001 – The Grinding Genius #1
On top of a towering wall so high that even sizable mountains would all appear beneath my feet.
Lost in thought, I gazed down in contempt at the world that looked as small as ants.
How did I—a swindler who until just two days ago was facing the gallows—end up here?
# # #
My father had been gone from the moment I was born.
My mother left home with my stepfather as soon as I entered middle school.
I’d thrown a tantrum, begging her to take me with her.
But she said there was a cat at my stepfather’s house, and since I had a cat allergy, she couldn’t take me.
I had a cat allergy?
I hadn’t even known.
I guess a mother really does know everything about her child.
Left with no choice, I started working right after graduating middle school.
From scrubbing grill plates at BBQ restaurants to pulling rickshaws at tourist spots, delivery gigs, working as a cash collector for voice-phishing rings—if it made money, I did it.
And just when I was trying to save up a nest egg, the nape of my neck got grabbed.
“The defendant is sentenced to one year and six months in prison. However, as the defendant is a first-time offender and is showing remorse, this sentence is suspended for three years. Additionally, one year of probation is ordered, along with 120 hours of community service.”
Good grief, all I did was move a bag with some money in it. Did they really have to make this big a deal out of it?
Because of my probation, I couldn’t even work part-time jobs for petty cash, so I just stayed home.
It was because of that situation that I started looking into a certain game.
“How to earn minimum wage just clicking while watching Netflix (+999)”
“Night Diver ← The GOAT of gaming. Start now!”
While I was at home on my phone searching for ways to make money, I saw a post that caught my eye.
There was an online game called Night Diver, older than me in terms of years.
They said if you invested just a little money, you could quickly make back your initial investment?
“Spend 2 million won on gear, then hunt, and Aether and Energy drop like crazy lol”
└ “If you sell the gear again, you get the exact same amount back, so it’s basically free for real”
└ “If you get something like an Inscription Book while bossing, you can even buy beef to eat lolol”
They said if you hunted monsters all day, money and items dropped, and you just picked them up and sold them.
For a minor on probation who couldn’t even get hired for part-time work, a way to make money from home—
It was like it existed just for me!
“So you’re saying I can earn above minimum wage just tapping on a keyboard?”
Hunting monsters and picking up materials is called farming.
Selling that farmed money and items is called rice-eating, they say.
They said it originated from selling in-game money to buy rice to eat.
And so my efforts toward rice-eating began.
I scraped together all the living expenses my mom had left me.
I even took out next month’s rent to buy game items.
Rice-eating, let’s go.
“Aether acquired. +500”
“Aether acquired. +500”
“The Blessed One ‘Thief Ian’ has leveled up!”
“Aether acquired. +500”
...
..
.
But this simple repetitive work was pretty fun?
Money was rolling in, and I wasn’t hungry or sleepy.
Perhaps it was the result of such effort.
“I made it. 2 million won!”
My first month’s earnings hit 2 million won.
And in the second month, when I’d gained some know-how, 3 million won.
By the third month, I’d even hit 5 million won.
“Kya!”
I was lucky.
Rare material items like Estelle’s Energy dropped for me one after another.
During weekly boss raids, Inscription Books—which were said to have low drop rates—dropped every time, and in daily dungeons, high-value Crystals dropped in heaps. I felt like my brain was going to explode.
Maybe I had a talent for rice-eating after all.
“So this is what Prinkle Chicken tastes like!”
I’d never ordered famous chicken like that before in my life.
I also tried 31-flavor ice cream for the first time then.
I filled the fridge with cola too.
At this point, I even started having dreams.
“If I work hard selling rice, I want to buy a car and get a girlfriend too….”
A rosy future was painted before me.
Let me live normally like everyone else.
This was truly the normalization of my life.
Moreover, today was the showcase day announcing a major update ahead of summer vacation.
Depending on today’s broadcast results, there was a chance the rice price could skyrocket.
So I sat in front of my computer with an expectant heart, but.
There was a problem.
“This summer, new Reboot Server opening!”
“Anyone can enjoy the game without excessive pay-to-win burdens!”
“What kind of bullshit is this! Enjoying the game without spending a dime? Then all the people who should buy my rice will go to Reboot!”
“10 million Aether for sale – 5,000 won”
“Urgent sale 10 million Aether for 3,500 won ppp”
“10 million : 3,000 won bulk sales”
I watched the rice price drop in real time.
It was a total panic sell.
“You shameless bastards, daring to enjoy the game for free…!? You sons of bitches—.”
Dizzy. Suddenly my vision went black.
Nosebleed poured out like a waterfall.
“Uh, uhhh—.”
I couldn’t breathe properly, and my chest hurt as if someone was squeezing my heart.
No matter what, something was seriously wrong.
Did I get too angry because of the Reboot server?
Or was the problem that I hadn’t slept for days while farming?
Maybe it was because I’d eaten energy bars instead of proper meals.
—Newspaper headlines like “Lone Death of Seventeen-Year-Old Boy”—flashed through my mind.
I didn’t want to die in such an embarrassing way.
“Uwaack! Eung-ae!”
After flailing around for a while, when I came to my senses, some middle-aged women were looking at me.
“Sister! The baby is alive!”
“It’s a miracle! A miracle!”
“The baby who died because the umbilical cord was wrapped around its neck… how…!?”
Yor.
That was my new name.
# # #
Until about age ten, I focused entirely on grasping what situation I was in.
Around age twelve, I realized what this was called.
“Reincarnation!”
I had reincarnated.
