Died in a Delivery Accident, Got a Call

Rain hammered against my helmet.

One a.m.

The road glistened black and wet, and I had three orders stacked up.

In my delivery box: one cold chicken.

Three minutes to the destination.

To protect a 4.9 rating, I couldn't be late.

Half a star.

Lose that much, and the next calls slow to a trickle.

Slow calls mean next month's rent falls behind.

Rent falls behind and — well, life falls behind.

So I twisted the throttle through the rain anyway.

The light changed.

Green.

Permission to go.

And then — a truck's headlights wiped the world white.

Did I brake?

I think I did. Or maybe I didn't.

Memory cut off right there.

Ah, goddammit.

That was the last thought of Kang Dohyun, twenty-seven years old.

Was the chicken okay?

That was my last worry, too.

Ten years of delivery.

Juggling three orders in the rain — that's how it ended. No time to leave behind a single cool last word. I hope somebody gives me a star rating at my funeral.

'Rider Kang Dohyun. Punctual. Courteous. Short lifespan, though. Four stars.'

That'd be generous, honestly. Dock the half star for failing to obey a traffic signal.

I opened my eyes.

Something was wrong. When you die, there's supposed to be nothing, isn't there?

But my eyelids were heavy. And heavy eyelids meant I still had eyelids.

No smell of rain. No wet asphalt. No engine sound, no downpour — nothing.

Instead — a stone floor. And a castle gate soaring into the sky.

"...What is this?"

My voice came out. That part was a small relief. Dead men can't talk.

A stone wall filled my entire field of vision, easily ten stories high. Banners rippled in the wind — an emblem I'd never seen, letters I'd never seen. I strained my eyes to read them, and the letters slid right off the page of my mind. I patted myself down. Limbs intact. Ten fingers, and roughly ten toes by feel. No helmet, but the hoodie was still there.

The fact that I wasn't in pain, despite being dead, confirmed it — I had definitely died. Pain requires being alive, and I didn't hurt at all.

"Am I dreaming?"

I pinched my cheek. It hurt. So, not a dream.

"...Then what the hell is it?"

Passersby kept glancing at me. All of them — women.

Not just one or two. Ten, twenty, beyond counting. A woman in armor. A woman carrying a shopping basket. A woman with a sword at her hip. A woman holding a child's hand.

Men — not a single one.

At first I thought it was coincidence. I let it slide until the second one. From the third on, a chill crept up my spine.

A woman carrying a water jug passed me. Two steps later, she stopped. Turned around, slowly. The jug slipped from her shoulder and shattered on the ground. Crash — water ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠soaked into my shoes. She didn't even notice her wet feet. She just stared at me.

"...A man?"

Quiet, but unmistakable.

A few nearby heads turned at the sound. gazes began to land on me, one by one. Twenty. Thirty. Eyes everywhere.

My spine went cold. It felt like being dropped into the middle of a herd of grazing animals — except judging by the look in their eyes, I was the one on the menu.

"A group cosplay convention, maybe?"

I was in the middle of talking myself into it when my pocket buzzed.

It was my phone. The very phone I'd been clutching when I died. The phone that had followed me into the afterlife.

The screen was fine. No — better than fine. Something entirely unfamiliar was on it. Blue text floated translucent in the air, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠overlapping reality. Waving my hand through it didn't scatter the letters. No matter how much I swatted in front of my face, the text tracked my gaze. It seemed to be visible only to me.

I read that last line three times.

Male ratio. Zero point eight. Percent.

"...Ultra-rare commodity?"

I looked around again. Women, women, women. No matter how I counted, everyone but me was a woman.

The math worked. Eight out of every thousand. And one of those eight — was me.

Goddammit, so I really am a man. An endangered one, at that.

Another line floated up.

I double-tapped.

"...I'm supposed to look forward to an update."

Even the delivery app back home had more class than this. At least it had a customer service line. Here, there wasn't even an agent — the system itself was giving me the cold shoulder.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I spoke at the screen.

"Where am I?"

"...Figure it out myself."

In ten years of delivery, customers like this were the scariest. The 'just figure it out and bring it' type. Bring it, and they always find something to complain about anyway.

Except this time, the customer was the system. An opponent I couldn't even retaliate against with a bad review.

How very kind of the system, expressing condolences as if it were none of its business.

Confinement. Coercion. Restraint. Every word choice was blood-curdling. Why is a perfectly normal delivery system teaching me words like these first? Where on earth have I landed?

National Treasure, they called it. Ultra-rare commodity. Sounds flattering, sure. But I tried picturing the expressions on the National Treasures displayed behind museum glass. None of them were smiling. Lifetimes spent inside the glass, with no one to let them out. Visitors take photos of them, but no one holds their hand.

...I need to run. The thought came to me on pure instinct.

Cold sweat trickled down. First, I needed information. You have to know your enemy to escape them — and right now, this entire world was my enemy.

In the corner of the screen, something like a menu was blinking. One red dot. It meant notifications had piled up. I tapped it.

The Carrier Gallery.

The smell of home hit me. This — this was a forum board. The afterlife, another world, whatever — where people gather, a message board inevitably springs up.

Rania's main gate. A man in a hood, standing around spaced out.

That's... me, isn't it.

"...I'm being taxidermied in real time."

Twelve thousand upvotes. He might as well be a celebrity. But I wasn't happy at all — why are the 'drop the coordinates' comments so terrifying?

I hit refresh. The comments had already doubled.

Together with what, exactly? And what do you mean you're already there?

Goosebumps shot down my arms. I swept my gaze across the surroundings. In the distance, a crowd was striding toward me — and our eyes met. They started running first.

I shoved the phone into my pocket and pulled my hood down deeper.

In this world, I was a walking National Treasure — and a National Treasure needed to run.

