The lunch rush at his father's shop peaked at twelve-fifteen and was over by twelve-forty.
That was just the reality of it. The shop sat at the end of a street most people only walked down if they were lost, and the sign out front had been missing a character for three years. What remained just said Kang's No. His father kept saying he'd fix it. He never fixed it.
Iseul worked the counter. His father handled the back. That was the arrangement and had been for long enough that neither of them thought about it anymore.
He was wiping down the counter when the old man at table two called for more broth.
"One second," Iseul said, already moving.
The old man came every Tuesday. Never said much. Ate slowly, paid exactly, left. Nothing about it was interesting but it was reliable, and at nineteen Iseul had started to understand without really being able to explain it that reliable counted for something.
He refilled the broth and set it down. The old man nodded.
Outside it was grey. Flat Seoul grey that just sat there and didn't do anything. A few people passed the window. Nothing about any of it was worth paying attention to.
His father came out of the back, looked at the empty tables, looked at Iseul.
Iseul straightened slightly. "Slow day."
His father picked up a cloth and wiped a counter that didn't need wiping. That meant he agreed.
They worked in silence. Iseul started prepping dinner stock out of habit more than hope, his hands moving through the motions while his brain did basically nothing. Chop, boil, skim. The grey outside got greyer. His father moved quietly in the back. The afternoon went nowhere in particular.
He wasn't thinking about anything.
Didn't feel weird. Didn't feel anything coming.
One moment he was standing in his father's shop with a ladle in his hand.
And then he wasn't.
White.
Just — white. Some kind of room maybe, or something pretending to be one. No ceiling he could find, no walls, just a floor under his feet and a glowing panel floating in front of him pulsing slow and steady like it was breathing.
Iseul stood there.
He still had the ladle.
What.
He looked at it. Looked back up at the panel. Back at the ladle.
What the actual hell.
His heart kicked hard in his chest. He pressed a hand against it without thinking, like that was going to do anything useful, and just stood there breathing for a second. In. Out. Okay. Something happened. Something extremely weird happened and he was somewhere that was absolutely not his father's shop and he had no idea what any of this was.
Why is it white, he thought. Why is everything white. What is this place. Where am I. Why am I here. Why do I still have the ladle.
He looked at the ladle again.
I was making stock, he thought. I was literally in the middle of making stock.
The panel pulsed and text appeared, clean and unbothered.
[Welcome, Candidate.][Initializing Tutorial Sequence…][Good luck. You'll need it.]
He stared at it.
Good luck you'll need it.
Good luck you'll NEED it.
He read it a third time to make sure he wasn't misreading it.
He was not misreading it.
"What does that mean?" he said out loud, to nobody, in an empty white room. "Why does it say that? Why does it say it like that?"
Nothing answered. The panel just pulsed at him, patient and completely indifferent to his situation.
He'd seen this before — not personally, but close enough. Friends deep into the genre, phones in his face, just read this part Iseul, seriously. Tutorial. System. Getting yanked into another world. He knew the rough shape of it even if he'd never actually sat down and followed any of it properly because he always had somewhere else to be or just didn't care enough.
He cared now.
He cared a lot now.
Okay, he thought, starting to pace slightly because standing still felt impossible. Okay so this is that thing. The thing from those webtoons. You get pulled into another world and there's a system and you do a tutorial and then — and then what. What happens after that. Why didn't I just read them properly. Why did I never just sit down and actually read them.
He stopped pacing.
Of all the people on earth, he thought. Me. The guy from the noodle shop. Why me specifically.
The panel pulsed again, still waiting.
What if I just don't touch it, he thought. What if I just stand here.
He stood there.
The panel waited.
He kept standing there.
It kept waiting.
"...Fine," he muttered, and reached out and touched it.
It chimed once, soft and clean, and everything went white.
Oh this is so bad, he thought, and then the ground hit him.
Dirt. Actual dirt, dry and cracked, warm under his palms. He pushed himself up onto his knees and blinked at the world that had appeared around him.
A flatland. Patchy yellowed grass clinging to dry earth in uneven clumps, a few scraggly trees scattered far apart, low hills rolling in the distance. The sky was hazy and washed out and the air hit him immediately — thick and sticky in that deeply annoying way that had no payoff. No breeze. Nothing. Just weight pressing on everything.
It smelled like dirt and something faintly rotten underneath.
Iseul got to his feet and turned in a slow circle.
What the hell is this.
He looked down at himself. Work shirt, plain trousers, sandals.
Sandals, he thought. I got transported in sandals.
He still had the ladle.
He stared at it. A completely normal kitchen ladle from his completely normal father's completely normal shop, sitting in his hand in the middle of wherever the hell this was.
Sorry, he thought, in the vague direction of wherever his father currently was. I'll bring it back.
A text box appeared.
[Tutorial Stage 1 Loaded.][Objective: Survive.][Tip: Look around.]
Look around. He reread it. That's the tip. Look around.
"Wow," he said out loud. "Great. Super helpful."
He dismissed it and tried to think.
Okay. Weapon. I need a weapon — I have a ladle, a ladle is steel, steel is hard, maybe that's — no that's insane, a ladle is not a weapon, what am I going to do with a ladle—
He turned another circle.
