Chapter 1: Escape
Jihoon opened his eyes. All he could see was the rough ceiling of a cave.
His whole body ached as if he had the flu. On top of that, he was terribly hungry and thirsty.
He blinked and turned his head to the side, only to find a stone wall right in front of his face. Startled, he tried to move his arm, which had been lying straight, to the side. As expected, it immediately hit the wall.
Jihoon sat up, using his body strength to raise his upper body. With his field of vision widened, he could grasp the situation, even if roughly.
His body had been laid inside a stone coffin without a lid.
‘What is going on?’
He tried to recall his last memory. Just like any other weekend, he was walking to the library when he stumbled upon an old bookstore in a back alley. No one was inside, as if the owner was away. While looking around, he found an ancient book made of parchment, and that’s where his memory ended, with him touching it.
He calmed his racing heart and looked around. The walls that were once filled with books were gone, replaced by the sight of a vast cave interior.
Stalactites and stalagmites, characteristic of natural caves, were visible, but they seemed to have been artificially trimmed. The cave was excessively wide, with pillars erected here and there to support the ceiling.
Jihoon tried to get up, grabbing the stone slabs on both sides of the coffin. That’s when he saw his arms for the first time since waking up.
They were dry, wrinkled, seemingly made of only bones and skin.
Goosebumps ran down his spine, and his mind went blank. Gripped by fear, he looked down at his body.
Clothes that were worn out, barely holding their shape. Underneath them, his sunken stomach made him wonder if he even had internal organs.
A corpse dried and withered for years in a dry, germ-free land.
It was a sad sentence to use to describe his own body, but he couldn’t think of a more accurate expression.
Jihoon raised his trembling arm and touched his head. What he felt on his hand and head wasn’t flesh but something like a hard, withered tree.
◆◆◆◆◆◆
After a few minutes, Jihoon regained his composure. He was the owner of a brain that constantly imagined things. A sudden apocalypse where he turns into a zombie, or being trapped somewhere, unable to move a finger. He had already imagined such scenes countless times.
Compared to those situations, he was in a much better state now, with his mind intact and his body able to move.
Thinking positively, he got out of the coffin and looked around.
The coffin was placed on a low platform in the center of the cave, and on one side of the platform were objects that looked like ancient relics: plates, jars, candlesticks, and the like.
On the bare floor, he saw a few low stone pillars and a large jar placed on top of them. It must be a brazier for making a fire.
The overall scene was reminiscent of an altar or a catacomb.
Suddenly, several pieces of stone slabs scattered nearby caught Jihoon’s eye. They were probably the lid of the coffin. He crouched down and examined the remains of the coffin lid. Although shattered, he could see some intact letters here and there.
Even though it was a form he had never seen before, he could read it.
‘Seal, hero, demon, Menachem.’
These were all the letters that formed words.
‘Why can’t I understand the meaning of Menachem? Is it because the letters are cut off in the middle, or…… is it a person’s name?’
At this point, as an avid reader of web novels, he could come up with the most plausible explanation for the current situation.
‘If I’m not suddenly crazy and hallucinating, then I must have fallen into another world. Is it because of that book? Did I enter the book?’
With a trembling heart, he opened his mouth. Although unintentional, strange words that weren’t Korean came out.
“Status window.”
It was a peculiar voice, sharp and cracking, sinking deep down. Jihoon was slightly surprised by the voice, but he didn’t forget to look around for the status window.
However, he couldn’t find what he was looking for, and there were no other changes.
He pouted with a disappointed look. Unlike the protagonists in novels, he couldn’t obtain any information that could help him in his current situation.
His body had even turned into a corpse, and he was suffering from chills and body aches.
He got up from his spot and started looking for an exit. There was a huge passage, large enough for dozens of people to pass through at the same time, but it was blocked by a pile of rocks from a collapse above. No matter how hard he searched, he couldn’t find any other way out.
With a slightly positive smile on his face （although it was still hard to look at his gruesome appearance, no matter how bright his expression was）, Jihoon muttered cheerfully.
“I’m fucked.”
◆◆◆◆◆◆
The first thing Jihoon realized was that he could see everything freely in this space where there wasn’t even a speck of light. If it weren’t for that advantage, he wouldn’t have been able to move at all.
He tried to grasp the situation, but after the first week, hunger and thirst reached their peak. He spent most of his time licking the floor or chewing on stone fragments. However, as two weeks passed, then three, the painful sensations became familiar.
Although it hadn’t actually been a month, Jihoon touched his stomach with a dazed expression and thought, ‘Has it been about a year?’
When you get used to something, you tend to gain some composure. As he became more composed, he realized that he wouldn’t die even if he didn’t eat or drink.
Moreover, he couldn’t sleep. He was definitely sleepy, but just like the night he first drank coffee, no matter how long he closed his eyes and counted sheep, he couldn’t fall asleep.
Fasting, insomnia, chronic pain, and occasional fragments of unknown memories flashing through his mind. A sense of time where he couldn’t tell when today ended and tomorrow began.
After a month like that, he started removing the pile of rocks at the entrance one by one. With his weak, creaking body, he initially moved only the lightest ones. And for the huge boulders, he carefully tapped them with a candlestick from beside the platform.
It took him a month to break the first boulder into two pieces. During that time, four candlesticks broke, and all the plates shattered.
He looked down at the fruits of his labor with a momentarily satisfied expression, but soon realized his mistake.
