Jinwoo sat on the grass for exactly three more minutes before he realized something important.
Sitting here feeling sorry for himself was going to get him killed.
Get up, he told himself. Get up, you idiot. Move.
His legs didn't want to cooperate. They felt like they were made of wet noodles. But he forced them to work anyway, pushing himself to his feet and looking around at the chaos.
The field was emptying fast. People were running in every direction, some alone, some in groups. He could see fights breaking out already—two men wrestling over something, a woman shooting actual fire from her hands at someone who had tried to grab her bag. In the distance, he heard screaming. He didn't want to know what was causing it.
Where do I go?
He had no idea. He had no plan. He had no abilities. He had nothing except a stupid rule about not kneeling and the clothes on his back—his convenience store uniform, complete with the little name tag that said "PARK JINWOO - HAPPY TO HELP!"
Happy to help, he thought bitterly. I can't even help myself.
He picked a direction at random—toward the forest, because at least trees meant cover—and started walking. Not running. He was too tired to run, and besides, running would attract attention. Walking was safer. Walking was what prey did when they wanted to avoid predators.
I'm prey now, he realized. That's what I am. Prey.
The thought should have terrified him. And it did, a little. But mostly he just felt numb. Everything was happening too fast. His brain couldn't keep up. It was like someone had grabbed his life, shaken it like a snow globe, and then thrown it against a wall.
He walked.
And walked.
And walked.
The forest was further than it looked.
By the time Jinwoo reached the tree line, his legs were burning and his throat was dry. He hadn't eaten since breakfast—a convenience store rice ball that Manager Kim had thrown at him and told him to "stop wasting time eating"—and he hadn't had water in hours.
I'm going to die of dehydration,he thought. I'm going to die of dehydration in a magical death game. That's so pathetic it's almost funny.
He laughed at his own joke. It came out as a weird croaking sound. He decided not to laugh again.
The forest was dense and dark, the trees taller than any Jinwoo had seen on Earth. Their trunks were as wide as cars, their branches so thick with leaves that they blocked out most of the light from the two suns. The ground was covered in soft moss and fallen leaves, and the air smelled like rain and something else—something sweet and strange that Jinwoo couldn't identify.
He walked deeper into the forest, stepping carefully over roots and stones. He kept expecting something to jump out at him—a monster, a demon, another person with fire powers who wanted to kill him. But nothing happened. The forest was quiet. Peaceful, almost.
Maybe this won't be so bad, he thought. Maybe I can just hide here until—
His screen flickered to life in front of him.
[ALERT: CREATURE DETECTED]
[SPECIES: FOREST GOBLIN]
[THREAT LEVEL: LOW]
[CDISTANCE: 15 METERS]
Jinwoo froze.
Goblin?
He looked around frantically, trying to spot the creature. He couldn't see anything. Just trees and shadows and more trees and—
There.
Something moved in the bushes to his left. Something small and green and ugly.
The goblin stepped out into the open, and Jinwoo got his first real look at it.
It was about waist-high, with mottled green skin and long pointed ears. Its face was wrinkled and cruel, with beady yellow eyes and a mouth full of jagged teeth. It was wearing scraps of leather armor and carrying a crude wooden club that looked like it had been chewed rather than carved.
It also looked hungry.
Very hungry.
"Graaah?" the goblin said, tilting its head. It seemed confused, like it hadn't expected to find a human here.
Jinwoo's heart was pounding so hard he thought it might explode. His legs screamed at him to run. His brain screamed at him to run. Every instinct he had was screaming at him to run.
But he didn't run.
He couldn't run.
Because the goblin was blocking the only clear path, and if he turned his back, it would definitely attack. He had read enough fantasy novels to know that much. You never turned your back on a monster.
*What do I do?* he thought frantically. *What do I do what do I do what do I do—*
The goblin raised its club and charged.
Jinwoo screamed.
It was not a brave scream. It was not a battle cry. It was the high-pitched shriek of a man who had never been in a fight in his life and was about to die to a waist-high green creature with bad teeth.
He threw his hands up to protect his face—a useless gesture, since the goblin was aiming for his legs—and stumbled backward. His foot caught on a root. He fell.
