Do You Wish to Connect?
Do you wish to connect to the Murim World Records Gallery?
#001.
I stared at the mirror for a long while.
"..."
Glossy black hair spilling all the way down to the waist. Beneath it, slightly upturned eyes and pale skin, striking enough to dazzle all on their own. No matter how generously you judged it, the face couldn't pass for twenty — fifteen at best. Honestly, by this point my brain was already working overtime to deny the reality laid out before me.
"What the hell is this..."
Was this some terminally unfunny hidden-camera prank? No, hold on — how would I even be the one pulling the prank? In the mirror, the eyes of the woman presumed to be me had scrunched into a fierce scowl. Even that tiny shift in expression was so beautiful that, for a moment, I couldn't process it.
This was really me?
I slowly lowered my gaze.
"Insane."
The voice that came out was unnaturally thin.
Swish.
I quietly tugged open the dignified high collar of my robe and checked inside. Then immediately let go.
"..."
I stared blankly at the mirror again. Or to be precise, at the girl reflected in it. My original body was nowhere to be found. In its place, a beautiful girl I had never seen before was staring back at me with a hollow, vacant expression.
Though, truth be told, it wasn't the first time I'd seen that face.
Who is she?
She was definitely familiar. Not anyone I knew in real life — if a girl with a face like that existed anywhere in my orbit, there was no way I'd have forgotten her. Which left exactly one possibility.
"Wait. Don't tell me this girl is the Heavenly Demon's—"
— Murim World Records.
The name of the game that had exploded into a mega-hit on the strength of its high-fidelity virtual reality service surfaced in my mind. And one of the main characters of the game I'd poured years of my life into was none other than—
"Right, the Heavenly Demon's daughter...! Then that makes her the Young Cult Leader!?"
Without thinking, I ran my hands over my face. And the girl in the mirror did the same, tracing her own features. The face reflected there was, unmistakably, the face of the daughter the Heavenly Demon had treasured above all else.
Now, what was her name again?
Scramble!
I pressed my face right up against the mirror. The small mole beneath the eye leapt into sharper focus. Young as the features were, that teardrop mole wove a strangely bewitching air — not to mention the faint glint of a red earring peeking through the black hair. The moment I confirmed every last detail, a chill crawled up my spine.
"...Why am I..."
...the Young Cult Leader?
Creak.
Just then, the door swung open without warning.
"Young Lady...?"
I turned my head and met the eyes of a woman standing in the doorway. Her pale-pink martial garb caught my attention first — and then the sword hanging at her waist. The instant she spotted me out of bed, the color drained from her face.
"Young Lady! You mustn't be up right now!"
"...Huh?"
"I-I'll summon the physician at once!"
"W-Wait, hold on."
Forgetting the situation entirely, I thrust up a hand. The woman froze mid-step.
"Yes?"
"What's my name?"
"..."
The room went dead silent. The woman stared at me in open disbelief, lips fumbling for words. It seemed I'd phrased my question a little poorly.
"No, I mean—"
I hurried to add, "My memory suddenly just... won't come."
Judging by how she spoke to me, I clearly outranked her — which meant I needed to be certain of exactly who I was now.
"...The Young Lady's honored name is Cheon Yu-hwa."
"Haah."
A sigh leaked out of me before I could stop it. It felt as though my brain had only just accepted reality, and was now absorbing the full force of the impact all at once.
"Are you alright, Young Lady?"
Even as the flustered woman hovered, my thoughts drifted far away. So I really had become the Young Cult Leader. The Heavenly Demon's only daughter from Murim World Records. Young Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Cult — one of the two great powers that split the enormous continent in two.
Yeah, this is nuts.
If I'd woken up as some nameless extra instead, I wouldn't have been half this rattled. And no wonder — the Heavenly Demon's daughter, Young Cult Leader Cheon Yu-hwa of the Heavenly Demon Cult, was a genuinely famous character. The Heavenly Demon's only child. An absurd talent despite the illness she suffered from. And on top of it all, officially written into the lore as a peerless beauty.
But none of it meant a thing.
"...She was going to die anyway."
That's right. Cheon Yu-hwa dies.
"Young Lady."
At the startled note in the woman's voice, I hastily lifted my head.
"What's today's date?"
"Pardon?"
"I said, what's today's date."
"I-It is the third day of the seventh month."
"Which year."
The woman's expression grew odd again. Even so, she answered dutifully this time.
"It is the year 123 of the Cheonmu Calendar."
"..."
Year 123 of the Cheonmu Calendar. I remembered it. Because it was the year Cheon Yu-hwa died.
When exactly was it, though?
