Am I… dead?
That was the first coherent thought that drifted through the haze.
The last memory I had was the burning sensation in my chest, the kind you feel when your end is already sealed.
But strangely, I wasn't afraid.
Regretful, yes.
Afraid, no.
I guess this was that "peace" people talked about before death.
If anything… I was relieved.
Relieved that the burden of being me was finally gone.
The weak, useless Nam Gi Won.
The boy who couldn't stand without help.
The one who caused trouble simply by breathing.
Now, at least, my family wouldn't have to worry anymore.
A pathetic final thought… but it was mine.
When I opened my eyes again, I didn't see heaven.
Nor hell.
Only a vast void — an endless expanse where light and darkness intertwined, forming gentle blue ripples across nothingness.
No sky.
No ground.
No weight.
Just floating, like a ghost drifting underwater.
"…So, this is what comes after?"
My voice didn't echo.
It was swallowed by the silence immediately.
I lifted my hands — faint, pale, almost transparent.
Light drifted off my fingertips like dust blown by a soft breeze.
"Even in death, I'm still pathetic."
A dry laugh slipped through.
"Not even a proper afterlife. Just… nothing."
I closed my eyes — but then a memory flickered like a spark, refusing to die.
E.F.O.
Even thinking the name made my chest tighten. E.F.O… the game I had loved deeply growing up, the one that carved out its own private room inside my heart.
"There were many reasons I loved you," I murmured into the darkness, as if the memory could hear me.
I remembered the richness of its content, the way every questline felt hand-crafted with care; the unreasonable demands that pushed players past their limits; the raw, pulse-pounding thrill of its battle mechanics. And the NPCs—alive, expressive, frighteningly human.
"It was too good to fail," I whispered. "There was no way it would flop. Not something like you."
But one day, without warning, the developers posted a notice.
A simple message.
A final blow.
[Service Termination Announcement]
Just that. Cold text on a cold screen.
"It broke me," I said, voice trembling. "Because for everyone else it was just a game. But for me... it was my second life. My second hometown. My second parent."
I remembered the forests drenched in morning light, the harsh deserts, the cities where every NPC had a schedule and every alley had a story. I remembered the quests, the secrets, the little details that made the world feel more real than anything waiting outside my front door.
But above all—
"She was the one who fascinated me," I whispered.
Not the protagonist.
Not the heroine.
Not even one of the supporting cast.
"She was a villain. A special NPC no one bothered to understand."
A faint laugh escaped me—small, self-mocking.
"Everyone else hated you. But not me. Never me."
Because of her, I spent thousands of playthroughs digging through obscure files, chasing rumors, chasing lore fragments hidden behind impossible conditions. I tried everything—choices, routes, builds that made no sense. Little by little I made progress. Little by little I closed in on her true story.
"I almost had it," I muttered. "I was right there…"
But then they shut it down.
Right when I was closest.
I saw myself staring at that shutdown notice, too numb to cry, too shattered to breathe.
And after that—life followed suit.
One bad thing after another.
Another job lost.
Another friend gone.
Another disappointment.
But I kept going. Crawling, limping, dragging myself forward on the hope that someday—just someday—I might be given another chance.
"I lived on reminiscing," I said softly. "Replay after replay… even when the servers were gone, I kept replaying it in my head. Because that's what she would've done. She always kept going, even when the world itself tried to crush her."
I exhaled, slow and hollow.
"And just when I was about to give up… a ray of hope came."
A new chance. A miracle.
Something impossible.
"But then—"
My hands clenched.
"They stripped it away from me."
Just like always.
"It's almost funny," I whispered with a bitter smile. "It always felt like fate didn't want me to succeed. That it didn't want me to hold on to anything—"
My breath cracked.
"My life."
"My pride."
"My chances."
"My everything."
All cut away, piece by piece.
And yet I was still here.
Remembering her.
Reaching for a tomorrow that never wanted me.
***
When I opened my eyes, something was wrong.
The world didn't settle into place the way it should have. It spun—slowly at first, then sharply—like my senses were slipping out of sync. The trees around me stretched upward in warped lines, their roots coiling around the soil like they were trying to climb out of it. Light stabbed through the canopy in broken shards, too bright, too sharp, too vivid.
"I… wait—hold on."
My voice cracked, unfamiliar even to my own ears. "Wasn't I… dead?"
I pushed myself up with trembling arms, then froze.
My hands.
They were steady, warm, breathing with life.
"No. That… that doesn't make sense."
Didn't I feel the numbness? The fading pulse? The final drop?
Didn't I already lose everything?
But the more I looked around, the more the panic sharpened. The air was too clean. Too crisp. It buzzed faintly, like the world itself was humming—a sound I had only ever heard through headphones.
"Am I dreaming? Hallucinating?"
My head throbbed. My thoughts skidded. Everything felt like a half-loaded texture.
I staggered toward a glimmering pond nearby, needing something—anything—to anchor myself. The water rippled softly, distorting the reflection.
"Okay… okay… just breathe," I muttered, though my breath was shallow and unsteady.
I leaned over the surface.
The reflection came into focus.
And my stomach dropped.
"…No way."
Long black hair fell past my neck.
Eyes deep and glossy with exhaustion.
A defined jawline, smooth features, tinged with a faint melancholy.
'My avatar. The one I had designed on the last day of my final run before the servers shut down.'
'I had made it resemble my real face—so I could meet her as myself.'
