Awakening in a Stranger's Body
Lee Jin-woo regained consciousness.
No—*regained* wasn't quite the right word. Something felt different.
His body was heavy, his chest tight with every breath, and a strangely intense chill ran through him. Even the coarse texture of the bedding against his skin felt alien.
His eyelids weighed a thousand pounds, but he forced them open, and an unfamiliar scene swam into view. A ceiling of aged, darkened wood hovered hazily above him, and the air carried a strange mingling of medicinal herbs, musty dust, and the faint tang of burning wood that stung his nose.
The room, untouched by even a whisper of wind, lay heavy and still.
Lee Jin-woo turned his head toward the window. Pale morning light leaked through a gap in the shutters, casting long shadows across the wooden floor.
What struck him as odd was that every wall was lined with tall bookshelves, packed with volumes that looked like they belonged in a historical drama.
Where… am I?
His head spun. The warning klaxons pouring out of the lab moments before the explosion still seemed to echo in his ears.
He tried to raise a hand, but his arm refused to obey. When he finally managed to lift it and looked down, shock washed over him.
The small, delicate hand was unmistakably that of a boy—not yet fully grown.
"Young Master, are you awake?"
Lee Jin-woo looked up. Before him stood an old man of about sixty, his hair gone entirely white, dressed in a gray robe straight out of a period drama. He held a bowl of medicine in his hands, his face etched with worry.
"Oh, thank heavens!! You collapsed so suddenly, I didn't know what to do with myself."
Strangely enough, though the old man's language was clearly neither Korean nor Chinese, Lee Jin-woo had no trouble understanding a word of it.
Lee Jin-woo asked carefully. "Um… where is this?"
The old man's face creased with puzzlement. "What a thing to say! This is the Ouyang Clan Manor—your own home, Young Master."
Lee Jin-woo only grew more confused.
Ouyang Clan Manor?
He had never heard the name before.
The old man spoke, his expression heavy with concern. "I fear you may have struck your head when you fell… Could it be that you don't remember who I am?"
"Who are you?"
The old man's face drained of color. "Oh no… this can't be…. I-I am Hwang Nodae, Young Master. I have served you since you were an infant crawling on the floor."
Worried the old man might collapse if this went on, Lee Jin-woo said, "Hwang Nodae, I just feel dizzy—my thoughts slipped away for a moment. There's no need to worry so much."
"Whew… what a relief."
"I'm tired. I'd like to rest a bit…"
"The Patriarch has asked for you, but… take your medicine first. I'll tell the Patriarch that your condition is poor and it may be a while."
"My father asked for me?"
Hwang Nodae's face turned sallow. "Have you forgotten that today is your seventeenth birthday, Young Master?"
"Oh! It's my birthday?"
"Indeed it is."
"Just give me the medicine, then. Maybe my memory will come back once I've taken it and rested."
"I certainly hope so…"
Hwang Nodae heaved sigh after sigh as he handed Lee Jin-woo the cup of medicine. The pungent smell of herbs stung his nostrils.
Lee Jin-woo hesitated a moment, then downed it in a single gulp. Bitterness coursed down his throat and spread through his whole body.
He handed the empty cup back. "Thank you."
When he drained the medicine without a single complaint—unlike his usual self—relief dawned on Hwang Nodae's face.
"Then I shall go inform the Patriarch about your condition, Young Master."
"Yes, please do."
After Hwang Nodae left the room, Lee Jin-woo tried to sit up in bed, but a deep languor drained his strength, and he sank back down. As he lay there drawing a deep breath, he felt a cold current stirring in the depths of his chest—an eerie sensation, as if ice were flowing through his veins.
My body isn't just young… it feels like it's suffering from something seriously wrong.
Just then, a familiar, composed voice echoed inside his skull.
[Doctor, you're awake.]
Lee Jin-woo flinched and looked around frantically. "Who's there?"
His voice was hoarse and dull—yet even so, it was a pleasant baritone.
[It's Akasha. When your consciousness and the nanobot system crossed into this world, I was transferred along with them.]
"Mmm…"
Lee Jin-woo let out a low groan and drew a deep breath. The explosion in the lab, the intruders, the neural synchronization in that final moment, and the rift between dimensions that had felt like a dream… It all came flooding back in fragments.
Akasha.
[Yes, Doctor.]
Thank goodness. So we can talk through thoughts.
[We can.]
Being able to converse mentally truly was a blessing. If anyone caught him speaking to thin air with no one around, he'd have no way to explain himself.
So what exactly happened?
[There is insufficient data to reach a conclusion. A full analysis will require more information. At present, I can only hypothesize that a quantum anomaly caused by the explosion transported us to another world.]
So if I've been transferred to another world… that means I didn't die?
[That's a bit of a gray area. Your physical body was completely destroyed, Doctor. Only the nanobot system carrying your synchronized consciousness made the crossing and settled into this boy's body.]
Do you know who this body belonged to?
[Yes. His name is Ouyang Qiangang. He was seventeen years old.]
Lee Jin-woo asked, a tension threading his tone. I didn't… push out this boy's soul and steal his body, did I?
[You needn't worry about that. When you arrived, Doctor, the boy had just drawn his last breath—killed by a fatal illness.]
Relief settling over his features, Lee Jin-woo looked around the room once more. The antique furniture, the shelves crammed with old books, the birdsong drifting in through the window. Everything was surreal, yet vividly real.
So this is real—a genuine world, not some hallucination or dream?
[Yes.]
Find out anything about this world?