But he didn't fall like a normal person.
His body refused to kneel. His legs refused to bend in that specific way. So instead of crumpling to the ground, he fell backward, stiff as a board, and crashed into the goblin that had been charging at him.
The goblin, which had not expected its prey to suddenly become a falling tree, was knocked flat.
Jinwoo landed on top of it.
There was a crunching sound.
Then silence.
For a long moment, Jinwoo didn't move. He couldn't move. He was lying on his back on top of something lumpy and warm, staring up at the canopy of leaves far above him, trying to process what had just happened.
Did I... did I just kill it?
He rolled off the goblin—or rather, he flopped off it like a fish—and looked at the creature.
It was dead.
Very dead.
When Jinwoo had fallen backward, his body rigid and unbending, he had landed on the goblin with all his weight concentrated on his back and shoulders. The creature's skull had cracked like an egg. Green blood was leaking from its head onto the moss.
Jinwoo stared at the corpse.
Then he turned to the side and vomited.
It wasn't a lot—he hadn't eaten much—but his body heaved and shook as it tried to empty a stomach that was already empty. The smell of the goblin's blood mixed with the smell of his own bile, and he gagged again, tears streaming down his face.
I killed it, he thought. I killed something. I actually killed something.
He had never killed anything before. Not even a bug. He was the kind of person who captured spiders in cups and released them outside. He was the kind of person who felt bad about stepping on ants.
And now he had crushed a goblin's skull with his own body weight.
[CONGRATULATIONS!]
[YOU HAVE DEFEATED: FOREST GOBLIN]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 10]
[CURRENT LEVEL: 1]
[EXPERIENCE TO NEXT LEVEL: 90/100]
The cheerful notification did not make him feel better.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and forced himself to stand. His legs were shaking. His hands were shaking. Everything was shaking.
I need to keep moving, he told himself. There might be more of them.
He took one last look at the dead goblin, mumbled an apology that he wasn't sure why he was giving, and stumbled deeper into the forest.
He found water about an hour later.
It was a small stream, barely more than a trickle, cutting through the forest floor between mossy rocks. The water was clear and cold, and when Jinwoo cupped his hands and drank, it tasted better than anything he had ever tasted in his life.
He drank until his stomach hurt. Then he sat beside the stream, his back against a tree, and tried to catch his breath.
His screen flickered again.
[STATUS UPDATE]
[NAME: PARK JINWOO]
[LEVEL: 1]
[EXPERIENCE: 10/100]
[PERSONAL RULE: I WILL NEVER KNEEL]
[ABILITIES: NONE]
[STATS:]
[STRENGTH: 5 (BELOW AVERAGE)]
[AGILITY: 4 (POOR)]
[INTELLIGENCE: 6 (AVERAGE)]
[ENDURANCE: 5 (BELOW AVERAGE)]
[LUCK: 3 (TERRIBLE)]
Jinwoo stared at his stats.
Luck: 3. Terrible.
"Yeah," he said out loud. "That sounds about right."
He closed the screen with a thought—he was getting used to the interface now, learning that he could control it just by thinking—and leaned his head back against the tree.
What was he going to do?
He had killed one goblin, and that was mostly by accident. He had no weapons. No abilities. No companions. His stats were garbage. His luck was garbage. He was garbage.
Maybe I should just give up, he thought. Maybe I should just lie here and wait to die.
It would be easier. Less painful, probably, than slowly starving to death or being eaten by monsters. He could just close his eyes and—
No.
Something in him rebelled against that thought. That stubborn, stupid part of him—the same part that had made him write his useless rule—refused to accept it.
I won't give up, he thought. I can't. I'm not... I'm not that pathetic.
Okay, I am that pathetic. But I'm not going to die pathetically. If I'm going to die, I'm going to die standing up.
Because I literally cannot do anything else.
He laughed at his own joke again. This time, it sounded slightly less like a dying animal.
The sun was setting—both suns, actually, sinking toward the horizon in a blaze of orange and purple—when Jinwoo heard voices.
Human voices.
He pressed himself against the tree, trying to make himself small and invisible. The voices were coming from somewhere ahead, through the trees. They sounded... casual. Relaxed. Like people having a normal conversation.
