Chance Comes to Those Who Are Prepared
The world was not equal.
Some were born with a silver spoon in their mouth, while others were born into a life of endless hardship. Some possessed genius-level talent from birth, while others struggled just to survive. The starting lines were different, the paths were different, and even the finish lines were different.
That was the way of the world.
Yet there were those who refused to accept it. They fought against the invisible walls, clawed their way forward despite the odds, and sometimes even managed to change their fate. But most people simply accepted their lot. They lived within the boundaries they were given, never daring to dream beyond them.
Among them was a man named Kang Jin-ho.
He had been born into an ordinary family in a small rural town. His parents ran a modest restaurant, and from a young age, he helped out in the kitchen after school. There was nothing particularly special about him. He wasn't exceptionally smart, nor did he have any outstanding talents. He was just... average.
But even an average person could harbor grand dreams.
From the moment he first touched a computer in middle school, Jin-ho had fallen in love with the world of technology. The way information flowed freely across networks, the way complex problems could be solved with elegant code, the way a single idea could change the world. It fascinated him.
He studied relentlessly. While his friends played games or hung out after school, he buried himself in programming books from the library. He taught himself languages that weren't even taught in Korean schools yet. He dreamed of building something revolutionary, something that would put South Korea on the global tech map.
But reality was cruel.
After high school, his family's financial situation forced him to forgo university. Instead, he entered the military and later took a low-level job at a small IT company. The pay was meager, the work was menial, and his dreams slowly gathered dust in the corner of his mind.
Still, he never completely gave up. In his spare time, he continued learning. He followed the latest technological trends from Silicon Valley. He analyzed the strategies of companies like Microsoft and Google. He even made a few small investments in promising startups using what little savings he had.
Then came the year 2014.
It was the year everything changed.
One ordinary evening, after another exhausting day at work, Jin-ho returned to his tiny one-room apartment. He heated up some leftover kimchi stew, turned on his old desktop computer, and began his usual routine of checking tech news and coding practice problems.
That was when it happened.
CONGRATULATIONS.
You have been selected as a candidate for Regression.
Would you like to accept?
[YES] / [NO]
Jin-ho stared at the glowing blue window that had suddenly appeared in the center of his monitor. At first, he thought it was some kind of prank or a new type of malware. He tried closing the window, restarting his computer, even unplugging the power cord. Nothing worked.
The window remained, floating serenely in the air as if it had nothing to do with his physical computer at all.
After several minutes of bewildered panic, he finally sat back down and read the message again. Regression. The word echoed strangely in his mind. He had read enough web novels and watched enough movies to understand what it meant. Going back in time. Starting over with the knowledge of the future.
It was impossible. Absurd. The stuff of fiction.
Yet here it was, staring him in the face.
His hand trembled as he moved the mouse. The cursor hovered over the [YES] button. Countless thoughts raced through his mind. What if this was real? What if he could actually go back? What would he do differently? Could he really change his life? Could he achieve the dreams he had long abandoned?
But what if it was a trick? What if accepting it meant losing everything he had?
In the end, the decision was surprisingly easy.
What did he have to lose?
His finger clicked the button.
Preparing temporal coordinates...
Calculating causal variables...
Memory synchronization complete.
Transferring consciousness to target timeline.
The world spun violently. Colors blurred together. Time itself seemed to fold and twist around him. Jin-ho felt as if his very soul was being pulled through an impossibly narrow tunnel. Memories, knowledge, experiences, all of it compressed into a single point before exploding outward again.
When the vertigo finally stopped, he found himself sitting in an unfamiliar chair.
The air smelled different. The lighting was different. Even his own body felt... wrong. Younger. Lighter.
He looked around with wide eyes.
It was his old room. The one from his childhood home in that small rural town. The faded posters on the wall, the old CRT monitor on the desk, the calendar hanging on the wall...
His gaze locked onto the date.
March 3rd, 2004.
Ten years. He had gone back ten full years.
Jin-ho's hands began to shake uncontrollably. He touched his face, his arms, the desk in front of him. Everything felt real. The texture of the wood, the warmth of his own skin, the faint scent of his mother's cooking drifting in from the kitchen.
It was all real.
He had really returned to the past.
Tears welled up in his eyes as a tidal wave of emotions crashed over him. Regret. Relief. Excitement. Fear. Hope. All of it mixed together until he couldn't tell one from another.
Ten years.
He had ten years of future knowledge in his head. He knew exactly what companies would succeed, which technologies would dominate the market, which economic crises were coming, and how to navigate them. He knew the future of the internet, mobile technology, artificial intelligence, and countless other fields that would reshape the world.
This time, he wouldn't be a mere spectator.
This time, he would be the one to change everything.
Jin-ho stood up slowly, his young body moving with a determination that belonged to a man twice his age. He walked to the window and looked out at the familiar yet strangely new scenery of his hometown.
The world was still not equal.
But now, he held the ultimate advantage.
Chance comes to those who are prepared.
And he was more prepared than anyone else on Earth.
A small, fierce smile formed on his lips.
"Let's get started."