Thunk!!
Jaemin's palms hit the cold floor. His arms strained under his weight, muscles still unfamiliar with real strain.
"Thirty-seven… thirty-eight…"
Each repetition carved away a sliver of doubt. A sweat-soaked hoodie clung to his back, the room echoing with short, controlled breaths.
"Thirty-nine… forty."
He exhaled and rolled to the side, chest heaving. No rest.
Sit-ups next.
"Two… three…"
The burn in his abdomen bit deeper with every rep. A week ago, this would've floored him. But now… now he pushed through it.
"Thirty-nine… forty."
Then squats. Smooth, precise, deliberate. A rhythm. One that didn't feel like punishment anymore.
After that, a five-kilometer run—not on a hospital treadmill, but out somewhere quiet. Not far. Enough space to move. To sweat. To feel the wind again.
By the time he returned, cheeks flushed and heart pounding, his legs were jelly. His chest, on fire. And yet—he didn't hate it.
He was alive. Every inch of him ached, but for once, it wasn't from being weak.
****
Back in his room, he collapsed onto the hospital bed, sweat cooling against his skin, the ceiling above swirling gently in his vision.
Then—
Knock knock.
He froze.
A voice came through the door—measured, warm, yet formal.
"Han Jaemin? May I come in?"
Jaemin sat up slowly, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his hospital shirt.
"…Yeah."
Click.
The door opened.
The man who stepped inside looked like the kind of person who never raised his voice. Clean black suit. Dark tie. A tablet in one hand, a sealed file in the other. His gaze calm. Disarming. The type of person who made you feel like you weren't in trouble—until you realized you still might be.
"I'm Director Kim Minsoo," the man said with a slight bow. "Head of Coreborn Identification for the Coreborns Association, Korea Branch."
"Yeah, I remember...we met yesterday."
"Quite a memory."
"I'm here on official follow-up from Rift 742-B."
He stepped in fully, letting the door ease shut behind him.
"This won't take long."
Jaemin blinked at him, still winded. "…Okay."
Director Kim smiled lightly, pulling out the chair beside the bed but not sitting yet.
"You've already been registered as a Precision Coreborn—this is more of a post-awakening debrief and to record your formal survivor statement for the Association...and well, to talk about the unfortunate rift."
His tone held no judgment. Just duty.
Jaemin cleared his throat and sat up straighter.
"You mean… about the Rift."
Minsoo gave a small nod.
"Yes. We don't often see Tier drops within an active Rift, let alone escalation of that kind. We're still investigating."
"…What was it called?"
Jaemin asked, more out of instinct than curiosity.
Kim tapped a few things on his tablet before replying.
"Rift designation: 742-B. Falls under Covenant jurisdiction of Covenants: NOVA."
Jaemin blinked slowly. "Nova…?"
"One of the top-five Covs in the country. Their detachment initiated the raid. The full report is still being assembled, but I'm sure you've already seen the media spin."
Jaemin said nothing. He had.
Kim's eyes briefly flicked up from the tablet, scanning his face.
"I'll need to ask a few things for the record."
Kim Minsoo sat across from Jaemin, stylus in hand, tablet screen turned away. His voice was calm, official—like a doctor giving test results.
"This won't take long. Just a few questions for the Rift report. You can skip anything you're not comfortable with."
Jaemin nodded slowly, sitting up against the headboard.
"Alright."
Kim's eyes flicked to the screen, then back.
"Let's start simple. Did anything feel… off, before the tier began to drop?"
Jaemin's brows furrowed as memory stirred. The taste of iron. The stillness in the air. And then—
"…Mist," he said quietly.
Kim looked up. "Mist?"
Jaemin nodded.
"It came out of nowhere. We were in Tier 5. There shouldn't have been any vapor at all. But then it just… rolled in."
Kim's expression tightened slightly—not alarmed, but interested. He jotted something down.
"In theory, mist isn't supposed to exist inside stable Rifts."
Kim murmured.
"Steam, sure. Volcanic gas, yes. But mist needs pressure equilibrium. Which doesn't hold inside an open Rift."
Jaemin blinked
"So it shouldn't have been there?"
Kim met his gaze.
"No. And the fact that you saw it? Likely the first sign of a collapse chain. When Rift tiers shift in real time, air becomes momentarily breathable. That's when mist can form...and Rifts only shift when something or someone shifts it."
He paused.
"And when everything else goes to hell."
Jaemin let out a soft exhale, tension pressing between his shoulders.
"So it wasn't just me."
"No."
Kim said, voice steady.
"But you're the only one who lived to report it."
There was a brief silence as that reality settled again.
Kim tapped his stylus, changing pages.
"Anything else? A structure, a sound, a feeling?"
Jaemin hesitated. The pedestal. The scream that never ended. The shadow of the Warmaiden.
"I saw her."
Kim stilled. "Her?"
Jaemin lifted his eyes, something distant flickering in them.
"The Mirror Warmaiden."
Silence. For the first time since the interview began, Kim stopped writing.
A beat passed. Then another.
"That's not something to say lightly."
He said, his voice lower now.
"Are you certain?"
Jaemin nodded slowly.
"Reflections were off. I couldn't look away. It was her. I don't know how, but I'm sure."
Kim let out a slow breath, setting the tablet down on his knee.