Other survivors?
He crept forward, moving as quietly as he could, until he could see through the bushes to a small clearing ahead.
There were five of them. Three men and two women, all wearing the same kind of random clothes that Jinwoo was wearing—the clothes they had been transported in. One of the men was in a police uniform. One of the women was in a business suit. They looked tired and dirty, but they also looked confident. Strong.
They had set up a small camp in the clearing. Someone had started a fire—actual fire, burning in a ring of stones—and they were sitting around it, talking and eating something that looked like cooked meat.
Where did they get meat?
Then Jinwoo saw the goblin corpses piled at the edge of the clearing. At least a dozen of them. And he understood.
These people had been hunting. Successfully.
They're strong,he realized. Much stronger than me.
He should leave. He should turn around and walk away before they noticed him. Joining a group might sound safe, but what happened when they realized how useless he was? They would abandon him at best. Kill him for his supplies at worst. He had nothing to offer. Nothing to contribute.
He started to back away.
A twig snapped under his foot.
Oh no.
"Who's there?!"
The man in the police uniform was on his feet in an instant, his hand outstretched. Fire—actual fire—gathered in his palm, casting flickering shadows across the clearing.
"Come out now, or I burn you alive!"
Jinwoo considered his options.
Option one: Run. He would probably trip over a root and break his neck. Even if he didn't, the fire guy could probably chase him down easily.
Option two: Hide. He was standing in plain sight behind a thin bush. This was not a real option.
Option three: Fight. He had no weapons and stats that were described as "terrible." This was also not a real option.
Option four: Surrender peacefully and hope they didn't kill him.
He raised his hands and stepped out of the bushes.
"Please don't burn me!" he said, his voice cracking. "I'm just—I'm nobody! I don't want any trouble!"
The five survivors stared at him.
Jinwoo knew what they were seeing. A skinny guy in a convenience store uniform, covered in dirt and goblin blood, with a name tag that said "HAPPY TO HELP." He looked pathetic. He felt pathetic. He was pathetic.
The man with the fire lowered his hand slightly, but didn't extinguish the flames.
"Who are you?" he demanded. "What's your rule?"
"My... my name is Park Jinwoo. I worked at a convenience store. I don't—"
"Your rule," the man repeated. "What's your personal rule?"
Jinwoo hesitated.
Should I tell them?
If he told them the truth—that his rule was useless, that he had no power—they might decide he wasn't worth keeping around. They might chase him away. Or worse.
But if he lied, they might find out later. And then they would definitely kill him.
"I..." he swallowed hard. "I can't kneel."
Silence.
The five survivors exchanged glances.
"What do you mean, you can't kneel?" one of the women asked. She was the one in the business suit—tall and sharp-eyed, with the look of someone who was used to being in charge.
"My rule," Jinwoo explained miserably. "I wrote... I wrote that I would never kneel. And now I can't. My legs won't bend that way. I physically cannot kneel or bow to anyone or anything."
More silence.
Then the police officer—the one with the fire—burst out laughing.
"That's it?!" he howled. "That's your rule?! You can't KNEEL?!"
The others started laughing too. Even the sharp-eyed woman cracked a smile.
Jinwoo's face burned with shame. He wanted to disappear into the ground. He wanted to die. This was somehow worse than facing the goblin.
"Oh man," the police officer gasped, wiping tears from his eyes. "Oh man, that's the worst rule I've ever heard. What were you thinking?!"
"I wasn't," Jinwoo admitted quietly. "I panicked."
"You panicked," the officer repeated, shaking his head. "Unbelievable. Well, at least you're honest about being an idiot."
"Sergeant Lee," the sharp-eyed woman said. "That's enough."
The laughter died down. The woman—clearly the leader of this group—studied Jinwoo with a calculating expression.
"My name is Yoon Sora," she said. "I was a corporate lawyer before... all of this. These are my companions. Sergeant Lee Donghyun, Officer Hwang Minji, Kim Taewoo, and Park Eunji."
She pointed to each person as she named them. The police officer with fire powers. A younger female officer with a bow made of light. A construction worker with arms that looked like they were made of stone. And a college student who seemed to flicker in and out of visibility—some kind of stealth ability.
