4. Maybe he really is on drugs.
"Please save our baby!"
Looking down, a woman was screaming as if she had lost her mind.
The people around her desperately held back the woman trying to rush inside.
"Aaaah! Let go! Let me go!"
"You'll die if you go in now!"
Sirens could be heard in the distance, but the sound didn't grow closer—perhaps because traffic was heavily backed up.
"Ugh, what the hell is going on! Did someone call the police? Why do I only hear the sirens and not see them?"
"The roads must be completely jammed! No, but that's not the problem—it seems there's a child inside!"
"I know that too! But you can't just recklessly run in there!"
From outside the window of this floor, the sound of a baby crying could be heard.
On the rooftop, Jinha furrowed his eyes at the smoke and looked across to the other side.
It was a distance he couldn't reach even if he jumped with all his might.
"This world really has me doing all sorts of things."
Jinha took out a rope from the Void Bag. It wasn't to clear a quest, but a reflexive action.
He tied the end of the rope and threw it toward the ventilation shaft on the opposite rooftop.
The rope caught in one try.
For Jinha, who had handled ropes his entire life, it was as easy as flipping his palm.
"If I make it, it's a feat; if I don't, it's my funeral—such is life, isn't it?"
Shouting the line he always muttered when tightrope walking, Jinha climbed onto the rope.
He should have performed a ritual before walking the rope, but there was no time for that.
"One, two, three...!"
Before doubt could swirl through his mind, Jinha moved.
Deep deliberation only hindered action. Before doubt could turn into hesitation, he strode boldly across the rope.
"Huh?"
"What's that? Is that a person?"
The sound of people murmuring could be heard from below.
Having gone across the rope to near the opposite building, Jinha immediately jumped down as soon as he approached the window.
"Aaaaaah!"
With a shattering crash! the window, from which black smoke was billowing, broke.
Glass shards embedded themselves here and there in his body, and a great pain surged through his legs.
He had been injured falling from ropes dozens of times before, but this was a different kind of pain.
"Krrgh!"
Enduring the pain, Jinha raised himself up.
Who would have thought a window that looked so thin could be so sharp and painful.
Through the gaps in the black smoke, he touched the child's body.
The child, already exhausted from crying too much, had lost consciousness.
"Hang in there just a little longer."
He wrapped the child in a blanket and tried to get out, but the room was so filled with smoke that he couldn't see the door.
The only way out was the window he had broken through.
"Looks like this is going to be my funeral."
This time too, before various thoughts could rush in, he moved his body first.
Crash!
Jinha ran to the window he had broken through and jumped down.
Jinha, spinning in mid-air while holding the child tightly, looked beautiful—like a hwaro salpan spinning while hugging a blazing brazier.
* * * [Save a Life 1/1 target value achieved.]
- You have acquired the 'Essence of Replication'.
- The next quest has been activated.
Lying in bed, Jinha looked at the floating letters before his eyes.
Then he lowered his head and looked down at his body wrapped tightly in bandages.
There seemed to be something wrong with his bones, and he had suffered slight burns as well.
Pain washed over him, but he felt proud at the thought that he had saved the child.
▶Essence of Replication [Stage 1]
-Allows you to imitate movements you have seen with your eyes exactly.
-Replication duration: 1 minute
-Next stage: Save a Life 0/10
While lying down, he examined the reward he had received this time.
It allows you to imitate movements exactly?
Thinking it was absurd would be normal, but given everything that had happened so far, he couldn't help but believe it.
Jinha turned the item back into an icon and focused on the newly appeared exclamation mark.
◈Fourth Quest [Master Songs. 0/3]
- A star must know many existing songs besides their own. Master three pop songs perfectly.
-Reward: Essence of Stamina
"Pop songs?"
'Pop songs' seemed to mean modern songs.
It didn't seem like a very difficult quest this time either, but he couldn't tell which songs to master, or what exactly counted as having 'mastered' them.
'Well, there's no rush.'
There was no time limit, so there was no need to hurry.
"You could at least explain it in more detail... Kuaaack!"
Folding away the letters explaining the quest, Jinha felt tremendous pain in his left leg as he tried to get up from bed.
It felt similar to when he had fallen while tightrope walking a few years ago and broken a bone.
"Are you alright?"
Beyond the white curtains surrounding the beds, he heard the voice of a stranger.
"Krrgh... Are you talking to me?"
"Yes. You looked badly hurt earlier, so please stay still. The doctor will be here shortly."
He couldn't see the owner of the voice, but it didn't seem to contain any hostility.
"I'm sorry, but who are you?"
"Me? Who else would I be but a patient like you."
Fortunately, it wasn't a bandit hideout this time either.
But hadn't he obtained something called the Essence of Healing earlier?
He didn't know what an 'Essence' was, but seeing the word 'healing' in the name, he could guess what it was used for.
[Would you like to use the Essence of Healing?]
As soon as he thought about the Essence of Healing, letters floated before his eyes again.
It seemed he could call up the corresponding text simply by thinking.
Jinha nodded without hesitation.
[Healing the body.]
Fwahhh!
A tingling sensation swept across his entire body.
"Huh?"
In just a few seconds, his body returned to perfect condition.
As if he had never been injured.
The disappearance of pain was a truly good thing, but it was so absurd that he couldn't even feel happy about it.
