Chapter 2: Identity
(She said take the day off… What's that supposed to mean? Am I a high schooler? Or—)
Lin wandered through the modest apartment, bare feet padding softly against the wooden floor. The place was small, compact—living room, kitchenette, two bedrooms, and a narrow hallway lined with shoes and jackets. Functional. Clean.
But unfamiliar.
Every corner felt lived-in by someone he wasn't.
(If this is my life now… I need to know who I am. Who I'm supposed to be.)
He passed the dining table, where a few unopened envelopes sat beneath a small, fake potted plant. Then, near the desk by the window, he spotted a small lanyard—his new ID card.
He picked it up.
[LIN, WEI]
Position: Cleaner - Field Operative
Organization: A.M.C.C.
(Aftermath Monsters Cleaning Crew)
Unit: District 7 - Hazard Control
Emergency Contact: SOO-AH (Guardian)
Blood Type: B+
Clearance Level: 1
He stared at it, lips parting slightly.
(So that's her name… Sooah. She's not just my sister. She's my guardian.)
And then his eyes lingered on the bold letters under "Position."
"Cleaner…?" he murmured aloud, then narrowed his eyes. "Aftermath Monsters Cleaning Crew?"
He exhaled, a hollow laugh bubbling in his throat.
"So this is why she said take the day off. I have a job. Not school. Not training. Just… cleaning up after monsters."
(Survived a planetary extinction. Reborn as a teenager in pajamas… and now I'm scrubbing monster guts off pavement?)
He set the ID card down for a moment, still stunned.
Then the phone on the desk buzzed sharply—once, twice, then blared to life.
INCOMING CALL: Boss—District 7
He hesitated, then tapped the green icon.
"Lin! You deaf or just stupid?" the voice exploded from the speaker, thick and nasal. "If you're not at Station 9 in the next fifteen minutes, don't bother showing your face here again! The swamp mutant from yesterday is still bleeding acid all over the containment zone, and I'm not cleaning that up, you hear me?!"
Lin winced, pulling the phone away from his ear slightly.
"Sir, I—"
"No excuses! I don't care if your legs fell off! If you're not here by shift start, you're off the roster. Permanently!"
Click.
The line went dead.
Lin stood in stunned silence.
(So… I have a boss. A temperamental, possibly unstable one.)
(And apparently I clean up monster remains for a living. In this world… I guess that's a job.)
He snatched the ID card off the desk and rushed to the closet, grabbing the first decent clothes he could find—a plain gray shirt, black jeans, a weathered jacket.
(So much for a day off.)
He paused by the door, looking back at the empty apartment.
(I don't know what kind of world this is yet… but if monsters are real, if there's still danger out there… then maybe this isn't just a second life.)
(Maybe it's a second chance.)
He slipped the ID around his neck, opened the door, and stepped into the unknown.
The directions were printed clearly on the back of the ID card.
Station 9 – Sector D | Hazard Cleanup Team – District 7 | Contact on Arrival: Foreman Rago
The walk took twenty minutes—past crowded streets, humming mag-rails, and billboard screens flashing with daily "Threat Level" warnings. He passed people in armor, others in lab coats, some wielding tools that looked like weapons and weapons that looked like tools.
(All this tech… this infrastructure. It's not the ruins I remember. This world… rebuilt from something terrible. Maybe from what destroyed mine.)
By the time he reached the worksite, he was sweating slightly beneath his jacket. A foul stench hung in the air—chemical and organic, sharp enough to sting his nose. The site was cordoned off with glowing hazard tape. Beyond it, the remains of something reptilian and massive sprawled across a broken street, its flesh melting into neon green puddles. Three workers in hazmat suits sprayed it down with neutralizers while others shouted over the buzz of equipment.
He stopped at the edge.
(These people… I don't know any of them. But they would surely know this face. This name.)
(They must be part of this body's crew.)
He took a breath and stepped forward.
"Uh… hello, guys."
Three heads turned.
A beat of silence.
Then the mocking began.
"Well, look who finally decided to show up. The featherweight himself."
"Careful, don't let him lift the mop—might throw his back out."
"Better check if he's breathing before assigning him anything!"
Laughter erupted.
It wasn't playful.
It was sharp. Meant to cut.
Each word slammed into him like a stone.
(So this is what this body takes every day. This… ridicule.)
(Mocking voices. Casual cruelty. Disdain, dressed as humor. All of it wearing down a person until even silence becomes safer than speaking.)
(How long has this version of me endured this?)
