Prologue
Occasionally, memories of my past life come to mind.
Even when I don’t want them to.
“Child, won’t you come with me?”
A robe embroidered with red flowers on the sleeves caught my eye.
The robe fluttered but was neat, and the middle-aged man’s smile was full of playfulness to reassure the child.
In the silence of the deep night.
The middle-aged man approached the chained child and slowly extended his hand.
But the child pressed his hands on the ground and flinched backward.
The rough stone floor touching his palms was cold.
A black market that only opens under the full moon.
And within it, the merchandise at the very bottom was this child.
“Hahaha. Don’t worry. I’ve come to take you home.”
The middle-aged man smiled benevolently, reaching out his hand, and waited unhurriedly.
After a while, the child, realizing that the person standing before him meant no harm, raised his head.
But the child did not look straight at the middle-aged man.
Seeing this, the middle-aged man thought the child was avoiding eye contact due to repeated beatings and turned his eyes to glare at the now cold corpse of the black marketeer.
However, the pupils that seemed blurry to the middle-aged man were clearly focusing on something beyond the hand.
Not the outstretched hand, nor the benevolent smile, nor the red plum blossoms, but the sword hanging at the middle-aged man’s waist.
The child was looking at the sword.
And the moment I realized that in the memory, I was that child looking at the sword.
Seojun woke from his sleep.
“Ah…”
The morning sunlight squeezing through the curtains naturally made him scowl.
It wasn’t only because of the sunlight.
“It’s been a while since that appeared in my dreams.”
Jin Seojun.
He doesn’t know why, or who, or how, but at a young age, he had recalled the memories of his past life.
He glimpsed the past of a prodigy saved by a passing Taoist, the efforts of a promising young talent both admired and envied, and the responsibility of a great pillar supporting the orthodox faction.
And in his past life, he was.
The Sword God.
That was what they called him.
“What good is being the Sword God in a past life?”
Seojun chuckled, pulled back the curtains, and began tidying his bed.
Autumn, age twenty-three.
It was the start of another ordinary day.
Or so he thought.
Ding.
Until a single text message arrived.
Chapter 1
Remembering your past life isn’t exactly a good thing.
“Hey, wanna go to the capsule room after class?”
“Again today? You went yesterday too.”
“Yeah. So, what’s your answer?”
“Of course we’re going. Why even ask.”
Seojun, an utterly ordinary college student aside from the fact that he remembered his past life, listened to the whispered conversation of the students sitting in the back.
“Today’s lecture will end here…”
The class ended.
As always, the sound of students packing their bags and standing up buried the professor’s final words.
Seojun also took his time packing his things and rose from his chair.
“Hey, hey. If we’re late there might not be any capsules left.”
“What are we, middle or high schoolers? Afraid there’ll be no seats if we’re late after school.”
“So?”
“The thing is, seats here are always gone whether you go early or late. So just relax.”
Is it really that popular?
Well, I suppose.
Seojun agreed, thinking back seven years.
Even then, getting a spot in a capsule room was practically hell.
‘But the popularity of capsules is increasing every year… No.’
Seojun turned his attention away and headed home.
When he opened the door and went inside, his roommate and practically his only friend was sitting on the sofa watching TV.
“Yo, you’re back? It’s the All-Star match. Wanna watch together?”
His name was Kim Taewoo.
He was Seojun’s high school classmate and a seven-year veteran streamer who maintained an average of 10,000 viewers.
Ever since high school, Taewoo had lived a life of sleeping at school and going home to stream.
Thanks to that, he got kicked out of his house every exam period, and after crashing in Seojun’s room, they eventually ended up living together when Seojun also moved out after graduation.
“Forget it. Watch it yourself. That’s boring.”
Seojun replied curtly.
“Boring? You even know what fun is?”
“It’s bound to be predictable, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, predictable. Honestly, you might feel that all virtual reality is the same once you try it. I think that too. But you know what, Seojun.”
Taewoo let out a sigh.
“Yeah.”
“You’ve never even tried a capsule, you bastard. I keep telling you to do it together, just to come in once, but you always dodge it!”
Virtual reality, a device that can pull your entire body into another world.
The capsule.
It’s no exaggeration to say the world has been swept up in this capsule craze for years.
Capsules recreate famous real-world locations, satisfying the travel urges of busy modern people with no time to spare.
