Is Being F-Rank a Crime?

"Good work out there."

"Yes. Go on home."

The moment I stepped out of the gate management office, my phone rang.

I turned the screen off and back on again.

83,400 won.

The number hadn't changed.

"……"

Six hours. That was how long I'd spent inside the dungeon today.

Hauling sacks of mana stones, stripping byproducts off goblin corpses, alerting the hunters fighting up front whenever something burst out of the shadows — hazard pay included, all of it came to 83,400 won.

"Maybe a convenience store job would be better."

I wasn't joking. I meant it.

At least on a night shift at a convenience store, no goblin ever came chasing after me with a knife.

I shoved the phone back into my pocket.

Well, what could I do? That's just what F-Rank is.

Everyone who awakens gets one ability. Some spit fire. Some get stronger bodies. Some can heal wounds.

Of course, the world isn't fair, so every now and then something like me gets spat out too.

When I first got it, it looked pretty legit. And after five years of trying this and that with it, the verdict was in:

It was nothing special.

I could figure out slightly faster than most people why a sword stance was wrong. I picked up new physical techniques a bit quicker than others.

Exactly that much.

It wasn't going to lop off a monster's head, and no fire was coming out of my hands.

The result: F-Rank.

Currently serving with distinction as a dungeon porter.

Worth exactly 83,400 won.

I got home, washed up, and flopped onto the bed. Cracking open a can from the fridge, I turned on my phone, planning to watch something and then sleep.

"Huh?"

There was an icon I'd never seen before.

Black background. White text.

[Dimensional Integrated Gallery]

Did I install something like this?

I pressed down ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hard on the icon. Delete.

…There was no delete option?

The app info screen wouldn't open either.

"What is this thing?"

Malware, maybe. I deliberated for a moment, then just tapped it. It was already on my phone either way — I'd have to see what it was before I could delete or report it.

The screen changed.

A nickname?

I thought about it for a moment. Then the settlement money I'd checked earlier came to mind.

83,400 won.

My fingers moved.

Done.

And three seconds later, I slightly regretted signing up.

"It's a asylum of lunatics in here."

A roleplay gallery, apparently. And not even a consistent one — fantasy, murim, apocalypse, everything thrown into one unhinged soup. So places like this still existed, huh.

But somehow, the posts were hilarious.

On reflex, I tapped one of them.

A snort escaped me.

Well, the commitment to the bit was undeniable. I browsed the board some more. A few nicknames kept popping up over and over.

SwordSaint. Archwitch. SaintessWorkingOvertimeToday. LeftTheHeroParty. And a rotating cast of anonymous IPs.

The gallery's level of detail was pointlessly high, too. Then a post caught my eye.

Before I knew it, I was tapping the comment box.

A reply came instantly.

It was funny. I'd been about to go to sleep, but somehow I'd sat up and was leaning against the headboard.

The only sword I'd ever swung was a few times back at hunter training camp.

The comments stopped.

One second. Two seconds.

Wait for what, exactly?

A little while later:

I blinked.

"You can upload videos in here too?"

My finger hovered over the file — and stopped.

Think about it. This whole thing was suspicious. An app I never installed. An app that couldn't be deleted. A file uploaded by someone I'd never met, in a place I'd never been. It ticked every single box on the do not press this checklist.

"……"

I pressed it anyway.

I'd already opened the app — it was too late to be precious about it now.

The video began to play.

A strange man stood in the middle of a wasteland. Long hair. Ragged clothes. A single sword in his hand. And the footage was uncannily sharp — sharper than any camera had a right to be out here.

"Somebody spent some money on this."

The man raised his sword. And then—

He swung it.

"……?"

That was it? I checked the playback bar. No — the video was still going. The man had already lowered his sword. Nothing was happening—

Kuuuwoong.

The screen trembled slightly. Behind the man, from a mountain far in the distance, a plume of dust erupted. And then the mountain's peak — slowly — slid sideways.

It had been cut.

"……"

I stopped the video. Rewound ten seconds. Played it again.

Sword swings. A moment later, the mountain is cleaved. Again.

Sword. Mountain.

"Nice CG work."

VFX really had gotten impressive these days. AI-generated, maybe?

With that thought, I ran the video one more time. But this time I didn't watch the mountain.

I watched the man. Precisely, the motion of his swing.

Feet. Knees. Hips. Shoulders. Elbows. Wrists. Sword.

Something was off. It was the simplest movement imaginable — and yet I couldn't look away.

Again. One more time.

The man's feet shifted. His hips rotated, power rising up through his core, passing through the shoulder, down the arm, through the wrist, into the sword—

And in that instant:

"……?"

My whole body went rigid.

I hadn't activated it. The ability had reacted on its own, before I could.

Failure messages cascaded across my vision, one after another. I'd never seen a reaction like this. When I looked at ordinary swordsmanship, I could at least break down the stance, the flow of force — I had never failed at the analysis itself.

But right now—

Analysis failed.

It just kept failing. Without realizing it, I was holding my breath, eyes locked on the video.

Again. The sword moved.

Analysis failed.

Again.

Analysis failed.

One more time.

I blinked. Then the next message appeared, and my finger froze mid-air.

…Hold on.

I restarted the video from the very beginning. The man raised his sword. Swung it. The mountain split.

Your comprehension of "Basic Swordsmanship" is increasing.

There it was again. But this time was different. Things were starting to come into focus — just a little.

Where the feet were planted. When the hips turned. How the force transferred.

A tiny amount. A truly, honestly tiny amount — but my ability was analyzing it. Analyzing that swing as swordsmanship.

Dding.

A comment notification popped up.

I looked down at my phone. Then watched the video again. The mountain lay cleaved in two.

Five minutes ago this had been the funniest thing I'd seen all week, but somehow — strangely — the laughter wouldn't come anymore.