He looked around.
The white lighting still hadn't adjusted properly. His vision trembled with every blink—too sharp, too much detail, like someone turned the contrast up on the world.
It wasn't just him. There were other people here. About thirty-five, maybe more. They were seated in orderly rows, dressed in stiff-looking suits, some still wrinkled from being hastily yanked out of plastic wrap. He caught the subtle bend of a hanger-crease across someone's shoulder. Another guy had his collar on backwards. One girl's tag was upside down.
There was no way all of them came here prepared.
Jin's eyes fell to his own chest. A faded brown suit. Ill-fitting, a little dusty in the sleeves. There was a paper tag pinned over his lapel:
35.
Great. So he was the last?
His mind tried to give meaning to that number, tried to twist it into some narrative thread he could follow, but there wasn't one. Not really. He didn't understand the symbolism of the number. He didn't even know if it had symbolism. Maybe it just meant he was late. Or the final joke in whatever cosmic script this was.
The old man who'd spoken to him earlier had already disappeared, retreating into one of the chairs with a soft sigh like nothing had happened. Jin was alone again.
His thoughts spiraled. Inhuman… MCO… this has to be— no, it couldn't be. But what else made sense?
He knew this. He knew this world.
It came out last year. December 2. A slow-launch with a couple thousand players at first. Then the beta footage leaked—someone fell through a ceiling into a reverse domain and lived to post the footage—and suddenly it was everywhere. One of those rare titles that struck gold out of nowhere. INHUMAN.
Within six months, the player count hit ten million. An anime was already greenlit. The novels were climbing every bestseller chart across seven countries. Streamers built entire brands off it. Theorycrafters flooded forums. The community practically baptized itself into madness.
There was no main character in Inhuman. No heroes. No plotline to follow. The game revolved around the Monster Containment Org—MCO for short. A sprawling company set in a fractured post-order world where monster domains sprouted like cancer, devouring space and sense and time.
Players didn't play as chosen ones. They were hired mercenaries. Freelancers. Scavengers.
The actual employees of MCO were the Inhumans—awakened individuals who had traits similar to monsters, anomalies in their own right. They could use "magic," though the game never called it that outright. Instead, it let you feel the difference. Monsters didn't operate on power. They operated on rules.
And Inhumans? They were the only ones capable of surviving those rules without going mad.
Lorewise, Inhumans just happened. No known method. No universal trigger. Some players unlocked Inhuman status after completing long, obscure questlines—but doing so tied your account permanently to the MCO faction, cutting off access to certain cults and rogue groups.
Most players skipped that path. Too restrictive. Too obvious. Too much responsibility.
Jin had read about all of it. He'd watched theory deep-dives, lore breakdowns, podcast interviews with the devs. Never touched the game himself, but he could have written a dissertation on it.
And now he was in it.
Monster domains were basically zones—spaces twisted by the monsters that created them. A living, breathing, rule-bound reflection of whatever nightmare crawled into being. The domain was the monster, and the monster was the domain.
There were three types.
Mystery-type Domains. These were Puzzle-y. Disturbing but manageable. More reward-focused.
Pros outweigh the Cons Domains. Heavier balance. Not as forgiving. Choices mattered. Mistakes could get you killed, but the loot was worth it.
And the last one.
No Escape. Self-explanatory. Death wasn't just likely—it was a given. Most players didn't talk about those. Even devs treated them like optional flavor content.
Each monster and domain was ranked from F—barely a threat—to SSS, which was a polite way of saying the game didn't have the tech to simulate that shit properly. But even that system wasn't perfect. Plenty of Domains didn't fall neatly into those categories. Some were unrecorded. Some broke the rules. Some didn't get visited at all.
For someone like Jin—someone terrified of horror, someone who flinched at jumpscares and couldn't even look at high-contrast thumbnails—this was a personal hell. Worse than hell.
He died.
And now he was in this.
He wasn't an idiot. He knew isekai when he saw it. And he knew how the logic of it worked. Tragic backstory. Lonely protagonist. Clicked the wrong thing. Fell asleep at the wrong time. Woke up somewhere else.
'At least I wasn't hit by a truck?'
His hand slid up to his scalp and yanked. The sudden jerk made his breath stutter. "Agh—"
Too loud. People turned.
His gaze darted around the hall as eyes landed on him. Silent judgment dripped from their stares. His back straightened awkwardly, lips twitching into a wide, uneven grin like a mascot someone left too close to a bonfire.
"Sorry," he mumbled.
Someone coughed.
Another voice whispered, "weirdo."
People turned away. As if he hadn't just made a sound at all.
Jin exhaled sharply through his nose and leaned back, trying to gather the remaining pieces of his ego off the floor.
Okay. Okay. So this is real. You died. You died and woke up in the actual world of Inhuman. Congrats. Great job, buddy. You got the one isekai no one ever asks for.
His knee ached. His fingers twitched. He tried to count the exits. One at the far end. Two security drones at the ceiling corners. One guard—maybe guard, maybe NPC—standing still by a steel door.
This was an interview hall. That much was clear. Which meant this was the starting route for a new player—or a new character—trying to enter the MCO.
He didn't want this.
He didn't want to be here.
Not with monsters. Not with spider-headed corpses that mimicked your friends. Not with reverse domains and mucus walls and the kind of things that showed up in his nightmares back in reality.
