Trait Hoarder – Chapter 2

Becoming Warrior Kim — Part 1

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SCREEECH!

The sound of metal scraping on asphalt.

FLASH!

Blinding lights growing larger by the second.

And then… impact.

An enormous force crashed into me, swallowing my entire body.

The pain of my body being torn apart made me scream.

“Arghhh!”

I shot upright, gasping for breath. Across from me, a middle-aged man sitting on the opposite bed stared at me blankly.

“What the… Did you have a nightmare or something?”

“Uh… Where am I?”

“Where do you think? You’re in a hospital.”

A hospital?

What the hell is he talking about?

I looked around and realized I was in a hospital room, one like I’d only seen on TV.

White walls, white ceiling, generic storage cabinets.

And rows of patient beds neatly arranged.

“Huh?”

I was lying in one of the patient beds, my body wrapped in bandages.

Confused, I tried to lift my arm but groaned as soon as I moved.

A sharp pain shot through my body.

“Why am I here?”

I asked the man across from me. He clicked his tongue as if annoyed.

“Don’t you remember? You were in a car accident.”

“A car accident?”

“I don’t know all the details. I just overheard the doctors during their rounds. Want me to call a nurse?”

“Yes, please.”

“Hey! Nurse! The warrior guy’s awake!”

A young nurse entered, smiling brightly.

“Warrior Kim! You’re finally awake!”

“Uh… Are you talking to me?”

“Yes! Just a moment, I’ll go get your doctor.”

Weird.

Why are they calling me “Warrior Kim”?

I glanced around, confused, and my eyes caught something behind my bed.

A nameplate for patients.

[M/22]

[Warrior Kim]

[Concussion; Contusion of anterior chest wall]

Warrior Kim?

What kind of name is that?

That’s not my name.

Before I could dwell on it, the doctor entered, shining a penlight into my eyes.

“Pupils are responding well… Can you tell me your name?”

“My name? It’s Kim Junsu.”

“Did you change your name recently? According to our records, your name is Warrior Kim.”

“Yes, that’s right. The police confirmed it too.”

What the hell are they talking about?

As I tried to wrap my head around what was happening, the nurse pointed to the mini storage cabinet next to the bed.

Inside was an old wallet.

I opened it, finding a few banknotes, a credit card, and an ID card.

When I looked at the ID card, my head spun.

[Warrior Kim]

Those three words were clearly printed on the ID.

And…

The face on the ID was disturbingly familiar.

It was the exact face of Warrior Kim, the character I’d seen so often on my smartphone screen. The same Warrior Kim I had played as in Arcane Seoul.

The scar on the left cheek was gone, and he looked a bit younger, but it was unmistakably him.

The doctor nodded.

“Yes, you are Warrior Kim. Do you know what today’s date is?”

“Uh… May 1st?”

“Ah, I see.”

The doctor turned his eyes awkwardly toward the wall.

There, an electronic calendar displayed the date.

It was May 30th.

“Do you know where you are?”

“In a hospital.”

“And who is the president of the country?”

What kind of weird questions were these? Even though I found it strange, I answered obediently.

“Yoon Jooyul.”

“Hmm… I’ve never heard that name before.”

The doctor asked a few more odd questions, then shook his head.

“It seems you have short-term memory loss. You were hit head-on by a dump truck, so you’re lucky to be in this good of a condition. No internal bleeding, no broken bones.”

“A dump truck?”

“Yes. Don’t you remember?”

I frowned as a vague image floated into my mind.

The screeching of metal, the approaching lights…

And the impact.

“Ugh!”

I clutched my head, feeling a sudden surge of pain. The doctor sighed.

“You’ll need to stay hospitalized for a while and undergo further tests. We’ll need an MRI, and a magic scan as well.”

“A magic… what?”

“We’ll take care of the formalities first. It says here you don’t have any listed guardians?”

“That’s right. We tried calling the numbers saved on your phone, but all of them refused to take responsibility.”

“Head over to the admin office first.”

