Solo Leveling, Vol. 1, page 7
“One, two, three……”
His count increased quickly. “……Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred.”
He finished one hundred push-ups, but to his disappointment, nothing changed. Nothing except that his arms were now a little bit sore.
“What did I just do……?”
He snorted and straightened up.
[Congratulations on becoming a Player.] (Read)
[Daily Quest: Strength Training has arrived.] (Read)
The status of the messages had changed from unread to read. There were no more unread messages, and he wasn’t in the mood to play along with the delusions any longer.
That was enough of that. Jinwoo closed the message screen without hesitation.
“Haaaah…”
He yawned hard and climbed back into bed. Perhaps it was because this was the most active he’d been in a while, but he was getting drowsy. The sky outside the window was being painted in the colors of a sunset.
It’s already this late?
The two agents from the Surveillance Team had told him the association was going to foot his hospital bills. Jinwoo planned to use the opportunity to get a full checkup and leave only after receiving a clean bill of health from the doctors.
These were Jinwoo’s thoughts as he lay in bed.
The hallucinations and visions should go away in due time…
His eyes gradually slid shut.
Jinwoo fell into a deep sleep.
Ticktock, ticktock.
The clock on the wall diligently moved its hands as Jinwoo slept. They went round and round and round, and eventually, the clock read 11:59:57.
Tick, tick, tick.
Fifty-eight seconds, fifty-nine seconds, sixty seconds.
The hands of the clock stopped at exactly twelve o’clock.
Ping!
[You have not completed the daily quest. You will be transferred to the penalty zone for the allotted time.]
RRRRRUMBLE!
Jinwoo woke from the strong vibrations rocking his whole body.
“E-earthquake?”
He bolted upright and grabbed on to the end of the bed. The earthquake was so powerful, it was hard to keep his balance.
RRRRRUMBLE…
The tremors grew stronger as time passed. And then…
Fwssshhh…
The metal bed frame he was clinging to suddenly broke. No, it didn’t break—it disappeared. Jinwoo hastily inspected what was in his hands. Instead of the metal of the bed frame, all that remained in his fist was sand.
Sand?
Fwssshhh…
The other half of the bed frame crumbled into sand as well.
The earthquake got even stronger.
RRRRRRRRUMBLE!
“Argh!”
Jinwoo eventually tumbled off the bed. He screamed as he was flung around the hospital room. One by one, all the furniture transformed into sand.
“Ahhhhhh!”
Wham.
Jinwoo was thrown in a random direction and ended up buried. He felt something smooth. It turned out to be very fine sand.
Meanwhile, the earthquake stopped.
“Blech! Ugh!”
He lifted his head urgently while spitting sediment out of his mouth.
“……?”
Before him was an endless landscape of sand.
Jinwoo frowned as he got to his feet, grains trickling off him out of the crevices of his clothes. He regarded his surroundings while brushing off his chest.
All he could see was sand.
“A desert……?”
It didn’t make sense. He could’ve sworn that, just a few moments ago, he’d been sleeping on a bed in a large hospital located in the middle of Seoul.
But he’d opened his eyes to a horizon of desert?
Jinwoo took a fistful of sand and let it trickle out of his hand. It fell straight down.
No wind at all.
The wind wasn’t all that was missing. Jinwoo also noted that there was no sun, moon, or stars in the sky. The emptiness made it look like the sky was covered in black ink. Despite this, he could view his surroundings without any problem.
“Where the heck am I?”
And then…
Hssssssss…
Suddenly, his footing started giving way, sliding down a slope.
“Wh-whoa!”
Jinwoo scrambled away to avoid getting sucked down. As the hole grew bigger, he barely managed to claw his way to the top, using his hands and feet to scramble up.
“Huff, huff, huff.” He stared down at the hole as he sat trying to catch his breath.
Strangely, the bottom of the pit looked like it was bubbling. He got chills just thinking about how he would’ve slid all the way down if he’d lost his footing even once.
“No……”
Wait.
Jinwoo’s eyes narrowed.
“It’s not boiling.”
When he looked closer, he could tell something huge was squirming under the surface. He instinctively rose to his feet. He had a bad feeling about what would happen next.
Just as he began carefully backing away, the sand in front of him exploded.
Bwoooosh!
It sounded like he was at the bottom of a raging waterfall.
Jinwoo’s eyes went wide. “An……insect?!”
A gigantic centipede was emerging from the epicenter of the detonation.
GRRRAAAHHH!
The monster was as tall as a five-story building.
Jinwoo gulped. Oh, hell no……
It was impossibly huge. He’d never heard of a centipede this big, but the size of it wasn’t the only thing that shocked him.
“Is that……the monster’s name floating above its head?”
Was he dreaming? He blinked hard, but nothing changed. Red writing still hung above the creature’s head.
It was like a monster in a video game.
