Episode 1
@U
Episode 1
“Haaaaaahm.”
Jinwoo let out a long yawn and rubbed his eyes.
A morning like any other.
No, was it a bit late to call it morning?
‘It’s 3 o’clock.’
Well, it happened all the time, so he simply accepted it.
For streamers, this was basically everyday life, wasn’t it?
Rather, waking up around this time was more comfortable.
More than that,
‘Is it because I slept well?’
Today, he felt more refreshed than usual.
How should he put it—should he say his body felt lighter than usual?
A feeling as if his stamina was overflowing.
‘It’s been a long time since my body felt this good, ever since the car accident three years ago.’
Simply saying he was in good condition didn’t cut it. His body was too light.
A feeling as if he had become ten years younger!
Well, it wasn’t like this was a bad thing.
Good was good, wasn’t it?
Jinwoo was thinking so lightly when yesterday’s events suddenly came to mind.
If not that, was it thanks to the item he had obtained yesterday?
That could be it.
‘Since it was a Unique item, after all.’
Not Rare, but nothing less than Unique!
At first glance, someone might scold him and call him a gaming addict, but that wasn’t the case in this day and age.
Pantheon.
Released ten years ago, the most perfect virtual reality game that had changed the perception of gaming.
It had become an era where you could make a living just by being good at games.
Jinwoo was exactly that.
‘It’s already been nine years.’
Nine years already since he had made a living through gaming.
It hadn’t been tumultuous, but it hadn’t been smooth sailing either.
Surviving through streaming and gaming was no easy feat.
Hadn’t his parents opposed it at first?
It had been hard back then, but once he reached a certain level, his parents started cheering him on.
As expected, the best treatment was financial treatment.
Anyway, it wasn’t easy just because he had talent.
The game called Pantheon was even more so.
Unless you had talent, money, or luck, you couldn’t even reach Ranker status.
Jinwoo had started later than others, so although he belonged to the upper-mid tier…
It was only because Jinwoo had talent that he even belonged to the upper-mid tier.
Still, he earned enough not to envy others.
Six hundred a month!
An income that even employees at major corporations wouldn’t easily earn.
That was about how much Jinwoo in the upper-mid tier earned.
And didn’t he occasionally hit the jackpot like this?
‘If I just sell this, I’ll earn twice as much as last month.’
The market price for a Unique item was roughly between 10 and 20 million won.
It wasn’t that great of an item, but he could earn at least 10 million won.
Except for cases like this, his average monthly earnings were about 600.
‘Time to make a killing for the first time in a while.’
With this kind of thrill, how could he quit?
It wasn’t just about the money; above all, he did it because it was fun.
Doing what he loved and earning good money?
How could he miss an opportunity like this?
He hadn’t achieved tremendous success, but small success was still success.
He didn’t have much to regret.
Because he lacked nothing.
Ah, there was something.
Regret.
‘How come I still haven’t dated anyone at thirty-six?’
It wasn’t that he hadn’t been on blind dates.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t liked the other person.
However,
‘The timing was bad.’
That was how game streaming was.
Raid schedules would suddenly come up, and days would pass while he was thinking about content.
Things had stabilized to some extent now, but…
It was too late.
Still, he didn’t particularly regret it.
He had climbed this far precisely because he had lived so busily.
You only knew loneliness if you’d dated before.
If you couldn’t date for thirty-six years, you ended up not even knowing what loneliness was.
It would be a lie to say he wasn’t disappointed.
But what could he do?
‘It’s all in the past.’
Now that he was thirty-six—an age that could hardly be called young.
Should he say he had given up?
Or that he had become indifferent?
Anyway, that was how it was.
He had wanted to date, but his age was a factor, and there was no suitable partner.
And he couldn’t quit gaming.
What woman would meet him and understand all of this?
If such a woman existed, why would she meet Jinwoo?
She would meet someone better.
‘Well, it’s not like I’m lacking anywhere, but it’s not like I’m extremely handsome either.’
Literally.
Hadn’t women occasionally approached him when he was drinking with friends?
Remembering his friends’ expressions back then, he definitely didn’t have an ugly face.
So what if that was the case?
He had never dated anyone despite being thirty-six years old.
He wasn’t ugly, but he wasn’t outstandingly handsome either.
On top of that, he had never been in a relationship.
What woman would want to meet a thirty-six-year-old who had never dated?
The same would probably go for men.
Anyway.
By now, he had become indifferent to dating.
That was that.
He should think more about today instead.
“Oof.”
Was it because he had scored a rare item after so long?
His body was light, and he felt like his mood could soar.
Jinwoo headed to the bathroom with that light body.
Washing his face immediately after waking up was a given.
The moment he stood in front of the sink to wash his face like that,
a strange thought flashed through his mind.
“Huh? What’s this?”
Standing in front of the sink, Jinwoo looked at the mirror placed right before him.
The mirror he always saw.
But what was inside it wasn’t the face he always saw.
Had he become someone else?
No, it was stranger than that.
“Why do I look younger?”
What was this?
It was scary.
Without realizing it, he ran both hands down his face.
Until yesterday, his skin had been somewhat lacking in elasticity.
Now it felt taut—no, almost bouncy.
What was going on?
Had he become Conan or something?
His body had gotten younger, but his brain was the same! Was it something like that?
The tactile sensations he felt were too vivid to be because he was half-asleep.
Above all, despite being so surprised that all sleep had fled, the reflection in the mirror still looked young.
‘Wh-what is this?’
Feeling a strange sense of déjà vu, Jinwoo came out of the bathroom.
And looked around the room.
“Huh?”
This was definitely his studio apartment.
He had lived here for ten years—there was no way he wouldn’t know.
But wasn’t the worn wallpaper like new?
