The Player Who Can't Level Up

But just seeing his shell didn’t mean he was done. The shell was like an abyss. Gi-Gyu found himself being sucked into it and losing his sanity. 

-You just saw your shell, so don’t try to look inside yet. Take a break.

Gi-Gyu nodded at Lou’s suggestion. When he opened his eyes, he realized just how taxing that meditation process was since both his body and mind were exhausted. 

Gi-Gyu finally left the basement after a long time. He had breakfast with his family and fell into a deep sleep. His mother and sister had noticed him working on something like a man possessed; unfortunately, they could do nothing to help him. They didn’t ask him any questions and just prayed for him.

And like that, another day passed by.

***

The next day when Gi-Gyu woke up, he ate a simple meal and hurried back to the basement. He was in such a rush because he feared he could’ve forgotten how to find his shell. 

-Seeing your shell isn’t like riding a bicycle, you idiot. 

Lou made fun of him, but Gi-Gyu didn’t care. After meditating for a while, he finally found the sensation he felt yesterday. The giant abyss near his heart was still pulling him like a black hole. 

-Don’t look at it for too long. You need to roam around the shell for now and study its shape.

Lou was generous with his advice; Gi-Gyu felt he probably would’ve been sucked into the shell if not for them. Then, he focused on the shell’s shape—a boring and time-consuming process. Whenever he felt dizzy from being so focused on his shell, he would open his eyes to rest. 

Thankfully, he could feel that he was making little progress. Nobody knew when this process would be completed, but he knew his efforts would be rewarded eventually, so he was excited about what little progress he had made. 

‘Hmm…’ 

Subsequently, Gi-Gyu got a picture of what his shell looked like. 

‘Like an ocean?’

-Hmm. Well, I guess it looks something like that.

‘Are you saying I’m wrong?’

-You’re calling it an ocean because you don’t know any better. That’s all I’m saying, and it can’t be helped. This isn’t your fault.

What Gi-Gyu saw seemed endless in depth and width, so he equated it to an ocean. However, Lou insinuated that Gi-Gyu was wrong. Perhaps his shell didn’t resemble an ocean at all. 

‘This is why I can’t get a good picture of my shell. Lou, do all human shells look like this?

-Pfft.

Lou burst into laughter and muttered.

-Idiot.

‘What? Why?’

-No, it’s nothing. Anyway, now that you have a sense of the overall shape, you can try looking inside. You won’t feel like you’re getting sucked in again. Have a look. 

‘All right.’

Just as Lou suggested, Gi-Gyu made an effort to look inside. At first, his vision kept getting reflected as if there was a barrier around his shell. But soon, he could look inside. 

And…

“Ugh!” Gi-Gyu’s eyes burst open, and he began to vomit. 

“Blargggg! Ugh!” 

-Kekeke. Idiot.

While Gi-Gyu was busy throwing up, Lou laughed and said, 

-I told you just to look, didn’t I? I told you to do one thing at a time. Why did you try to multitask this? 

“Ugh…” Gi-Gyu groaned and wiped his mouth. Fortunately, his stomach settled down quickly. He asked in annoyance, “What do you mean?”

-What did you see? 

Instead of answering Gi-Gyu, Lou asked a question. However, Gi-Gyu didn’t have an answer ready for that and just focused on controlling his nausea. Lou asked again,

-I asked you what did you see inside your shell.

Closing his eyes, Gi-Gyu murmured, “Nothing.”

An abyss? Darkness? Light? Gi-Gyu couldn’t describe what he saw. His shell was just… empty. Seconds ago, he perceived it as an ocean; now, all he saw was vast emptiness. The fear made him throw up. 

-Hmph.

Gi-Gyu heard Lou snorting at him again.

***

-What I told you to look inside your shell, I mean look at a part. I never told you to look at the entire internal structure. 

When Lou explained in an accusing tone, Gi-Gyu replied, “But I don’t even know how to do that.”

When his stomach finally felt empty, Gi-Gyu drank some vitamin water. Lou clicked his tongue in annoyance.

-Tsk, tsk. That’s why I find you so ridiculous. I just don’t get why you try to do the things no one can do.

“Shut up.” Feeling frustrated, Gi-Gyu continued, “Does everyone’s shell look like that? It looked like…” 

When Gi-Gyu tried to remember what he just saw, the scene embedded in his memory, he couldn’t speak. It was because he felt nauseous again. 

-Does everyone’s shell look like that? Ha! This is why I’m so annoyed.

Lou continued in a much more serious tone,

-Idiot. You have no inkling of how special you are. Gi-Gyu, you’re an out-and-out oddity. You can’t level up like the other players, but powerful creatures like Lucifer are interested in you. No one can own gates, but you treat one like a trash can. All these things… I’m just shocked that you don’t find them odd. You never question why you are the only exception to so many facts. 

“I know I’m special. I mean, I can sync with Egos like you and borrow their power, right? I have always known I’m a bit more special than most.”

-No, it’s more than that. Umm… I wonder if you’ll suffer the penalty if I tell you this.

Lou was trying to give him some secret information. Feeling tense, Gi-Gyu waited patiently for Lou to continue.

-...

“...?”

Gi-Gyu waited for nothing since Lou didn’t say anything. After a long silence, Lou finally announced,

-No, I don’t think this is a good idea. I’ll probably tell you later if you don’t find it out on your own.

Gi-Gyu could tell Lou was worried he might suffer the penalty, so he silently resumed meditating. He was curious about what Lou wanted to tell him, but now wasn’t the time to be inquisitive: A lesson he learned after awakening his unique ability and facing numerous challenges. 

‘I will get all the information I need in time.’