They’re changing the world by integrating VR into countless industries like shopping, education, medicine, and automobiles.
But the most popular field was separate, and that was, of course, entertainment—games.
As games featuring overwhelming realism and flashy skills poured out one after another, the popularity of capsule games was rising day by day.
The All-Star match Taewoo was watching was also an event match for a famous VR game, ‘The League.’
“I told you I played capsule games a long time ago.”
“Then why aren’t you playing now?”
“Virtual reality is dangerous.”
“What’s dangerous? There’s only been one reported case of someone collapsing in a capsule so far. Just one in the whole world!”
Hearing that, Seojun changed the subject with a nonchalant expression.
“Is that so? Anyway, let’s go eat dinner later. Mom said she made braised short ribs.”
“I can’t resist braised short ribs.”
Taewoo grinned broadly.
A simple friend.
Seojun shook his head and went into his room.
* * *
After unpacking and changing his clothes, Seojun sat at his desk, turned on his computer, and clicked the search bar.
He had become curious if what Taewoo said was true.
Capsule, virtual reality, accident.
Seojun combined three words and searched the internet.
‘It really was just one.’
He was able to find an article about a sixteen-year-old student collapsing while using a capsule seven years ago.
There was no need to click and check the details.
‘There’s probably no one who knows better than me.’
Hah.
Sighing, Seojun leaned back into his chair.
‘Why did I even play that game, again?’
I mean.
Remembering your past life isn’t exactly good.
Maybe if that past life had been a farmer harvesting rice, born in an era of peace and prosperity.
But it was a place where barbarians lived, where men and women would launch into a fiery sword dance just from making eye contact like in some martial arts club—and I was in the heart of it.
‘It was certainly barbaric.’
In that past life, death was closer than my shadow.
Loss was more common than pebbles rolling on the roadside.
Above all, when I was young, I had no choice but to doubt the authenticity of the memories.
There was no proof I wasn’t crazy.
Then, when I turned sixteen.
I happened to set foot in virtual reality for the first time, and inside, I grasped a sword.
I still remember that moment vividly.
The feel of the hand—awkward, but so very familiar.
The motions.
The sword path.
I swung the sword, following the movements that kept swirling in my mind.
And that day, I became certain that the memories were not fiction.
‘Is that why?’
Virtual reality games were quite enjoyable and liberating.
But.
Seojun, who had been enjoying VR, couldn’t last even a full year before he collapsed unconscious, bleeding from his nose and mouth.
Inside the capsule.
The cause was a congenitally low synchronization rate.
The sync rate is a numerical value of how realistically one perceives the virtual reality world; the higher the number, the better one adapts to VR and the lower the fatigue.
‘Unfortunately, Mr. Seojun, your synchronization rate is too low, so the link is unstable.’
These were the words Seojun heard after undergoing a detailed examination at the research institute.
‘How low is it?’
‘10. It seems to be the lowest in the world. You must have been very dizzy all this time. I’m amazed you managed to play games in that state…’
A synchronization rate of 10.
Considering the average is 60 and the next lowest after him is 42, Seojun’s rate was an extremely low figure.
‘If you enter virtual reality any further, your brain… will likely be in danger. Just as a mismatch in voltage between a charger and an electronic device damages the device’s circuits, since your brain doesn’t match well with virtual reality, it could suffer serious damage…’
Was it because he uniquely remembered his past life?
Or was he simply born with a peculiar constitution?
That was how Seojun became that single person in the world to collapse in a capsule.
‘We’re sorry. For the sake of Mr. Seojun’s safety, we have no choice but to stop providing the virtual reality service. We are truly sorry.’
They explained that it was the first time both for someone collapsing like this and for a service suspension.
It was a natural decision, and Seojun accepted it calmly.
It’s not like you die if you can’t play games.
Still, this emotion rising now.
Is it regret?
Or.
“…I don’t know.”
The moment Seojun murmured that and turned off the computer.
Ding.
A notification on his phone rang, and upon checking it, Seojun’s eyes widened.
“Huh?”
[Hello, Mr. Seojun. This is Oh Jihye, director of the Surface Korea R&D Center. Would you like to visit our lab for the first time in a while when you have time?]
* * *
The next day.
Bzzz.
The capsule’s lid lifted, and Seojun opened his eyes.
“How did it feel to loosen up in virtual reality after so long?”