"What can you do?" Yoon Sora asked. "Besides not kneeling."
Jinwoo thought about it.
"I... I can mop floors?"
Sergeant Lee started laughing again.
They let him stay.
Jinwoo wasn't sure why. Maybe they felt sorry for him. Maybe they wanted someone to do the menial tasks they didn't want to do. Maybe they just wanted someone around who made them feel better about themselves by comparison.
Whatever the reason, he wasn't going to complain.
They gave him some of the cooked goblin meat—which tasted surprisingly like chicken—and a spot near the fire. He sat apart from the others, not wanting to intrude, and listened to their conversation.
"We need to move tomorrow," Yoon Sora was saying. "This forest isn't safe. Those goblins were weak, but I saw something bigger earlier. Something with scales."
"Where do we go?" Officer Hwang Minji asked. She was young, maybe twenty-two, with a serious face and steady hands. "We don't know anything about this world."
"We head for that mountain," Kim Taewoo said, pointing toward the horizon. "High ground is always defensible. We can see threats coming from miles away."
"And what if there are threats ON the mountain?" Park Eunji asked. The college student was nervously picking at her food, her form flickering transparent every few seconds. "What if there are, I don't know, dragons or something?"
"Then we kill the dragons," Sergeant Lee said confidently. "My flames can burn anything."
Jinwoo stayed quiet. He had nothing to contribute. He didn't know strategy. He didn't know combat. He didn't know anything useful.
But he listened.
And he tried to learn.
They took turns keeping watch that night.
Jinwoo wasn't assigned a watch. "You'd probably just fall asleep and get us killed," Sergeant Lee had said, only half-joking. The others had agreed. So Jinwoo lay on the ground near the fire, wrapped in a blanket that Park Eunji had shared with him, and tried to sleep.
He couldn't.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the goblin's head cracking under his weight. He heard the crunching sound. He smelled the green blood.
I killed something,he thought again. I actually killed something.
He rolled onto his side and stared at the fire.
Is this what my life is now? Killing things? Being useless? Following behind people who are stronger than me and hoping they don't abandon me?
It was pathetic. He knew it was pathetic. But what choice did he have?
None,he thought. I have no choices. I never have.
He closed his eyes and eventually, somehow, fell asleep.
He dreamed of kneeling.
In the dream, he was back in the convenience store. Manager Kim was standing over him, red-faced and angry, screaming at him to kneel and apologize for some mistake he had made.
"KNEEL!" Manager Kim screamed. "KNEEL, YOU USELESS PIECE OF—"
And Jinwoo tried. He tried to kneel. He wanted to kneel, wanted to make the screaming stop, wanted to disappear into the floor.
But his legs wouldn't bend.
No matter how hard he tried, his body refused to kneel. He stood there, straight-backed and stiff, while Manager Kim's screaming grew louder and louder and louder—
He woke up gasping.
The fire had died down to embers. The sky above was dark, filled with unfamiliar stars and two pale moons—one silver and one faintly green. The others were asleep around him, except for Park Eunji, who was sitting on a rock at the edge of the clearing, keeping watch.
She noticed him sitting up and gave him a small wave.
He waved back.
Just a dream,he told himself. It was just a dream.
But his heart was still pounding, and his legs still wouldn't bend, and he wondered if he would ever be able to kneel again.
And then he wondered why he even wanted to.
Morning came.
The two suns rose together, painting the sky in shades of orange and gold and purple. The forest came alive with sounds—birds singing, insects buzzing, something large moving through the underbrush far away.
Yoon Sora woke everyone up with brisk efficiency.
"Pack up. We move in ten minutes."
There wasn't much to pack. They had almost nothing—just the clothes on their backs and whatever small items they had been carrying when they were transported. Jinwoo had a wallet with money that was worthless here, a phone that didn't work, and a half-empty pack of gum.
He offered the gum to the group. It was the only thing he could contribute.
Sergeant Lee took a piece. "Mint. Nice."
*At least I'm good for something,* Jinwoo thought bitterly.
