It's Gone?
The frantic buzzing of my phone jarred me awake early in the morning.
“Ugh… what bastard is calling at this hour…”
I reached over to the nightstand, squinting through the bleary haze at my screen. Forty-seven missed calls stared back at me, all from the same contact: Store Manager.
“Huh…?”
My gaze drifted to the top corner of the screen, finally taking in the time.
“I'm dead…”
Without giving myself a second to process the horror, I threw on clothes, splashed water on my face, and sprinted out the front door. If I showed up late, there was no telling what that bloated elephant would scream at me.
Ten breathless minutes later, I slammed through the glass doors of the convenience store and dropped straight into a ninety-degree bow.
“I'm so sorry!”
Heavy, ponderous footfalls rattled the linoleum floor as the manager lumbered toward me, his breathing heavy with theatrical exasperation.
“Hyunsoo!”
His voice boomed across the empty aisles, dripping with pure, unadulterated venom.
“Just what kind of pathetic home education did you get that makes you consistently late for your shifts?”
Even with my head bowed toward the floor, I didn't need to look up to picture the repulsive sneer plastered across his face.
“Then again, what could anyone expect from a son who's still slaving away as a convenience store part-timer at your age?”
My fists clenched so tightly my fingernails dug into my palms.
“Considering everything you've stolen over the months, just pack your shit and get out. You aren't seeing a single won of severance pay.”
My head snapped up, eyes wide with fury.
“What do you mean, stolen?! All I ever did was bust my ass for you! You didn't even pay me legal minimum wage!”
The manager sneered down at me, letting out a mocking scoff.
“Hyunsoo, if I paid full minimum wage, I wouldn't be able to keep the store running. Who the hell pays minimum wage to a convenience store grunt?”
Every fiber of my being screamed to lunge forward and tear into that elephant right then and there.
“I generously gave you written-off expired food so you wouldn't starve, and you took that as an invitation to rob the place blind… Now that I think about it, the register's cash count was always short only during your shifts, wasn't it?”
All I had ever done was work myself to the bone, and the reward was a coordinated frame job.
“Oh, and the other part-timers told me they saw you pocketing cash, too. So don't go getting any clever ideas and just get lost. I'll wire whatever you earned up through yesterday.”
Hearing that he had already coerced the other workers into a coordinated lie, I turned around and walked out into the street without another word. There was no one in this world on my side.
“Fuck… reality hits like a ton of bricks.”
Trudging toward home, I stepped off the curb as the pedestrian light turned green.
HONK—!
A roaring horn tore through the air as a massive flatbed truck hurtled straight down the asphalt. Utterly oblivious, my thumbs had been furiously tapping away at my screen.
CRASH!
The impact launched my body into the air, tossing me like a ragdoll before I slammed headfirst into the freezing concrete.
Fuck.
The truck accelerated away into the distance, its taillights blurring as the shrill wail of approaching sirens faded into absolute darkness.
A stray, icy draft stirred against my face, pulling me back from the void.
“Mmph…”
My chest felt oppressively heavy, pressing down on my lungs. Was I strapped into heavy medical monitoring equipment in an intensive care unit?
At least I didn't die.
A ragged sigh of relief slipped past my lips, comforted by the simple fact that I was still breathing. But as I cracked my eyes open, expecting the sterile, fluorescent glare of a hospital room, my gaze caught on rough-hewn wooden beams overhead.
“Huh?”
Startled, I shoved myself upright. The sight that greeted me made me blink in sheer disbelief.
“Wh-where the hell am I?”
Scrambling out of the narrow cot, my perspective felt disorientingly low to the ground. I was standing inside a rustic log cabin, assembled so poorly that the entire structure rattled and groaned whenever the wind blew outside. Then my eyes caught sight of my own hands—tiny, delicate palms wrapped in pristine, alabaster skin. And beneath that shock lay an even more catastrophic discovery.
“W-wait… it's gone.”
