Two days had passed since Ervin enrolled Han Joon-seong at ASCENT ATHLETIC CLUB. The cheap jeans and cotton shirt had been retired from gym duty, replaced by proper training gear: dark joggers, a fitted moisture-wicking shirt, a pair of flat-soled shoes that gripped the rubber flooring like they meant it. The clothes made a difference. No chafing, no awkward bunching, no stray threads catching on equipment. Perfect!
Han Joon-seong had been training. Hard. Every morning, the body walked through those glass doors, nodded to Seok-ju at the front desk, and got to work. The routine had become automatic in the truest sense. Ervin issued the broad commands at the start of each session and then let go of the wheel. The Auto Pilot handled the rest, executing sets and reps with the precision of a machine.
And while Han Joon-seong trained, Ervin explored.
It had become a habit. Watching the body grind through the same motions over and over was useful for monitoring progress, but there was only so much data a person could absorb before the mind wandered. And Ervin's mind, free of physical constraints, had plenty of room to wander. So he let his perspective drift away from the bench pressing, untethered from the body's immediate surroundings, and went sightseeing.
The gym unfolded beneath him in layers. From the upper mezzanine, he could see the entire main floor — the neat rows of treadmills, the squat racks lined up neatly, the cable machines humming with quiet resistance. The place was immaculate. Not a weight out of place, not a puddle of sweat on the floor for more than thirty seconds before an attendant materialized to wipe it away. The attendants were everywhere, now that he knew to look for them. They wore crisp white polo shirts with the Ascent logo embroidered on the chest, and they moved through the space like silent waitstaff at a high-end restaurant. Coolers slung over their shoulders. Bottles of chilled water. Cold towels. Energy shots. One of them stopped beside a man finishing a set of deadlifts and handed him a small cup of something pale green — a protein shake, maybe, or some kind of recovery blend. Another produced a roll of kinesiology tape and helped a young woman wrap her wrist before she stepped up to a barbell.
Everyone in the building looked like they belonged in a magazine. Not just fit, people here were sculpted. The kind of bodies that required not just effort but time, money and of course, genetics. People here were beautiful, really beautiful, and everyone really wnated to remain beautiful, training intensely, that felt less like recreation and more like ritual. Nobody was here to waste time. At two and a half million won a month, who would?.
Ervin drifted higher, past the mezzanine, up the open stairwell to the fourth floor. The pool stretched out behind its glass wall, a perfect blue rectangle lit from within. The water was so still it looked like a mirror. Sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows, catching the ripples as a lone swimmer sliced through the surface in a lazy freestyle. Two others lounged on deck chairs, their conversation low and easy, condensation beading on the glasses of iced tea beside them.
"How did they even fit a pool this big inside a building?" Ervin wondered. He hovered over the water for a moment, watching the light shift across the tiles, then let the tether pull him gently back.
By the time his perspective slid down the stairs and across the gym floor, Han Joon-seong was finishing his last set. The barbell rose and fell one final time. The body's arms trembled. The bar clanged back into the rack. A familiar notification chimed in Ervin's awareness.
[[System]
[You have Spent All your Vigor. Cooldown time; 20 minutes]]
Han Joon-seong sat up, chest heaving, a fine sheen of sweat covering his forehead. The towel draped over his knee was already damp. He reached for his water bottle and drank, the movement automatic, unhurried.
Ervin pulled up the status window, to see again the result of two days of consistent training had produced.
[[System]
Player: Ervin Mandor
Character 1; Han Joon-seong
[Characteristics:
Adaptation(Perfect)
Talent(Perfect)
Auto Pilot(Perfect)
Money(Perfect|Middle-class)
Looks(Lvl. 5)
Speed(Lvl. 4)(10/80)
Strength (Lvl. 4)(22/80)
Endurance (Lvl. 5)(42/160)
Vigor (Lvl. 5)(10/160)
Intelligence (Lvl. 3)(5/40)
[Tasks:
[Settle Differences — Make peace with Han Do-yun.]]
