A Cheat Character

It felt like the blood in my veins had gone cold. Right. I'd forgotten, if only for a moment. Whether I'd returned to the past or been handed a new life entirely, all of it was obviously tied to the game — and somehow I'd blanked that out completely.

The chance to reverse a ruined life, something I'd once dreamed of and wished for every single night, was now taking tangible shape right in front of me. The excitement that had flooded my head was forced into sudden clarity.

Life -1? If you die, you die. What was with that oddly vague wording? Did people walk around carrying multiple lives? It wasn't as if this were some game character—

…A character. Is that it?

Come to think of it, I was staring straight at the exact same status window that used to appear in the game I played, and still I'd been saying this wasn't a game. So had I died and been dropped into the world inside the game?

I checked the remaining time on the PC and quickly skimmed through the news articles online. As I scrolled past headlines that were no different from the real world, I thought:

Can a game really be this detailed? Why bother simulating real-world news inside a game at all?

There was a five-year gap, sure, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠but reading articles packed with familiar stories from the politics and economy sections, I couldn't believe this was a game. The five senses, which felt far too vivid for any simulation, only reinforced that.

I'd accepted that this bizarre situation was connected to the game, but an entire world inside one?

What I used to play was a mobile simulation RPG, not some augmented-reality game.

Then I found an article I'd never seen before. Starting this year, the recruitment requirements for the volunteer military service system would be tightened.

"…."

I'd briefly wondered whether, having gone back to nineteen, I'd have to do military service all over again — but according to the article, there was no need. It wasn't conscription. It was a volunteer system.

Not having to go again is good, but… why is only this different?

Looking further, I kept running into articles that left a subtle sense of dissonance, beyond just the military. Pieces about Korean dramas and films that had been doing well around this time in reality too, but were being hyped even harder here — or idol talk that popped up out of nowhere in articles on completely unrelated subjects.

What on earth does an idol have to do with a speech on environmental protection?

I wanted to dig deeper, but the time I'd loaded had already run out. The cash I'd set aside just in case became bus fare. I'd already memorized the address and looked up how to get there, so there was no hesitation in my steps. I paid the youth fare, boarded the bus, and stared blankly out the window.

My reflection stared back — a face buried in a white puffer jacket, beanie pulled low. White. It was a color I'd never chosen for myself. I usually only wore black, so it felt incredibly strange.

Leaning against the window, I watched the darkening streets go by when my stomach growled. Come to think of it, I hadn't eaten a single thing all day.

"…."

It had been a completely disorienting day, unfamiliar and exhausting from start to finish.

I'd died, woken up, gotten aggressively cast on the street, sat through a passion-soaked vision pitch in an office, then been chased by people on the way out, barricaded myself in a department store bathroom to gather my thoughts, and somehow received strange help.

Thanks to that, I'd made it to the PC bang with my face covered and pieced together a rough picture of this body — only for a Guide Mission to drop out of nowhere and tangle everything up again. The system was remarkably unhelpful. While I was drunk on designing a future, I'd forgotten it existed, so it manufactured a penalty that hadn't been there before just to remind me it was still around.

As if to say this chance wasn't given to me so I could do whatever I wanted.

Life -1. I had no idea what happened when that life was deducted, or how many lives I'd even been given. This was basically a threat: follow the guide without complaining. If the game character named me only had one life, refusing the guide meant instant death.

The life it saved itself is easy enough to take back, is that it?

The imbalance of information and power was obvious. The system was no better than a thug — though the feeling was, honestly, a familiar one.

If you don't know, you die, right?

It was a line people threw around all the time while gaming. I just never expected to feel it this literally.

The sudden, searing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pain and the sensation of my breath cutting off still clung to me like a stain. The only consolation was that I'd died so fast the memory itself wasn't long — but I had no desire to experience it again. That much ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was honest.

An idol, of all things.

I got off the bus and trudged along the road. To get home, I had to cut deeper into the neighborhood.

The alley sunk in darkness felt strangely eerie, so I walked faster and faster until I was full-on sprinting by the time I reached the building. Ignoring my heart hammering with anxiety, I bolted straight up the stairs.

A one-room on the fourth floor. No elevator, but the building itself was clean. And the room, once I actually saw it, looked bigger than it had on the real estate listing. Probably because there was almost no furniture.

All that met the eye was a neatly folded blanket, a small wardrobe, a low desk with an old laptop on it, and a tiny fridge. In the corner, still-unopened boxes held workbooks and books. No bookshelf, so the luggage had never been unpacked.

Beside the little fridge sat a few unopened bottles of water; inside, a single convenience-store lunchbox sat alone.

No TV, no smartphone — at least having a laptop was something, but there didn't seem to be a router. Going by the records, he should have lived here about a week, yet the place was empty as if he'd moved in just yesterday.

I was too tired to think any further. I pulled the stiff, cold lunchbox out of the fridge. There was no microwave either, so I forced it down with water. The moment I finished eating, I took a quick shower in warm water, crawled into the blanket, and tried to sleep. The blanket was thin, so I turned up the boiler until my back felt toasty. Sleep came almost at once.

