager Kim screamed.
Jinwoo wanted to answer, but he couldn't speak. The light was crawling up his legs now, warm and cold at the same time, and his body felt like it was dissolving, breaking apart into a million tiny pieces.
He had one last thought before everything went white:
I never finished mopping the floor.
When Jinwoo opened his eyes, he was somewhere else.
Not the convenience store. Not anywhere he recognized. He was lying on grass—actual grass, soft and green and smelling like morning dew. The sky above him was blue, but wrong somehow. Too blue. Too clear. And there were two suns hanging in it, one yellow and one slightly purple, casting strange double shadows on everything.
He sat up slowly, his head spinning.
"What... what..."
He couldn't finish the sentence. His brain refused to process what his eyes were seeing.
He was in a field. A massive, endless field of green grass that stretched to the horizon in every direction. And he wasn't alone. There were people everywhere—hundreds of them, maybe thousands, all lying on the grass like they had fallen from the sky. Which, Jinwoo realized, they probably had.
Some were sitting up, looking around with the same confused expression Jinwoo knew he was wearing. Others were still unconscious. A few were screaming. One man was crying. A woman nearby was praying, her hands clasped together, muttering words Jinwoo couldn't quite hear.
He recognized some faces. Manager Kim was about twenty meters away, his round face pale with shock. The businessman in the expensive suit was on his hands and knees, vomiting into the grass. The old lady from the snack aisle was sitting perfectly still, staring at the two suns with an expression of absolute wonder.
But most of the people were strangers. All ages, all types. Office workers in suits. Students in uniforms. Construction workers in hard hats. Housewives in aprons. Children clinging to their parents. Elderly people being helped to their feet by younger ones.
*How many people?* Jinwoo thought. *How many of us are there?*
He tried to count, but gave up quickly. There were too many. The field seemed to go on forever, and everywhere he looked, there were more people. Thousands. Maybe tens of thousands.
"ATTENTION."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. It wasn't loud, exactly, but it cut through all the noise—the screaming, the crying, the confused shouting—like a knife through butter. Everyone went silent. Everyone looked up.
And there she was.
She appeared in the sky like she had always been there, like Jinwoo had just failed to notice her until now. A woman, floating in the air between the two suns. No, not a woman. Something else. Something more.
She was beautiful in a way that hurt to look at. Her skin was the color of moonlight. Her hair was black and flowing, moving in a wind that didn't exist. Her eyes were gold, and when Jinwoo looked into them—even from this distance, even though she was hundreds of meters in the air—he felt like she could see right through him. See every secret he had ever kept. See every lie he had ever told. See every shameful thought he had ever had.
She wore robes of pure white, and behind her, vast and impossible, were wings. Not angel wings, not bird wings, something else entirely. They looked like they were made of light itself, folding and unfolding in patterns that made Jinwoo's head ache when he tried to follow them.
"I AM SERAPHIEL," the being said. "ADMINISTRATOR OF THE SYSTEM. KEEPER OF THE GREAT GAME. AND YOU, CHILDREN OF EARTH, HAVE BEEN CHOSEN."
---
The silence that followed was absolute. No one moved. No one breathed. Even the wind seemed to stop.
Then someone screamed.
"I WANT TO GO HOME!"
It was a young woman, maybe in her early twenties, tears streaming down her face. She was clutching a phone in her hand—a phone that, Jinwoo noticed, had no signal bars. No signal at all. Just a blank screen with a message that read: NO NETWORK FOUND.
Seraphiel looked down at the screaming woman. Her golden eyes showed no emotion. No pity. No anger. Nothing at all.
"YOU CANNOT GO HOME," she said. "THE EARTH YOU KNEW IS GONE. THE UNIVERSE YOU KNEW IS GONE. YOU HAVE BEEN TRANSPORTED TO THE REALM OF ASCENSION, THE WORLD BETWEEN WORLDS, THE STAGE UPON WHICH THE GREAT GAME IS PLAYED."
More screaming now. More crying. A man tried to run, sprinting toward the horizon like he thought he could escape. He made it about fifty meters before he hit something—an invisible wall that flashed blue when he collided with it—and fell backward onto the grass.
"THERE IS NO ESCAPE," Seraphiel continued. "THE BARRIER WILL REMAIN UNTIL THE ORIENTATION IS COMPLETE. AFTER THAT, YOU WILL BE FREE TO MOVE, TO EXPLORE, TO FIGHT, TO DIE. BUT FOR NOW, YOU WILL LISTEN."