The numbers had climbed. Speed and Strength had each broken into a new level. Endurance had jumped two. Vigor and Intelligence had both leveled once. In two days, Han Joon-seong had become a different person physically — and he'd done it on autopilot while Ervin wandered around looking at architecture.
"Not bad," Ervin thought. "Not bad at all."
Seok-ju appeared at the end of the bench, arms crossed, the same appraising look on his face that Ervin had grown used to over the past two days. The skepticism had faded almost entirely. In its place was bafflement. he had watched Han Joon-seong train for 2 days, and he could swear on his soul this boy had just doubled his muscle mass in only two days of workout.
"Done for the day?" Seok-ju asked.
"Yeah. I'm going to cool down and head out."
"Good work, kid. You're progressing fast. Almost makes me think you were lying about being a beginner."
Han Joon-seong's mouth quirked. "I'm a fast learner."
Seok-ju snorted. "I'll say. Same time tomorrow?"
"Same time."
Han Joon-seong stood, towel slung over his shoulder, and made his way toward the locker room. Ervin, satisfied, retreated into the background and let the Auto Pilot handle the rest.
Later, showered and changed, Han Joon-seong walked out into the afternoon sun. The neighborhood was just as pleasant as it had been on his first visit — trees lining the sidewalk, boutiques in pastel storefronts, the quiet hum of wealth in the air. He walked without a specific destination. The body was tired in a good way, the deep ache of exertion that promised growth, and Ervin had no pressing tasks. The mission about "Han Do-yun" was still sitting in the task list, unaddressed, but he still had no idea who that was. It could wait.
He passed a flower shop, a bookstore, a small gallery with abstract paintings in the window. And then, on a corner shaded by a cascade of green vines, he found a café. The sign read Verdant in clean, elegant script.
"Alright," Ervin thought. "Let's try it."
He pushed the door open. A bell chimed.
Behind the counter, a young woman with dyed copper-orange hair looked up. Her greeting began on reflex "Good morniii—" and then died halfway through the word. Her eyes widened. Her cheeks flushed a shade of pink that nearly matched the pastel aprons hanging behind her.
Han Joon-seong approached the counter and offered a small, easy smile. "Good morning. What do you have?"
She blinked rapidly, then seemed to reboot herself. "Ah- yes! We have our summer menu. Iced Americano is popular, we also have a honey grapefruit iced tea, a cold brew with vanilla cream, and a signature latte with sea salt foam." She paused, then added, almost shyly.
"Would you have Black coffe? Strong, no sugar?"
The girl bllinked again, but nodded saying she could prepare it for him, rang up the order with slightly trembling fingers, and Han Joon-seong found a seat by the window. He watched the street while Ervin, somewhere behind his eyes, let the quiet of the café settle over them both.
---
Lee Hye-jin was asleep in her messy room, head resting against the pillow, eyes closed. Sunlight slipped through the window and fell across her face. Her eyes opened slowly, without any of the heaviness or anxiety that had dragged her out of sleep every morning for the past four months. She blinked at the ceiling, watching dust motes drift through the beam of light, and felt, for the first time in a long time, truly rested. She sat up. The dark circles that had lived under her eyes were gone, two days of real sleep had erased them.
She looked around the apartment and saw the mess for what it was. Clothes on the floor. Papers piled up. A layer of dust on every surface. For months she hadn't had the energy to care. Today, something felt different.
"Yeah," she said quietly. "I think it's time to clean this up."
She started with the clothes. The ones too dirty to salvage went into a trash bag. The rest went into the laundry basket, and from there into the washing machine. She swept the floor, emptied the overflowing trash bin, and ran the vacuum across the whole room. She took a brush to the furniture, the TV stand, the ceiling corners where cobwebs had gathered. The apartment slowly transformed. When she finished and stood in the middle of it all, the place looked brighter, more colorful, like a different home.
She showered, washing away the sweat, and changed out of her loose pajamas. She put on jeans and a simple blouse, fixed her hair, and picked up her phone.
