I stare at the screen, still frozen.
This is simply too surreal.
Path of the Immortal Flesh…
The name alone already carries the promise of something vast… and terrible.
What must be sacrificed to make one's own flesh "immortal"?
My finger hovers over the options, not touching.
Ancient Noble Bloodline.
A bit vague… but it sounds like it must be some kind of benefit…
Names… just names…
And yet I can feel their weight pressing down on me, like titles meant for greater men — men who were born with destiny already lodged in their throats.
"Immortal Flesh… Ancient Bloodline…"
I repeat the words to myself, as if their sound could force hidden meanings to surface.
Strange…
If this really is a simulation, there should be some kind of explanation.
Games have explanations, don't they?
Tools. Guides.
A help button.
Something.
The thought barely finishes forming — and the screen trembles.
Softly… almost like a sigh.
A thin line appears beneath the options, sharp as a blade:
[Do you wish to view the category descriptions?]
My heart forgets to beat for half a second.
So… it — this thing — can hear me?
Or read me?
Or feel my thoughts as if they were commands?
I don't know.
But I feel that, ever since that light shone from my phone, I've stopped being alone in my own room.
I swallow hard.
The rain keeps falling outside, relentless — as if striking the world just so I don't forget where I am.
"Yes… I want to see."
The answer comes out as a whisper.
Not to the phone.
To myself.
As if admitting it were some kind of ritual.
The screen glows.
New lines begin to form — slowly — as if written by an invisible hand.
And for a moment, everything around me seems to wait for the revelation with me.
The first description appears like a blade of light cutting through darkness:
[Path of the Immortal Flesh]
The words emerge slowly, as if carved into living stone.
"A Path that seeks transcendence through the body.
The foundation is rebuilt: cells, muscles, bones, marrow.
The flesh is shaped, broken, and reforged.
Pain is part of awakening.
Immortality… a horizon that only a few ever glimpse."
I read it once.
Then again.
And again.
Transcend the body… starting from the cells.
Bones that must be remade.
Flesh forged like metal in fire.
My stomach twists.
I don't know if it's fear… or fascination.
It's strange.
There is something primitive about this path.
Something raw. Something savage.
As if it were the oldest of methods…
Something that existed before sects, before academies, before jade halls and silk-robed sages.
The idea of breaking the body to rebuild it…
Part of me wants to run just imagining it.
Another part…
The part that has always felt weak, small, crushed by life…
That part stares at the text with a focus I never gave to any organic chemistry formula.
Immortality…
The word echoes inside me like a hollow bell.
"Cells… bones… pain…"
I whisper it.
Maybe it's madness.
But it's definitely not a path for an ordinary person.
And yet…
I find myself unable to look away.
The second description appears beneath it.
Slower than the first… almost reluctant.
As if it carries too many centuries to fit on a single screen.
[Ancient Noble Bloodline — Kaoru Clan]
"A clan that once shaped eras.
Old blood. Deep blood.
Descendants of a name the world learned to fear and revere.
The Kaoru received glory and ruin in equal measure."
The words keep unfolding, like dust being blown from a forgotten book:
"From their marks, legends were born:
hair as black as pitch after rain,
eyes scarlet like embers that never fade.
The bloodline remains…
but the clan, once colossal, has declined."
I remain still.
I feel the weight of every sentence.
As if the light of the screen has grown colder.
A great clan… in the past.
Now… in decline.
Funny.
Even a simulation seems to enjoy irony — choosing for me a noble origin… but a broken one.
In the reflection of the screen, I see my own tired eyes.
I imagine them red — scarlet — as the system describes.
I imagine black hair like wet shadows.
A figure shaped by ancient blood… and dead expectations.
"A ruined clan… and that's where I would begin."
I murmur it to myself, feeling the words settle inside me — heavy, inevitable.
There's something sad about it.
And something dangerous.
Broken lines always hide deeper cracks…
and even deeper secrets.
And the strangest part…
For some reason, this fate — this decay — fits me like an old glove, tailored to me alone.
I think about Yelena, my mother.
Her hands always red from work.
Her eyes too tired for a woman who never gave up on anything.
I think about high school — that strange crossing between being nobody and continuing to be nobody.
I think about the gray neighborhood.
The endless drizzle.
The days that pass without caring.
My life… too quiet. Too small.
A world that has always squeezed me at the edges, as if I had been born into a place that was never meant for me.
I look back at the descriptions on the screen.
Immortal Flesh.
Pain. Rebirth.
A body that must be broken to become something else.
Something I might never have been.
Ancient Noble Bloodline.
A clan that fell… and keeps falling.
As broken as I am.
Funny…
The more I read these words, the more they feel like a mirror.
Cold. Imperfect.
But still a mirror.
My mother always said I needed to find a path.
I never thought it would be this one—
or that it would come from something this absurd.
I take a deep breath.
Maybe I don't deserve an ancient bloodline.
Maybe I can't endure the pain of Immortal Flesh.
But for the first time in years…
I feel like the next step actually matters.
"Doesn't matter if it's madness," I think, my fingers trembling.
"Normal life… that's already taking me nowhere."
And then I choose.
Ancient Noble Bloodline — Kaoru Clan.
Path of the Immortal Flesh.
The decision falls onto the screen like a hammer strike.
And in the exact instant I touch both options, I feel the strange sensation that the world — outside and inside — holds its breath.
The screen goes dark for a moment.
A digital silence so deep it feels like a breath trapped inside the machine.
Then the words appear, white as freshly fallen snow:
[Confirm integration?
Yes / No]
It's just a question.
So simple.
So small.
But I feel its weight pressing against my chest, like an invisible fist buried between my ribs.
"Yes."
The word leaves me like a thread of wind.
My finger presses the button.
And there is no turning back.
The system responds instantly.
Almost… alive.
[Beginning Host Integration...]
The dizziness hits like a sudden tide.
My room spins around me — the wall, the desk, the gray window — everything mixing like spilled paint.
The air turns thick.
Heavy as molten lead.
Shit…
I wasn't ready.
I brace my hand against the edge of the bed.
The floor feels like it's slipping away beneath my feet.
"Just… lie down… just for a bit…"
My voice is a whisper lost in the storm forming inside my head.
I collapse onto the mattress like someone returning from war.
The rain keeps hitting the window, but the sound grows distant… far too distant.
Like it belongs to another world.
The phone pulses in my hand.
One last beat.
Almost like a heart that belongs to no one.
And then… everything falls apart.
My body stays.
My weight, my flesh, my breathing… all of it resting there, sinking into the bed.
But me…
I slide somewhere else.
It's like being pulled into a dream that isn't a dream.
Light.
Void.
A space that breathes.
And then, before me, rises a screen larger than any screen should be — forged from golden light:
[Initial Customization of the Host's Character
— Ancient Noble Bloodline: Kaoru Clan —]
The world around me stops being my room…
Now it is only this vast hall of light…
Waiting for me to shape myself.