Oh, The Misery //Solo Leveling// Sung Jin Woo x Antares

1: I am Nothing

Jin-Woo stared back again at the statues.

With one hand he grips the sword that Mr Kim left behind.

Blood falls out from every orifice of his body, he is a fountain of carnage, he is supposed to be dead right now. He should have long been disintegrated from the moment he entered the dungeon. There is no one, there is nothing. Not a single soul will come to save him now, the silence only coexists with the statues that stare back, that move when he is not looking, that he feels under his breath and over his head. When his head dashes back they have moved. They are one step closer, he looks away, they are one step closer, he stares back at them, they are one step closer, he moves his head, they are one step closer, the blood covers his eyelids, they are one step closer, his body is exhausted, it's there.

There is everyone, there is everything. Guts and blood resurface the floor, if corpses could scream he would be hearing the wails of ten hunters left for dead. An eye looks back at the altar while its head is nowhere to be seen. Sliced in half, maimed, ripped apart, limbs sliced, punctured, smashed, baths of red water, thicker than the moss on the walls. Screeches of the ghosts come to meet him as he remembers, and he remembers each and every one of them. The last words of one, the choke of blood from the other, the silent fear, the instant and the slow one, the accepting whisper and the denial banshee.

Darkness blooms in the room. Torches fade away in time as he feels a spear stick to his chest. And more than enough has come out. If one leg was pain at first then his entrails placed upon the altar is a torture of god and time itself as his head can still remember, can still see everything around him, can still hear the stone sauntering among the cobblestone, among the cracked bones, among the crushed skulls, among the steps of the altar, splashing on its blood.

Light covers him as he sees blue, he sees white, he sees the darkness of a creepy smile waiting for him to die, for him to continue living with that grim life of his. Life no longer clings to a string. Whatever is keeping him alive is gone, gone the moment the fire grazes his body, his stomach turned and in the blink of an eye death flew over him to gather the ashes of the hunters. A tear falls off his eye, two and three more come forward, he can't see anymore, both from the salty water and his consciousness falling into the void of dreams, of Eternal Slumber.

Hands wrap around every limb, his bones pushed by stones. Unmovable. The only thing he can do is look on, look at the swinging sword. The sculpture prepared to swing the edge on his head. Torches fade out into a flicker and the night appears welcoming compared to the abyss he is in. Two flares at the end of the pit.

Seconds turn to hours, hours to years, years to a moment in time, the quarter of a quarter of a second as the wind slows and a bright blue light appears over him, dimmer than the torches, brighter than his hope. A voice calls out to him, lifts his consciousness back from the dead as the wings of an angel do to lift up his soul and snatch it from his body far away from pain.

[Completion requirements for the 'Secret Quest: the Courage of the Powerless' has been met.]

The female voice said, its phrasing neutral, but with a tone of mystery hidden under it that he didn't put much thought into as the text dissolved into the black font. Two new words greeted him, simply levitating back and forth.

[You have acquired the rights to become a Player. Will you accept?]

When he was 13, his mother had taken him to the carnival. That day there was a contest for who could answer a trivia question right. He had a niche for that sort of thing, so the moment he heard the question he instantly tried to win its prize. A pair of shoes. That was the last thing he remembers life had given him for free. As for the rest, nothing ever came by luck to him. His friends would often find some lost bills on the sidewalk, or his sister would often get free things from the neighbors for being kind, but Jin-Woo never had such things. Instead he can remember very well just how much his clothes cost, because he worked to get them, or how much each pencil cost Jin Ah, because he bought it. He even knows how much rent he has to pay, and for food, water and electricity since he was dying every day to meet its requirements. When did the world ever care about the work he did? He knew nothing would ever come for free, at least, for him such things will never be.

But just once. Just once? Did life actually care?

I accept.

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[Congratulations on becoming a Player ]

[The System looks forward to your success.]