Going to sleep yesterday, Leon never imagined waking up not in his small apartment, but in an old wooden shack. The transition from exhaustion to awareness felt abrupt, almost unnatural, like something had skipped in between.
The roof above his head was the first thing he saw, rough wooden planks unevenly placed. The second was the bright blue sky visible between the gaps, thin beams of light slipping through like cracks in reality. He stayed still for a few seconds, blinking slowly as if that alone could reset everything, but his brain failed to deny what his eyes were clearly showing.
"…Yeah, no."
He sat up on the bare wooden bed—or what could be called a bed, as it was only a wooden frame slightly above the ground with no mattress or anything of the sort. The wood creaked loudly under his weight, making the whole structure feel even less trustworthy as he shifted.
"Did I get kidnapped?"
His voice sounded dry, slightly strained, like he hadn't spoken in a while. The question hung in the air without an answer as his eyes darted around the room, scanning every detail with growing unease.
Four walls, a floor, and a door in the same state as the roof, all poorly assembled and clearly not built for durability. The room could only be described as a shitty university student dorm, roughly a 4x4m square with a ceiling at 2m—though even that comparison felt generous.
The room was entirely made of wood, with no proper sealing anywhere, and there wasn't any window. Despite that, wind and sand slipped in freely through the cracks, brushing lightly across the floor and occasionally against his skin.
The door in front of him looked barely functional, as if a firm kick would be enough to tear it off its hinges. A small gust passed through again, carrying more sand with it, reinforcing the uncomfortable reality of the situation.
"Not much worse than my own place," Leon sighed, the words coming out more out of habit than belief. He paused briefly, reconsidering the statement as another grain of sand hit his face.
"…Actually, no. This is worse. There's sand."
Life hadn't been the greatest for him since he became an adult, and that was putting it mildly. His parents had died in a car crash when he was 18, right as he was preparing for university, and everything after that had spiraled into survival.
Problems hadn't come one at a time—they had stacked endlessly, leaving him no space to recover or even think clearly about the future.
Being in university should have been a memorable part of his life, but needing a place to live and having to pay for tuition forced him into multiple jobs at once. The constant exhaustion drained both his energy and his ability to study properly.
Year after year, his grades dropped, slowly but consistently, until effort alone was no longer enough to compensate for lack of time.
Now, three years after entering university, he had a meeting with his professor the day before. The conclusion had been simple and final—because of his grades, he couldn't stay.
No argument. No appeal. Just the end.
Naturally, when he went to sleep after work, he hadn't expected to be kidnapped in an old shack, breathing sand carried by the wind. That was not exactly within the range of reasonable outcomes, even by his already low standards.
"Wait… sand?"
That detail kept bothering him more than anything else, lingering in his thoughts longer than it logically should have.
Before he could think further, a flicker of light appeared before him, followed by multiple text messages arriving one after another. They didn't appear slowly—they stacked rapidly, almost aggressively, filling his vision faster than he could process.
[...]
[...]
[...]
"A system?!"
Leon stopped trying to read the notifications and blinked several times before rubbing his eyes, but the messages didn't disappear. They remained fixed in his vision, as if they were part of reality now.
"I'm dreaming?, what is that language? And I'm not in a novel right?" he muttered, staring at the unfamiliar symbols that somehow felt just barely out of reach of comprehension.
But the notifications continued to come, uninterrupted and relentless, like something forcing information directly into his mind whether he wanted it or not.
[...]
[...]
A stream of knowledge suddenly rushed into his brain, making him dizzy as something new formed inside his mind. A language appeared, merging seamlessly as if it had always been there, forcing understanding where there had been none.
Leon grabbed his head instinctively as the sensation overwhelmed him, though it only lasted a few seconds before fading completely.
When it stopped, everything felt clearer, sharper, and disturbingly normal.
Rereading the notifications, he finally understood.
[Successfully transferred the last 8,156,842,420 humans from planet Earth of the Milky Way]
[All of humanity from planet Earth of the Milky Way has been transferred]
[Will now refer to them as Earth Humans]
[Universal language successfully downloaded]
[Earth Humans have been divided into 11,800,951 channels of 10,000, from oldest to youngest]
While he was still processing how easily he had learned a new language, additional tabs appeared on the system panel, their presence intuitive enough that he didn't question how to use them.
[Channel 11,800,867]
[Chat]
Leon hesitated briefly before selecting the option, curiosity outweighing caution, and the moment he did, a wall of messages flooded his vision.
[Lord 8,493: where are we!]
[Lord 5,932: it's so cold here!]
[Lord 8,290: did we get kidnapped?]
[Lord 98: we're a family of five, it's too damn small in this shack, and what's with the hole in the wall and roof?]
[Lord 234: I'm glad I'm at least with my husband and son]
[Lord 367: ...]
[Lord 912: is this a joke?]
[Lord 44: HELLO???]
[Lord 771: STOP SPAMMING I CAN'T READ]
[Lord 882: YOU ARE SPAMMING]
[Lord 771: FAIR]
Leon blinked slowly, trying to follow the flow of messages, but it was nearly impossible with how fast everything moved. The sheer chaos made one thing immediately clear.
"…Yeah, this feels like the internet."
More messages appeared, overlapping in tone and intent, ranging from panic to excitement to complete nonsense, forming a chaotic but strangely familiar pattern.
[Lord 2,104: it's like those novels I read! I'm gonna become a god!!!]