The doctor left the room after giving his instructions, as if his job was done. The nurse helped me out of bed.

“Can you stand up?”

“Ugh, yes. I think I can manage.”

“You’re lucky. The accident involved several people, but you were the only survivor.”

“Wait, others died?”

“Yes. It was a massive crash… Warrior Kim, please follow me. There’s a mini admin office at the nurse’s station.”

Every step I took felt like my body was breaking apart.

I forced myself to move, making my way to the nurse’s station just a few meters ahead. Even that short walk had me sweating bullets.

The nurse left me there, and the admin staff gave me a bored look.

“What can I help you with?”

“I was told to check in. I was in a car accident and admitted here.”

“Oh, it looks like you haven’t been registered yet. What’s your name?”

“Kim Jun… Warrior Kim.”

“Can I see your ID?”

Luckily, the nurse had slipped my wallet into the hospital gown earlier.

I handed over the ID, and the admin staff started typing away.

“You were admitted three days ago. Let’s see… emergency room fees, admission fees, CT scans, X-rays, medications, and meals… Your total comes to 22,370,569 won.” (TL Note: About 17k US Dollars)

“Wait, what?”

Did I hear that right?

Twenty-two million won?

Is this some kind of joke?

I was in the hospital for three days and the bill’s over twenty-two million?

This isn’t America! (TL Note: Funny enough, 17k for 3 days in a hospital for a Car Crash incident with head trauma and intensive care would be extremely cheap in the US. Trauma Response alone runs around 18k. I saw a picture of a 3 day stay that ran over 60k.)

“Isn’t that a bit steep for three days?”

“You don’t have insurance listed. Without insurance, it’s all out of pocket.”

“What do you mean I don’t have insurance?”

“It’s not showing up in our system.”

“What about national health insurance?”

“National health insurance? What’s that?”

Suddenly, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

Even the nurses nearby were looking at me like I was some kind of lunatic.

The admin staff flicked her fingers, beckoning me.

“Do you have any other insurance? Maybe from the Legion, the Mage Tower, or a religious order? Or even Shinwha Life or Geumo Life?”

“I… no, I don’t.”

Not only didn’t I have it—I hadn’t even heard of it.

The Legion? Mage Tower? Religious order?

What the hell are those?

‘Oh, no…’

Suddenly, it hit me.

In the Arcane Seoul lore, there was a whole section about this.

The four factions that ruled Seoul and South Korea.

The Legion, the conglomerates, the Mage Tower, and the religious orders.

And the insurance names the admin staff mentioned just matched them perfectly.

Shinwha and Geumo were part of the five major conglomerates in the game.

The admin staff eyed me for a moment before speaking.

“Since you don’t have insurance, how would you like to pay?”

“…Can I use a credit card?”

“Of course. How many installments would you like?”

“How long can I stretch out interest-free?”

“Interest-free? Where do you think you are? There’s no such thing as interest-free payments.”

I was stunned.

No interest-free installments?

A chill ran down my spine as a terrible realization began creeping up on me.

Trying to suppress my panic, I handed over my credit card.

“Let’s do 12 months.”

“With 12 months, a 49% interest rate applies, so your total will be 33,332,147 won, with monthly payments of 2,777,678 won.”

“Isn’t that an insanely high interest rate?”

“49%? That’s nothing. Since we’re a hospital, we’re being generous. If you were buying a TV or fridge from a corporation, they’d charge 70%.”

What about legal limits on interest rates?

The world felt like it was spinning.

The world I knew seemed to be slipping further and further away.

After completing the transaction, the admin staff waved my card in the air.

“We’ve added orders for further hospitalization and tests. If you want to stay, you’ll need to pay upfront.”

“H-how much?”

“With the MRI, psychiatric evaluation, and magic scan, the tests alone come to over 30 million won. If you stay for another month, it’ll be around 170 million won. But I can give you a 10% discount, bringing it down to 160 million.”

One month of hospitalization for 160 million. (TL Note: About 120k US Dollars)

This is insane.