They set off toward the mountain, walking in a loose formation. Yoon Sora at the front, making decisions. Sergeant Lee behind her, ready to burn anything that attacked. Kim Taewoo in the middle, his stone arms providing protection. Officer Hwang Minji at the back, her light-bow ready to shoot. Park Eunji flickering in and out of visibility, scouting ahead.
And Jinwoo...
Jinwoo walked in the middle, carrying nothing, doing nothing, being nothing.
Useless,he thought. Completely useless.
They had been walking for about two hours when they found the temple.
It rose out of the forest like something from a nightmare. Massive stone pillars, covered in vines and moss. Crumbling walls that had once been grand. A staircase that led up, up, up to a dark entrance at the top.
And bodies.
Human bodies.
Dozens of them, scattered across the steps and the ground around the temple. They were fresh—killed recently, within the last day or two. Their faces were frozen in expressions of terror.
"What happened here?" Officer Hwang Minji whispered.
"Something killed them," Yoon Sora said grimly. "Something powerful."
"We should go around," Kim Taewoo suggested. "Whatever did this—"
"INTRUDERS."
The voice came from everywhere. From the stones. From the trees. From the sky itself. It was deep and rumbling, like thunder made into words.
"INTRUDERS IN MY DOMAIN."
Something emerged from the temple entrance.
It was massive. Easily three meters tall, with skin the color of blood and eyes that burned like coals. Horns curved from its forehead, sharp and cruel. Its body was muscled and powerful, built for war and destruction. And in its hand, it carried a sword that was almost as long as Jinwoo was tall.
[ALERT: POWERFUL CREATURE DETECTED]
[SPECIES: LESSER DEMON - BLOODGUARD
CLASS]
[THREAT LEVEL: HIGH]
[WARNING: THIS CREATURE IS FAR ABOVE YOUR CURRENT LEVEL]
[RECOMMENDED ACTION: FLEE]
The demon descended the stairs slowly, each step making the around tremble.
"Humans," it rumbled. "More humans. The new arrivals are so... weak."
Sergeant Lee stepped forward, fire gathering in both hands. "I don't know what you are, ugly, but you're about to get burned!"
He threw a massive fireball at the demon.
The demon didn't even try to dodge. The fire hit its chest and... did nothing. It washed over the demon's skin like water, leaving no mark, causing no damage.
The demon smiled. Its teeth were sharp and yellow.
"Amusing," it said. "But fire cannot harm a demon of blood. We are born in the flames of hell itself."
It moved.
One second it was at the top of the stairs. The next, it was in front of Sergeant Lee, its massive sword swinging down.
Sergeant Lee tried to dodge. He wasn't fast enough. The sword caught him across the chest, sending him flying backward into a tree. He hit the trunk with a sickening crack and slumped to the ground, unconscious.
"DONGHYUN!" Officer Hwang Minji screamed.
She raised her light-bow and fired. Arrow after arrow of pure light streaked toward the demon.
The demon swatted them aside like flies.
Kim Taewoo charged, his stone fists raised. He was strong-Jinwoo had seen him punch through a tree during their journey-but the demon was stronger. It caught his punch with one hand, twisted, and threw him across the clearing. He crashed through two trees before finally stopping.
Yoon Sora was casting something-some kind of barrier spell-but the demon was already moving toward her, its sword raised.
Park Eunji flickered into invisibility and tried to run, but the demon sniffed the air once and backhanded her out of nowhere. She materialized mid-flight, tumbling across the ground.
In less than ten seconds, five people with powerful rules and abilities had been defeated.
Only Jinwoo was left standing.
The demon turned to look at him.
"And what about you, little human?" it asked, amused. "Will you fight as well? Will you try to burn me, cut me, crush me?"
Jinwoo's legs were shaking. His whole body was shaking. He could barely breathe.
Run, his brain screamed. RUN!
But he couldn't run. The demon was between him and the forest. If he turned his back, he would die.
If he didn't turn his back, he would also die.
I'm going to die, he realized. I'm actually going to die.
The demon stepped closer. Its burning eyes looked him up and down, taking in his pathetic convenience store uniform, his shaking hands, his terrified face.
