"Lenok, get up!"
Even with the harsh shout rattling his eardrums, he rubbed his reluctant eyes and turned over.
It was an unconscious action, but the voice didn't repeat itself.
*Slap!*
With a fierce impact that felt like his jaw might fall off, he tumbled off the bed and snapped his eyes open.
A burly, hairy giant with a face brimming with murderous intent glared down at him, eyes bloodshot.
The giant stomped on his face with a booted foot, growling low.
"It's work time. Get to the parts room now. Got it?"
"…Understood."
His own voice, shockingly hoarse, surprised even himself.
The giant, hearing his response, strode out of the room without another word.
Only then could he clutch his stinging cheek and take a moment to look around.
A cramped room filled with simple beds covered in grimy sheets. About ten or so people stared at him with pitying eyes.
"Stupid bastard. Sleeping like that without even noticing the overseer…"
"Let him be. He doesn't have much time left anyway. The overseer knows it too—that's why he just slapped him once and moved on."
"True, if they beat him too much, he might actually die."
Muttering among themselves, they stood up abruptly and left him behind, disappearing somewhere.
Still dazed, listening to their words, he finally raised his hands and felt his own body.
A gaunt frame with ribs protruding sharply. Thin arms like twigs and calves so pale the veins showed through.
This body—nothing like the one he'd known his whole life—was that of a sickly invalid, one that wouldn't be surprising if it collapsed at any moment.
"…"
Staggering to his feet, he stood before a small, cracked mirror hanging in the corner of the musty room. Only then did it all sink in.
The young man in the broken mirror, clutching his swollen cheek, bore an uncanny resemblance to the third character he'd created beyond the monitor.
"Lenok… That's right."
A character he'd made with no meaning or value, purely for the sake of enjoying a game.
A pitiful body he hadn't even bothered to name properly—that was now all he had.
And so, Lenok was thrown into this new world without so much as a single complaint.
---
### Awakening
*Boom!*
"Move faster!"
The overseer roared as he paced the vast parts room.
Clumsily assembled metal components rolled along the ceaselessly moving conveyor belt.
"The assembly team will be here to pick up the goods soon—how long are you going to dawdle?!"
When the hairy giant bellowed at the workers with bloodshot eyes, the hands of those standing by the belt sped up slightly.
Unsatisfied, the giant swung a small whip in his hand, lashing two or three nearby workers before turning away, seemingly appeased.
"If you can't keep up with the schedule, you'd better be ready for the consequences! I've got no intention of housing trash that can't meet their quotas!!"
Watching from a distance, Lenok turned his gaze back to the metal scrap in his hand.
It had been three days since he'd awakened in this nameless parts factory, dubbed simply "the factory."
He still knew next to nothing, but Lenok had adapted to the factory's monotonous routine with surprising speed.
Wake before dawn, work until near collapse, and receive a bowl of gruel worse than food scraps before sleep.
All day long, the labor consisted of assembling scattered metal parts and placing them on the conveyor belt.
There was nothing for Lenok to do but accept this simple, grueling routine—no need to understand it.
Even if he tried to ask questions, the workers around him stubbornly refused to engage with him.
It was only a day ago that he'd realized their gazes treated him like a corpse already dead.
"Haa, haa…"
In the poorly ventilated parts room, the sweat and stench of the workers mingled into a haze that lingered near the ceiling.
Just the lack of fresh air was enough to leave Lenok breathless, his body heating up quickly.
Above all else, the stark disconnect between this frail body and his former self tormented him relentlessly.
The hellish, relentless labor—enough to make him feel like he'd stop breathing any second—stretched on for over ten hours without a break.
The one silver lining, if it could be called that, was that no one scolded him when he paused mid-task to catch his breath.
Even the overseer, seeing Lenok's pale face, merely clicked his tongue and moved on, unwilling to waste effort on a body that seemed on the verge of death.
Noticing this, Lenok had started pacing himself, doing just enough to survive until the workday ended.
After what felt like an eternity of labor, Lenok received his ration of dry gruel as scheduled, wolfed it down, and lay on his bed.
Staring at the dark ceiling, he closed his eyes, but his mind remained sharp.
Insomnia.
"Damn it…"
It had been three days since he'd last slept properly.
Lenok had a rough guess about where this relentless insomnia came from.
One of the many penalties he'd slapped onto his character during creation. A full-blown trait-level insomnia was now plaguing him.
The even grimmer reality was that insomnia wasn't the only penalty afflicting this body.
A host of congenital ailments and symptoms, weakening him to the core, were eating away at Lenok.
How long could he hold out?
One thing was certain: he didn't have much time left.
A body this frail wouldn't last long in such harsh working conditions.
He'd mulled it over for three days, but the conclusion had been set from the start.
'I need to escape from here.'
Whether he withered away in the factory or got caught and killed while fleeing, the outcome was the same for Lenok.
He had no intention of letting this stench-filled parts room become his graveyard.
The one fortunate aspect was that not everything was stacked against him.
Perhaps because he was already treated as a dead man walking, the oversight on him was laxer than on the other workers, and they paid little attention to his actions.
If he could exploit this to figure out the factory's layout, plotting an escape route might be feasible.
And most importantly, this frail body wasn't entirely useless.
If this world had burdened Lenok with insomnia and other penalties, then by the same logic, it must have granted him his talents as well.
The magical talent he'd poured into this character, maxing out every limit despite adding countless detrimental traits. That potential slumbered within him.
If he could somehow awaken that talent, escaping this factory might not be an impossible dream.
"…"
Lenok knew it too.
In this situation—pushed to the brink physically and mentally by grueling labor and sleeplessness—the fact that he could calmly assess his circumstances and devise a plan meant he was a different person from who he'd once been.
The self he knew wasn't the type to stay rational in a situation like this.
It was likely the result of the mental talents he'd invested in when creating the character—calmness, focus, boldness.
Back then, he'd only thought of them as stats a mage would need, but now they were the driving force keeping Lenok sane after three sleepless days and nights.
Lenok didn't buy into the romantic notion that mental faculties stemmed from the soul. Rational thought, a cool head, logical reasoning—all were talents of the brain, a physical organ.
The mental fortitude keeping him composed now was, without a doubt, part of the abilities this frail body possessed.
Recognizing that this wasn't the old him who'd pressed the character creation button, but rather Lenok's own talent, was the first step toward overcoming this situation.
Until he escaped this hellish factory, he wouldn't let his guard down for a single moment.
Whipping himself into resolve, Lenok forced his eyes shut.