Chapter 2

Left alone, the room had an atmosphere that could generously be described as tranquil—or, less generously, as bleak and desolate.

Everything, from the bed to the small side table, was luxurious, yet there wasn’t a trace of warmth anywhere.

It wasn’t simply because the furnishings were new and therefore unfamiliar.

No matter how absurdly wealthy someone was, surely no one replaced all their furniture every single day. Besides, this was the residence Tang Seogyeom had lived in for over ten years.

One could argue that the residence was simply too large for one person.

But still…

To Seogyeom, it looked like nothing more than evidence of how desperately the real Tang Seogyeom had struggled.

I won’t grow attached to anything.

Even those curtains were proof of it.

Tang Seogyeom, who suffered from a severed-meridian condition, had to drink medicinal decoctions more often than he ate meals. He drank them so frequently that even leaving the windows open all day couldn’t get rid of the bitter scent of herbs.

In fact, the medicinal scent lingering around his nose was what had allowed Seogyeom to figure out whose body he was in.

It seemed the Tang Clan had installed numerous windows throughout the residence for Tang Seogyeom’s sake, but apparently, even that had failed to reach his heart.

“Doesn’t this guy ever feel suffocated?”

Wrinkling his nose, Seogyeom looked at the curtains again.

What was the point of having so many windows when every single one of them was covered?

The curtains hanging over them cast gloomy shadows throughout the room.

They were made of thick silk, so they didn’t block out the light completely.

But perhaps because of that very contrast, Seogyeom could feel even more keenly the sense of distance Tang Seogyeom must have experienced.

What could he have been thinking, living in a place where not even a single ray of sunlight could fully reach him?

Honestly, Seogyeom had never given it much thought while playing .

He had only briefly found it strange that they shared the same name. He had never even set foot inside the Third Young Master’s residence.

But now, this place was Seogyeom’s reality.

“If I’d known this would happen, I would’ve looked into everything more carefully.”

Regretting the past, Seogyeom thought that if he could ever go back, he would read every single line without skipping anything.

If he was going back anyway, going all the way back four years wouldn’t be bad either.

If he never touched in the first place, wouldn’t he avoid getting dragged into this mess?

No, wait.

Isn’t knowing something still better than knowing absolutely nothing?

Either way, one thing was certain.

Seogyeom’s road ahead was going to be miserable.

“Ugh… Let’s sort things out first.”

After agonizing over a question with no answer, Seogyeom groaned and stretched out.

There was an old saying: Even if you’re dragged into a tiger’s den, you’ll survive as long as you keep your wits about you.

This wasn’t a tiger’s den, but he had still been dragged here without knowing why.

Fortunately—or unfortunately—his dozens of escape attempts had taught him a few things.

First, Tang Seogyeom couldn’t leave the outer city of the Sichuan Tang Clan.

More specifically, he couldn’t go more than roughly five hundred meters from his residence.

Maybe it was because of the system, but there wasn’t even the slightest margin for error.

The moment he tried to step even a single foot beyond the boundary, an invisible wall stopped him.

Every time he crashed into that formless barrier, he felt so miserable he could cry.

And whenever the attendants gave him cold looks, wondering what bizarre thing their Young Master was doing now, he wanted to disappear from the face of the earth.

“Ugh…”

Remembering the days he had literally run around testing the boundaries himself, Seogyeom rubbed his forehead for no reason.

Second, Seogyeom couldn’t say or do anything that didn’t fit Tang Seogyeom’s established character settings.

It wasn’t limited to obvious words like status window, skill, or inventory.

When he was alone, things were different. But whenever someone was nearby, Seogyeom had to faithfully play the role of a frail and temperamental Young Master.

He couldn’t speak politely to the old servant.

He couldn’t drink his medicine and complain, “Ugh… Bitter!”

He couldn’t even say something as ordinary as, “Could I perhaps see Grandfather?”

Nothing was allowed.

Not this. Not that.

Remembering his tearful five-day history of failed escape attempts completely drained his motivation.

Depressed, Seogyeom pulled the blanket over his head.

How long had he been lying there, fuming?

He had only meant to cool his head for a moment, but apparently, the system found his behavior rather pitiful.

Srrrk.

With the sound of paper unfolding, a bright light shone through the blanket.

Pretending not to care, Seogyeom pulled the blanket down slightly.

The moment he cracked his eyes open, the system obediently unfurled a scroll.

Tang Seogyeom (唐曙謙)

The unfortunate youngest young master who harbors the secret of his birth. Born with the Hyeoneum Heart Meridian, he was unable to learn anything despite being a direct descendant of the Tang Clan. As poison was incompatible with his constitution, he grew up in the outer city and considers himself the Tang Clan’s shame.

• Spawn Area: Tang Seogyeom’s residence within the outer city of the Sichuan Tang Clan
• Status Ailments: Hyeoneum Heart Meridian, Weak Qi and Blood, Poison Rejection

“Why the hell does this guy— I mean, why does he have a secret birth story? And what’s with all these status ailments?”

As far as Seogyeom remembered, Tang Seogyeom was an insignificant NPC who didn’t even appear until the middle of the game.