“No, thank you…”

“Then you’ll be discharged.”

“Discharged? Right now?”

“Unless you want to stay another day? The daily fee is—”

“No, I’ll leave! I’ll leave right now!”

My whole body hurt, and I couldn’t make sense of anything.

But there was one thing I needed to confirm.

“Since I was the victim of a car accident, shouldn’t there be compensation from the other party?”

“They died.”

“What?”

“And it turns out they were uninsured. So there’s no compensation, and their family has renounced all inheritance rights. You’re out of options.”

“Isn’t there anything from the government?”

“Nope.”

One curt reply.

Everything I thought I knew about how things worked was crumbling in real-time.

No national health insurance, no coverage for an uninsured truck driver, and no government support for hospital bills?

I had nothing left to say.

I gathered my things and left the hospital.

At least I had somewhere to go.

The address on my ID, a tiny boarding house in Sillim-dong.

Squeeeak!

The door to the boarding house creaked as I opened it.

It was even more rundown and depressing than the ones in the real world.

The communal kitchen was cramped, and a foul stench hung in the air.

But at least it was a place to stay. As soon as I stepped into my one-pyeong (roughly 3.3 square meters) room, I felt a wave of resignation wash over me.

“So small.”

The boarding house I lived in back home was two pyeong.

Two pyeong to one pyeong.

That small difference made the room feel even more suffocating.

The mold growing on the walls, the rotting mini desk—everything about this place was awful.

Even for a cheap boarding house, this was too much.

At the very least, they could’ve done some wallpapering or replaced the furniture!

BANG BANG BANG!

Just as I was about to file a complaint, someone banged on the door.

“Hey! Warrior Kim! You in there?”

“Y-yes, I’m here. Just a moment.”

As soon as I opened the door, a bulldog-faced landlady shoved her head in.

“Hey, when are you going to pay this month’s rent? You’re already two months behind! You know what happens if you miss three months, right? Forced eviction!”

“Uh… don’t I have any deposit left?”

“You used that up ages ago! So when are you going to pay? Are you working? And what’s with your clothes? Why do you have bandages all over your face?”

“I got into a car accident.”

“Car accident?”

Her aggressive demeanor softened for a moment, and she looked surprised.

“Was it bad?”

“Yes. People died.”

“Jeez… so are you getting compensation?”

“No, the other driver didn’t have insurance.”

“That’s rough. So you’ve been in the hospital all this time?”

“Yeah. Fortunately, the injuries aren’t too severe.”

“Well, at least you’re okay.”

Maybe because she heard about the accident, the landlady’s tone became noticeably softer.

“Are you sure you’re not hurt anywhere? You’re healthy?”

“Yeah, luckily.”

“Good, good. Your body’s your asset when you’re young. You can’t afford to be sick. I bet the hospital bill was sky-high though. Do you even have insurance? Without insurance, those bills can bury you.”

Maybe she wasn’t as bad as I thought. She seemed a little more empathetic than her appearance suggested.

“Insurance? Me? No way. I was supposed to stay for another month, but I left early.”

“What? You just left? If the doctor says you need to stay, you should’ve stayed! You can’t just leave because you don’t have money!”

“What else could I do? I had no way to pay.”

“I see…”

The landlady’s eyes darted around as if she was deep in thought.

“How about I introduce you to a hospital I know?”

“Introduce me?”

“Yeah! It’s not run by a licensed doctor, but he’s damn good at what he does. All of us old-timers in Sillim-dong go to him. Remember Mister Lee in Room 207 with liver disease? I sent him to that doctor and he got cured!”

“And the treatment fee?”

“Of course, you still have to pay. But it’s way cheaper than a regular hospital! Maybe a third of the cost?”

Even at a third of the cost, that’s still a lot. I just paid 33 million, so a third would be over 10 million won.

The landlady smacked her lips like a snake.

“You know what’s the best part?”

“What?”

“He doesn’t just take money for payment.”

“Then what does he take?”

“Hah, think about it. There are all sorts of things he’ll accept, but the best one is… well, body parts.”

