It was a scorching afternoon in late summer, the blazing sun beating down as if melting the asphalt.
Bang-!!!
In a rural village on the outskirts of Gyeonggi Province, where time seemed frozen, a deafening blast like battlefield artillery erupted. Amid the cicadas’ cries, acrid smoke billowed up. Soon after came the wailing of an old man.
“Aigh! My cylinder! The gasket’s blown! The gasket!!!”
Doyeong, who had been lying on the porch briefly cooling off with a fan, snapped his eyes open. That was less an explosion and more like a machine’s scream of agony. Dragging his mismatched slippers, he hurried outside. He was left speechless at the disaster before him.
The pillar of the house: a 20-year-old tractor.
The giant rear tire of the tractor had exploded, unable to withstand the scorching sun. The shredded rubber was ripped beyond recognition, and the old axle, unable to bear the tremendous impact, bent like a soft noodle and plunged into the ground.
Through the gap of the tilted frame, what looked like a burst radiator spewed cloudy steam that blurred vision, and the air filled with the acrid smell of burning rubber, covering the yard.
It was literally a noble death for that machine.
First, the people.
“Grandpa, are you hurt anywhere?”
Doyeong rushed anxiously, but the old man paid no mind to his own safety. With oil-stained gloves on, he was stirring around the smoking engine compartment, wailing.
“That damn piston finally broke through! Didn’t I say since last week the exhaust note was off beat? Didn’t I say it? I kept telling you the pressure was leaking in cylinder number 3!”
“…Huh? Cyli… what?”
“You’d hear it immediately if you listened! It wasn’t a rattling, it was ‘tick-tocking,’ wasn’t it? The injector timing’s off!”
Doyeong stared blankly at the burst tractor. To him, the tractor was just a clunker: fill it with fuel and it runs, turn the key and it stops. If he could tell whether the sound was rattling or ticking, or if it was a machine’s scream or a tune, he might have shed his reputation as a mechanical idiot long ago.
“Grandpa, calm down. I’ll call a repair guy first.”
“Repair? Hey, you fool, with the crankshaft bent like this, what kind of repair is there? We’ll have to pull the engine out whole!”
Grandpa, the best mechanic in town, diagnosed with more accuracy than an MRI.
Still, a repair guy had to be called. Doyeong hurriedly called the only mechanic in the village.
Thirty minutes later, the repair guy arrived, opened the hood, and clicked his tongue.
“What your grandfather said is right. The engine block’s cracked. Even if you get a rebuilt engine, including labor, you’re looking at at least 5 million won.”
“Five million…?”
The color drained from Doyeong’s face.
Five million won.
There was no need to check his bank balance. Last winter’s greenhouse heating expenses bomb, the spring’s plastic cover costs, plus the automatic watering system Grandpa insisted was “cutting-edge technology” had left him with only 320,000 won in total—the entirety of his savings.
The mechanic handed him a quote and cruelly confirmed it.
“To be honest, given the age, it’s a loss to fix. New models are coming out these days. You should just get a new one. About 40 million won.”
“…I’ll think about it.”
After sending the mechanic away, Doyeong collapsed onto the wooden floor. Grandpa squatted beside the tractor, gently caressing the cold engine as if it were a dead ox.
“If we can’t fix this, the entire autumn harvest is ruined… Maybe I should dismantle it and try to weld it myself.”
“Grandpa, stay still. You’ll flare up your nerve pain.”
Doyeong wiped his face with his palm.
Sweat from the heat made his black hair tremble thinly and stick to his forehead. Even with dust settling faintly on his skin, his complexion was good and his features well-defined.
He was just frowning from the heat, but even that look seemed like a scene from a noir film full of deep stories. His half-closed eyes looked strangely languid, and the jawline damp with sweat was strikingly sharp. It was no wonder the local beauty salon owner clicked her tongue whenever she saw Doyeong.
“Doyeong, why don’t you go to Seoul to learn something? What a waste of your face working the dirt here.”
The village grandmothers misinterpreted him as the “tragic protagonist who came back down here after being heartbroken in Seoul.” His look really carried a tired but tragic charm. When his well-toned muscles, forged by seven years of farm work, peeked out beneath loose T-shirts, the village girls’ gazes grew strangely sticky.
But what truly ruled this handsome man’s mind wasn’t tragic love of any sort.