Between my legs, that indispensable half of my soul that had accompanied me through every waking and sleeping moment for over two decades was completely absent.
Faced with the harrowing void where a man's pride was supposed to dangle, a wave of profound emptiness crashed over me, and my brain flatlined in utter denial of reality.
Estate and housing rent has been delinquent for 6 months.
Upon reaching the 12-month maturity deadline, all held assets will be seized and transferred to the creditor.
A translucent crimson screen hovered directly before my eyes. Trembling, I reached out a finger to brush against the glowing letters.
What kind of insane bullshit is this?
Through the haze of sheer panic, an all-too-familiar term pierced my consciousness. Estel… Estel? Wait, this can't be…
“Estera Online?!”
It was the virtual reality game I had poured my entire youth into. Instinctively, I swiped my hand downward through the empty air, and a clean blue user interface materialized before me.
Name: Iris
Class: Alchemist
Iris? I had never heard that name in my life. And of all things, an Alchemist? That was the single most infamous garbage class in the entire game, where a handful of monopolizing high-rankers made all the gold while ninety-nine percent of novices went bankrupt and quit within weeks. Even if someone wanted to play a life-skill profession, why on earth would they choose this dumpster fire?
“Fuck… this is way too hardcore!”
Desperate to prove this was all an elaborate nightmare, I shoved the cabin door open.
An endless canopy of emerald trees greeted me. The scent of pine and wild clover hung thick in the air, and realization struck like lightning. This was the starter village's peripheral woodland. Across the entire server, there was only one idiot brainless enough to build a private estate in a low-level beginner zone. The face of a frivolous creature who had tossed game efficiency straight into the garbage flashed violently across my mind.
“Kim Hyuna, you psychotic bitch… what the hell did you do to rack up a hundred million Estel in debt inside a starter village?!”
I leaned against the weathered doorframe, taking slow, deep breaths to force my racing heart into submission.
“Okay… so let's get this straight. I've somehow taken over the avatar that Hyuna—my little sister—created… and I'm currently trapped inside the game world?”
Could any sane human being accept this calmly? Not a chance in hell.
“How does this make any goddamn sense?!”
If someone told me I had simply died on that crosswalk and this was an eternity of comatose delirium, I would have swallowed the pill far more willingly.
“If I'm trapped inside the game… that means logging out is completely off the table, isn't it…?”
Of all the rotten, cursed days to be alive.
Sprinting out of the clearing in sheer denial, I pushed forward into the foliage. But my stubby legs ran out of steam almost immediately, carrying me barely fifty paces to the edge of a crystal-clear natural spring nestled near the cabin. Panting for breath, I leaned over the glassy pool, and the reflection staring back at me pulled a breathless murmur from my throat.
“She's… gorgeous.”
Could this really be me?
Rippling across the mirrored surface was the face of an ethereal beauty. Brilliant, silken blonde hair caught the morning sunlight, cascading around porcelain cheeks, while eyes as deep and radiant as azure jewels stared back in shock. I lifted a trembling hand to caress my cheek.
“Whoa… the skin texture is unreal. Not a single rough patch anywhere…”
If someone told me this girl was a top-tier idol or a luxury-brand actress receiving twenty-four-hour dermatological treatments, I would have believed them without hesitation.
“And the original owner of this body was that gorilla of a sister… and now it's mine?”
The memory of my sister's real-life mug popped into my mind, coaxing out a hollow chuckle.
“She took on part-time shifts she'd normally never touch just to save up for eyelid surgery… when she could have just had a natural canvas like this…”
Wait a second. She spent her money on cosmetic procedures and then begged me to buy her fried chicken and takeout every single week?! A flare of righteous indignation reignited in my chest. And whenever I invested my hard-earned cash into gearing up my main character, she'd scream at the top of her lungs that I was a hopeless gaming addict!
“Leaving that aside… this spring water is ridiculously pristine.”
A delicate, refreshing vitality radiated from the pool. Parched from all the running and screaming, I cupped the liquid in my hands and took a cautious sip. A cool, invigorating sweetness washed down my throat.
