Inside an apartment, a young man wore a white culinary bandana tied around his hair. He was dressed in a long-sleeved black shirt, with a white apron over it. His eyes were as serene as deep waters.
In his right hand, he held an iron knife with a rusted blade, about thirty centimeters long. His left hand rested on the table, beside a tray holding a whole piece of raw red meat.
"Focus."
Trying to recreate a video he had seen on a short-video app, in which a butcher performed perfect cuts, Yu Han took a deep breath, never taking his eyes off the meat.
"Aaahhh!"
With a battle cry, he brought the knife down swiftly, directing it to the opposite side of the tray. With precise movements, he struck the meat one centimeter from the edge and sliced through it like butter.
Chak! Chak! Chak!
Pulling the knife back, he repeated several cutting sequences, causing uniform pieces of meat to fall onto the tray.
That success, however, didn't last long.
The moment he lost his composure at seeing everything going right, Yu Han broke his rhythm and ruined his own work. Veins bulged on his forehead, but he didn't stop. He persisted, trying to maintain precision with what remained.
Once again, however, he lost his concentration.
"It's over."
Accepting defeat, he stopped caring about perfection. He simply sliced, without any will.
When he finished cutting the entire piece, he went further than necessary. The edge of the blade grazed his little finger, opening a shallow cut from which a small amount of blood spurted out.
A sharp sting of pain hit him. Yu Han refocused on what he was doing. Setting the knife down on the table, he shook his hand, trying to ease the numbness.
Because of the risk of contamination, he decided to apply alcohol.
But before he could go to the shelf to get it, his vision began to darken, as if night had fallen too soon.
'What?'
'I don't have anemia. So why am I about to faint from such a small loss of blood?'
Grabbing the underside of the table with his left hand, he dug his fingers into the surface—except the injured one—to steady himself. With his right hand, he bent down in search of his phone, trying to call for help.
There was no time.
The moment he touched the device, his mind went blank. He lost consciousness and collapsed to the floor.
Mysteriously, before his back could hit the ground, time froze.
Even stranger, within that suspended moment, the knife began to levitate like a feather and, like a snake shedding its skin, started expelling its rust into the air. Soon, it revealed a crystalline blade—perfect and flawless.
With that transformation, the knife shot forward at the speed of light, breaking through frozen time and piercing into absolute emptiness. Passing through the void, it continued alone, with no sign of stopping.
Did it go on for a day? A year? A thousand years? There was no answer. Time only resumed its flow once it crossed the void, returning to its normal course.
Astonishingly, it reappeared in Yu Han's kitchen, about a meter from where it had been before its journey. As it stopped levitating, it slowly descended, turning once again into an ordinary knife.
Clang!
As it hit the floor, it produced a dry metallic sound.
With time restored, Yu Han completed his fall, his back striking the ground.
"Agh!"
'That hurts…'
'A doctor! I need to see a doctor.'
His eyelashes trembling, he reached for his pocket. Opening his eyes, his back still burning, he struggled to sit up with his legs stretched out.
"I can see normally now…"
Noticing that the kitchen was as bright as day, three question marks formed in his mind—especially when he saw the familiar-handled knife gleaming in front of him. Narrowing his eyes and opening them again, the sight didn't disappear.
"This isn't an illusion."
Pulling his hand from his pocket and scratching his hair beneath the bandana, Yu Han, still confused, stood up with tense muscles and slowly walked toward the knife. Crouching down, he reached out to grab it and check if it was really the same rusted blade.
The moment his fingers touched the handle, he froze.
Before him, his kitchen vanished, replaced by a courtyard of white ground resembling snow. About twenty meters ahead, a fog concealed everything.
Turning his head slowly, like a robot, he realized the fog formed a circular curtain around him, trapping him in a closed space.
"I'm dreaming. This isn't real… it can't be real."
Trying to calm his racing heart, he pinched himself, hoping to wake up and return to reality so he could call an ambulance.
It didn't work.
Even with the pain, he didn't wake, which only increased his panic. With cold sweat on his forehead, goosebumps across his body, and his chest tightening, Yu Han felt like he was suffocating.
'Damn it! What's happening? Ever since I cut my little finger, everything's been strange. Blood loss, fainting… and now I wake up with a rust-free knife… wait, is that it?'
Realizing something, he looked at the knife in his hand with pure terror. He had never imagined that the rusted blade passed down through his ancestors could be an artifact beyond human comprehension. It frightened him—but also sparked curiosity.
How did the ancestor of the Yu Family obtain something like this? Did he know the knife was supernatural?
"T-take me back, Miss Knife. I don't want to be trapped here forever."
Yu Han pleaded, his voice weak and trembling. He expected a response, since that blade was anything but ordinary. Perhaps there was a spirit dwelling within it.
[To leave, you must complete a stage of the mini-game or die.]
"…?"
"First of all, what mini-game?"
"And secondly… die? You send me somewhere unknown against my will and now you want me to die?"
Salivating with anger, he complained, finding it completely unfair.
[The mini-game consists of cutting fruits that fall from the sky. The only rule is to survive until the end of the stage.]
"And the answer to the second question?" he insisted, but received no reply. Clenching his fists, he wanted to throw the knife away and bury it in the ground.
But he didn't.
He feared dying without understanding how, faced with something beyond his comprehension.
Swallowing his anger and gritting his teeth, he decided to follow the rules, clinging to the mini-game as his only hope of getting out alive.
"Start this fruit mini-game."
[Ding! Player command received. Game started.]
[To clear the stage, cut ten apples. Their only trait is a true explosion.]