NOVEL NEXT Chapter 1 - Meteor
Chapter 1 – Meteor
Lee Yun-ho’s gaming tastes were eclectic.
He didn’t discriminate between science fiction and fantasy, and he played both FPS and RPG games.
Because of this, he couldn’t pick a single favorite game.
If pressed, he could name two.
One was Dragon Hunter 3, a fantasy ARPG where humans fought a desperate struggle for survival against vicious dragons.
The other was Star Savior, an FPS RPG set in space where espers, aliens, augmented humans, and homunculi competed for money and power, ultimately saving the universe…though it was closer to a space opera than true science fiction.
And at this moment, having opened his eyes between an unfamiliar ceiling, a strange night sky, and a burning land, Lee Yun-ho was steeped in bewilderment.
“What is this?”
At first, he thought it was a dream.
He had fallen asleep in his bed, but now he was outdoors, with two moons in the night sky, surrounded by a sea of fire, lying in the middle of a crater that looked as if a meteor had struck. Such a situation was impossible.
So he closed his eyes again, but he couldn’t help but open them again in less than ten seconds.
It wasn’t a dream.
A dream couldn’t be this vivid.
Controlling his quickening breath, Lee Yun-ho first examined himself.
He was naked.
But somehow, it felt… strange.
Was it because of the flickering light of the flames outside the crater?
No.
This strangeness wasn’t caused by a change in light and shadow.
“What is this?”
His muscles were well-defined.
Putting aside the fact that his skin was much whiter than before, his whole body was incredibly muscular.
Unconsciously, he reached out and touched his thigh, his eyes widening in surprise.
His thigh felt like steel.
His skin was as soft as a baby’s, but the density beneath it was incredible.
Naturally, his hands and arms were different too.
And most importantly, *that* area was different from his memory.
Much bigger than before—
“No, that’s not important right now.”
Lee Yun-ho stopped touching himself and looked around again.
A crater as if a meteor had fallen.
The surrounding area were engulfed in flames.
Two moons, one yellow and one white, are hanging in the sky, and a night sky filled with countless stars, unimaginable in Seoul.
Lee Yun-ho briefly discarded his preconceptions and thoughts.
First, the crater.
Himself, lying in the center of the crater.
Could this crater have been formed by him falling?
It sounded absurd, but Lee Yun-ho felt a strange sense of plausibility as he continued his train of thought.
And the two moons in the night sky.
Strangely, they were familiar.
They were a common trope in fantasy, and he’d seen them countless times in one of his favorite games, Dragon Hunter 3.
‘Two moons are standard in fantasy.’
But the more he looked, the more they really did resemble the moons from Dragon Hunter 3.
Especially the fact that one was yellow and the other white.
“No way.”
No matter how clichéd, he couldn’t have entered a game.
He must have been playing too many games lately.
So if he went back to sleep, if he slept—
“That’s not going to work.”
It wasn’t a dream.
It couldn’t be a dream.
And although he didn’t know if he had really entered the world of Dragon Hunter 3, he was certain that he had been dropped into some unknown world.
“Hoo, hoo.”
He was short of breath again.
Lee Yun-ho stared up at the night sky with wide eyes.
Two moons.
One white, the other yellow.
Just like in the Dragon Hunter series.
“Think.”
Lee Yun-ho told himself.
The situation felt like it would drive him insane, but he tried to continue his thoughts as objectively as possible.
Funnily enough, he had seen this kind of otherworld entry so often in web novels and manga that he was able to think surprisingly calmly amidst the chaos.
If this really was the world of Dragon Hunter 3.
If Lee Yun-ho himself had entered the world of Dragon Hunter 3.
Where was he?
When was it?
No, more importantly, who was *he*?
If you enter a game, shouldn’t you become a character in the game?
“My body has changed.”
No matter how he looked at it, this wasn’t his own body.
In other words, his body had been switched.
It was highly likely that he had become someone else.
But no matter how hard he searched his memory, he couldn’t think of any character that started in a crater.
Of course, Lee Yun-ho didn’t know every single character in Dragon Hunter 3.
He knew the protagonists, supporting characters, and villains in quite some detail, but he didn’t memorize the personal details of every extra.
However, he didn’t think that someone lying in a burning crater – someone who had likely fallen from the sky like a meteor – would be a mere extra.
‘Could it not be the third game?’
What if it was the world after the ending of the third game?
If that were the case—
Suddenly, he felt a pang of fear.
He knew Dragon Hunter 3 and its predecessors well.
He honestly thought it would be a bit of a stretch to dominate using his game knowledge like in web novels, but he was confident he could utilize what he knew.
But if it was after the third game, he knew nothing.
Of course, knowing the stories and characters of the previous games would be a great help, but there was a huge gap between knowing the future and not knowing it.
‘I’ve read a lot of web novels.’
He could tell from the way he was thinking in this situation.