Jinwoo's legs felt weak. He sat back down on the grass, his hands shaking. This wasn't real. This couldn't be real. He was dreaming. He had to be dreaming. Maybe he had slipped on the wet floor and hit his head and now he was in a coma, imagining all of this.
But the grass felt real beneath his fingers. The two suns felt warm on his skin. The fear twisting in his gut felt very, very real.
"THE GREAT GAME HAS BEEN PLAYED FOR EONS," Seraphiel said. "CIVILIZATIONS RISE AND FALL WITHIN IT. GODS ARE BORN AND DIE WITHIN IT. AND NOW, YOUR SPECIES HAS BEEN INVITED TO PARTICIPATE."
She spread her arms wide, and suddenly, there was something in front of every person. A glowing blue screen, floating in the air, transparent and shimmering. Jinwoo reached out to touch his, and his fingers passed right through it.
**[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION IN PROGRESS]**
**[WELCOME, PARK JINWOO]**
**[PLEASE WAIT FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS]**
His name. The screen knew his name.
"THE SYSTEM IS THE FOUNDATION OF ALL THINGS IN THIS REALM," Seraphiel explained. "IT GOVERNS POWER. IT MEASURES STRENGTH. IT DETERMINES WORTH. THROUGH THE SYSTEM, YOU MAY GROW STRONGER. THROUGH THE SYSTEM, YOU MAY GAIN ABILITIES BEYOND YOUR COMPREHENSION. THROUGH THE SYSTEM, YOU MAY BECOME MORE THAN HUMAN."
Murmurs spread through the crowd. Jinwoo saw people looking at their screens, touching them, trying to figure out what was happening. The businessman—who had finally stopped vomiting—was tapping his screen frantically, like it was a smartphone that wasn't responding.
"BUT BEFORE THE GAME BEGINS," Seraphiel said, "YOU MUST BE GIVEN YOUR FOUNDATION. YOU MUST ESTABLISH YOUR TRUTH."
The screens flickered, and new words appeared:
[ESTABLISHING PERSONAL RULE]
[EVERY PARTICIPANT MUST CREATE ONE ABSOLUTE RULE FOR THEMSELVES]
[THIS RULE WILL BE PERMANENTLY BOUND TO YOUR SOUL]
[IT CANNOT BE CHANGED. IT CANNOT BE REMOVED. IT CANNOT BE BROKEN.]
[CHOOSE WISELY.]
---
Chaos erupted.
"What does that mean?!"
"A rule? What kind of rule?!"
"I don't understand!"
"Someone explain this to me!"
Seraphiel waited patiently for the noise to die down. When it didn't, she raised one hand, and suddenly everyone felt their mouths go dry, their throats close up. They couldn't speak. They couldn't scream. They could only listen.
"THE PERSONAL RULE IS THE CORE OF YOUR EXISTENCE IN THIS REALM," Seraphiel said, her voice calm and patient, like a teacher explaining something to very slow students. "IT IS A LAW THAT APPLIES ONLY TO YOU. A TRUTH THAT CANNOT BE VIOLATED. YOU MAY MAKE ANY RULE YOU WISH, AS LONG AS IT CONCERNS ONLY YOURSELF."
She waved her hand, and the ability to speak returned. But this time, people were quieter. They were listening.
"FOR EXAMPLE," Seraphiel continued, "YOU MAY CREATE A RULE THAT SAYS: 'I AM THE STRONGEST BEING IN EXISTENCE.' IF YOU DO, THE SYSTEM WILL ATTEMPT TO MAKE THIS TRUE. IT WILL GRANT YOU POWER BEYOND IMAGINATION. HOWEVER—"
She paused, and her golden eyes seemed to grow colder.
"—THE SYSTEM HAS LIMITS. IT CANNOT BREAK THE FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF REALITY. IF YOUR RULE IS TOO AMBITIOUS, TOO ABSOLUTE, THE SYSTEM WILL INTERPRET IT... CREATIVELY. THE MAN WHO DECLARES HIMSELF THE STRONGEST MAY FIND HIMSELF STRONG, YES. BUT STRENGTH HAS MANY DEFINITIONS. PHYSICAL STRENGTH? MAGICAL STRENGTH? STRENGTH OF WILL? THE SYSTEM DECIDES. AND THE SYSTEM IS NOT ALWAYS KIND."
Jinwoo's head was spinning. He understood the words individually, but when they were put together, they stopped making sense. A rule? A personal rule bound to his soul? What was he supposed to do with that?