It was more like passing out than falling asleep.

"…."

I opened my eyes to the feeling of being steamed alive. The one-room, visible in a single glance, looked exactly as it had before I collapsed.

Outside the window, a sunset glowed. Unless that was a dawn sky, I'd slept the entire day away.

The sweat pouring down the moment I sat up sent me straight to the bathroom. The toiletries, too, were bare minimum — shampoo, soap, toothpaste, and a toothbrush. That was everything.

How the hell did he even live?

Under the falling water, I sorted through what I needed to do.

There's a lot to take care of.

I washed myself clean from head to toe with what little was there — and then discovered there was no hair dryer.

"Haa…."

I considered going out to buy one, but the sun had already set while I was showering. And that alley had been especially dark.

…I can live without a hair dryer.

I opened the fridge. Empty.

…I won't die from skipping one day of food.

Tomorrow, the second the sun came up, I was going grocery shopping first thing. I made that resolution, hugged a water bottle, and rubbed my hair dry with one of the few towels. Then I opened the laptop.

As expected, a one-bar Wi-Fi signal flickered. It seemed to be some kind of shared public connection — the signal kept dropping in and out.

Digging through the files on the laptop turned up nothing but traces of studying. Nothing that held personal thoughts. The owner of this body apparently never kept a diary or had any interest in SNS.

"Well, no smartphone either, so SNS was never happening…."

I didn't like writing diaries myself.

I stared blankly at the old laptop. A real relic. How long had I even used something like this?

Even now, none of it felt real. This body — so strangely well put together — shared plenty of similarities with my original one, and I was the one moving it, but it still felt like it belonged to someone else.

But a full night's sleep had cleared my head enough to finish sorting the situation. Even if it didn't feel like my body, I had to use it as if it were.

If this was inside a game, then I was a character under the system's control. If this was reality, then something transcendent had intervened in my life — resurrecting the dead and rewriting the past. Either way, I didn't seem to have any right of refusal.

For now, maybe I just needed to live like a game character.

"Still… I want to take the CSAT…."

Strangely, becoming an idol itself didn't spark any resistance. I'd even found myself thinking I might as well go along with it. But maybe the bitterness over the CSAT ran deeper than I'd realized. I knew I was fixating, and still I couldn't stop thinking about it. The CSAT. I wanted to take it.

Do I really have to give up on university?

Then the status window shoved itself into view again. I hadn't particularly wanted to open it, but it kept appearing whether I asked or not, as if my consent were irrelevant.

The number had dropped by one from twenty. So it really was a D-day countdown, a deadline.

Quit daydreaming and clear the mission, is that it?

It felt like being jerked around on a whim, which soured my mood, but I decided to accept it for now. The CSAT wasn't something I needed to worry about immediately. There were still nearly ten months left until then.

If I fail the mission and die, acing the CSAT won't mean a thing.

So I looked over the status window the way it wanted me to.

And only then, properly taking in the stats, I had no choice but to let out a groan.

"This is a cheat character."

My eyes locked onto the charm stat. Ninety-eight. That number was absolutely not something that should appear as a starting value.

This game is so ridiculously picky about hitting growth caps….

Like most growth curves, the character stats in Idol Survival were built on a logarithmic function. In simple terms, the closer you got to the ceiling, the sharper the drop-off in returns for every point of growth.

Whether it was singing, dancing, or charm — once you crossed 95, the difficulty of raising each individual point skyrocketed. It was so vicious that 95 was generally treated as the graduation benchmark for every category.

Past 95, the slope flattened hard, and no matter how much time, effort, and resources you poured in, the stats climbed at a rate that felt genuinely filthy. The game had been live for a full year, and across every server the highest any stat had ever reached was 99. No one had ever hit 100. That was how extreme it was.

"Is this a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bug?"

Just being handed an initial stat over 95 made no sense, honestly.

"Do you know how hard I worked to raise UR-rank stats…."

Thinking as a former player, whether it was a cheat or an error, a starting charm of 98 was basically game-balance destruction. The face reflected in the dark laptop screen suddenly felt unfamiliar all over again. Had the charm stat shaped me into this?

Switching from player to game character was impossible to get used to. Younger age, fixed face — how much of a free pass was this thing trying to hand me?

"Singing 79, dance 74, charm 98."

Translated, my stats said this:

"Singing at trainee level, dance at civilian level — but the vibe alone is superstar."

It was a stat spread that begged for the accusation that I'd coast on a pretty face for easy money. Idol. One way or another, there was a lot to think about.

"It's not that I never immersed myself in the characters, but I don't think I ever actually wanted to become one…."

I gazed blankly out the window, now fully swallowed by darkness. But whether I was a game character or not, one fact remained unchanged: this life was a chance that had been given to me.

"The red carpet rolled itself out."

I forced water into my empty stomach and opened a notepad. First, I wrote down every timeline I could remember, start to finish.

To think the day would come when a career of ruined gamer life actually paid off. The world really was worth living in after all.