“It tastes incredible, too.”
Wiping away the cold droplets tracing down my chin, I waved my hand to pull up the inventory interface.
“Surely there's an empty bottle in here somewhere…”
I peered through the grid slots, only to find a sickening mountain of useless trash. A plush teddy bear, an ornamental compact mirror, a set of fleece bear pajamas, and a decorative ink stamp.
“Did this girl come here to play an MMORPG, or was she playing a dress-up doll simulator? She really lost her mind over cosmetic horizontal crap.”
Not a single standard potion phial was in sight. A long, heavy groan tore through my throat.
“That useless brat is a parasite at home and just as worthless in a game…”
Refusing to give up, I dug deeper through the sub-tabs until a faint glint caught my eye.
“Oh… there's something!”
It was a porcelain teapot, painted with intricate royal filigree. Why on earth an alchemist would carry luxury tea set pieces was beyond me, but it was infinitely better than nothing. Kneeling by the edge of the pool, I dipped the spout beneath the surface.
“Wait… what?”
The pot, which should have brimmed over in seconds, kept gulping down water like a bottomless vortex. Before I could pull it away, the entire spring had been drained completely dry, exposing the damp pebbles of the riverbed.
“This… this definitely isn't an ordinary teapot.”
While staring dumbfoundedly at the vessel, my gaze wandered past the empty basin, catching sight of an expansive, neglected herb plot sprawling across the clearing behind the spring.
“She literally owned an herb garden, so why the hell didn't she pay off her mortgage?”
Stepping closer, the answer became glaringly obvious. The untended garden bed was overrun by an army of squirming garden pests and gnawing beetles.
“Well… considering she never cleaned her own bedroom, I guess expecting her to weed a digital garden was asking too much.”
In the end, cleaning up the mess was my job, just like in the real world. I rolled up my sleeves, kneeling in the dirt to crush the pests one by one, but every twist of my body sent strange, hyper-sensitive sensations rippling through me.
“Eek!”
A sudden, sharp throb shot through my rear, sending me leaping straight into the air.
“Why the hell does this ass have to be so ridiculously huge?!”
The voluptuous weight threw off my balance, and every clumsy squirm of my hips sent strange, electric twitches through my lower back. By the time I finally finished squashing the last of the vermin and uprooting the strangling weeds, all strength deserted my legs, and I collapsed flat on my butt in the soil.
I let out a dry, wheezing laugh at the notification banner. That meant she had bought the property and literally never touched it once.
“Are there even any healthy stalks left…?”
With the swarm eradicated, only a pitiful handful of surviving green shoots stood upright in the cleared dirt. I gave them an apologetic look as I dug my fingers into the loam. Forgive me, little greens, but you're all coming with me. I had no intention of spending my new life as a hunted debtor on the run.
I had assumed that brewing potions merely required gathering some herbs and tossing them into boiling water. To be specific, that was what my gaming instincts told me.
“Uh…”
There was just one tiny, glaring issue: I had absolutely no idea how to actually brew a potion. To a hardcore vertical combat min-maxer like me, potions were things you bought in bulk stacks from the auction house or generic general merchants.
“Can't I just roughly chop it up, chuck it into the cauldron, and boil it?”
It was a video game, after all. How absurdly complex could it possibly be? If I dumped everything in and stirred hard enough, a decent potion was bound to materialize eventually. Embracing my blissfully simple logic, I snatched a kitchen knife from the counter.
“Trim off the dirty roots… and then just simmer it?”
I pressed the edge of the blade against the herb like I was chopping carrots on a cutting board, but a bizarre, elastic resistance pushed back against the steel. Puzzled, I brought the knife down again, pressing harder into the base of the root—
“AAAAAAAH!”
A piercing, blood-curdling screech exploded through the kitchen.
“Gah!”
I dropped the knife and clamped both hands over my ears as the shrill shriek threatened to rupture my eardrums, sending me tumbling backward onto the floorboards.