But what were his options?
He didn't know the name of the body he was in. He didn't know his address. He didn't have currency. He didn't have friends. Stepping out into the world might mean getting snatched up by the first wandering Monster Domain that decided to use its lungs as furniture.
The company was dangerous. But the outside was worse.
Maybe he could get a desk job.
Maybe this was an internal position. Research. Admin. Everyone here looked human enough—no claws, no horns, no black-ringed eyes that pulsed under fluorescent lighting.
He'd seen footage of Inhumans. They always had something off. White pupils. Elongated shadows. Something.
So if these people were like him, maybe this was a safe zone. Maybe this was one of the non-combat departments. God willing.
He leaned forward and wiped the sweat off his upper lip with two fingers.
Free housing. Meals. Security. All you gotta do is make it through this interview and stay off the radar. Maybe Mom's finally proud of you now.
The lights dimmed.
He looked up as two figures stepped onto the stage.
A man and a woman, dressed in pressed black suits that looked expensive without trying. The woman wore cropped glasses and stood slightly behind, silent and alert like a guard dog with a clipboard. The man approached the mic, cleared his throat, and said—
"Welcome, Aspirants. It is with great honor I greet you."
The man in the suit smiled too widely.
"Ah… let me first say, welcome—" he opened his arms as if he were greeting old friends at a barbecue, "—to the interview session for the newest intake of the Monster Containment Org."
There was no applause. Just awkward shifting.
A few of the other applicants gave nervous smiles.
The woman beside him remained silent. Her clipboard was now tucked under one arm like a sword sheath.
"We are very pleased to see all of you here. Truly." His tone was warm. Practiced. A little too smooth to be natural. "As you may already know, the MCO began as a humble engineering and software development company. Back then we built machines for irrigation. Agricultural sensors. Even helped digitize the power grid in rural Haskovia."
He chuckled to himself, like the memory of fixing water pumps in farm towns was endearing to him.
"Of course… things have changed. Rapidly. Dangerously."
Jin's eyes narrowed.
Cue the pivot.
"And now, with our patented approach to bio-digital containment, Inhuman recruitment, and post-reality dimensional infrastructure—" He paused to beam proudly at the audience like any of them knew what the hell that meant, "—we're able to protect humanity and usher in a new golden age of survival and self-sufficiency."
Right.
Because nothing screams 'altruism' like privatizing the ability to not die screaming inside a mucus cave.
The man carried on.
"You see, here at MCO, we don't just capture and contain monsters. No, no—we study. We develop. We refine. The energy potential of these anomalies is boundless. Their organs? Their domain cores? Their internal structures? Tools! Tools to create a better world. A safer one."
Jin glanced sideways at the girl sitting beside him. She looked like she was trying to blink through a nightmare.
The guy two rows ahead had a twitch in his neck.
He could already hear the marketing reel. "Harvesting horror for a brighter tomorrow." God. Did they give this speech to everyone? Was there a handbook?
"And I know what you're thinking," the speaker said, shifting tone like an uncle about to bring out the drinks. "You're wondering how you fit into all of this."
No, actually, Jin thought, I'm wondering if my heart is gonna give out again before this guy finishes his TED Talk.
"Let me assure you," the man continued, "you've all been selected with the utmost care and consideration. Some of you applied for research roles. Others for field operation, logistics, dispatch, digital mapping, clerical, custodial, internal communications—"
He waved a hand through the air as if pushing away a catalog.
"Unfortunately, your preferences will not apply to the entry-level process. At MCO, we believe in shared experience. And so, your interview will be the same. For all of you."
Jin's heart skipped.
Then stuttered.
Then tried to restart like a jammed web browser.
The man adjusted his tie slightly and said, still smiling—
"Don't worry. In the unfortunate event of death, your family will be very well compensated."
Jin blinked.
…what.
What did he just say?
He looked around.
Nobody was laughing. No hidden cameras. No show host leaping out to yell "Gotcha!"
Just quiet confusion, a few furrowed brows, and that growing sense of oh no prickling the air.
He barely had time to register it. No one raised their hand. No one got a chance to ask anything. Not even a single goddamn follow-up.
Because—
The lights cut.
A sharp blackout. Like someone blinked reality off.
Jin's breath caught in his throat. He felt his body jerk slightly, arms clutching the armrest, but he wasn't even sure if the seat was still beneath him.
A beat.
Then—
Brightness.
A deep, golden, rich brightness. Not white. Not sterile.
Warm.
But wrong.
His eyes adjusted just enough to realize he was no longer in that interview hall.
He was in—
A beauty store?
No—no, not exactly.
It looked like a store. But also not. The lighting had a red sheen, rich and bloody like dusk inside a velvet box. There were gleaming wall panels, mirrors that didn't reflect anything, and perfume shelves stacked with bottles shaped like small heads.
The air smelled like sugar and funeral roses.
Dozens—maybe hundreds—of mannequins lined the sides. Posed like dancers, lovers, beggars, fighters. All of them beautiful. Too beautiful. Their faces were porcelain. Their eyes were shut. Their mouths open just slightly, like they were mid-moan or about to whisper something.
Some were dressed in silk. Others had no clothes at all. Jin's throat tightened.
This…His legs took one step back. Instinctively.
This scenery—
His lips were dry. He could barely swallow. He knew this room.
He knew it.