Water. I need water too. And food. And actual shoes. Shit, I need so many things right now and I have none of them, I have literally nothing except a ladle and sandals and—
Why me, he thought. Out of everyone alive right now, every single person on earth, it's me. The guy from the noodle shop. I haven't done anything. I haven't gone anywhere or done anything or even — I'm nineteen, I haven't even gotten a girlfriend yet, I'm going to die a virgin in a field, that's what's happening, that's my life, I'm going to die a virgin in sandals holding a ladle and nobody is even going to know—
Something made a sound. Low and wet, somewhere off to his left.
— like why does it have to be me specifically, out of every person who could've been standing in that shop today it was just me, completely normal, making stock, and now I'm here with nothing and I don't even know where here is and—
He stopped.
Turned slowly toward the trees.
...Wait.
I'm in a tutorial.
There's always something in the trees.
Oh fuck—
It stepped out from between them and his brain just stalled. Because it was wrong. Not just dangerous wrong but wrong in a way that was hard to look at directly. Big, heavy through the chest, shoulder height easy. No fur anywhere on it, just dark skin pulled drum-tight over muscle, every cord and tendon shifting visibly when it moved. Its head was too large for its body. Its teeth were too long for its mouth. It had eyes that caught the flat hazy light in a way that didn't make sense and it was looking directly at him with the quiet absolute focus of something that had already decided what he was.
Okay, Iseul thought, very carefully. Okay that is a monster. That is an actual real monster and I am looking at it right now and it is looking at me.
It took one step forward.
He took one step back.
I'm going to die, he thought. I'm going to die in a field in sandals. I haven't done anything yet. I haven't—
It lunged.
He threw himself sideways on pure reflex, hit the dirt hard, rolled, came up on his feet with his heart in his throat. It had missed by half a meter and was already turning, no hesitation, pivoting back toward him smooth and fast like the miss hadn't even registered.
It's fast, he thought desperately. It's really fast, okay, running is not an option, where would I even run to—
It came again and this time he couldn't get fully clear. It clipped his shoulder and the impact spun him hard into the ground, all the air leaving his body at once. He lay there for one horrible second completely unable to move, tasting blood where he'd caught his cheek on the dirt, listening to it turn around.
Get up, he thought. Get up right now.
He got up.
It charged and this time something happened in his body that he didn't plan — instead of going back he went forward, cutting inside the lunge, and swung the ladle at the side of its skull with everything he had.
The sound it made was genuinely awful. He felt the impact all the way up to his shoulders.
The thing stumbled. One leg buckled. It shook its head with a low grinding sound, something dark running down the side of its face where the ladle had connected.
It worked, Iseul thought, stunned completely still for a second. That actually—
It turned back toward him. Slower. Still coming.
Oh what the hell—
He hit it again. Same spot. It dropped to one knee. He hit it a third time with a sound he was going to hear in his sleep and it went down and stayed down and the silence that followed was so sudden and complete that for a moment he couldn't process it.
He stood there over it, chest heaving, ladle in hand, sandals on his feet.
A long moment passed.
I just—
He looked at the ladle. At the thing on the ground.
Did I just—
Holy shit.
Holy shit I just killed that.
He took one step back, then forward, then just stood there because he didn't know what to do with his body.
I just killed a monster, he thought. An actual monster. I killed it. Me. With a ladle. I killed a monster with a soup ladle and it's dead and I'm not dead and I did that, that was me, I just—
He let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
HOLY SHIT—
A chime rang out, bright and clean, cutting right through everything.
[First Kill!][EXP Gained: 45][Achievement Unlocked: First Blood — You killed something. It wasn't pretty. It counted.]
He stared at it. At the number. At First Kill sitting there like it was official. Like the world itself had looked at what just happened and gone — yeah, that counted.
45 exp, he thought. I got exp. I actually got exp from killing a monster. This is real. This is actually real.
He looked at his hands. Looked at the dead thing. Looked back at his hands.
I'm like — wait. Am I the main character right now?
The screen shifted before he could finish that thought. Something new appeared, larger, framed differently. More deliberate.
[First Kill Reward: Choose One Skill.]
[1. Iron Body — Passive. Your body takes and remembers pain. Damage received is reduced by a small amount. Increases gradually over time.]
[2. Shockwave Strike — Active. Channel force through a single strike. Short cooldown. Can stagger or knockback targets larger than yourself.]
[3. Predator's Sense — Passive. Heightened awareness of nearby living creatures. You will rarely be caught off guard.]
[Choose carefully. You only choose once.]
...I get to pick an ability.
He read through all three slowly.
I get to pick an actual ability. Like — this is the part. This is literally the part from every webtoon I half read. The ability selection screen. It's right here in front of me and I'm the one picking.
He read them again, slower this time, actually thinking.
This is kind of insane, he thought. This is actually kind of sick. I have a skill screen. I have an exp bar. I just killed something and got rewarded for it and now I get to choose a power like—
He almost smiled.
Okay. Okay focus.
Iron Body — take hits better. Shockwave Strike — hit harder. Predator's Sense — know when something's coming.
He thought about the sound that thing didn't make coming out of the trees. How deep in his own head he'd been. How half a meter was the only reason he was still standing here having this thought at all.
He selected option three.
[Skill Acquired: Predator's Sense.][You are now slightly harder to ambush. Slightly.]
Slightly, he reread.
The screen faded. The flatland came back — dry dirt, patchy grass, hazy sky, hills in the distance saying nothing useful.
The rush faded with it.
Okay, he thought. Okay so I have one skill. I have 45 exp. I have a ladle.
He looked out at the hills. At the trees. At all the open empty space between him and anything useful.
Shit, he thought. How am I actually going to survive this.
No chime answered that one.
He gripped the ladle and started walking.