Hurrying wouldn’t change anything; he would learn everything with time. Besides, there were plenty of other things he needed to focus on at the moment. 

For one, he had to continue his meditation.

Gi-Gyu looked at his shell again. Nausea and dizziness no longer overwhelmed him. Unlike before, he couldn’t see the entirety of his shell’s insides clearly. 

Instead of trying to see the blankness he saw earlier, Gi-Gyu looked for other things since Lou said the blankness wasn’t the thing he was supposed to focus on. 

Currently, Gi-Gyu was in a zone where he couldn’t tell the time or even hear Lou. Since he was also focused, he utterly lost track of time.

‘What’s that?’

Suddenly, Gi-Gyu found what Lou mentioned earlier.

***

Something moved in a small corner of the blank space. It was something sticky and creepy. It was so dark and gloomy that, in a sense, it almost looked pure. This “something” continued to wiggle as its pieces repeatedly split and merged. 

This dark-and-filthy-yet-pure something was trying to expand and slowly assimilate with something invisible. Gi-Gyu stared at this for a very long time. Compared to the emptiness he saw earlier, this was much smaller. But as he studied it, he realized that this was all he could see. 

And…

‘Hmm?’

-It’s time for you to leave. Now. 

When Lou suggested, Gi-Gyu opened his eyes. He murmured, “It was dark and sticky, yet it was also pure…”

-I guess you finally saw one.

“One?” Gi-Gyu asked with curiosity. Lou explained in a much kinder voice, probably because Gi-Gyu was progressing in the right direction,

-What you saw was death. It’s too complicated to explain; in simple words, when one’s shell shatters, death enters it through the cracks and begins expanding it. That’s what you witnessed just now.

“That was death?”

‘That indescribable “thing” was death?’

Gi-Gyu touched his chest: He could still feel the stinging pain. 

-Yes. That’s death. It lives in one corner of your shell. Now, take a short break before resuming your meditation. 

“All right,” Gi-Gyu replied and did as Lou recommended. But even as he rested, he couldn’t stop thinking about “death.” 

‘The ocean, the emptiness, and death.’ 

Gi-Gyu never thought about these things before, yet they were now a close part of him. It was like the times when the Egos and other powers came into his life.

After a short rest, Gi-Gyu returned to meditating. Slowly, he swam through the blankness and passed by the sticky death. Something small somewhere else had caught his eyes. 

‘What’s that?’

Lou told him that he only saw “one of death,” so it meant there were at least a few more to find. And this thing he spotted now had to be one of them, so he concentrated on it. 

‘Lou?’

He saw something giant yet faint yet spreading; it was confusing. Its dark was marred with red, and Gi-Gyu’s instinct told him it was Lou. He could tell that there were countless “things” inside this oxblood Lou.  

Dark Death. 

Something similar to the death Gi-Gyu saw before was taking space inside Lou. It was trying to invade the Ego’s territory. 

‘Is that okay?’ Gi-Gyu wondered, but he assumed it was okay since Lou didn’t say anything. He also saw his other Egos: Some kid, most likely Brunheart, was strutting around, and Bi looked like a wolf. However, no matter how hard Gi-Gyu looked, he couldn’t find El. 

‘I’m disappointed.’ Gi-Gyu suspected it was because their connection was severed. Next, he was drawn to another space. There, he saw several formless blobs. They had to be Hermes, Oberon, and the other pseudo-Egos. Although they didn’t have a recognizable shape yet, Gi-Gyu could tell they all held incredible power. Thankfully, they all belonged to him. 

It was an amazing sight to behold. 

‘Where is Old Man Hwang?’ 

If all his Egos were here, the blacksmith should be somewhere around here too. Gi-Gyu looked around, and suddenly, he heard it.

Clang!

There actually wasn’t any sound: He just felt it. Gi-Gyu turned toward the feeling’s direction, and there he saw a very clear form of Old Man Hwang. Of all his Egos, the elderly blacksmith looked the most lucid. 

Old Man Hwang was hammering something. 

‘Is this what Old Man Hwang is actually doing right now?’

From the image, he could tell the blacksmith was working on something, studying something, and talking with someone simultaneously. Amazed, Gi-Gyu tried to touch him. 

-Don’t!

Lou abruptly warned. Gi-Gyu turned to find Lou’s oxblood form glaring at him. 

-That’s your physical connection to him. There is no way of knowing what might happen if you touch it. Are you sure you want to do this?  

Gi-Gyu shook his head, realizing what he was about to do carried great risks. Unwilling to take unnecessary risks, he took Lou’s advice and stepped back. He then zoomed out. The area that held his Egos became as big as a dust particle. And now, Gi-Gyu could see things more clearly. 

The Egos moved by expansion, but they all belonged to a designated space. 

‘This is the shell everyone has been telling me about.’

Gi-Gyu finally saw what Lou, El, Baal, and Lucifer mentioned to him before. There were spaces even within the Egos’ movements. And when Gi-Gyu looked a little closer, Lou’s skill, Death, was invading the other Egos’ spaces, expanding its territory.  

‘Then was the blankness I saw before not my shell?’ 

The blankness was definitely inside the shell, but perhaps it was something entirely different. He was confused, but he became happy when he realized all that space could harbor more Egos. Now, he didn’t have to ask others if he could hold more Egos: He could literally see his potential to carry more Egos. 

‘Definitely satisfied with what I learned so far.’ 

If the ultimate goal of this meditation wasn’t to resurrect El, Gi-Gyu could’ve been even happier. But he was far from being done. He had to continue down this path until he found what he was looking for.

El had given her Root to save him. Therefore, he had to find her life force. He continued to search the area; he finally saw something glowing before long. It was the triangular area where Death and the other Egos were located.