But unfortunately it seems to be proven useless
"After all the game shut down the very day I did it"
A hysterical laugh bubbled up, thin and cracked.
"This sucks. No, seriously, what kind of sick joke is this?"
I grabbed my face, feeling skin that shouldn't exist.
Feeling life I shouldn't have.
The realization crawled through my skull, cold and unwelcome:
I wasn't supposed to be here.
I wasn't supposed to be alive.
And yet here I was… staring back at the character I had never gotten to play.
'With my genius mind, it didn't take long to figure out the situation'
I threw my hands up.
"I've been transmigrated into the game I played."
The words tasted ridiculous, but the forest wasn't laughing.
"If so, then this is definitely E.F.O…"
The buzzing air, the saturated colors, the physics slightly too perfect—my body knew it even before my brain accepted it.
"I'm totally dead," I muttered. "Because while this game gave players amazing adventures, it was especially harsh to NPCs."
I remembered the brutality of the system.
The unforgiving death mechanics.
The way the world tore itself apart in the later arcs.
"And this world's destruction is predetermined. Locked in. No escape."
My fingers twitched.
"Unless you equip yourself with overpowered items and spells, you don't survive."
As if remembering something he instinctively said
"Status window"
Then a familiar blue window appeared before me: the Status Window.
──────────────────────────────
STATUS WINDOW
──────────────────────────────
Name: Nam Gi Won
Race: Human
Trait: [EMPTY VESSEL]
Hp: 100 / 100
Mp: 0 / 0
STR : 09
AGI : 08
CON : 10
WIL : 08
MNA :0
DEX : 07
──────────────────────────────
SKILLS
──────────────────────────────
• Absorption (Unique) ... Rank E
──────────────────────────────
"No way…"
My stomach dropped. "Just—out of everything—it had to be that trait?"
I stared at the floating translucent panel in front of me, my eye twitching as if the interface itself personally offended me. The letters glowed calmly, almost mockingly:
[TRAIT: EMPTY VESSEL]
"This is a bad start," I muttered, rubbing my temples. "A really, really bad start."
I paced in front of the pond, boots crunching against roots and fallen leaves. My reflection trailed after me like a silent witness to my suffering.
"Why am I despairing this early? It's just a trait," I said aloud, trying to convince myself. It didn't work.
Because traits weren't optional flavor texts. They were your core identity in E.F.O. Everything depended on them—your routes, your build, your entire fighting style. If you had the wrong one? Congratulations, you just signed up for a self-imposed hard mode.
I groaned. "They weren't just stats… they were your entire survival plan."
I forced myself to look back at the trait description.
My hands clenched.
Empty Vessel.
Of all things to have as my starting trait, it had to be the early-game headache of headaches.
"It's not even necessarily bad," I grumbled. "It's just… situational. Really situational."
I remembered player discussions, the rumors, the niche build guides buried in dusty threads.
"From what I've heard, it's good early game," I admitted reluctantly. "And it does have a unique perk."
I tapped the screen, and a line of text expanded:
[You can greatly expand your mana pool by consuming monster cores.]
"Yes, yes, very cool," I muttered. "Mana expansion through special absorption. Sounds awesome. Sounds broken. Sounds like I should be celebrating."
I flicked the panel closed.
"But then the penalties show up and punch you in the teeth."
My expression darkened.
"I can't properly use my mana. Meaning—surprise—I can't use any complex spells. At all."
Complex spells.
The bread and butter of mages.
High-tier crowd control.
Defensive barriers.
All of them locked behind the ability to control mana flow—something Empty Vessel users fundamentally struggled with.
"And the best part?" I added, my voice flat. "Monster cores have a ridiculously low drop rate."
They were valuable crafting materials. Rare. Expensive. Most players sold them for equipment upgrades.
"I'd rather sell them."
I tossed my hands up. "I should sell them. That was the normal choice."
But no.
Here I was.
Living inside my own dumb decisions.
"If I knew this would happen," I muttered bitterly, "I would've just picked a better trait from the start."
I began pacing again, listlessly kicking a pebble as I listed off alternatives.
"I could've chosen Blessed by Mana. Easy growth, stable mana flow, stupidly overpowered in the mid-game."
I jabbed a finger at the air, as if scolding my past self.
"Or Dragon Heart. A literal cheat code of a trait. Health regen, natural resistance, insane late-game scaling."
I sighed, collapsing down beside a tree like someone who'd just lost a war.
"But no. I chose Empty Vessel for fun."
I dragged a hand down my face. "Oh, look at me, being creative. Trying out niche builds. Living my experimental gamer life."
My voice cracked slightly.
"And now I'm stuck with it. In a world where people die for real."
I leaned my head back against the bark, staring up at the flickering leaves.
"This is the worst. Absolutely the worst."
The trait panel hovered above me, its faint glow painting my face in cold blue.
No matter how much I glared at it, it didn't change.
Empty Vessel.
Unstable mana.
Low core drop rates.
High risk, high reward—if you didn't die horribly in the early game.
I exhaled shakily.
"Well," I muttered, "I guess this is my life now. Wonderful."
A breeze passed through the forest, rustling the branches.
Even the wind felt like it was judging
A deep long breath
"Anyway what a set back I've got… however this is my second chance aren't it so I should have to cherish it"
"This time I'll live a long and healthy life and fulfill my regrets"
This is the story of the man who live a painful and dull life who had been given a chance to play his last playthrough wanting no more than live a carefree life or so he thought
---
✦ End of Chapter.