Two steps in, the phone buzzed again.

This time the vibration was different. Long, rhythmic — familiar. The vibration carved into my body over ten years.

A delivery call.

A glass of water.

Ten years I've been delivering. A bottle of soju at dawn. An umbrella on a rainy day. A tub of ice cream after a breakup. I've taken orders of every kind. But the first call after dying and waking up in another world — a glass of water.

A hollow laugh escaped me. Summoning a National Treasure on the brink of extinction, just to run a water errand. I had no idea what would happen if I refused. The gallery demanding my coordinates scared me. Standing still felt like being swallowed by the crowd. And above all — when a call came in, my finger moved before I did.

Ten years of hard-earned instinct. A rider who dodges calls is scarier than anything else.

I hit Accept.

Star ratings. Right up to the grave, and past it.

One hundred twenty paces.

Hood pressed low, I walked. Inside the gate was a market. Unfamiliar vegetables, unfamiliar meats, unfamiliar spices at every stall. The smell of fish, of grass, of pungent smoke, all churned together.

People here noticed me too. But one thing worked in my favor: merchants don't chase customers. They'd shoot glances my way, then refuse to abandon their stalls, feet drumming the ground in place.

At one stall sat a glass jar. Inside it, a white powder. The sign had a price — but I couldn't read the unit. 'Two gold coins.'

The merchant beside it was wiping the jar with extraordinary care — the way you'd handle a treasure. Erasing even fingerprints with a handkerchief. I crept closer and looked.

Sugar. A pinch of sugar — two gold coins. On Earth, that's a thousand won at the convenience store. Eight hundred on sale. And here, they were calling it a treasure.

The calculator in my head whirred for a moment. If sugar is a treasure — then salt? Pepper? Then the things rolling around in my delivery box right now...

No. Later. Save the math for after you've survived. Deliver the water first.

But one thing was now certain: prices in this world were not normal. And abnormal prices are, almost always, an opportunity for someone.

So I cut across the market — and there it was. The ducal estate.

It was enormous. Like an entire castle had been picked up and set down in one piece. A single stretch of wall equaled a whole block of my old neighborhood. A knight standing at the main gate saw me and her eyes went wide. The hand drifting toward her sword hilt — froze.

"...A m...an?"

Her voice trembled. Whether to draw the sword or reach for me, her hand hovered in midair, unable to decide.

I raised my delivery box with as much composure as I could muster.

"Delivery. One glass of water."

"...Water."

"Yes. You ordered it cold, I believe."

The knight swallowed hard. Then she let me through. Technically speaking — she drifted aside with a vacant look on her face. From behind me came whispering.

"It was real..."

"Is he going to see the Lady? Right now?"

At the end of a long corridor: one door. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠took a deep breath. In front of a customer, I had to be a professional. It was the last pride of ten years on the job.

I knocked.

"Enter."

A voice like a block of ice.

I opened the door.

And then — for a moment, I forgot the world existed.

A woman stood by the window. Silver hair spilled down to her waist. Moonlight-colored skin. Her dress was — I wouldn't know this world's standards, but by Earth's, considerably daring: shoulders, back, and legs bared without reservation. And above all that, a face of perfect blankness.

'Aloof' didn't cover it. It was a face with emotion ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠frozen solid, entire. The face of someone who had forgotten how to smile. No — the face of someone who had never learned in the first place.

The woman turned, slowly. Looked at me. And then — she froze. Truly, like ice. It seemed even her breathing had stopped. The air in the room congealed all at once.

The system quietly brought up a screen.

True Order: question marks. Reliability, forty-one percent.

If a glass of water is just the surface — what on earth is the real one?

Read-only. No manipulation. The decision belongs to the customer. Kind of it, or cold? It throws you a problem without handing you an answer. And yet that one line did warm me a little: peek into people's hearts if you must, but don't you dare lay a hand on them.

Still, ten years of deliveries taught me one thing: of all the customers who said 'just a glass of water, please' — very few actually wanted water. Someone ordering a glass of water at three in the morning was usually aching for a person, not a drink.

And this woman — it had been three days for her. Three days without seeing a real man.

No. It wasn't just men she hadn't seen. That face belonged to someone who hadn't truly sat across from another person — in three days, or in a lifetime. Hard to say which.

Lena von Aska. That flawless ice mask, still fixed on me, trembled — ever so slightly.

Her lips parted.

"...A real... man?"

"Yes. Delivery."

I lifted the box slightly.

"One glass of water."

"...Water."

She repeated the word like a foreign phrase she was hearing for the first time.

One step. She came toward me — then dug her toes in, as if to stop herself. A duchess's heir must have her dignity. She was the next head of the house, after all. But her body wasn't taking orders. One step became two.

"I ordered... water."

Her voice was still ice. Only the very last syllable had cracked, just barely.

"Yes. Here."

"I ordered water. I distinctly did."

"...Yes, that's right. Water."

The conversation kept orbiting the water. But her eyes — her eyes weren't on the water. They were locked on me.

And I saw it. Beneath the ice face, the ice voice, the ice posture — the fingertips gripping the empty glass were shaking.

A glass of water — that was the order.

But the scan was telling me something else entirely. Beneath the ice face of the Duke's heir, something was — coming apart.

I still didn't know the prices of this world. Not what a can of cola cost, not what a whole chicken cost. Sugar at two gold coins made everything else unimaginable. But one thing was certain: this delivery was not going to end with water.

I looked at those trembling fingertips. In ten years, I'd rung thousands of doorbells and faced thousands of doors, and I prided myself on reading whatever expression waited behind them.

But those fingertips — that was a first. They weren't the hands of someone who'd ordered water. They were the hands of someone who had been waiting for someone — three days without end.

And those trembling fingertips were — the most dangerous signal I'd seen all day.