[A little. I was able to recover roughly ten percent of the dying Ouyang Qiangang's memories from his brain.]
Akasha continued in her calm, measured tone.
[Fragmentary as they are, my analysis of Ouyang Qiangang's remaining memories suggests this is a planet much like the one we came from. The era resembles the ancient East Asia of Earth.]
Ancient East Asia?
[Yes. Most of the continent is under the rule of the Great Hwan Empire, with several nations of foreign peoples beyond its borders. And there is one particularly peculiar detail.]
Which is?
[It appears a separate world called the Murim exists alongside the empire—a parallel sphere of its own.]
Lee Jin-woo's eyes went round as saucers.
Murim? The Murim from martial arts films? The one where internal energy and palm blasts fly everywhere, where sword-wielding beggars of the Beggars' Union roam and the great demon heads of the Demonic Cult run rampant?
[Correct.]
Martial arts too?
[Yes.]
Holy… seriously?
[Seriously.]
Got proof?
[The boy we've settled into is the proof.]
Him?
[Yes. He is a descendant of the Ouyang Clan—one of the Ten Great Clans of the Murim in the past, though fallen into decline now.]
Then he'd have learned martial arts too, wouldn't he?
[Not exactly.]
Why not? Weren't you just saying he's the descendant of a prestigious Murim clan?
[This boy suffered from an extremely rare disease in which yin energy accumulates in the nine vital acupoints of the body. That appears to be why he could never learn martial arts.]
Lee Jin-woo furrowed his brow.
[The symptoms resemble the Nine Yin Severed Meridians found in martial arts novels. However, the boy's memory of the disease's name has been lost, so I have yet to identify it with certainty.]
For a man who had devoted his entire life to research, Lee Jin-woo's knowledge of the Murim amounted to a handful of movies he'd watched in the genre. Naturally, he'd never even heard of Nine Yin Severed Meridians.
Well, I'll learn soon enough. But hold on—this body isn't on some kind of timer, is it?
[It is on a timer. According to the boy's memories, if he is not cured before his twentieth birthday, his meridians will freeze solid and he will die.]
Geez… it's almost embarrassing to call this "being alive." Can't you fix it?
[In my current state, I am barely running on the bioelectric energy generated by your body. That allows us to converse, but I lack the capacity to rebuild your physical form.]
And if you were fully activated?
[Then a complete cure would be trivial. Theoretically, nanobots are nearly omnipotent when it comes to physical enhancement and the treatment of disease. The only prerequisite is a sufficient supply of energy to wield that capability freely.]
The nanobot system Lee Jin-woo had designed to integrate with Akasha comprised exactly one hundred thousand units.
That number was staggering, yet the energy required to run them could be supplied by nothing more than the glucose within a human body.
The problem was Akasha.
No amount of bodily glucose could possibly power a quantum-based superintelligent AI like her.
He had built her on an ultra-efficient architecture that minimized power consumption during operation, but even so, she required roughly one hundred kilojoules per second.
Which meant that running Akasha at full capacity would drain every trace of glucose from a human body in four seconds flat.
In other words, fully activating her in his current state meant Lee Jin-woo would be crossing the River of the Dead immediately.
Any way to get the energy needed to activate you?
[I'm searching, but there is so little information about this world that I haven't found even a single lead yet.]
Lee Jin-woo was not the type to obsess over a problem he couldn't solve right away, so he changed the subject.
You said you restored some of this boy's memories?
[Yes. Shall I bring up Ouyang Qiangang's memories for you?]
Please.
The instant he spoke, memories surged into his mind like a crashing wave.
A sudden influx of information could be dangerous for the brain, but Akasha's careful modulation spared him any serious shock.
Moments later, fragments of Ouyang Qiangang's life flickered through Lee Jin-woo's consciousness.
Eldest son of Ouyang Baek, Patriarch of the Ouyang Clan. A frail, sickly body. His mother, Seol Hyang, dead thirteen years ago.
With every scene that swept past like a panorama came the boy's deep sorrow and quiet resignation—and, through it all, a small, unextinguished ember of hope.
The feelings were so intense, so vivid, that Lee Jin-woo sighed inwardly.
It hurt as if the memories were his own.
So I'm both Lee Jin-woo and Ouyang Qiangang…
He struggled up from the bed and made his way to the window.
A Murim world… it's hard to wrap my head around.
A bitter smile touched Lee Jin-woo's lips.
He had created Akasha and the nanobot system himself, so no one understood their capabilities better than he did. It was maddening not to be able to use them right now—but for the moment, he had no choice but to endure.
Akasha, is there any way back to our original world?
[If you wish, I will look into it.]
Of course I wish. How is a twenty-first-century Korean supposed to live like an ancient East Asian? For all I know, this world doesn't even have toilet paper.
As he went on, a cold edge crept into Lee Jin-woo's eyes.
And the bastards who killed me—it's a little weird saying that with a living body, but—I'm going to find out who they are and make them pay.
He looked down at his gaunt, skeletal frame, at his thin arms and legs, and said,
First, let's find a way to save this boy. He's my benefactor—the one who gave me a body to settle into in this world. I can't let him die twice.
[Understood. I will gather every scrap of relevant information. The best way to acquire knowledge in an era like this would be…]
…Books, right?
Lee Jin-woo's gaze swept across the volumes crowding the shelves. The boy who had battled chronic illness all his life must have had a passion for reading.
Then he pulled his eyes from the bookshelf and turned toward the window. His gaze sank deep.
This really is another world, in another dimension. And I have to live not as Lee Jin-woo, but as Ouyang Qiangang.