[Poison-Toothed Giant Desert Centipede]
The aversion Jinwoo felt to its name rivaled the creature’s creepy and grotesque appearance. Jinwoo was especially concerned about the word poison-toothed. He noticed two child-size fangs attached to the bottom of its mandible. It was easy to infer what would happen if it bit him.
The centipede’s huge teeth and jaws continuously opened and closed as if……
“Looks like it’s licking its chops…”
Right at that moment, he heard a chime in his head again.
Ping!
[PENALTY QUEST: SURVIVAL]
Objective: Survive the required time.
Required time: 4 hours
Remaining time: 04:00:00
This is a joke, right……?
The centipede rushed straight at him through the sand as soon as the timer changed to 03:59:59, as if it had just been waiting.
Fshfshfshfshfshfsh!
“Wh-what?”
Jinwoo spun around and quickly started running.
There was no time to think. If he wanted to live, he had to run!
That was the only thought in his head.
However, after a few steps, a pillar of sand shot up right in front of him out of nowhere.
Fssshhhh!
“Ugh!”
The force of the eruption knocked him down. He tumbled to the ground but sprang back up and was quickly brushing grains off his face when he saw it.
Not one, not two, but…
Fssshhhhhh!
Fssshhhhhh!
Seven centipedes had emerged and were glaring down at Jinwoo.
Skreeee!
Skreeee!
Jinwoo paled as he stood dwarfed by the screeching monsters.
“Shit……”
Exactly four hours later, Jinwoo reappeared in his hospital room.
Whump.
He coughed painfully as he lay on the floor.
“Cough! Cough! Blech! Gak!”
The inside of his mouth felt gritty. His eyes still burned from the sand that had gotten in. He moaned in pain for a while before eventually sprawling out on the floor. He had no energy to even lift a finger.
“Huff……huff…… What……was that……?”
Another message appeared as he was catching his breath.
Ping!
[You have completed the penalty quest.]
Jinwoo scowled.
“Penalty quest”? What had he done to deserve a penalty?
He racked his brain and recalled the daily quest he’d abandoned the day before.
Was that……?
Thinking back on it, it had warned him that if he didn’t complete the daily quest, there would be an appropriate penalty.
“Huff, huff, so that……that wasn’t a hallucination?”
It hadn’t been a hallucination. It hadn’t been a dream. He didn’t even have to pinch himself to know that. His lungs had burned when he’d been running around, and the pain when a centipede had scratched his leg was still fresh in his mind.
It was all real. He’d actually almost died.
“That’s not fair…… Huff……huff……”
The penalty had thrown him into the jaws of death.
Jinwoo was suddenly filled with an ominous feeling. If this really had been a result of the daily quest, this wouldn’t be the last time. Right on cue, there came another notification.
Ping!
He jumped, but thankfully, it wasn’t another quest.
[Your rewards for completing the penalty quest have been delivered.]
[Would you like to check your rewards?] (Y/N)
“‘Rewards’……?”
The word rewards caught Jinwoo’s eye. The problem was that he didn’t have the energy to check. The situation just didn’t allow for it.
Forget about rewards…… Let’s get some rest first……
His vision slowly blurred. Soon, he fell into a deep sleep.
“Oh dear! What happened here?”
The following morning, the nurse who entered Jinwoo’s room was shocked at the sight.
The patient was collapsed on the floor and surrounded by sand. His body and clothes were also covered in it.
She threw the patient’s chart on the bed and urgently pressed the Call button.
“Please send some more help!”
Soon, the physician in charge rushed into the room. “What? What happened to Mr. Sung?”
“I’m not sure. He was fine last night, but this is how I found him this morning.”
“Well, let’s move him to the bed. One, two!”
They hoisted Jinwoo onto the bed. As they did, no one noticed he’d gotten a paper cut from the chart that had been tossed there.
“I’ll take a look.” The doctor examined Jinwoo thoroughly but found nothing wrong.
“Hmm…… He’s just asleep.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. The Hunter’s Association had requested that Jinwoo receive the best care. He’d been anxious that something might’ve happened to the young man.
“Let him sleep. He looks exhausted.”
The doctor made to leave but then looked around the room and scratched his head.
“By the way, this room……needs to be cleaned. I’ll leave it to you, Nurse Yura.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
After the doctor left, Nurse Yura Choi pressed a hand to her beating heart. She was glad it hadn’t been anything serious.
Though their feelings might not be as strong as those of the patients themselves or their families, no doctor or nurse would ever want to see their charges harmed. Hospitals for hunters tended to have many serious cases. They didn’t want any additional injuries befalling those entrusted to their care.
“Phew…”
After calming down, Yura pondered where to start cleaning and, by chance, spotted drops of blood on the floor.
“Oh?”
It dripped from Jinwoo’s hand, which happened to be stretched out over the side of the bed. Startled, she rushed to examine his hand and turned it over.
