The Ultimate Body
I barely shook off the horde of charging goblins and slipped into the cave.
"Just you wait, you evil little shits thinking numbers make you hot shit."
To be precise, the place I'd entered was a secret laboratory hidden beneath the cave.
Click. A secret passage camouflaged with dirt, fallen leaves, and some nauseating perfume. Descending the ladder below it led right here—the hidden lab that had created this very body I now inhabited.
"Going out for food every damn time is risky as hell... but I can't end up starving to death like that crazy fucker."
I dragged my shaky legs—still trembling from all the running outside—over to a chair, tossed two dead rabbits onto the floor, and muttered to myself.
In the corner of the lab lay a skeleton. I turned my head from it and gazed at the mirror mounted on the far side of the workbench.
There was the body I'd possessed. Stitches crisscrossing its skin, patches of flesh in mismatched colors, a cold face peeking out from under the wild, unkempt hair. None of it resembled the me I remembered.
"...Fuck."
I spat the curse and turned away, my eyes landing on the documents that had clued me in over the past few days: I'd possessed into the world of Yeonggwangdok.
Notes piled haphazardly on a table crammed with white glass vials. Those notes chronicled in meticulous detail, day by day, the experiments that had forged this body.
Beneath the experiment logs sat a diary—and reading it would reveal the keys to understanding my current predicament.
The date format matched Yeonggwangdok's exactly, but the real kicker was the name scrawled there.
[Pauche]
The man who'd built this secret lab. The one who'd run every twisted experiment on the experimental subject whose body I now occupied.
In fact, it was a name briefly mentioned early in Yeonggwangdok. In front of the royal ball's honored guests, the sub-male lead boasted after blowing the island sky-high and slaughtering every monster on it.
—Oh, right! After we blew up the island, we found a wanted criminal from your duchy hanging out inside. What was his name again? Pa...? Pauche, yeah?
Pauche the wanted alchemist. He'd set up his hideout on this monster island to conduct forbidden human experiments. Of course, that entire backstory only served to hype the sub-male lead's prowess in his debut scene at the ball—nothing more.
But from the looks of things now, this Pauche guy had croaked before the island got swept.
Judging by the moldy clothes on the skeleton and the hole punched through them, he'd probably gone out for food, gotten injured, failed to restock, and starved to death.
The last diary entry was full of rage about how the experiments were taking way longer than expected.
Long story short: Creating the experimental subject had taken far longer than anticipated, and Pauche hadn't lasted. He'd starved before completion.
And then... from the final date in that diary to the start of Yeonggwangdok's main story? Exactly one year.
That's when I possessed this body—sometime in that gap.
They say it takes months in spring and fall for a body to skeletonize like that.
Which meant...
Less time than I thought.
I had to escape this hellish island within half a year, tops. Otherwise, I'd die to the attacks from the strongest 'human' on this rock—way deadlier than any monster.
Building a raft right now? Fat chance. The seas around this island teemed with monsters that smashed and devoured anything trying to leave or approach.
So there was only one way out: Slaughter every goddamn monster inside and out, then slip away before that sub-male lead turned the whole place to rubble.
"Haha, fuck."
Anyone who'd read Yeonggwangdok's early chapters—and knew the rough lineup of monsters on this island—might call it impossible.
But not me.
I turned back to the mirror, eyeing my upper body. It looked rail-thin at a glance.
Thump.
A manic grin crept across my lips.
This body felt utterly ordinary—no mana pulsing through it, no muscle when I flexed my arm. But I'd already realized: I'd crash-landed in this world with one hell of a gift.
Tap, tap. My legs, which had been quivering from the chase just moments ago, felt fine now. Hell, the muscle cramps and spasms I'd had earlier? Gone.
"Good as new."
The research logs had spelled it out under 'Experiment Goal,' but yeah—I'd scored the
The pinnacle physique anyone who's ever trained dreams of achieving.
Back in my old life—now just a past reincarnation—my older brother used to mutter that shit almost daily.
—Man, I wanna get jacked every day, but it's not that easy.
—Should I juice up? Nah, that's not my style.
He was griping about wanting to level up his body faster and stronger. Common knowledge for anyone who's seriously trained: Muscles don't grow during the workout.
You tear them up with intense exercise, then they supercompensate bigger and stronger during recovery—if you rest enough.
That exercise-recovery cycle takes time, so impatient folks get tempted. Drugs that slash recovery time to the bone and amp up gains even more.
With drugs, while others are sitting around staring blankly to recover, you're already on round two—ripping deeper, recovering harder.
And that's not all. Top UFC fighters? They juice on stuff that boosts endurance for the same workouts, sharpens focus, dulls fatigue, maxes out testosterone.
According to them, juicing versus clean is like riding a motorcycle versus pedaling a bike.
In that sense...
My body right now? It was a 24/7 nonstop monster, beyond any drug they dreamed of.
"Insane."
All I'd done was roast and chow down one of those rabbits. Using the secret vent Pauche had rigged in this hideout. Not even 30 minutes since I'd gnawed it to the bone.
Drip.
Power surged into my thighs. The same quads that had cramped fleeing the goblin pack? Now thicker, stronger than before.
"This is straight-up cheating..."
I stood, hiked up my pants, and checked my thighs. No more withered sticks—the vastus lateralis outline was popping.
Snorting in disbelief, I rifled through the research logs on the workbench again.
Lists of monster serums he'd bought at exorbitant prices to build this body.
"Ogre, troll, lycanthrope... wh, what the hell, a golem core?"
Beside those head-spinning formulas, summaries of their effects.
[Recovery Enhancement]
[Nerve Reinforcement]
[Muscle Strength Boost]
[Ligament Fortification]
[Mana Amplification]
...
Crazy, impossible shit everywhere.
And that wasn't it.
Rustle.
I unfolded what looked like an anatomical diagram. The nerves were thicker, denser than a normal human's. Bones? Way beefier too—obvious at a glance.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
My heart pounded. A whoop burst out.
"Holy shit."
Despite crash-landing in this godforsaken world, forced to fight for survival. Despite the odds even after escaping this island. Despite being utterly alone.
"This body... is god tier..."
I couldn't hold back the thrill at the thought of putting this new ride through its paces. Guess I was a gym rat to the bone, just like my bro.
The mirror showed my mouth gaping wide—I hadn't even noticed.
"Alright then."
Now there was only one thing left to do: Forge the perfect body to survive this shithole island.
Still facing the mirror, I slowly spread my legs shoulder-width and dropped into the first squat.
No real muscle yet—my legs were already shaking after a few reps. And outside the cave, some nameless monster's roar suddenly echoed.
"GRRROOOOAAAHHH!"
Sweat poured down as I locked in on the training. Before I knew it, a strangely manic grin twisted my lips.
"Twenty... one! Twen...ty-two! Hoo...ha!"