It was a seemingly normal day in Seoul, the capital of Korea. Life flowed through the city without pause—some people rushing to work, some enjoying warm food, others simply minding their own business. No one could have imagined that something was stirring above the clouds.
Something was watching.
The earthy smell of coffee and the bitter taste of dark roast lingered on the lips of a young man sitting inside a small café. His laptop was open in front of him, the screen filled with notes for his university project. The deadline was tomorrow, and the pressure only made his already tired brown eyes ache more. His name was Kim Ji-hoon.
Leaning back in his chair, Ji-hoon glanced out the window. Outside, the street looked as ordinary as ever. Cars rolled past, people crossed the sidewalk, and nothing seemed out of place, except for one old man.
The man was on his knees in the middle of the pavement, his trembling hands raised toward the sky. He looked like a madman praying for salvation. Ji-hoon could not tell whether the old man had lost his mind or whether he had seen something no one else had noticed.
But such a sight was nothing new to him. Throughout his twenty-three years of life, he had seen more than one person with a loose screw. His lips curled into a faint smile. With his eyes returning to the screen, he decided to focus on his studies instead.
Yet the moment he took another sip of coffee, the screen of his laptop began to shake, the colors twisting and dancing across it as if it had been infected by a virus.
"What's going on?"
He quickly tried to reboot his laptop, afraid something was wrong, but no matter how many times he pressed the power button, nothing happened.
"My phone is going crazy!"
"Mine too! Wait, look at that TV, the colors are mixing there as well!"
Soon, the entire café began to stir, shattering the calm. One after another, every electronic device in sight malfunctioned.
Though baffled, Kim Ji-hoon looked out the window once more. The old man was smiling with an expression one could only call sick, his mouth stretched wide, rotten teeth on display. His bloodshot eyes locked onto Ji-hoon's.
The man whispered something. Through the window, it was impossible to hear, but from the movement of his lips, Ji-hoon could somehow make it out.
"Have fun."
If he had read them correctly, it was an odd and chilling message.
Suddenly, a loud beeping sound hit like a drum. It was unbearably loud, making Ji-hoon's ears ring. His vision blurred, and the world spun beneath his feet. Every electronic device hissed out of control, and people began to collapse one after another.
Cars crashed, planes started falling from the sky, and trains ran without control. The world, once ruled by order, had turned into a catastrophe no one could have predicted.
After a short moment, people began to stir, opening their eyes in confusion. Kim Ji-hoon pushed himself upright, steadying himself against the coffee table, his head still buzzing. He looked out the window, and his heart dropped.
"Where did that old man go?"
No matter how hard he searched, the crazy man was gone. For a second, Ji-hoon wondered if he was the one losing his mind today. If the people around him had not looked just as confused, he might have believed he had finally gone insane from studying too much.
Just as he fully steadied himself, the air itself shook. Heaven and earth seemed to twist together in a violent tremor. Windows shattered like thin ice, and electronic devices burst into flames, sending panic throughout the city.
"Run to safety!" somebody screamed, believing it was an earthquake.
Yet something did not seem right. The world outside turned golden, as if someone had painted reality with a brush, and the temperature in the air rose sharply.
Ding!
A loud sound rang in everyone's ears. Suddenly, all those who had tried to run froze in place. The air before them warped, black and gold blending into something material—something real, like a translucent screen suspended in front of their eyes.
Kim Ji-hoon's jaw fell open as words began to take shape on the dark surface. The golden letters were brilliant, perfect, almost divine, yet to him, they made no sense at all.
[You have been chosen to be a Player!]
The first message appeared. Then more words burned themselves into reality.
[Congratulations!]
[You have received a special magical class: Archer.]
"Is this some kind of prank? No, this is impossible. Nobody has technology like this..." he muttered, his finger hovering in front of the glowing words. He had read webtoons with similar plots before, but something like this could not exist in real life.
It couldn't.
That was what he told himself, even as a hidden part of him wanted it to be real.
"Archer..." His eyes lingered on the single word.
While others panicked, his feet carried him outside. Strangely, he remained eerily calm.
He raised his eyes to the sky, and in the far distance, something made him stumble, nearly knocking him to the ground.
It was like watching the sun fall toward the earth.
A golden, burning brilliance descended slowly in the distance. If he had to guess, it was falling somewhere into the sea between Korea and Japan.
It was a giant golden tree, its branches and leaves burning as if lit by heavenly flame. The moment it crashed into the water, it did not even create a ripple. Despite its enormous size—so vast it seemed to brush the sky, with some of its leaves almost piercing beyond the world itself—it landed in complete silence.
Faster than Ji-hoon could blink, the sky and ground wrapped themselves in vines and branches, spreading across the world. Smaller trees burst from the earth, ignoring roads, walls, and buildings alike.
People screamed and ran for their lives, but the golden trees that erupted from the ground moved as if enchanted by some terrible spell. Their vines lashed out, wrapping around people and piercing straight through their chests.
Blood spilled across the streets.
Thousands died in a second. Millions perished in five. Billions vanished from his world in ten.
Kim Ji-hoon was only lucky because another person stood beside him. He watched as a tree nearly three meters tall shot up from the ground and skewered the man to his right.
Ji-hoon could not move. He was too terrified to even breathe.
He could only stare as blood flowed from the still-warm body into the vines of the tree, feeding it. In the blink of an eye, it grew to ten meters tall.
His heart tightened as he finally began to understand the chaos unfolding around him. He looked to his right and left, making sure no other tree was about to take his life.
"I hope Sunny is alright. I need to find him fast... Please be safe, brother," he muttered to himself, remembering that they were supposed to meet at the university in half an hour.
"If he's alive, he'll meet me there..." His eyes burned with resolve.
Ding!
Once again, a loud sound rang in Kim Ji-hoon's ears. He looked at the floating screen before him as a chilling message slowly took shape.
[New quest received: Survive the first night…]