Above all.
‘Th-that scorch mark on the linoleum is gone too?’
The spot where he had dropped the pot trying to eat ramyeon and burned the linoleum was perfectly fine.
As if he had returned to ten years ago……. Huh?
The most definitive proof: the capsule.
Nothing less than an outdated model from a whopping ten years ago.
He had clearly been using the latest model until yesterday, but suddenly it was an outdated model from ten years ago?
However, for an outdated model, its sheen was different.
It looked as if it had been bought not long ago.
A model that had been discontinued a whopping eight years ago?
‘.......’
At this point, no matter how bewildered he was, he couldn’t help but know.
But wasn’t there such a thing as “what if”?
He carefully picked up the smartphone placed at the head of the bed.
This, too, was an outdated model he had used ten years ago, but it was spotless.
And the moment he turned on the screen to be sure,
he was able to confirm that the date was from ten years ago.
‘What is going on.’
Just in case, he lifted the t-shirt he was wearing.
The long scar that should have been on his abdomen was gone.
The long surgical scar from the car accident three years ago.
The fact that this was gone meant only one thing: regression.
‘Really, ten years ago?’
He had regressed?
Why?
He hadn’t particularly wished for it?
No, it wasn’t even that he hadn’t particularly wished for it.
He had never thought things like wanting to return to the past or regretting that he could have done better if he went back.
He didn’t have that kind of mindset at all.
He was just living life, satisfied.
So suddenly like this?
He was going crazy.
“Heh, hehehe. Hehe.”
* * *
Having confirmed that the surgical scar from the car accident three years ago had disappeared, he still called around just in case.
To his parents and friends.
And after checking the internet too, Jinwoo finally felt it was real.
‘I really came back.’
He didn’t feel simply happy.
The first emotion he felt was bewilderment.
Since it was a regression he hadn’t wished for.
That was possible.
Above all, everything he had accomplished until now had disappeared.
Anyone would be bewildered.
If your game save gets deleted and you have to start over from scratch, wouldn’t you be annoyed no matter how much you had messed up?
That was exactly how he felt now.
The feeling of having to replay a game whose save file had been deleted.
‘Sigh, nine years of effort disappears in an instant like this?’
Right on the verge of blowing his top,
something suddenly came to mind.
‘Wait? Pantheon isn’t released yet?’
Huh?
This?
This was actually good.
No, it was beyond good.
Well, it stung a bit that nine years of effort had disappeared.
This was a total jackpot.
An opportunity to start from the beginning again.
Where else would there be an opportunity like this?
Well, of course he didn’t need one, but since he had come back, why not achieve even greater success!
The fact that nine years of effort had vanished in an instant made him feel like dropping everything and going out for lunch, but that wasn’t important.
Such things were completely useless.
It would be a lie to say he wasn’t disappointed or that he didn’t regret it at all, but there was something more important.
‘I can start earlier!’
Jinwoo had started a whole year later than everyone else.
Because of that, he had remained in the upper-mid tier, but what if it was ten years ago?
He had found out while checking the internet earlier.
Right now, Pantheon had not yet been released.
There was still a whole month left until release.
With this, it was possible.
He could succeed even bigger than before!
Above all, a game was a game, but if you had regressed, wasn’t there something you ought to do!
“Uahaha! If I’ve regressed, of course it’s stocks!”
Look! The stocks that come to mind just like this!
……None?
‘Fuck.’
Nothing came to mind.
Well, there had been an incredible factor called coins in the past, but stocks these days didn’t have such things.
Nothing particularly came to mind.
Crazy brain.
After all, he had always only thought about streaming content; when would he have had time to look into stocks?
So effort caught him by the ankle like this.
Damn it all.
‘As expected, is there nothing but the game?’
Even if you regress, you only know stocks if you’ve done them.
If you don’t know, you’ll just get stuck holding them.
Of course, it wasn’t that nothing came to mind at all.
There had always been one surefire stock jackpot.
‘Pantheon.’
It was none other than Pantheon, the company that had made the most perfect virtual reality game, ‘Pantheon.’
A time before its stock had risen tremendously.
If he played this right, wouldn’t he become filthy rich?
Above all, that wasn’t the end.
The game Pantheon itself remained.
No matter what anyone said, Jinwoo was a pro streamer and pro gamer.
One who had started late and risen to the upper-mid tier—a gamer with talent!
In such a Jinwoo’s head were all the important pieces of information from ten years.
‘Could this be an even bigger jackpot than stocks?’
But investing in Pantheon stocks with money earned from Pantheon?
This was a structure that couldn’t fail.
A guaranteed money-making victory!
Just thinking briefly, there was a mountain of hidden pieces that had passed by over ten years.
If he just organized these properly?
‘Becoming a Ranker is a given.’
This was insane.
Wasn’t he going to die from happiness?
‘I don’t know why I regressed, but since I’ve regressed, I’ll succeed!’
With this kind of future knowledge, if he couldn’t succeed?
Then he was a real idiot.
There was still a whole month left until Pantheon’s release.
He needed to organize the tricks and hidden pieces that came to mind.
Nothing was more convenient than having them organized.
Above all, it would be disastrous if he forgot.
While meticulously listing what he remembered, something came to mind.
‘First Title!’
First Titles had absolutely no connection to Jinwoo, who had started late.
One of the reasons latecomers couldn’t easily catch up to the Rankers who were early starters!
Huh?
If he started now, couldn’t he snag all the First Titles?
If that happened?
‘Ranker isn’t the issue—wouldn’t even Rank 1 be no problem?’
Alright, if that’s how it is, I’ll devour them all!
I’ll take everything and succeed!
Well, if I’m at it, dating too…….
Being thirty-six and never having dated is pretty sad, after all.