“What……?”
Though there were clear blood trails, there were no wounds from which they could have originated. Even after she wiped his hand clean, she couldn’t see any injuries.
Has his wound already closed……?
Yura nervously inspected her patient’s face.
Jinwoo was still sleeping like a baby.
4
DAILY QUEST
Ping!
[The daily quest has arrived.]
Jinwoo’s eyes shot open.
The first thing he did after hoisting himself up was check the time. The clock read just past four thirty PM. There were still seven hours and thirty minutes before midnight.
Good.
He opened the inbox.
Ping!
[DAILY QUEST: STRENGTH TRAINING]
Push-ups 100 times: Incomplete (0/100)
Sit-ups 100 times: Incomplete (0/100)
Squats 100 times: Incomplete (0/100)
Running 10 km: Incomplete (0/100)
Warning: Failure to complete the daily quest will result in an appropriate penalty.
“This again?” That was his reflexive response.
The more he thought about it, though, the more he realized this might be for the best. This was an improvement over an impossible or incomprehensible quest. He’d be physically tired, but as long as he took his time, it could definitely be accomplished.
Jinwoo hit the floor and started doing push-ups.
“One.”
He didn’t want to be dragged to a strange place to stare death in the face again.
“Two.”
He was fortunate to have survived last night, but there were no guarantees he would do so today.
“Three.”
He looked up to inspect the quest screen and noticed his push-ups being recorded.
Ping!
[You have completed 1 push-up.]
[Push-ups 100 times: Incomplete (7/100)]
Ping!
[You have completed 1 push-up.]
[Push-ups 100 times: Incomplete (8/100)]
Curious, Jinwoo tried lowering himself down only halfway before pushing back up, and as he expected, it didn’t count. He realized why his push-ups hadn’t been recorded yesterday.
If it wasn’t a proper push-up, it wouldn’t be counted.
Oh, come on……
Jinwoo was dumbfounded but kept going. He still had fifty push-ups left, and he had sit-ups, squats, and running waiting for him.
And like that, three hours passed.
[Push-ups 100 times: Completed (100/100)]
[Sit-ups 100 times: Completed (100/100)]
[Squats 100 times: Completed (100/100)]
[Running 10 km: Incomplete (9/10)]
“Huff, huff, huff, huff.”
Jinwoo was bent over, breathing heavily outside his room after running once around the hospital. He felt as if his heart were about to explode, but he couldn’t stop there.
After giving it my all……
He opened the door with difficulty and took a single step inside.
Ping!
[Total distance run: 10 km.]
[You have completed running 10 km.]
Jinwoo had finally done it.
“Huff…… Huff……” He dropped to his knees. His breath came out in puffs. His forehead and back were drenched in perspiration.
“Huff…… Huff……”
A familiar message arrived as he caught his breath.
Ping!
[You have completed Daily Quest: Strength Training.]
[Rewards have been delivered.]
[Would you like to check your rewards?] (Y/N)
Jinwoo had been considering going straight to bed like the night before, but he changed his mind. He wanted to check out these so-called “rewards.”
“Check.”
Ping!
[YOU HAVE THE FOLLOWING REWARDS.]
Reward 1. Full Recovery
Reward 2. Ability Points +3
Reward 3. Mystery Box (1)
[Would you like to accept all?]
Why are there so many?
That was his first thought upon seeing the full list. But the more he considered it, while a couple of the rewards sounded useful, there were some he wasn’t quite sure about.
First, he was in dire need of reward number one, a full recovery. He felt like he was about to pass out. Since the penalties for failing were real, chances were these rewards for completion also had to be real. Either way, he had nothing to lose.
What were the chances it would throw him into the penalty zone after saying that it’d reward him?
“Accept.”
As soon as he did, Jinwoo was enveloped by a pale-blue energy.
Hmm, this feels like……?
He immediately thought of Joohee. This felt similar to being treated with magic whenever he got hurt. If he had to describe the sensation, it was like a breath of fresh air cleaning out his lungs.
Whooshhh…
He sensed the blue energy fading.
He felt a bit sad about that.
He stood and jumped up and down, then did some stretches and moved his body every which way.
“Whoa!”
Both his racing heart and labored breathing had calmed. He didn’t feel tired at all. He had been about to collapse, but he now felt refreshed, as if he had just woken up from a good sleep. The recovery was extremely effective.
This is awesome.
Jinwoo’s eyes lit up. He wasn’t sure whether it was magic or not, but it left a strong impression.
So then, were those ability points for…?
As he looked back up, Jinwoo noticed a little box on the bed and the stat screen floating in front of him.
That must be the mystery box thing on the bed, but……
More important was the stat screen. It displayed a brief overview of his own stats.
[Name: Jinwoo Sung]
[Job: None]