"ADDITIONALLY," Seraphiel said, "THE RULE MAY GRANT POWER, BUT IT ALSO CREATES OBLIGATIONS. IF YOU CREATE A RULE THAT SAYS 'I WILL ALWAYS WIN,' THEN YOU WILL ALWAYS WIN—BUT YOU MAY ALSO FIND YOURSELF COMPELLED TO ENTER CONFLICTS YOU WOULD RATHER AVOID. THE RULE SHAPES YOUR DESTINY. IT GUIDES YOUR PATH. IT IS BOTH YOUR GREATEST WEAPON AND YOUR HEAVIEST CHAIN."
More murmurs. People were looking at their screens, thinking, calculating. Jinwoo could see the gears turning in their heads. Some were excited. Some were terrified. Some were already typing words onto their screens, eager to claim their power.
"YOU HAVE ONE HOUR," Seraphiel announced. "ONCE THE HOUR ENDS, YOUR RULE WILL BE SEALED. IF YOU HAVE NOT WRITTEN A RULE BY THEN, THE SYSTEM WILL ASSIGN ONE TO YOU RANDOMLY. I SUGGEST YOU NOT RELY ON CHANCE."
She began to fade, her form becoming transparent.
"THE GREAT GAME BEGINS SOON. PREPARE YOURSELVES, CHILDREN OF EARTH. MOST OF YOU WILL DIE. BUT THOSE WHO SURVIVE... THOSE WHO THRIVE... THEY WILL BECOME LEGENDS."
And then she was gone.
---
One hour.
Jinwoo stared at his screen, his mind blank with panic.
[CREATE YOUR PERSONAL RULE]
[ENTER TEXT BELOW:]
[_____________]
All around him, people were talking, arguing, debating. He could hear fragments of conversation:
"—I'm going to make myself immortal—"
"—no, you idiot, didn't you hear what she said? The system interprets it however it wants—"
"—what if I say I have unlimited power—"
"—that's too vague, be specific—"
"—I'll make myself immune to all damage—"
"—but what about mental attacks? What about—"
Jinwoo pressed his hands to his ears, trying to block out the noise. He needed to think. He needed to concentrate. But his brain felt like it was full of static. He had never been good at this kind of thing. He had never been good at thinking on his feet. He had never been good at making decisions.
That was why he worked at a convenience store, wasn't it? Because he was too dumb, too slow, too useless to do anything else.
*Think,* he told himself. *Think, think, think.*
A rule. He needed a rule. Something that would help him survive. Something that would make him powerful. But what? He didn't know anything about magic or combat or games. He didn't know how any of this worked. He didn't even understand half of what Seraphiel had said.
*Most of you will die.*
Those words echoed in his head. Most of you will die. Most. That meant the majority. That meant if there were ten thousand people here, maybe only a few hundred would survive. Maybe only a few dozen. Maybe less.
And Jinwoo knew, with absolute certainty, that he was not special. He was not smart. He was not strong. He was not brave. He was just Park Jinwoo, the disappointing son, the mediocre student, the convenience store employee who couldn't even mop a floor properly.
He was going to die.
The realization hit him like a punch to the gut. He was going to die here, in this strange world with two suns, and no one would ever know what happened to him. His mother would never get to yell at him again. His father would never get to sigh at him again. His sister would never get to look at him with that mixture of pity and disappointment again.
Tears welled up in his eyes. He blinked them away.
*No. Stop. Focus. You have one hour. Use it.*
He looked at the screen again. The blank space where he was supposed to write his rule seemed to mock him.
What did he want?
Power? But he didn't know how power worked here. If he wrote "I am powerful," the system might interpret that in a way that killed him.
Safety? But "I am always safe" might mean the system would prevent him from ever taking risks, ever moving, ever doing anything at all.
Knowledge? But he was already stupid. Even if the system made him smarter, would it really change anything?
The minutes ticked by. Around him, people were finalizing their rules. He saw someone's screen flash gold—confirmation that their rule had been accepted. Then another. Then another.
Forty minutes left.
Thirty minutes.
Twenty minutes.
Jinwoo still hadn't written anything.
He was panicking now, his breath coming in short gasps, his hands shaking so badly he could barely type. He tried to write something—anything—but every word he came up with seemed wrong. Dangerous. Stupid.
*I am strong.* No, too vague.
*I cannot be killed.* No, what if the system interpreted "killed" narrowly? What if he could still be tortured, maimed, imprisoned forever?
