Steadying My Heart
I took a deep breath, trying to calm the storm raging inside me.
Okay, Han Young-hoo. Get it together. This isn't the time to lose your shit.
The air in the room felt heavier than usual, thick with the scent of old wood and faint incense. My hands were still trembling slightly from the earlier confrontation. I clenched them into fists, nails digging into my palms until the pain grounded me.
Just then, a familiar flicker appeared before my eyes — that damnable window that had upended my entire existence the moment I woke up in this body.
{'status': 500, 'code': 500, 'errmsg': 'Invalid Access.'}
"What the hell?" I muttered under my breath. The message was in that cold, mechanical English again, completely out of place in this ancient Korean-style room. My new body's original owner must have been some kind of shut-in cultivator, but this system interface felt like it had been ripped straight out of a cheap mobile game from my old world.
I waved my hand through the air, trying to dismiss it. The window didn't budge. Instead, another one popped up right below it, this time with a more ominous crimson border.
The requested function is restricted. Your current authority level is insufficient.
"Authority level? Backlash?" I groaned, rubbing my temples. This wasn't helping my attempt to steady my heart at all. In fact, it was making everything worse. The original Han Young-hoo — or rather, the guy whose body I'd possessed — had apparently been avoiding the outside world for years. A reclusive master, they called him. More like a professional hikikomori with god-tier martial arts skills.
I glanced around the dimly lit chamber. Scrolls of ancient techniques lined the walls, their ink still fresh enough to suggest they'd been written not too long ago. A half-empty teacup sat on the low table, the liquid inside long gone cold. This place screamed "leave me alone," and yet here I was, stuck in it with a broken system interface that kept spitting out error codes like some buggy beta test.
Come on, think. You didn't ask to be isekai'd into an alternate universe version of ancient Korea. But since you're here, you might as well not die like an idiot on day one.
Taking another deep breath, I focused on the faint flow of energy circulating through my meridians. It was there — that strange, warm current the locals called qi. The original owner's body was ridiculously talented. Even without trying, I could feel power humming just beneath my skin, ready to explode into devastating martial techniques at a moment's notice.
But my mind? My mind was still very much that of a modern-day Korean guy who preferred binge-watching dramas and eating delivery chicken over training until my bones screamed.
"Alright," I said out loud, my voice echoing slightly in the empty room. "Let's try this again. System, show me my status."
The air shimmered. For a moment, I thought it might actually work. Then —
{'status': 500, 'code': 500, 'errmsg': 'Invalid Access.'}
"Son of a —" I barely stopped myself from kicking the table. The error message blinked mockingly before fading away. It was like the system was laughing at me. Or maybe the original owner had locked down most of its functions out of sheer laziness. That would track with the whole "reclusive master" thing.
I walked over to the window — the real one, not the floating error box — and pushed open the wooden shutters. Outside, the mountains of Cheonje stretched endlessly under a pale dawn sky. This alternate history version of the Korean Peninsula was beautiful in a way that made my chest ache. Towering peaks wrapped in mist, distant temple bells ringing softly, and somewhere out there, powerful sects and royal courts that could crush a man like me without a second thought.
"I didn't come here to hide forever," I whispered to the wind. "The original guy might've been content being a shut-in, but I'm not. Not when there are people I need to protect now."
Memories that weren't entirely mine flickered at the edge of my consciousness. A young woman's face — beautiful, fierce, with eyes that burned with obsessive devotion. Another girl, softer but no less dangerous, her smile hiding yandere-level possessiveness. And then there were the others. This body had somehow accumulated a harem of dangerous, beautiful women who would probably burn the world down if I so much as stubbed my toe.
That thought both terrified and excited me.
I closed my eyes and focused inward again. This time, instead of demanding the system show me everything, I tried something simpler. I reached for the qi flowing through my body and gently guided it along the pathways I'd somehow inherited knowledge of.
The qi circulates smoothly through your meridians, calming turbulent emotions. Heart rate stabilizing. Mental clarity +15%.
A gentle warmth spread through my chest. For the first time since waking up in this world, I felt like I could actually think straight. The panic that had been clawing at my throat receded, replaced by a quiet determination.
"That's better," I murmured. "One step at a time. First, figure out what this broken system actually lets me do. Then, deal with the crazy beautiful women who think I belong to them. And somewhere in between, maybe try not to get killed by all the political bullshit happening in Cheonje right now."
I turned away from the window, rolling my shoulders. The body felt lighter now, more responsive. Whatever the original Han Young-hoo had been running from, I wasn't going to repeat his mistakes.
Time to stop being a reclusive master.
It was time to step into the world — whether the world was ready for me or not.