“Body parts?”

Parts?

What could I possibly have to offer?

I haven’t checked my bank balance, but I’m sure it’s empty.

The landlady, growing frustrated with my cluelessness, slapped her chest.

“Are you really this dense? Or are you just pretending? I’m talking about human organs. Human organs!”

“W-what? You’re kidding, right?”

“What else do you have to offer besides that young, healthy body of yours? You’re already behind on rent, and you’ve got a massive hospital debt hanging over your head. Do you want to live like this forever? One way or another, you’re going to end up dead! You’d be better off selling a kidney or an eye, paying off your debts, and living without worries! You know how good artificial eyes are these days, right? Even if they’re not magical, optical prosthetics work perfectly fine! Some people even voluntarily replace their own eyes with prosthetics!”

“Jesus Christ.”

My jaw dropped.

This was unbelievable.

She’s really suggesting I sell my body parts for money?

Who the hell is this shady doctor she’s talking about?

I could feel goosebumps rising all over my skin.

“Get out!”

“Hey! Don’t touch me!”

“I’ll pay the rent next month. Just leave!”

“Are you sure? I’m recording you. You said you’ll pay!”

“Yes, yes! Just go!”

“If you don’t pay, I’m evicting you for real. And you know how harsh the court bailiffs can be, right? If you don’t want to get dragged into forced labor, you’d better sell something. If not an eye, then maybe a kidney!”

“Just get out!”

SLAM!

I finally managed to shut the door.

Outside, I could still hear her cursing.

She was shouting about how kids these days have no manners and how I ignored her great advice.

Eventually, the pounding on the door faded, and I slumped down against the wall, exhausted.

“Shit.”

This was seriously fucked up.

The world of Arcane Seoul, the one I knew only from its settings and graphics, was far more messed up than I could’ve ever imagined.

“God is dead.”

“Nothing has changed.”

“Humanity worships gold and follows the religion of magical science, enslaving themselves.”

Those were the opening lines from the Arcane Seoul intro, the ones I always skipped through without paying attention.

Now I was experiencing them firsthand.

An artificial body? If it’s so great, why don’t you do it yourself?

I let out a long sigh.

It was time to accept reality.

This dingy room didn’t even have a mirror.

I switched my phone’s camera to the front-facing mode.

I propped it up against the mini desk, using it as a makeshift mirror.

A face, wrapped in bandages, stared back at me—only the eyes, nose, and mouth visible.

“Haaah.”

I started unwrapping the bandages.

Once, twice, three times…

Layer after layer of the bandages fell away, revealing a pale face underneath.

It was an ordinary face.

Except for one glaring feature.

A scar on the left cheek.

A deep, fresh wound that hadn’t fully healed yet, the scab still forming.

I knew this face all too well.

Though it looked a bit younger, it was the same face I’d seen every day on my smartphone.

Warrior Kim.

The basic, starter character from Arcane Seoul—the one who accompanies the player from the tutorial onward.

“Hahaha… hahahahaha.”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

Reality felt like a knife stabbing me in the heart.

Who could’ve predicted this?

I’d gone to bed feeling triumphant after pulling the Heavenly Demon, only to wake up as the tutorial character in the game.

“Goddamn it.”

Once I accepted this reality, a fierce sense of urgency kicked in.

The world of Arcane Seoul was already a messed-up place.

But if it was anything like what I knew from the game, things would only get worse soon.

Ancient gods would awaken, nuclear wars would break out, and dimensional rifts would tear the world apart.

If I just sat here doing nothing, I’d die.

You die if you’re poor, you die if you’re weak, you die if you’re unlucky.

I didn’t know exactly how this all happened, but one thing was for sure: I wasn’t going to just roll over and die.

Even a worm will squirm if it’s stepped on.

I glared at the reflection of my face on the smartphone screen.

“Warrior Kim.”

And the 10,000 hours I had sunk into Arcane Seoul.

That’s the only thing I can rely on now.

–TL Notes–
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