"Do they not know that 99% of the survivors in those novels die tragic deaths?" Leon muttered, shaking his head slightly as he leaned back against the wall.
Being a reader of web novels himself, he understood the appeal of such a situation, the fantasy of starting over and becoming something more.
But reality had a way of correcting expectations, usually in the worst way possible.
[The lords who are couples have been placed together]
[The lords under 18 have been placed with their closest blood family]
[Disabled lords have been placed with their closest blood family]
"So children and disabled don't have to fend for themselves, that's good… but that could also lead to some awkward things… or worse." His tone carried both relief and concern as he watched the chat continue.
The chat immediately provided examples.
[Lord 378: where are my wife and daughter?]
[Lord 3: seems like the brother upstairs is a cuckold o7]
[Lord 73: o7]
[Lord 638: o7]
[Lord 2,918: o7]
[Lord 41: o7]
[Lord...: o7]
[...: o7]
Leon stared at the screen for a moment, processing how quickly the tone had shifted from concern to mockery.
"…That escalated fast."
Then things somehow got worse.
[Lord 444: guys help me I had a child with two different women, they're both here with my children, I'm gonna die!!!]
There was a brief pause in the flow of messages, as if the entire channel collectively needed a second to process what they had just read. That silence lasted just long enough to feel noticeable.
Then the reaction came all at once.
[Lord 3: RIP soldier]
[Lord 7,389: +1]
[Lord 3,858: +2]
[Lord 53: +3]
[Lord 991: stay strong brother]
[Lord 18: you're finished]
[Lord 82: it was nice knowing you]
[Lord...: +56]
[...: +4,056]
Leon covered his mouth slightly, holding back a laugh despite the situation, though the absurdity made it difficult.
"That's a poor fellow… really."
He hesitated briefly before deciding to join in, his fingers moving almost automatically.
[Lord 10,000: +4,207]
Leaning back slightly, he let out a quiet breath, watching the number climb even higher.
"…I contributed and regret nothing."
"Seems like I'm the last one of our channel," he added, noticing his identifier with mild surprise as the realization settled in.
After a moment, his thoughts shifted back to something more concerning, something that had been lingering in the background since earlier.
"Thinking about it… it says we were divided into 11,800,951 channels, but we're 10,000 per channel, and there are only around 8.1 billion people that got transferred…" he muttered, going through the numbers again.
The more he thought about it, the less it made sense.
"The math doesn't add up."
He paused, running through the calculation again more carefully this time, making sure he hadn't missed anything obvious.
"Wouldn't that mean that 118 billion humans got transferred from Earth?"
The implication didn't hit immediately, but when it did, it settled in slowly and heavily.
Thinking further, and recalling his history lessons, Leon reached a conclusion he wasn't sure he wanted to accept.
"Wouldn't that mean that all of humanity—from the first Homo sapiens to the last newborn baby—got transferred?"
His breathing quickened slightly, and his focus began to slip as the scale of that realization expanded in his mind.
"Did the dead come back to life?"
The chat, as chaotic as it was, began converging on the same realization, multiple people reaching the same conclusion from different angles.
[Lord 3: joke aside, I think all of humanity got revived and sent here]
[Lord 17: I thought the same, but does that mean our deceased family and friends are alive?]
[Lord 8: my grandma??]
[Lord 2,001: bro my ancestors???]
Looking at the nonstop flow of messages, Leon understood that he wasn't alone in reaching that conclusion, which somehow made it both better and worse.
Then came the darker realization.
[Lord 9,978: guys if everybody got revived, that means every bad guy and criminal also got revived—like Jack the Ripper, Hannibal Lecter, or even H*****]
[Lord 690: damn we're so fucked]
[Lord 44: nah bro log out]
[Lord 72: CAN WE LOG OUT???]
[Lord 5,221: wait a second, Hannibal Lecter isn't real though?]
[Lord 8,104: yeah that's from a movie ]
[Lord 3: bro really said fictional character in the same sentence as H*****]
[Lord 1,887: next he's gonna say Thanos is here too]
[Lord 5,221: ??? I'm just saying???]
[Lord 777: nah imagine waking up and getting eaten by fiction ]
[Lord 902: bro got killed by copyright infringement]
[Lord 6,332: wait… what if fictional characters ARE real here?]
[Lord 44: NOPE don't start that]
[Lord 73: don't unlock that possibility]
[Lord 638: delete that thought immediately]
[Lord 2,918: system please ignore him]
[Lord 10,000: if Thanos shows up I'm uninstalling reality]
[Lord...: +688]
[...: +7,483]
Leon exhaled slowly, the weight of that implication settling in as the humor began to mix with something far more serious.
"Yeah… if HE got revived, I wouldn't want to be in his channel."
A shiver ran down his neck, subtle but enough to remind him that whatever this situation was, it wasn't safe, and it definitely wasn't under control.
The excitement in the chat began to shift, slowly blending with fear as more people reached the same conclusion.
Then, as if perfectly timed, the system intervened once more.
[Lord Talent, Cultivation Talent, and Life Talent acquisition started]
Leon stared at the message for a moment, his expression unreadable as the implications began to stack once again.
The wind passed through the walls, carrying sand with it, grounding him once more in his surroundings and reminding him that this was real.
"…Yeah."
He lay back down on the wooden frame, staring at the broken roof above him as the light shifted slightly through the gaps.
"…this is definitely not going to end well."
After a short pause, his gaze drifted back toward the still-active chat, where messages continued to flood in without pause.
"…But at least the chat is entertaining."