*I have infinite magic.* No, he didn't even know what magic was here. What if infinite magic meant his body exploded?
*I am smart.* No, being smart didn't mean anything if he was still weak.
Ten minutes left.
His heart was pounding so hard he could hear it in his ears. Sweat dripped down his face. People around him were moving now, forming groups, making plans. He was still sitting alone, staring at a blank screen.
*I'm going to die,* he thought again. *I'm going to die because I'm too stupid to write a single sentence.*
Five minutes.
Four minutes.
Three minutes.
Someone shoved past him, laughing about how their rule made them the greatest mage in existence. Jinwoo barely noticed. His vision was tunneling. His thoughts were scattered. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. He couldn't—
Two minutes.
And then, in his desperation, a memory surfaced.
He was seven years old. He had broken his mother's favorite vase, and she was screaming at him to kneel and apologize. He had refused. Not because he was brave—he was terrified—but because something in him, some stubborn, stupid part of him, would not bend. His mother had dragged him to his knees eventually, forcing him down, and he had cried and apologized. But for those few seconds, standing there with his back straight and his chin raised, he had felt... something.
Pride, maybe. Or defiance. Or just plain stubbornness.
He had felt, for one brief moment, like he was more than just a disappointment.
One minute.
Jinwoo's hands moved before his brain caught up. His fingers typed words onto the screen—words he didn't fully understand, words that didn't make sense, words that had nothing to do with power or safety or knowledge.
[I WILL NEVER KNEEL]
The screen flashed gold.
[PERSONAL RULE ACCEPTED]
[RULE: I WILL NEVER KNEEL]
[THIS RULE IS NOW PERMANENTLY BOUND TO YOUR SOUL]
[YOU CANNOT KNEEL. YOU CANNOT BOW. YOU CANNOT BEND YOUR KNEE TO ANY BEING, FOR ANY REASON, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.]
[THIS RULE CANNOT BE CHANGED. THIS RULE CANNOT BE REMOVED. THIS RULE CANNOT BE BROKEN.]
Jinwoo stared at the words.
And then the full weight of what he had done crashed down on him.
*I... I can't kneel?*
He tried to bend his knee, just to test it. His leg refused to move. It was like there was an invisible force holding his knee straight, preventing it from bending in that specific way. He could walk. He could run. He could sit. But he could not kneel. He could not bow. He could not lower himself before anyone or anything.
What did I do?
What did I just do?!
He had wasted his rule. His one chance to become powerful, to survive in this death game, and he had wasted it on something completely useless. So what if he couldn't kneel? How was that going to help him fight monsters? How was that going to help him survive?
The timer hit zero.
[ORIENTATION COMPLETE]
[THE GREAT GAME BEGINS NOW]
[GOOD LUCK, CHILDREN OF EARTH]
[YOU WILL NEED IT]
The invisible barriers fell. The field, which had been a prison, became a starting point. People began to move, to run, to scatter in every direction. Some formed groups. Some went alone. Some headed toward a distant forest. Some headed toward what looked like mountains on the horizon.
Jinwoo stayed where he was, sitting on the grass, staring at his screen.
[PERSONAL RULE: I WILL NEVER KNEEL]
[CURRENT STATUS: WEAK]
[CURRENT ABILITIES: NONE]
[CURRENT POWER LEVEL: 1]
Power level one. The lowest possible. No abilities. No strength. No magic. Nothing.
Just a stupid rule that meant nothing.
Manager Kim ran past him, not even pausing to look. The businessman in the expensive suit was already halfway to the forest, moving faster than Jinwoo had ever seen anyone move—his rule must have granted him speed. The old lady from the snack aisle was glowing with soft blue light, some kind of magical ability manifesting around her.
Everyone had power.
Everyone except Jinwoo.
He put his face in his hands and laughed-a broken, desperate sound.
I'm so stupid, he thought. I'm so, so stupid.
But somewhere deep inside him, in that same stubborn, stupid part that had made him refuse to kneel as a child, something else stirred.
At least, that part whispered, no matter what happens, no matter who comes, no matter how powerful they are...
At least I'll never have to kneel.
It wasn't much.
It wasn't anything, really.
But as Jinwoo sat there in the grass, watching everyone else run toward their destinies, he held onto that thought like a drowning man holds onto driftwood.
He would not kneel.
He could not kneel.
And somehow, some way, he would survive.
He had to.
[END OF CHAPTER 1]