“Engine cost 5 million, plastic cover 800,000, greenhouse vinyl replacement 2 million…”
He was just a seventh-year new farmer with a bank balance of 320,000 won, his mind going white in panic over the tractor engine cost.
Doyeong exhaled deeply and pulled out his phone from his pants pocket.
Its screen protector had long been cracked, looking like a thick spiderweb. Changing it was inconvenient, and hunting for a suitable one for his phone was bothersome, so he just kept using it. Every time he touched the screen, tiny glass particles seemed to stick to his fingertips—it was unpleasant, but better than unnecessary spending.
Staring down at the cracked screen, Doyeong muttered words like ‘quick cash,’ ‘loan,’ and ‘same-day part-time job.’
As he tapped to type a search, the screen dropped out sporadically. Annoyed, he kept tapping when a notification popped up from his secondhand sales app—a platform he normally used for direct selling peppers or potatoes.
He unintentionally clicked on it, and familiar words appeared at the top of the screen:
[Trending Now: Chronicle Ancient Pumpkin Seed]
“…Why is this popping up here?”
Doyeong furrowed his brows.
‘Ancient Pumpkin Seed.’
It was an item in Chronicle, the game he burned his life for seven years ago.
Just looking at the name gave him hives, but it was money. Almost hypnotized, Doyeong clicked the post.
[Buying] Ancient Pumpkin Seed 10,000 won each / Unlimited Quantity
– Due to hybrid breeding update, ingredient prices have skyrocketed.
– Buying all available. Whisper me.
Doyeong held his breath for a moment.
Ten thousand won per seed? Just a worthless item?
Suddenly, a warehouse he’d buried deep in memory sprung to mind.
Back then, Doyeong was obsessed with every part of that game: PVP, story, raids, crafting—everything.
In the final stretch, he went nuts for farming. He’d tried everything possible and had the luxury only a veteran could afford. But that was all long ago. Now, hearing the game’s name gave him headaches.
He had spent nights tilling fields trying to grow the legendary Rainbow Pumpkin, but quit before the update. Still, he hadn’t thrown away the leftover seeds. Instead, he’d hoarded every last one in his inventory. Farming instincts refused to let him discard seeds.
“…I think there were five thousand.”
A crude calculator clicked in his mind.
5,000 times 10,000 won.
Fifty million won.
Enough for the tractor. Not just a repair, he could pay for a brand-new one outright.
“I have to sell.”
Doyeong jumped up. Trauma or not, 50 million won was flashing before his eyes. Heart pounding, he grabbed the laptop lying around in the storage room.
When he pressed the power button, it sounded like a plane taking off. It took five minutes just for the Windows logo to appear.
“Please… please let this install…”
He finally got online and headed to the game site. But the moment he clicked [Install], the screen flashed, and a pop-up appeared.
[SYSTEM ERROR: Graphics card driver version incompatible.]
[DirectX 12 or higher required.]
“…What’s DirectX?”
Doyeong pounded the screen in despair. Yes, he pressed every confirm and agree button he could find, but the laptop whined, got hot, and finally died a noble death by showing a blue screen.
“Ah, seriously… what am I supposed to do!”
Just then, Grandpa, who was still tinkering with the tractor out in the yard, opened the door and peeked in.
“Grandpa, why’s this screen suddenly blue?”
“Are you messing with the wrong machine again? I told you that laptop only has 4GB RAM, it barely runs Excel!”
“Is it broken?”
“Ugh! Force shut it down and turn it back on! How can you, a young man, know less about machines than I do?”
Grandpa clicked his tongue and left. Doyeong pouted. A farmer just needed to be good at cutting crops; what did RAM or lamps have to do with it?
But there was no choice. The internet cafe downtown was too far, and he was going crazy wanting to check right now.
At that moment, a memory flickered in his mind.
Seven years ago. The desktop sealed away deep in the storage as he quit the game.
His friend had assembled it, boasting, “This is a top-of-the-line high-end rig. It even has NASA parts,” and charged him three million won for it.
Doyeong stood up quickly.
“Right. Since it was expensive, it should work.”
In the corner of the storage, he pulled off the dust-covered plastic to reveal the huge tower.
First to appear was the heavy case with flashing LEDs embedded.
Doyeong carefully lifted the tower.
Heave.
His well-trained muscles bulged as he easily carried the case, likely weighing as much as a sack of rice, back to his room. He placed the tower on his desk and fished out the monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
But the problem started here.
Behind the desk, a tangle of wires awaited him.