“Ugh… what the hell was that?!”
Peeking through trembling fingers, I stared at the wooden cutting board. The herb was upright, wriggling its leaves like tiny limbs.
Wait… why was a harvested plant moving?!
“Hey, you! You've got such a pretty face, so why the hell are you treating a premium ingredient like me so violently?!”
My brain ground to a dead, screeching halt. The weed was talking. An herb I had pulled out of the dirt ten minutes ago was actively lecturing me on manners. This was undeniable proof of psychological breakdown. Had I finally gone completely mad?
“You have to meticulously clean the fine root hairs first, you barbarian! And before any of that… give me some water! I'm drying up here!”
Swallowing hard, I cautiously extended a trembling hand and brushed my fingertips against the root. A gentle, soothing warmth radiated into my skin. The moment the faint trace of mana humming beneath my nails mingled with the plant's core, the herb shivered with delight, its jade leaves unfurling in radiant bloom.
A detailed, instinctive recipe blossomed inside my head like an awakened memory. The herb fell silent, but my hands moved automatically, guided by the newly imprinted technique. After rinsing the stalk with pure spring water, I placed it into the iron cauldron along with a measured splash of liquid and channeled a gentle stream of mana through the metal base. The alchemical vessel instantly began to hum, casting a luminous glow across the room.
“And now… drop the crushed leaves in near the end?”
The moment the leafy bits sank into the simmering concoction, the frothing liquid began to sparkle with iridescent light. From here, it was a test of pure concentration. I leaned over the rim, carefully adjusting the mana current, when a bizarre, shimmering bubble rose to the surface. It expanded, morphed into the unmistakable shape of a round-eared teddy bear, and boldly winked right at me.
Sentimentality stat? What kind of ridiculous, touchy-feely bullshit was the system talking about now?!
Before I could complain, a dazzling pillar of light surged from the pot, and the shimmering brew crystallized into translucent liquid.
POP!
When the smoke cleared, several neatly sealed glass phials sat lined up on the countertop.
“Wh-what in the world is this…?”
I leaned closer, inspecting the glass. That definitely wasn't there before I poured the liquid. Stamped cleanly onto the surface of each vial was the golden seal of a smiling teddy bear—the exact twin of the bubble that had just winked at me.
Don't look at me with that smug, creepy wink, you little bastard!
I checked the item tooltip, and my jaw dropped. Recovery potency increased by a staggering one hundred percent compared to standard Vitality Potions, accompanied by a drastically accelerated absorption rate? Wait, a hundred percent bonus on a beginner draft? Who were they trying to fool?
“Isn't this an outright scam?!”
It read like the kind of fraudulent, virus-laden clickbait you'd see plastered on sleazy internet pop-up ads.
You have successfully brewed your first potion.
Your bond with Teddy has deepened.
“Stop building pointless bonds with me, damn it!”
After panting out my frustration, the harsh reality of economics set in. What kind of deranged player would buy a sketchy low-grade potion if I set up a street stall shouting:
Step right up, buy your lesser potions here!
Selling suspicious starter potions with two hundred percent healing efficacy!
Yeah, right. They'd laugh in my face and report me for fraud.
“The stats aren't verified by the general market… but maybe I should just try to hustle some rich whale?”
Opening the global auction exchange menu, I entered the listing price at 2,000 Estel per bottle—twenty times the going rate for common beginner potions.
“If the effects are real, the buyer hit the jackpot. If it's a glitch, that's their own damn fault for falling for it.”
Dying once had taught me an unforgettable life lesson: live your life as a nice guy, and the world will only treat you like a sucker. Having dumped every single bottle onto the exchange, I turned and flopped face-down onto the cot.
“Ow… my ass…”
I buried my face in the scratchy pillow, groaning softly. To hell with everything. I was just going to sleep. Maybe when I opened my eyes tomorrow morning, I'd be back in my own scruffy male body, waking up to the sound of another mundane day.