There in her screan apeared a still frame from one of the videos strangers had taken on the day of her rescue. Han Joon-seong mid-stride, carrying her through the street, his face clear and calm. She zoomed in on him and rested her fingertip on his face for a moment. Then she closed the image app and opened the map. The screen was covered in red markings, neighborhoods she had already walked. She drew a new circle around an area she hadn't yet searched and nodded to herself.
"Not in that part yesterday. Let's see if he's here today."
She grabbed her bag and headed out.
—
Lee Hye-jin had been raised to be grateful. Her parents were not wealthy, but they were principled, and from the time she was small they had taught her that every kindness was a debt. If someone helped you, you thanked them. If someone sacrificed for you, you honored it. So when Han Joon-seong, a stranger, had rescued her and paid off her entire thirty-million-won debt without asking for anything in return, without even staying long enough for her to learn his name, that debt had settled deep in her chest. She had to find him. She had to repay him, somehow.
She had been searching for two days. Today was the third. She had been skipping school, riding buses across Busan, crossing neighborhood after neighborhood off her map, eliminating areas where he might be. The city was large, and she had barely scratched the surface. There were still so many places she hadn't looked.
The bus carried her to the new district. When she stepped off, she opened the photo again and got to work.
"Excuse me, do you know who this is?"
"Hey, do you recognize this person?"
"Excuse me, have you seen this man?"
Some people answered. Some didn't. Some looked at her strangely, this girl walking around asking about a handsome stranger. A few studied the image and asked if he was a celebrity, because he was so good-looking. She had wondered the same thing — he had to be someone important — but she had searched the internet and found nothing. Just the videos from that day. He wasn't famous. It didn't make sense.
She kept going for over an hour and a half. Finally, tired, she found a bench in a small park, sat down in the shade of a large tree, and let out a long breath. She marked the area on her map. Nothing. A small frustration welled up in her.
"Where are you?" she murmured.
While she spoke, she heard the sound of someone drinking, a straw scraping the bottom of a cup. Someone had sat down beside her.
She turned her head.
The first thing she saw was the clothes. Black, well-fitted, dress slacks and dress shoes, the kind of outfit that looked casual but cost more than her rent. Her eyes moved up his arm, and a sudden flash of memory jolted through her: the alley, the cold smile, his hand gripping her chin. She looked at his face and went completely still.
Han Do-yun sat beside her, relaxed, holding a milkshake. He took a sip, not looking at her, and spoke in a light, almost pleasant tone.
"Don't cause any problems. I don't want you to scream, and I don't want you to run. If you do either of those things, you will regret it bitterly."
He turned his head and met her eyes. His expression was calm, casual. But behind it, she felt a freezing cold malice that froze the breath in her lungs. She didn't move.
He seemed satisfied. He took another sip of his milkshake. "These last three days. Have you had any luck?"
She stared at him, not understanding, until his gaze dropped pointedly to the phone in her hand. The map app was still on the screen.
She understood.
She hesitated. She didn't want to give him anything, this man who had threatened her, who had looked at her like she was something to be collected. But in her situation right now, she didn't know what this man was capable of, she was powerless.
"No," she said, her voice tight. "I haven't had much luck. I'm still… investigating."
"What have you learned so far?"
She bit the inside of her cheek, then answered. "I know he's not famous. I know he appeared out of nowhere. And I know his name doesn't seem to be in any public bank records."
Han Do-yun nodded slowly. "So you noticed the same things we did."
'They're investigating him too', she realized, a cold knot forming in her stomach.
"What areas have you covered?" he asked.
She started to deflect. "Why do you want to know?"
He just looked at her. "What. areas. have. you. covered.?"
She opened her map and showed him the places she had searched. He studied it, then pulled out his own phone. His map was covered in similar marks. He held the two screens side by side, comparing. When he was done, a small, humorless breath escaped him.
"Between us, we've eliminated almost everything." He tilted his screen toward her. Only one small area remained untouched, one of the wealthier districts in the city.
Han Do-yun stood up. "Get up. Let's take a walk."
Fear spiked through her again. "Where are we going?"
He tossed his empty milkshake cup into a trash can and slid his hands into his pockets.
"To find your knight in shining armor."