But then it hit him.
Web novels.
A world inside a game.
Then—
“St…status window?”
He muttered softly, but there was no response.
Blushing with embarrassment, Lee Yun-ho cleared his throat a few times and spoke again.
“Status.”
And at that very moment.
[Now Loading…]
A rigid mechanical sound echoed in his head as letters of light appeared.
Lee Yun-ho, unconsciously excited, jumped to his feet and clenched his fists.
‘Is… is this real?’
Had he entered the game, and did he really have a status window like in the game?!
Letters of light continued to appear before his excited eyes.
[Restarting Sequence]
[Support AI Integra]
[Data Lost.]
[Insufficient Data.]
[Core System Damaged.]
[Connection to Mainframe Impossible.]
[Unable to Fully Grasp Current Environment.]
[Initializing System.]
[3]
[2]
[1]
[Hello, Master. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I am Support AI Integra. It’s a beautiful night.]
The stiff mechanical sound suddenly changed into the clear and elegant voice of a woman.
A voice that came from inside, not outside – from inside his head.
But it was a voice as familiar to Lee Yun-ho as the moons in the night sky.
And because of that, Lee Yun-ho was confused.
“W, wait.”
Wasn’t this Dragon Hunter 3?
Why was he hearing Integra’s voice?
Support AI Integra.
The support AI added when choosing the combat homunculus “Luther Lightseeker” in the space opera FPS RPG ‘Star Savior.’
Now that he thought about it, the font and window shape of the light letters were identical to those in Star Savior.
“I, Integra.”
[Speak, Master.]
“S, show me my status window.”
[Understood.]
Immediately after Integra replied.
[Model Number: ZX-999]
[9th Generation Nanite-Equipped Homunculus]
[Growth-Type Multi-Purpose Humanoid Decisive Weapon]
[Individual Name: Luther Lightseeker]
Familiar phrases that reeked of chuunibyou.
Lee Yun-ho knew these phrases.
No, he couldn’t *not* know them.
They were from his other favorite game, on par with Dragon Hunter 3.
“Star… Savior?”
It was certain.
He was definitely Luther Lightseeker, the combat homunculus, one of the characters from Star Savior.
“What the hell?”
The night sky clearly belonged to Dragon Hunter 3, but the character was from Star Savior?
“Col…laboration?”
A special event in a game where characters from another game appear.
It sounded absurd, but it also seemed plausible.
After all, entering a game in the first place was an absurd situation.
Moreover, it was ridiculous to question the logic here, but the Dragon Hunter series had actually had a collaboration event with Star Savior.
‘Let me organize the situation.’
He had become Luther Lightseeker, a nanite-equipped combat homunculus from Star Savior, and entered the fantasy world of Dragon Hunter 3.
‘Just organizing it makes me feel like I’m losing my mind.’
But if that premise was true, and if Lee Yun-ho had to live in the world of Dragon Hunter 3 whether he liked it or not…
‘It might be doable.’
Much more so than simply becoming one of the characters in Dragon Hunter 3.
He had no outrageous skills, no noble family, no cheat abilities, but he had nanites, which were broken in their own right.
Moreover, he wasn’t even an ordinary human, but an augmented human.
In short, a warrior of transcendent scientific civilization had entered a fantasy world.
Didn’t that sound overpowered just from the description?
Furthermore, Dragon Hunter 3 was a game where equipment changes – the so-called “item power” – was important.
‘What if equipment that makes even ordinary humans incredibly strong is equipped by an already incredibly strong human?’
Just imagining it made his heart swell with the birth of an overpowered character.
And Lee Yun-ho thought.
He must be half-insane from the sheer shock of the situation.
Otherwise, there was no way he would be seriously entertaining such thoughts.
‘Let’s think more realistically.’
Where was this place, and why was he here?
“Integra, why am I here? Information from before I woke up… yeah, do you know anything about the situation before I opened my eyes?”
Integra immediately answered Lee Yun-ho’s question.
[Data Lost.]
[I was also initialized immediately after Master awoke, so there is no data on past activity.]
In short, Integra didn’t know either.
And at that moment.
[Master, life signs approaching.]
[Not small.]
[Very fast.]
[Hostility detected!]
At Integra’s increasingly urgent voice, Lee Yun-ho quickly turned his head to look beyond the bushes.
“Kyaaa-!”
What emerged, smashing through the bushes, was the leg of a giant monster.
A dragon’s head seemingly clad in gray armor and a massive body at least ten meters long.
If he had to compare it, it resembled a Tyrannosaurus Rex, the tyrant of the Cretaceous period.
It was definitely a Jogress, one of the signature monsters of Dragon Hunter 3.
It looked at him with reptilian yellow eyes that seemed to draw him in.
No, that roar itself was meant to threaten him.
[Master! It’s coming!]
Integra shouted.
At that moment, the Jogress charged towards Lee Yun-ho.