A woman who looked to be in her late thirties approached Seojun, who was slightly dizzy from having just exited VR.
Oh Jihye.
She was the lab director who had built a connection with Seojun while examining him in the past.
Seojun flexed his hand open and shut for a moment before giving her his impression.
“It was fine. It definitely feels less dizzy than back in the day, I think.”
The reason she invited Seojun to the lab was simple.
It was because a way had been found for Seojun to dive into virtual reality without damaging his brain.
After a full seven years!
“Hehe. Right? The new model capsule you just entered is designed so that people with low sync rates feel as little disconnect as possible, and those with high sync rates can achieve maximum performance!”
“I see.”
“Yes. Could you come this way?”
She led Seojun over to her desk.
And sat him down next to her.
“If you look at this graph here…”
Well, he couldn’t understand the graph, but her explanation was this.
As long as he didn’t exceed a set amount of time per day, he could use the capsule.
But there was one more condition besides the time limit.
And that was.
“Unfortunately, only this new capsule being released will be safe. It’s a product where cost wasn’t a consideration at all, and they crazily boosted only the performance.”
So it had to be a device made that way for him to barely be able to use it.
Seojun smiled bitterly and asked the price.
“How much is it?”
Her statement that cost wasn’t a consideration bothered him.
Sure enough, the price of the capsule that jumped out of her mouth was beyond imagination.
“Well, you see… It’s 100 million won. Haha, it is a bit pricey, isn’t it?”
Pricey.
Low-end models can be bought for a few million won, and even high-end models don’t exceed 30 million won.
‘But 100 million won.’
For professional-grade equipment, say for pro players where victory is decided in 0.1 seconds, it might have investment value.
“How would you like to proceed?”
Seojun thought it was too expensive to pay merely for a hobby.
Just as he was about to say that it probably wouldn’t work out, Oh Jihye carefully spoke up.
“100 million won is certainly a burdensome amount. So, I was wondering, do you happen to know about The League tournament being held on Travel?”
League of Streaming.
Leos for short.
It’s a tournament where streamers compete in the game The League, and practically the largest-scale competition excluding the pro league.
Seojun nodded, having a shallow understanding of it thanks to Taewoo.
“Surface is sponsoring it this time. So the new capsule has been added as the championship prize.”
“Ah…”
“If Mr. Seojun decides to participate, we could specially lend you the capsule free of charge until the tournament ends.”
Seojun’s mind began to grow complicated.
In other words, win it and pay it back, right?
Streamer.
Even though he had someone close with that job right now, it was a profession he had never once considered.
“But don’t even think about becoming a pro gamer. Pros practically live in their capsules, just eating and sleeping, and they get regular monthly check-ups. If you took up that kind of job, your brain wouldn’t be able to endure it. Even if a better-performing capsule than this comes out.”
Is that so?
Seojun paused in thought for a moment, then smiled and chose the safest answer.
“Thank you. I’ll think about it.”
* * *
“Director, why did you do that?”
In the lab, after Seojun had left.
A regular researcher who had been listening in on the conversation between Seojun and Oh Jihye from behind approached and asked.
“Do what?”
Oh Jihye feigned ignorance at first.
“The free rental. And a streamer tournament? Why did you say that? The student isn’t anyone special. I understand he’s a unique case, but did you have to go that far?”
“Hey, man. At Surface, we never lose a single customer.”
“You’re the one who, if a pro player coming for an exam gets even a little annoying, tells them to take a hike and threatens to suspend their service using danger as an excuse.”
The researcher spoke in disbelief, and Oh Jihye brushed it off as if it were nothing.
“Well, it’s because I hate seeing talent go to waste.”
“Excuse me? I mean, just because you offer him those benefits, do you think that student could win, or even participate in the League of Streaming?”
At the researcher’s words, Oh Jihye recalled the first time she saw Seojun seven years ago.
How shocked she was that such an amazing user had a sync rate of at most 10.
And even now.
‘His skills haven’t rusted. No, rather…’
Oh Jihye’s eyes shifted to the side.
There, Seojun’s data measured today was displayed.
Not only Seojun’s physical responses, but also the results of the simple—no, precisely because they were simple, they were so very clear—tests conducted in virtual reality.
“Honestly, participating might be difficult.”
After all, you need to establish yourself as a streamer and have a certain level of recognition.
But if he does participate.
“Winning, I think might be possible?”