The hospital room felt smaller than it had ten minutes ago. Every time Jin-soo breathed, he could feel a cold, rhythmic pulse beneath his skin, as if his very shadow was trying to detach itself from the floor. His mother had finally been coaxed into the cafeteria by Yooha, leaving him alone with the humming machines and that persistent, violet window flickering in his vision.
[NEW MISSION: THE FIRST HARVEST]
OBJECTIVE: Claim your first shadow.
TIME REMAINING: 00:58:24
'Claim a shadow?' Jin-soo thought, his eyes darting around the sterile room. 'What does that even mean? I'm stuck in a hospital bed hooked up to an IV. There aren't exactly any monsters around for me to kill.'
He shifted his weight, testing his limbs. To his surprise, the crushing heaviness from earlier had vanished. He felt light—dangerously light. He reached over and pulled the tape from his arm, sliding the IV needle out. There was no blood. The tiny puncture wound sealed itself instantly, leaving skin that looked smoother and paler than before.
He stood up, his bare feet hitting the cold linoleum floor. The "Sense" stat on his window wasn't just a number; he could suddenly feel the building breathing. He could hear the faint heartbeat of a nurse three doors down and the buzzing of the fluorescent lights in the hallway. But more importantly, he felt a "pull" coming from the morgue levels deep below.
'If the System wants a harvest, it won't find it here among the living,' Jin-soo thought, his jaw tightening.
He grabbed a discarded hoodie from the bedside chair, pulling the hood low to hide his face. If the doctors saw him wandering around, they'd sedate him. He slipped out of the room, moving with a fluid grace he had never possessed before. His Agility was only 10, but compared to his old, unawakened self, he felt like a predator.
He avoided the main elevators, opting for the service stairs. As he descended, the air grew colder. The vibrant, golden "Divine Light" that usually permeated modern hospitals—designed to keep patients calm—began to fade, replaced by a heavy, stagnant darkness.
He reached the basement level. The sign on the heavy steel door read: [BIOHAZARD - RESTRICTED ACCESS].
Jin-soo pushed the door open. The morgue was silent, filled with rows of stainless steel cabinets. This was where they brought the victims of the "Minor Fissures"—the people who weren't lucky enough to be saved by the Divine Legion.
'I shouldn't be here,' Jin-soo thought, his stomach churning as he looked at the cold metal. 'This is desecration. I'm no better than the monsters.'
[MISSION WARNING: 00:15:12 REMAINING]
[FAILURE WILL RESULT IN: -5 STRENGTH, -5 STAMINA]
'If I lose those stats, I'll be a cripple,' he realized. 'The world already threw me away once. I'm not going back to being that helpless kid.'
He walked toward a table in the center of the room. A white sheet covered a large form. Based on the size and the jagged tears in the fabric, this had been a hunter—someone killed by a beast during a raid. Jin-soo reached out, his hand trembling as he hovered it over the body.
"I... I don't know how to do this," Jin-soo whispered into the dark.
As if responding to his voice, his shadow suddenly stretched across the floor, turning a deep, abyssal black. It crawled up the legs of the table like ink, swirling around the corpse.
[PROMPT: USE SKILL 'REVIVE DEAD'?]
'Yes,' Jin-soo thought. 'Do it.'
A low, guttural hum filled the room. The temperature plummeted until Jin-soo's breath came out in thick white clouds. From the shadow beneath the table, dozens of ghostly, ethereal hands reached up, grasping at the air.
"Arise," Jin-soo commanded. His voice didn't sound like his own; it was layered with a thousand echoing whispers.
The corpse beneath the sheet didn't move, but something else did. A dark, vaporous mist began to leak from the body's chest. It coiled and solidified, taking the shape of a man dressed in tattered leather armor. He had no face—only two glowing violet slits where eyes should be.
[SUCCESS!]
[YOU HAVE CLAIMED YOUR FIRST SHADOW.]
[SHADOW NAME: NONE (RANK: SOLDIER)]
[STRENGTH: 15]
[AGILITY: 12]
[LEVEL: 1]
The shadow soldier knelt before Jin-soo, its head bowed in absolute submission. The coldness that had been biting at Jin-soo's skin suddenly felt warm, almost welcoming. For the first time in his life, he didn't feel like a side character. He felt like the center of the universe.
'The Legion protects the living,' Jin-soo thought, looking at the silent warrior at his feet. 'But the dead... the dead belong to me.'
A sudden noise echoed from the hallway—the sound of heavy combat boots.
"Check the morgue!" a muffled voice shouted. "The mana sensor in this wing just went haywire. It felt like a High-Tier Dark Element was here!"
Jin-soo's heart hammered. The Divine Police. If they caught him with a summoned undead, he'd be executed on the spot.
'Return,' Jin-soo thought frantically.
The shadow soldier dissolved into smoke, rushing back into Jin-soo's own shadow. He turned and bolted for the ventilation shaft in the corner of the room, pulling the grate shut just as the door burst open.
He scrambled through the tight duct, his heart racing. He was sweating, his lungs burning, but a wild, manic grin was spreading across his face.
'I'm nothing,' Jin-soo thought as he reached the safety of the upper floors and slipped back toward his room. 'I'm just a side character after all... and as long as they believe that, they'll never see me coming.'