"This is ridiculous."
This was real.
The so-called Void Bag, and the so-called Essence of Healing.
They weren't illusions—they were things that could really be used.
'If I make good use of these...'
The desire within Jinha stirred.
He had never heard of such objects before.
Even in this new world, these items were probably by no means common.
No, he could be certain they didn't exist at all, beyond simply being uncommon.
He didn't know why this had happened, or why it had to be him, but rather than questioning every detail, it was more important to make certain use of this opportunity.
'Calm... calm down...'
Jinha settled his pounding heart and decided to sit on the bed and take a moment to meditate.
-Doo-doo-dung-doo-doo-dung. 'Haah...'
Just as he was finally falling into meditation, the sound of music coming from beyond the white curtains made him open his closed eyes.
It was noisy, but a fast and exciting song.
"Their new song already broke a hundred million views. That's insane."
"I should've become a singer too."
"That's not how it works. Anyone can be a singer?"
The voices of the men who had spoken to him earlier could be heard as well.
'Surely there isn't a troupe performing right out there?'
Curious, Jinha drew back the curtain and went out.
"Gasp."
On a black, rectangular panel, people were singing and dancing.
Even though it was the first time he had seen such a thing, Jinha knew it was a TV.
Just as he naturally knew the written letters.
Even if I'm born again, oh. I will meet you again—my endlessly running heart— the dance the men inside the TV were performing was completely different from the performances of the Namsadang troupe.
Strangely, he absolutely couldn't take his eyes off it.
The people dancing on stage.
The audience cheering at the sight.
It was a scene that perfectly replicated the image Jinha had dreamed of.
Jinha watched the TV, completely absorbed, losing track of time.
His body naturally stirred, and the thought of dancing to that song squirmed within him.
And shortly after, several lines of text floated up.
[You can replicate the movements with the Essence of Replication.]
* * *
"Twelve weeks of recovery."
"You should be grateful he didn't die. Oppa, you're crazy too—why did he jump there? Does he think he's a grasshopper?"
Gitae and Ayeong were heading toward Jinha's hospital room.
As Ayeong said, it was a stroke of luck that he hadn't died.
"We should think of it as a blessing. Besides, he saved the kid. But why did this bastard suddenly become so bold?"
"I told you, I think he's on drugs."
"No way, he wouldn't have money for drugs..."
"That's true."
Waaah!
As Gitae and Ayeong exchanged useless banter, a cheer unfitting for a hospital could be heard from afar.
"Huh...?"
Something unbelievable entered the eyes of the two.
People had gathered in a circle around the large TV in the waiting room.
It looked like the middle of a marketplace rather than a hospital.
"Isn't that Jinha?"
At the center was a man with a very familiar face.
Jinha, perfectly copying the dance of the idol on TV.
That coward, who had been told he'd have difficulty moving for the time being due to a twelve-week recovery.
"I think it's him..."
"You might be right that he's on drugs."
After activating the Essence of Replication, as soon as he saw the boy group's dance on TV, he could follow along to the beat.
It felt similar to when his body would sway to the kkwaenggwari, jing, and buk of the troupe.
Surrendering his body to the flow, the hospital room became Jinha's stage.
Vitality sprang up in the gloomy, lifeless hospital room, and the patients' expressions brightened.
At first, the patients had looked at Jinha, who suddenly hopped out of bed to dance, as if he were a madman, but now they clapped and cheered wildly.
-Gathering People's Attention (39/100)
The more people gathered to watch Jinha's dance, the more the number on the quest to gather attention rose.
'Wasn't it over? It's still going up?'
The quest to gather attention had definitely ended.
It hadn't ended with the reward called Essence of Healing.
'Does something change if I fulfill the conditions again?'
It wasn't an illusion.
It wasn't a scam.
A bag had really appeared, and his injured body had been healed.
He could even perfectly follow movements he had seen for the first time on TV.
He still didn't know why he had suddenly come to this world, but it meant he had to give his all to obtain these rewards.
Jinha clenched his teeth and danced even more intensely.
"He really is a good dancer."
"Right. He worked so hard—if only he could have gotten a break..."
"Wouldn't he need to fix this first?"
Gitae said, gesturing toward his face.
"Well, for that much... it's fine, right?"
Ayeong's expression stiffened for a moment before she answered quietly, then watched Jinha's dance with a blank face.
Doom-doom-doom-
Even after the music from the TV stopped, Jinha danced to the music played by the patients next to him on their phones.
This time, it wasn't a replicated movement.
It was simply a dance performed by feel.
'This is the best.'
The dance, which applied the dance moves he had been personally taught by Salpansoe of the Cheongmae troupe, was quite stylish.
Jinha, too, naturally got excited as he danced.
Doom-doom-doom-doom-doom!
"Wooaaah!"
As the music ended, applause and cheers burst forth from the people along with Jinha's final move.
Goosebumps rose all over his body.
The joyful expressions of the people were no different from before, yet they were clearly different.
The contempt and scorn that had lain deep within.
He couldn't see such things from these people.
"What are you all doing over there!"
Nurses, shocked at the chaotic scene, sent people back to their rooms.
The doctor who followed behind looked at Jinha's figure with an expression as if he were possessed by a ghost.