‘I could have just broken it with the stones lying around instead of the candlesticks!’
Jihoon nonchalantly picked up a stone and resumed his work. It was a superhuman patience, hard to believe it belonged to a human. Perhaps, he was no longer human.
A change came to his routine of chewing stone fragments, licking the floor, and breaking rocks about six months after he woke up.
While he was lying on his back, he heard a voice.
“Master! I’m back!”
Jihoon only turned his head to check the source. A puppy was standing by his head. About the size of a human head, it looked quite cute with its tongue sticking out.
Slightly out of it, Jihoon held out the stone he was chewing on and said.
“Want some stone?”
The puppy’s expression turned strange.
“Stones aren’t for eating.”
“Suit yourself. I’ll eat it all.”
The puppy started to wonder if the stone was actually delicious. While it was pondering, Jihoon was slowly regaining his senses.
“By the way, how can you talk? That’s amazing.”
The puppy replied with a proud look.
“I’m special!”
“Yeah, yeah, a truly special puppy has appeared……”
Jihoon stopped mid-sentence and sat up abruptly. He looked around and then looked back at the puppy with a serious expression.
“Wait, how did you get in here?”
The puppy turned around and barked towards the brazier next to the platform.
“……You came out of the brazier?”
“Yes!”
Jihoon was disappointed, but he didn’t forget about other possibilities.
“Then do you know how to get out of here?”
“No!”
“What kind of place is this world?”
“I don’t know! I’ve been asleep for so long that I don’t remember anything!”
Seeing its cheerful smile, he couldn’t even get angry.
“Your name too?”
“Yes!”
After a moment of contemplation, Jihoon said with a grin.
“Alright, then I’ll give you a name. You’re Cerberus.”
“Wow! Cerberus!”
It jumped up and down with joy. The situation hadn’t changed, but at least he had someone to talk to. Jihoon looked down at Cerberus with a pleased expression.
The monotonous daily life resumed. The slight difference was that a voice constantly interrupted it. When he was breaking rocks, Cerberus would come over and cheer, “Wow! Master is destroying the rude rocks!” And when he was munching on stones, it would run around him shouting, “The most delicious thing in the world is stone!”
Jihoon couldn’t help but laugh at its innocent cheerfulness.
A year passed like that.
It was a year in real-time, but for Jihoon, who was trapped without seeing any light, it felt like an eternity. Looking at the huge entrance that showed no signs of his efforts, he thought he needed to find another way to escape this small hell.
First, for motivation, he decided on a name to use after he got out. ‘Menachem’, which was written on the coffin lid, was the one. Although the chances were low, it could be the name the original owner of the body actually used.
Next, he focused on the fact that he had woken up inside a coffin in a place that seemed like a special altar.
‘Wasn’t the owner of this body a great hero or a villain? Maybe he was someone with immense power. But this body is all dried up. Even moving stones was difficult. Then I should place my hopes on something else.’
Menachem sat on the floor and closed his eyes.
He concentrated to find something within his body. He was trying to feel the so-called ‘mana’. If he hadn’t been someone who enjoyed fantasy, or someone with an excessive imagination, he wouldn’t have even thought of such an absurd method.
The imagination factory built in his mind churned relentlessly, spitting out images of magic, spells, and all sorts of supernatural phenomena.
Several more months passed like that.
Menachem spent his time thinking about the same thing over and over again. The voice of Cerberus, who had been chattering non-stop beside him, gradually faded and eventually became inaudible. He was completely immersed in his own thoughts.
Then, at some point, an unknown energy emanating from his mind began to soak his body. Could this be mana? He wasn’t sure.
As he repeated it, the range expanded, and now it could soak his entire body. The energy quickly returned to his mind, but when his body was soaked, his senses disappeared. It felt like his physical body was vanishing.
He repeated the same thing without any goal or basis.
One day, Menachem opened his eyes for the first time while his whole body was soaked. It was completely different from physically opening his eyes.
The distinct forms of all objects disappeared. Stones, walls, floor, altar, everything looked like white, glowing smoke.
‘No, black. Uh, red?’
The colors seemed to be constantly changing, or it seemed like they had multiple colors simultaneously.
However, Menachem had no trouble distinguishing what was what. It felt so clear that it was rather bewildering. His body was no different from other objects.
Convinced of his success in this surreal scene, he looked around for Cerberus.
He couldn’t see the puppy.
After searching for a long time in a panic, he had no choice but to accept the reality.
‘Was it my imagination?’
A dog that suddenly appeared in a sealed space, didn’t eat or drink, and even talked. The only logical explanation for it was imagination.
Menachem flew up with a gloomy feeling. No one had taught him, but he knew he could do it. His floating body seeped into the ceiling. It wasn’t digging in, but literally seeping in like liquid meeting liquid.
He swam through the earth, which looked like colorful smoke, and continued to ascend. And finally, after nearly two years of living trapped underground, he emerged to the surface.
The energy that had been soaking his body returned to his mind. It returned so fast that some of it leaked out of his mouth.
Menachem returned to reality. His slightly floating body plummeted to the ground the moment it materialized.
After a heartfelt embrace with the ground, he realized that he hadn’t been breathing. Without the time to savor the mystical experience, he felt suffocated and a sharp pain shot through him.
“Ugh! Cough, cough, cough. Ugh.”
A handful of blood splattered the ground, and his head throbbed as if it had been hit with a hammer. He coughed, desperately trying to take a breath.
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