"She's not just any Abyssal. She's categorized as a Prime-tier Entity. If what you saw was truly her…"
He didn't finish the sentence.
Kim looked up sharply but said nothing. Just a slow nod.
"Last question: How did you escape?"
Jaemin met his gaze. His voice came out quiet but firm.
"I don't know."
Kim studied him for a long moment, then gave a single nod.
"Understood."
He closed the tablet with a soft click and rose from his chair.
"That will be enough for today."
"If you remember anything else—anything at all—call me."
"That's all for now," he said quietly. "If you remember anything else—anything at all—call me."
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a sleek personal card. With a flick of his thumb, he passed it to Jaemin—his personal number printed in clean silver against black.
"Direct line," Kim added. "Use it."
Then, without breaking his calm composure, he offered Jaemin a firm handshake.
A pause. A faint nod.
And then a small bow, sharp and respectful, before he turned and stepped out the door.
Click.
Silence again.
Jaemin reached for the folded document near the side of his bed — an official Coreborns Association memo and medical report, stamped and laminated.
"Recommended Duration of Recovery: 28 days (Tier-5 exposure trauma)."
A full month.
He skimmed the fine print:All medical expenses waived. Coreborn-class citizen status: Confirmed.Recovery Tier: Monitored under Association sponsorship.
Jaemin sat in silence for a few seconds, letting the words settle.Free treatment. Government coverage. A new classification in their records.All because of that orange number: 11.
Low. Almost insulting.
And yet, it was enough.
He folded the paper and placed it back. But something stirred at the base of his chest—a simmering tension that wouldn't go away.
Restlessness.
The doctors told him to relax, let his body adjust to post-Rift trauma.
But Jaemin couldn't.
The walls of the hospital room began to feel tighter by the day. The news cycle wouldn't shut up about the Rift, The world moved on.
But he couldn't.
Four days in, he started training.
It began modestly:
40 push-ups
40 sit-ups
40 squats
5 kilometers of running on the designated indoor track.
He would collapse into bed afterward, his body shaking with exhaustion.The pain was brutal. The soreness lingered like fire beneath his skin.
But he healed. Faster than expected. Faster than normal.
By the end of the first week, the numbers doubled.
100 push-ups
100 sit-ups
100 squats
10 kilometers of non-stop running.
The nurses noticed the change. One of them even asked if he'd been cleared for this level of strain. Jaemin just smiled politely and said he was "working through it."
But in truth?
His body was changing. Tearing down and rebuilding itself, stronger each day.
Muscle fatigue vanished in under an hour. Bruises faded before lunch.His breathing steadied quicker, his heart rate settled faster.
Most Coreborn trainees took months of supervision to even touch these numbers.But Jaemin… he was pushing through it alone. Quietly. Day by day.
No flashy awakening. No mentor. No gear. Just sweat and silent resolve.
And that strange, invisible current inside him that hadn't stopped churning since the Rift.
Like something waiting to be called.
After another brutal set — one hundred push-ups, sit-ups, squats, and a ten-kilometer run — Jaemin's breath came out in heavy bursts, misting slightly in the cool air. Sweat clung to his shirt, his heart pounded hard against his ribs, and yet… it wasn't enough.
Not anymore.
He stood there, hands on his knees, chest rising and falling as clarity settled in.
He knew what he had to do next. Dangerous. Reckless. Probably illegal.
But it was time.
Jaemin changed out of the standard hospital garb in minutes.
He reached for the black hoodie — once oversized, but now snug around his growing frame. It draped neatly over his shoulders, sleeves hanging just past his hands. He looked down at his arms — lean muscle quietly forming beneath his skin.
Not enough to impress. But enough to feel the difference.
He slung on a small bag: a few protein bars, two water bottles, and a can of cold coffee swiped from the hospital fridge.It was free. Perks of being Coreborn now.
No more excuses.
He made his way out the back entrance of the hospital and kept walking — past shuttered shops and dim-lit buildings, past places no one cared to look twice at.
Eventually, he found the spot: a crumbling alleyway, dark and narrow, tucked behind an abandoned storefront. And there — at the center — it waited.
A long, hairline crack in the pavement, almost invisible to the normal eye. But Jaemin saw it clearly now.
It shimmered faintly. Like a heartbeat.
A Rift.
Tier-5. Low enough for beginners. Dangerous enough to kill.
But more than anything, it reminded him of that Rift.
The multi-tiered nightmare.The Mirror Warmaiden.The corpses.
That Monster who killed everyone in an blink of an eye.
His breath caught. Palms trembling.Sweat beaded at his brow — but not from the heat.
Even now, after all the training, he was still scared.
He pulled the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands, gripping the fabric tight.The crack began to glow softly, energy starting to seep out in whisps — like heat from boiling water. The air around it shimmered, unstable.
Rifts didn't make mist. Mist meant steam. And steam only happened when energy density was high enough to tear air apart. A true Rift was opening.
The pressure grew.
His heart pounded.
"This is stupid. You're not ready. Go back. You'll die."
But then… he looked around. The alley was empty. The world was quiet. His mind flickered to his sister. His mother. And somewhere deeper — the memory of his father, standing tall with sparks dancing around him.
He wasn't ready.
But he was going anyway.
Jaemin took one last deep breath — and stepped forward.
The Rift flared open, swallowing him whole in a blink of light and sound.
And just like that—
He vanished beyond.