"No power," it observed. "No strength. No weapon. You are... nothing."
Jinwoo couldn't argue. It was right. He was nothing.
The demon raised its sword.
"KNEEL," it commanded. "Kneel before your death, human. Show respect to the one who ends your pathetic existence."
And here was the thing.
Jinwoo wanted to kneel.
He really, truly, desperately wanted to kneel.
Every part of him was screaming to kneel, to beg, to grovel, to do anything that might make this monster spare his life. He had no pride. He had no dignity. He had nothing except the overwhelming desire to survive.
But his legs wouldn't bend.
His body refused to kneel.
He stood there, straight-backed and trembling, tears streaming down his face, absolutely terrified-but standing.
The demon frowned.
"Did you not hear me, human? I said KNEEL!"
"I-I can't," Jinwoo whispered.
"WHAT?"
"I can't kneel," Jinwoo said, louder this time. His voice cracked. His whole body was shaking so hard he thought he might fall over. "I physically cannot kneel. It's it's my rule. I can never kneel to anyone or anything."
The demon stared at him.
Then it threw its head back and laughed.
"A RULE!" it howled. "You bound yourself with a rule that prevents kneeling! That is the most pathetic-"
It stopped laughing.
Its burning eyes narrowed.
"Wait," it said slowly. "You cannot kneel? You CANNOT? Not 'will not'-you are literally incapable?"
Jinwoo nodded frantically. "Y-yes! I wanted to kneel! I really wanted to! But my body won't let me!"
The demon studied him with new interest.
"Interesting," it murmured. "Very interesting."
It lowered its sword slightly.
"In all my centuries of existence," it said, "I have never met a being who cannot kneel. Kings have knelt before me. Warriors have knelt before me. Even lesser gods have knelt before me. But you... you cannot."
It circled around Jinwoo, looking at him from every angle.
"Tell me, human. If a god demanded that you kneel-a true god, with power beyond comprehension-what would happen?"
"I... I don't know," Jinwoo admitted. "I guess I would just... stand there? Like I'm doing now?"
The demon stopped circling.
"You would stand before a god," it said. "You would refuse to kneel-not out of defiance, but because you are incapable. The god would see not rebellion, but... something else. Something unprecedented."
It sheathed its sword.
"I will not kill you today, human."
Jinwoo's heart nearly stopped.
"W-what?"
"You are interesting," the demon said. "A being who cannot kneel. A being who will stand before gods and demons alike, not because of strength or courage, but because of an unbreakable rule bound to the soul. I want to see what becomes of you."
It turned and began walking back toward the temple.
"Take your companions and leave my domain. But know this, human-we will meet again. And when we do, I expect you to have become someone worth killing."
It disappeared into the darkness of the temple.
And Jinwoo, still standing, still shaking, still crying, realized something.
He had just survived an encounter with a demon.
Not because he was strong.
Not because he was brave.
But because he was too stupid to kneel.
It took him twenty minutes to wake the others and help them limp away from the temple.
No one said anything for a long time.
Finally, as they reached the edge of the forest, Yoon Sora turned to look at him.
"Jinwoo," she said. "What happened back there? Why didn't it kill you?"
Jinwoo thought about it.
"I think," he said slowly, "I think it was confused. It told me to kneel, and I couldn't, and it... it found that interesting."
Sergeant Lee, who was being supported by Kim Taewoo, groaned. "It found you INTERESTING? That's why we're alive?"
"I guess so?"
Everyone stared at him.
"Your rule," Officer Hwang Minji said slowly.
"Your useless, stupid, pathetic rule about not kneeling... that's what saved us?"
Jinwoo nodded miserably. "I know. I'm as confused as you are."
Silence.
Then Yoon Sora did something unexpected.
She laughed.
"This world," she said, shaking her head. "This crazy, insane world. The most useless rule we've ever heard... and it saves all our lives."
The others started laughing too. Even Jinwoo managed a weak smile.
Maybe, he thought, maybe my rule isn't completely useless after all.
Or maybe I just got really, really lucky.
He looked at his status screen.
[LUCK: 3 (TERRIBLE)]
Yeah, he thought. Probably not luck.
[END OF CHAPTER 2]