"Cut it!" barked a voice behind them.
The laughter stopped immediately.
A man stomped over, his figure solid like a wall—square-shouldered, stained jumpsuit, hard eyes under a cap that read Foreman.
Rago.
"You lot forget who stays late when you don't show up?" he growled. "Lin might not have muscle, but he works harder than most of you clowns combined. Give the kid some damn room to breathe."
The others muttered and walked off, shamed into silence.
(So he's not completely alone here.)
(Not respected, but… tolerated. Protected, maybe.)
Then, another voice cut in—lighter. Female.
"You still letting them get to your head, Lin?"
He turned.
A girl stood a few feet away, hands on her hips. Her uniform was the same hazmat-grade cleaner suit as the others, but hers was unzipped halfway down, revealing a black tank top beneath. Her hair was tied in a short ponytail, streaked with subtle red dye. Eyes sharp, almond-shaped. Confident posture.
She was… stunning.
(Who the hell is she?)
(Is she here to shame me too?)
(Or… is she actually a friend?)
(She's far too good-looking to be hanging around someone like this body…)
She stepped closer, her gaze amused.
"I thought you'd be used to it by now," she said. "They've been doing it for three years, haven't they?"
He opened his mouth, confused.
Then she bumped her shoulder into his, lightly.
"I'm just messing with you," she added with a small grin. "You should've seen your face. Lin, you always make the most horrible faces."
For a second, he just stared at her.
(…She's a friend.)
Not a bully. Not another condescending voice. There was warmth in her teasing. Familiarity. Safety.
He managed a small, uncertain chuckle. "I… guess I do?"
She looked him up and down.
"So why were you late?" she asked, half-accusing.
"Woke up with a slight headache," he replied. "I'm all good now, though."
"Mm." She squinted. "Well, you don't look dead, so I guess I won't report you."
He gave a sheepish smile, then hesitated.
"What I'm about to ask might sound foolish," he said, "but… please, what's your name?"
She blinked. "You serious?"
"Also," he added quickly, "why do you look so damn good? Like, compared to literally everyone else here?"
She stared.
He grinned.
A beat passed—then she burst out laughing.
"Oh my god, you're actually broken, aren't you?"
"Very possibly." He said scratching his head.
"You've definitely hit your head on something. Hard."
"Maybe."
She laughed again, brushing her bangs behind one ear.
"You really don't remember me?"
"I really don't," he said truthfully. "But I wouldn't mind starting over."
She frowned before she started talking.
"My name is Jo So-Hee, you dumbass," she said, rolling her eyes with a smirk. "Seriously, how do you forget that? We've been working the same shifts for over a year."
Lin rubbed the back of his neck. "Guess I hit my head harder than I thought…"
She didn't press. Just folded her arms and began explaining, as if this was a conversation they'd had a dozen times before—though not quite like this.
"You work as a cleaner. Our crew is part of AMCC—the Aftermath Monsters Cleaning Crew. Whenever there's a dungeon outbreak and the hunters go in and kill whatever crawled out of hell, we're the ones who clean it up. Blood, bones, venom sacs, magical residue, all of it."
She gestured toward the corpse melting across the pavement, where another worker was cautiously slicing open a blistered scale with a heat blade.
"Think of us like battlefield janitors. Low rank, low pay, high risk. You don't get glory like hunters do—but without us, this whole city would reek of monster decay in a week."
Lin listened, letting it all sink in.
(Dungeons. Hunters. Outbreaks. And we're the ones on mop duty.)
She gave him a skeptical look. "You're seriously acting strange today. Can't believe a morning headache could make someone forget all this. Or did you trip and fall into a memory pit?"
"Maybe," he replied, managing a faint smile. "Might've hit my head on reality."
Before she could respond, a group near the tail section of the corpse called her name.
"So-Hee! Acid vent's leaking! We need a stabilizer!"
She clicked her tongue. "Duty calls."
Then she looked back at him, less teasing now, more curious. "I'll catch up with you later, alright?"
"Yeah," he said, raising a hand in a lazy wave. "Thanks, So-Hee."
She jogged off, shouting orders as she moved, already slipping her gloves on.
Lin stood there for a moment, quiet amid the chaos of the cleanup.
His eyes drifted across the monstrous corpse, the teams working around it, the skyline rising behind them—broken in places, reinforced in others. Faint shimmering portals flickered on a far rooftop. Soldiers in exo-armor kept watch above them.
(Dungeons? Hunters?)
(What kind of world have I been thrown into?)