Incheon International Airport was exactly as Cheon remembered it: a symphony of glass, steel, and the constant hum of rolling suitcases echoing across pristine marble. It was the kind of place that seemed to exist outside of time—a technological purgatory between the rest of the world and the heart of the Korean Peninsula.
Amidst the flow of tourists and businessmen, the young man in the white overcoat stood out not because of what he was doing, but because of his silence. His brown eyes scanned the arrivals hall with a mixture of nostalgia and indifference.
"Well... I'm really back, aren't I?" he muttered to himself, adjusting his backpack strap. "Let's see what's changed around here."
He didn't wait for anyone. There was no one waiting for him. To Korea, he was just an entry record; to himself, he was a spectator returning to the stage.
Following the familiar flow, he headed toward the AREX station. The express train was the vein connecting that insular isolation to the pulsing center of Seoul. Myeong-dong was his destination—a one-hour and forty-five-minute journey that would be a bore for most, but for Cheon, it was the perfect amount of time for his favorite activity.
As soon as he settled into the padded seat and the train began to glide smoothly over the tracks, the outside world vanished. Cheon pulled out his smartphone. The blue light of the screen reflected in his eyes as he accessed the site that had been his refuge for years.
The auto-login displayed: **[User: Cheon]**.
He didn't check social media or local news. He opened the bookmark of the book he was reading: *"Far Beyond Us"*.
To any sane person, that webnovel was a literary disaster. The plot was a chaotic tangle of forgotten mythologies, legends, alien zombies, monsters from another dimension, ancient gods, cybernetic demons, and dialogue that bordered on delirium. Many critics in the comments called the author, someone named **Outsider9**, a "lunatic" or claimed he "wrote under the influence of questionable substances."
But Cheon saw something more. He liked the bizarre. There was a hidden logic in those words, a structure that rewarded those who had the patience to read beneath the surface.
An hour passed in the blink of an eye. The train crossed the bridge over the sea, the Seoul sun beginning to set on the horizon, painting the landscape a sickly orange. Cheon finally sighed, closing the tab for Chapter 4,059.
"Four thousand chapters and the guy still manages to surprise me with these twists..." Cheon massaged the bridge of his nose. "How does someone have so much creativity and free time to write something like this? It's almost a divine gift. Or a curse."
He looked at the work's info page. The most recent chapter was 5,102, released exactly three months ago. Since then, absolute silence from the author in the world of webnovels; a three-month hiatus without updates is synonymous with death or giving up.
"A three-month break, Outsider9..." Cheon looked out the train window. The reflection of his face in the glass looked tired. "Are you really going to leave us hanging right when 'Calibration Mode' was about to be activated? What bad luck."
Cheon turned off the screen, feeling the slight heat of the device in his palms. He decided he had read enough for today. He leaned his head against the windowpane, watching Incheon's buildings give way to denser urban landscapes as the AREX train sped toward the heart of Seoul.
His mind, however, traveled beyond the train.
He reflected on the irony of his own life. His parents were European and had decided that South Korea would be the perfect place for a "vacation season" when he was only twelve. Cheon still remembered the initial shock: the excessive lights, the language that sounded like music played too fast to follow, and the fact that he was always the "foreigner" in the classroom.
It was during this time that the name "Cheon" emerged. A nickname that started almost as a joke among classmates and ended up becoming his official identity in that part of the world. His parents, immersed in engineering projects and business, eventually adopted the nickname as well.
"I wonder if Min-ho and Ji-soo are up to something right now?" he murmured, a slight ironic smile appearing for a brief moment.
They were the few who didn't treat him like a stranger. They were the ones who introduced him to the world of PC Bangs, where he discovered that being a geek was, in fact, a universal language. While the world outside demanded perfect grades and stable careers, inside the screens, he could be whoever he wanted.
Time passed and responsibilities pulled the group apart. He had to leave, returning to Europe to settle family and citizenship matters, and now, years later, the cycle was complete.
The train's chime, soft and multilingual, interrupted his thoughts:
*"Next stop: Myeong-dong Station."*
Cheon stood up, straightened his white overcoat, and waited for the doors to open. As he left the station and climbed the stairs toward the surface, he was met by the "Wall of Seoul."