As Yor, in Haian.
I think my previous self died of something like acute heart disease.
If so, the important question now was where exactly I had reincarnated.
No electricity, no cars—the vibe was completely medieval.
‘I want to eat some spicy kimchi-flavored cup ramyeon.’
I’d never felt my situation in Korea was abundant, but—
Poverty had a basement deeper than the floor, and that basement’s name was “Rilke Orphanage.”
“Sister, I’m hungry.”
“Yor, I’m hungry too.”
Ah, the affectionate Rilke Orphanage.
A nosebleed from a single bean was nothing unusual.
By age fifteen, I was in danger of being kicked out of even that orphanage.
I overheard the director saying she’d made a contract to send me off as some construction site laborer.
“Participate in the glorious Wall construction!”
“Daily wage: 20 copper”
Considering Thompson, who went there first, broke his back and dropped dead within half a year, it was clearly inhuman.
So I ran away.
I ran and did whatever.
“Catch the dine-and-dasher!”
“Th-thief!”
“Someone stole all the silverware and offering boxes from the church!”
Trying to survive rather than live well, before I knew it, I was twenty.
Unfortunately, I ended up locked in the guardhouse prison of Sodom, a small frontier city.
“Name is Yor. From Rilke Orphanage in the backwater Maril Land. Prior convictions: fraud, intimidation, theft—ugh, fuck, it’s damn long just reading it.”
It was because someone had reported me.
“Captain! Do you know how many times that bastard hit the dice in a row? Does this even make sense statistically! He’s definitely cheating!”
At a gambling den, I’d played a game where you guessed the sum of three dice in a rice bowl.
It was my first time gambling, but maybe beginner’s luck struck—I won quite a bit.
Then some thug who looked like a staff member straight up grabbed me by the collar, asking if I was cheating.
“What kind of trick did you use?”
“Spill it straight, punk!”
“Daring to cheat at Lord Dantes’ business? You’ve got some nerve, bastard!”
Thwack—! Whack—!
After being locked in prison, I got beaten every day under the pretext of making me spit out my cheating method.
But what could I say?
I hadn’t actually cheated.
In the end, after being beaten and locked up for a month, I came to the gallows.
I thought I would die like this, but—
Crack—.
The post the rope was tied to broke.
“What, was it this old?”
“Executioner, if the rope breaks or the post collapses and the execution is interrupted, don’t we have to postpone the sentence by a week?”
“Yes. Anyway, he’s a lucky bastard.”
I didn’t know why, but I survived.
To think I could be this lucky in my life.
Another week passed.
Thunk—.
This time, the rope hanging my neck snapped.
“The execution is stopped two times in a row?”
“This bastard, he’s incredibly lucky!”
“I know a place that sells sturdy ropes. Just give me 30 copper, and I think I can buy one by this afternoon. Hehehe—.”
“This bastard, rolling his head to scam even in this situation? I’ll definitely hang you to death!”
# # #
About two weeks passed after the second execution was halted.
The executioners who were supposed to come hang me were well past their time and hadn’t shown up at all, so I was going out of my mind.
It felt like my blood was drying up.
Even the gambling den staff who’d been snarling at me as if they’d beat me to death hadn’t come.
Then one day.
“Yor! Come with us!”
“Move, move, move!”
Rough-looking men put a sack over my head and dragged me off somewhere.
Was this finally it? Was I dying?
“Did you prepare the rope and post well?”
“Shut up!”
“It would be best if you don’t run your mouth carelessly today!”
Swish—.
Soon after, the sack covering my face was removed, and this time I was sitting not in an execution ground but in some office.
And some woman in uniform was perched on the desk, looking down at me.
Sleek yet clean hair, smooth skin, a uniform that showed off her body perfectly, and even deep purple pupils.
An incredible beauty!
“I heard you were a man bold enough to cheat at the Dantes family’s business, but you’re younger than I thought.”
The incredible beauty withdrew her gaze from me and sat in a chair.
Then she began cutting the meat placed before her.
“You’re Yor? Seventeen? Eighteen?”
“...I’m twenty.”
It was my first time seeing someone this beautiful, so I trembled for no reason.
If I had to compare the intensity of my trembling, it felt similar to when the rope was around my neck.
“Yor, I hear your execution was stopped twice? That doesn’t happen often. That’s why I came. To make you a proposal.”
“A proposal?”
“My proposal is this. Waiting quietly for death like this, or flailing against low odds. Which will you choose?”
“Of course I’d choose to flail.”
There was nothing to think about.
Rather than being beaten to death or executed in prison, anything was better.
The woman smiled, as if pleased by my answer.
“Then I should formally introduce myself. I’m this kind of person.”
Snap—.
A small card was held out to me.
A business card?
“Imperial Special Task Force”
“Conscription Officer Ezekiel”
Conscription Officer? Was she military?
What kind of proposal would a soldier make to me?
Feeling curious in many ways, Conscription Officer Ezekiel asked me.
“Yor, have you heard of ‘Blessed Ones’?”
Blessed One—
I felt like I’d heard that word somewhere before.
Had I heard it at the church we visited as a group every weekend from Rilke Orphanage?
Maybe I had.
I couldn’t remember well.
Gurgle—
Was my head slow because I was so hungry?
My eyes were drawn to the plate and meat on Ezekiel’s desk.
“If you give me that, I might remember.”
“You want to eat this?”
“Yes. If I eat it, I might even remember my past life.”
“Past life? What a funny thing to say. Eat. You need a full stomach to work.”
Work?