Calling him an extra was almost generous.

He had so little screen time that only his name was briefly mentioned. Even his appearance had never been revealed.

Seogyeom secretly suspected that the reason his own face remained unchanged was simply because there had been no character data for Tang Seogyeom’s appearance.

To put it simply, Tang Seogyeom was nothing more and nothing less than a means of giving the protagonist access to the notoriously closed-off Tang Clan.

Seriously, even after finding an herb capable of treating the Hyeoneum Heart Meridian, the character died almost immediately afterward.

The general consensus among players was that the Hyeoneum Heart Meridian existed for one purpose only: to connect Namgung Yun to the Tang Clan.

Seogyeom himself frequently played as Tang Mujin or Tang Yu, yet he had never even watched the so-called “Death of Tang Seogyeom” event.

He had simply skipped it.

“Damn it…”

Seogyeom cursed in a voice barely louder than a mosquito and covered his eyes with one hand.

His skin was so cold that even touching it made his palm ache with chill.

Feeling the heat gathered around his eyes gradually fade, Seogyeom recalled the final thing he had discovered.

Third, Seogyeom apparently hadn’t entered the game inside a VR capsule.

It sounded like something only a game addict would say.

Seogyeom understood.

At first, he had lamented to himself, So I finally became an addict after all.

But there were far too many suspicious details for this to be nothing more than a comfortable VR capsule experience.

It was true that Seogyeom had continued playing for over four years, even after it had become a terrible game.

It was also true that he practically lived inside a capsule every weekend.

Someone who didn’t play games might say, If that’s not addiction, then what is?

But Seogyeom had his own strict rules.

He never entered a capsule on weekdays.

And whenever he played for more than four hours, he always stretched for at least ten minutes.

“I’m sure it was Thursday.”

When he had first opened his eyes here, he had wondered if he might have somehow fallen asleep inside a capsule.

But the last thing Seogyeom remembered was Thursday.

He could still vividly remember Assistant Manager Kim at the next desk looking devastated and saying, “Wait… Today isn’t Friday?”

“And besides…”

Recalling his junior coworker’s voice, Seogyeom muttered gloomily.

He removed the hand pressing against his eyes.

A bruise was spreading purple from the middle of his wrist.

It was the arm he had used to brace himself when he fell earlier.

For now, the bruise was only about the size of one finger joint, but it would undoubtedly grow larger as time passed.

Just like the character settings of a frail Young Master demanded.

Imagining the future he could already predict, Seogyeom grasped his bruised forearm with his other hand.

The arm was so slender that he could easily wrap one hand completely around it.

When he realized his thumb and middle finger overlapped by an entire finger joint, Seogyeom sighed and tightened his grip.

He squeezed until his body trembled.

His fingertips turned red, then pale, and he could even feel his pulse throbbing beneath them.

Twitch.

Finally, he felt it.

A faint—but unmistakable—pain.

There had been hundreds of virtual reality games released since .

But one thing mattered.

Not a single one of them recreated actual pain.

“What was the reason again?”

Something about the shock received in a game not being allowed to affect reality.

Whatever the exact explanation was, Seogyeom had never felt pain inside a VR capsule before.

After all, this was the martial world.

A place where someone might chop off your arm simply because you said the wrong thing.

Tang Seogyeom (唐曙謙)

As Seogyeom’s expression darkened, the previously quiet scroll began glowing again.

“Ah. I get it. You want me to do this properly, right?”

Seogyeom answered halfheartedly and waved his hand toward the scroll.

As though the system had understood him, it stopped flashing where it had been emphasizing his name.

Watching the light gradually fade, a cold smile formed on Seogyeom’s lips.

“So in the end… you just want me to quietly die.”

But just because someone told him to die didn’t mean he was actually going to obediently do it.

Pretending to listen to whatever this thing was—whether it was an AI system or a god—Seogyeom began his rebellion the very next day.

He had to drink the medicinal decoction if he wanted permission to leave the residence, but when he shut his eyes and forced himself to swallow it, it wasn’t actually that bad.

The old servant seemed quietly delighted.

Probably because the Young Master who had once ignored even the expensive snacks prepared for him was now eating every meal without fail.

Perhaps because of his pride, Seogyeom couldn’t bring himself to openly ask for anything.

All he did was timidly hold out his hand.

But even that alone made the servant more than happy.

If Seogyeom had known that the system prevented him from even saying, Is this snack actually mine?, he probably would have felt terribly wronged.

After enduring countless hardships, Seogyeom finally succeeded in leaving his residence.

And he made full use of the freedom he had been given.

Granted, the space he could move around in only extended roughly five hundred meters from his residence.

Still, in terms of the modern world, it was enough space to wander around something like an entire apartment complex.

Which meant—

He could at least inspect the nearby walls.

And Seogyeom made excellent use of those five hundred meters.

Thinking that perhaps the restriction only applied to the main gate, he once tried climbing over the wall and fell.

He even stopped passing attendants and asked whether there was a dog hole anywhere he could crawl through.

Before he could even finish speaking, nine out of ten of them ran away.

That made Seogyeom feel rather sorry for Tang Seogyeom…

But regardless—

He had gotten results.