I ransacked my memory. — Year 123 of the Cheonmu Calendar. The Demonic Cult's Young Cult Leader Cheon Yu-hwa dies, and a short while later, the Heavenly Demon himself descends upon the Central Plains. Three orthodox sects vanish from the map in a single day. It was one of the most famous storylines in Murim World Records.
And yet the single most important detail — the exact date of Cheon Yu-hwa's death — escaped me entirely. No matter how long you'd played a game, you didn't walk around memorizing dead NPCs' death anniversaries. Still, one thing was certain: Cheon Yu-hwa was going to die soon.
"This is driving me insane."
The sheer absurdity wrung a laugh right out of me. It was ridiculous enough that I'd been dropped into this game at all, but now, on top of becoming the Heavenly Demon's daughter, of all the characters in the world I had to be the one fated to die any day now.
What the hell am I supposed to do about that?
That was the moment.
Urp.
My stomach heaved without warning.
"...!"
Before I could even clamp a hand over my mouth, something was already crawling up my throat.
Khack!
Dark crimson blood spilled across the floor.
"Young Lady...!"
The maid screamed. At the same instant, the strength left my legs.
Thud.
I hit the floor knees-first.
Khack... khh...
I couldn't draw a proper breath. One side of my chest had gone ice-cold, as if it were freezing solid, while my lower belly burned like it was being scorched from within. The two sensations crashed against each other deep inside my body, dealing out pain beyond anything I could have imagined.
W-What is this?
I stared blankly down at my hand. My fingertips had turned a ghastly blue. Even my vision was beginning to fog at the edges. The woman rushed to prop me up.
"Young Lady! Are you alright!"
"It hurts..."
"I'm taking you to the physician this instant!"
With those words, the woman swept me into her arms and moved, urgent.
Whoosh!
The instant the scenery began streaking past, I couldn't help but doubt my own eyes.
...She's not just a maid?
I'd taken her for a simple servant, but the way she moved while carrying me was beyond anything I'd imagined possible.
"C-Cold..."
But that thought lasted only a moment before a chill seeped through my entire body — the kind that burrowed straight into the marrow — and I curled in on myself without meaning to.
Some time later, I was lying on a sickbed. An old man introduced as the physician came in, took my wrist, and read my pulse over and over. His expression never once lightened, from start to finish.
"...Young Cult Leader."
The old man bowed his head gravely.
"A virulent Yin Qi is once again encroaching upon your heart meridian. You must not exert yourself under any circumstances."
At the leaden weight of his voice, I blinked slowly.
Right. It was her constitution.
The lore came back to me: Cheon Yu-hwa had been born with a constitution flooded by excessive innate Yin Qi. Renowned physicians and famed masters had all tried their hand at her case, and every single one had failed — that was her signature trait.
"Hoo."
I let out a short breath.
"Please rest and keep your calm, Young Cult Leader. I shall take my leave."
"Breathe easy, Young Lady."
When the old man withdrew, the woman who had carried me here quietly followed suit. Left alone, I found myself staring blankly at the ceiling.
"Haah..."
The horrific pain from before had subsided; I felt nothing now. The problem — the terror of it — was having no idea when that horrific pain would come back.
I was in the middle of that thought when—
Ding.
"...?"
An unfamiliar chime sounded. Before I knew it, I was staring at empty air — and there, floating before my eyes, hung a translucent window.
Do you wish to connect to the Murim World Records Gallery?
For several seconds, no words came out.
Is this some kind of status window?
One of those perks they always hand out when you get possessed or regress. I'd been too scrambled to even think of it earlier, and yet here it was — something I'd never once imagined — floating right in front of me.
Yes.
Just as I wondered whether simply thinking it would count as an answer, the translucent window changed.
Murim World Records Gallery
"..."
What had actually appeared before me was no status window. It was, at a single glance, a message board. And not just any board — it was the spitting image of the community sites I knew all too well from real life. Posts soon began lining up, one after another.
"...?"
I found myself blinking again and again. I stared at the screen over and over. New posts went up; comments accumulated beneath them. It was the very community site I used to scroll through back in the real world, down to the last detail.
This actually works?
When I focused on a poster's name, there was even a block function. I went straight for the new-post button. Handling the strange thing floating before my eyes wasn't difficult, either — it responded the moment I concentrated my intent on it.
Submit.
Just like that, my post went up. And before long, the comments started rolling in.
"Oh, right. Nine Yin Severed Meridians."
Only after hearing the answer did it come back to me clearly. I immediately posted another comment.
A short while later, a comment came in.
"Haah, you bastards."
Somehow, even after the entire dimension had changed, the internet remained exactly the same.
I posted my comment and waited, and more replies came in.
But the comments themselves were utterly useless.
"Ah, for fuck's sake. I genuinely can't tell what's what anymore."
I was raking a hand roughly through my hair, heaving a deep sigh, when—
A comment I never saw coming had appeared.