**Myeong-dong was alive.**
It was around six in the evening. The sun was setting and the neon lights were starting to intensify, painting the asphalt pink, blue, and green. The smell of street food was intoxicating: the sweet aroma of *Hotteok* (filled pancakes) mixed with the savory scent of *Tteokbokki* and Korean fried chicken.
He walked calmly down the main street, observing the crowd of tourists and locals. He passed a massive department store where a screen displayed the trailer for a new superhero movie. Further ahead, a storefront filled with action figures from famous anime made him stop for a few seconds.
*Nothing has changed. And at the same time, everything feels different,* he thought.
He stopped in front of a stall selling grilled lobster tails with cheese, a regional tourist classic. The vendor, a middle-aged man in a spotless apron, worked with almost mechanical agility.
Cheon looked at the sky. For a moment, he had a strange sensation. It was as if he were looking at a movie set where the director was about to shout "Action!". He had missed Korea, but now that he was there, he felt as if he were waiting for something. As if the peace of that afternoon in Myeong-dong was just a blank page before the start of a violent prologue.
He thrust his hands into his overcoat pockets and continued walking, blending into the Myeong-dong crowd, unaware that this would be the last day the world made sense to the people around him.
Myeong-dong was still glowing under the neon lights when Cheon decided it was time to leave. The exhaustion from the trip, combined with the weight of the memories the city stirred in him, was starting to take its toll. He walked a few more blocks to a modern yet discreet residential building—his new base in Korea.
His parents had taken care of everything. The apartment was functional: grey walls, minimalist furniture, and a view that framed Seoul's rooftops between neighboring buildings. He tossed his backpack onto the synthetic leather sofa and let out a long sigh.
"Home, I guess."
With no energy to unpack, he simply took off his white overcoat, plugged his phone into the nightstand to charge, and threw himself onto the bed. The silence of the apartment stood in total contrast to the vibrant chaos of the Myeong-dong streets. It didn't take long for exhaustion to overcome him.
**The darkness was not the end.**
Cheon opened his eyes, but he was no longer in his room. He was floating in an absolute void, where there was no up, down, north, or south. It was a silent vacuum, devoid of color or sound, except for one thing.
Before him, gigantic and pulsing with a metallic blue light, was a translucent screen. It occupied his entire field of vision, emitting a low-frequency hum he could feel in his teeth.
In the center of the screen, colossal numbers were counting down at a relentless pace:
> **[00:00:00:05:42]**
> **[00:00:00:05:41]**
> **[00:00:00:05:40]**
Cheon watched the numbers change. He didn't feel fear. In fact, he felt an annoying sense of familiarity.
"This again..." he whispered, his voice sounding strangely clear in the vacuum.
He had been here before. Months ago, years ago... on rare nights, this dream would visit him. At the time, he simply attributed it to his excessive reading. "That's what happens when you watch too many generic isekai," he would tell himself in the morning, laughing at his own nerd brain. He thought it was just his subconscious trying to create its own fantasy setting.
But now, the dream felt... very real. The screen's resolution was sharp; the light particles floating around the countdown seemed to have weight.
This time, however, something was different. Below the timer, a small line of text he had never seen before began to materialize, as if being typed by an invisible hand:
> **[User 'Cheon' detected in synchronization.]**
> **Limited standby time, depending on author proximity.**
"Author proximity?" Cheon tried to touch the screen, but his fingers passed through the cold light.
The numbers ticked down. The blue of the screen began to leak into the void, tinting the darkness with an electric hue.
> **[00:00:00:00:03]**
> **[00:00:00:00:02]**
> **[00:00:00:00:01]**
> **[00:00:00:00:00]**
The buzzing ceased. The silence that followed was absolute, heavy as lead. Then, a voice that was not human, but sounded like a thousand overlapping digital suggestions, echoed through the void:
**[The hiatus of 'Far Beyond Us' has come to an end.]**
**[Chapter 1: Initial Scenario #1 — 'Welcome to the Stage' has begun.]**
The game had begun. And he was the only one who had already read the tutorial.