Chapter 2: Discharged Into Nothing

My head starts to throb with pain.

It feels like someone’s jabbing needles into my brain.

The agony torments me for a while before finally fading, and I can at last open my eyes.

The moment I do, my hand instinctively reaches for the pistol at my waist, but nothing’s there.

More than that, the soft sensation against my back feels utterly foreign—not the warmth you’d expect from cold, dusty ground.

The piercing pain that riddled my body is gone, leaving me in a strange situation.

When I fully open my eyes, I see an unfamiliar ceiling.

Not the rigid, patterned ceiling of the training facility I saw daily, but a soft, homely one you’d find in an ordinary house.

The stabbing pain in my head lingers, like phantom pain. Feeling a nonexistent ache, I sit up.

Then, a thought flashes through my mind: the enemy, Big Brother.

“Where’s Big Brother?”

I turn my head, but the man who should be there is gone. Instead, pale green wallpaper greets me.

The idiot who was crying and making a scene has vanished.

“Oh, sht.”

Only then do I recall the system window that appeared before I lost consciousness.

Something about congratulating me on my discharge.

Big Brother or not, I need to assess the situation first.

I’ve clearly landed in an unfamiliar place, and I need to figure out where I am.

Pushing aside the cozy feeling under my legs, I stand and start scanning my surroundings.

The first thing I notice is a computer. Then, a locked door catches my eye.

Appliances like a fridge, a microwave, a desk, a chair, and an air conditioner come into view.

Something’s wrong. This is all wrong.

The scene before me should be a battlefield, with bullets flying and bombs exploding.

But what am I looking at?

An ordinary house.

“What the…?”

My brain can’t process this. I freeze, dumbfounded.

Shoving the confusion aside, I grab the smartphone on the desk.

If it’s password-locked, I’m screwed, but luckily, it’s fingerprint-protected.

I press my finger to the back of the phone and unlock it.

The home screen shows the date: 2034.05.04.

“Ha… are you messing with me?”

I clearly remember the year being 2021.

But the phone insists it’s 2034.

This makes no sense.

Have I time-traveled or something?

This isn’t a movie or some cheap B-grade drama. This is undeniably real.

Just in case the phone’s settings are off, I check the internet to confirm the year.

It’s 2034.

No doubt about it.

The undeniable truth.

I clutch my head with both hands.

The smooth texture of dark hair brushes between my fingers, but I ignore it.

I was definitely possessed by an agent named Scuro in the game Force of Six.

I lived as Scuro for years.

I endured brutal, lifelike training, got deployed to real combat, gained experience, and joined the anti-terrorist unit Six.

And I got absolutely wrecked.

That’s my most recent memory.

To understand more, I need older memories.

Who was I before I was possessed?

I try to recall my name from when I was a man, but nothing comes up.

I can vaguely picture my appearance and some details, but my name, relationships, even what I did for a living—nothing.

It’s like someone deliberately erased my past.

My memories of who I was are completely gone.

“Fck… who decided this?”

To return to the real world, I risked my life in this shtty, luck-based, garbage game.

The suffering I endured over those long years.

With no clear goal, I took on every mission, risking my life to complete each one.

People around me only called me Scuro, my codename. No one ever mentioned my real name.

Codename Scuro was my identity, my worth.

The cold, mechanical attitudes of those around me wore me down.

What scared me most was realizing I was losing myself.

Killing people without hesitation, fearing I’d forget my old self entirely.

Yet, I held on, driven by the hope of returning to who I was.

But look at me now.

I can’t remember a single thing about my past self.

I’m a pathetic joke.

I fought to reclaim something, only to lose it entirely.

My will to live starts to crumble.

“Ugh… fck… you irresponsible bastards, how am I supposed to live like this?”

I finally break.

I never showed weakness, always acting cheerful to gain others’ approval.

I wore a mask, forcing it onto my face even when it didn’t fit.

That’s how I survived.

But this situation…

The sadness I’d locked away bursts through like water breaching a dam.

I feel cold liquid on my cheeks.

Tears.

They stream down my jaw.

A long-haired, dark-haired girl crying pitiful, moderately sobering looks utterly pitiful.

I clench my fists, crumpling the blanket in my hands, but I don’t care.

I’m furious and heartbroken at the same time.

“You fcking bastards…”

They kidnapped me, forced me to risk my life, then sent me back without warning.

And they stole everything I had.

The height of unfairness.

The girl buries herself in the bed, sobbing for a long time.

Her room fills with sorrow.

“My eyes are swollen as hell.”

After an hour of crying alone in the room, my eyes are puffy, like I got punched.

The swelling will fade with time, but I can’t go out looking like this.

At least crying my heart out eased some of the weight in my chest.

I couldn’t cry like this in the game.

Leaving the tear-soaked blanket behind, I head to the balcony.

In the mirror, I see myself.

Long, dark hair.

Red eyes.

Small, circular black earrings.

And my height, once a victorious 180cm, now a loser barely reaching 160cm.

But it doesn’t feel strange.

After years in the game, I’m used to this body.

Its flexibility, sharp reflexes, and innate quick judgment shocked me during dangerous missions.

A woman under 160cm taking down grown men.

But that was in the game.

In this reality—or whatever this is—those skills have limited use.

Maybe a bodyguard? Or, with bad intentions, the underworld.

I fall deep into thought about how to survive moving forward.

‘Do I really have to dip into the underworld?’ The dangerous thought crosses my mind, but I shake it off as insanity.

I press my head against the balcony mirror.

I sway it back and forth.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The mirror shakes but doesn’t break.

After wrestling with it, I spot a wallet on the floor.

A black card wallet.

Not too fancy, but it looks decently expensive.

“A wallet.”

I bend down to pick it up.

Inside, I find a debit card, some cash, and an ID with my picture.

The photo is the same one I took when I entered as Scuro.

“What the…?”

This is a mess.

Why is a photo I took in the game on this ID?

I ponder it for a while, but no answers come.

‘I need more information.’

I quickly check the name on the ID.

“Kim Sujin.”

An unfamiliar name.

Could it be my old name?

But I recall my past self was a man.

Kim Sujin is not a man’s name.

So who made this ID with my photo and this name?

“Kim… Sujin. Kim Sujin.”

Used to being called Codename Scuro, the name feels foreign.

After muttering it three times, it starts to feel right.

In this world, my name is Kim Sujin.

That’s who I have to be now.

The old me no longer exists.

With my identity confirmed, I grab the smartphone to research this world.

After 30 minutes of searching, I learn this world differs from the one I originally lived in.

The broad strokes of history are similar, but small events diverge.

For example, in 2002, Korea beat Portugal.

It should’ve been 1:0, but records here say 3:0.

Even past presidents’ names are off by a letter, and famous people’s names are slightly skewed.

“First a game world, now another world? Ha…”

My pathetic situation draws only a hollow laugh.

Grrrr.

My stomach demands food.

Come to think of it, I haven’t eaten a single meal. The shocking events kept me too distracted to notice my hunger.

“Let’s see.”

I open the fridge to find something to eat.

“What kind of house has no food?”

The empty fridge leaves me deeply disappointed.

Grrrr.

My stomach growls again, forcing me to make a decision.

“I’ll hit the convenience store.”

Less than a day in this new world, and I’m already stepping outside.