Seoul, South Korea, year 2049
12:54 am, St. Peter's Hospital
The dim fluorescent light buzzed softly above the quiet hospital room. A faint beep echoed from the heart monitor. Then, without warning, the man's laying on the bed his body convulsed… and violent screams surrounded the whole hospital; nurses came running as they tried to calm him down by giving him anesthesia, though to no avail.
"Call Dr. Woo now..." The head nurse said as one of the other nurses ran toward the main counter. The screams grew louder and louder as the nurse tried to restrain the patient, running down the hall, a man wearing a long white sweater and sweat pants. "How much anesthesia did you guys give him?" the man asked as he aggressively pushed down the patient. "We have already given him 4.0 mg of Anesthesia, Dr. Woo". In the midst of all this, a voice started brewing "Kill you... I will kill you..."
Dr. Woo looked at the patient, "Do-Yun...!"
As the screams soon turned into horrifying cries, "I will kill you... I will kill you all...."
"Calm down... Calm down, Do-Yun, please stop," Dr. Woo screams, yet the patient didn't stop then...
[beep] [beep]
Time seemed to stop with the sound that long, unwavering beep echoing like the last breath.
[BEEEEEEEEP]
"Don't die... Wang Do-Yun"
Somewhere far... A cold, soft voice echoed, "Where... Where am I?" A scrawny old man with multiple scars on his body, kneeling on the surface of the Abyss, opened his eyes as he was overwhelmed by a bright light shining in front of him. " Huh! What is this?"
"Congratulations, you have been chosen by Project R."
A prompt appeared in front, confused, suddenly the bright white light scattered around the man as it flashed three times, and four golden doors appeared surrounding the old man as two other prompts also appeared.
"Choose any one door, and set out to take your Revenge"
"Each Door will lead you to a different path."
The old man stood frozen. Then a hideous, bitter laugh erupted from the depths of the void.
"Fifty years…" he rasped, his voice shaking with rage. "Fifty years of constant pain… for something I couldn't control… And now you give me this?" His lip curled. "You think I want revenge? Just revenge?"
His fists clenched.
"I don't need your help," he spat. "No matter what I have to do… even if I have to kill the god of death itself… I'll do it myself."
With a sharp swing of his left hand, the system prompts shattered and dissolved into sparks.
"Just send me to hell."
The golden doors cracked, flickered, and vanished, along with the abyss itself.
The man swung his left hand as the system prompts disappeared.... "Just send me to hell."
As the doors started disappearing, so did the abyss and the man...
"Hidden Quest completed: You have abandoned the System, You have acquired the status of Admin."
***
Seoul Outskirts, South Korea, year 1999
A war-torn apartment stood on the edge of the city, looming under a cloudy, colorless sky. Its cracked walls and shattered windows gave off a heavy, gloomy vibe. It looked terrible — not just from the outside, but even worse inside. Merely 3 tenants live there, in one of the rooms, a boy with terrible scars over his body lay on the floor. The room around him was a disaster, with books, clothes, and scraps of trash scattered everywhere. Suddenly, the boy's body jolted upwards, sweating bricks as the boy stared, his vision seemed blurry as it cleared, and a visible confusion was seen in his face. "Why am I here?" the boy stood up as he looked around, grabbing a calendar, "year 1999, August 24... huh!"
Drops the calendar__
The boy covered his face with a shaky palm, stepping back, trying to make sense of the storm inside his head. Then his gaze shifted to the small mirror set in the corner of the room as he stared at his face. A long, jagged scar ran from the top right corner of his left eye down across his face, slicing to the lower side of his right eye. His hand instinctively moved towards the scar, trying to cover it.
[Heavy Breathing] [Heavy Breathing]
The boy's legs gave out beneath him, and he crashed onto the cold, cracked floor.
His body curled slightly on its side, one arm instinctively wrapping around his chest as if to shield himself from invisible blows. His other hand clenched tightly at his side, nails digging into his palm. But it didn't seem he was in pain. Rather, his face had a distinct smile, and the noise of his giggles reverberated throughout the room.
Then, between breathless giggles, remembering his past, multiple voices echoed...
Mystery Voice: "Wang… Do-Yun... why are you crying... I am going to give you your first tattoo."
Mystery Voice: "You retard... its not even that hot"
Mystery Voice: "don't beg now, when did that workout for you Wang Do Yun"
His nails dug deeper into his palm, laughter bubbling up like a fever. His body shook. His eyes flicked to the cracked ceiling. Two days from now, he thought, I will be burned alive, dancing in the flames, my screams reverberating through the district — but no one will come.
After that? Fifty years of agony. Of crawling through hell, begging for one more chance. The first ten years, I will plan how to kill them. The next ten, I will dream of torturing them so even God trembles at the sight of their corpses. And the last thirty? I will decide there is no point in revenge… because I will become something worse than the Devil himself. His eyes glinted. My name — Wang Do-Yun — will be carved into the bones of history. That will be his revenge.
A satisfactory revenge.
.
To be continued-