Chapter 2. Once Again (1)

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"Brother, let's break up."

Ian, who had been standing there in a daze, was startled by the sudden breakup announcement and looked around.

Passersby glanced at him with curious eyes, cafe customers whispered to each other from a distance, and people sneered at the one-sided breakup.

It wasn't a particularly pleasant situation. Normally, he would have been so embarrassed that he would have wanted to hide in a mouse hole.

If only this wasn't the second time he had experienced this.

"Wait, are you listening to me? Are you daydreaming in a situation like this?"

He was alive, moving, and speaking.

Here, the passersby, and there, the chattering cafe customers—this place was full of people and brimming with life.

Realizing this, Ian felt tears welling up in his eyes. It was a familiar scene. He felt a sense of relief at not being alone in the world and gratitude for being alive.

'Is this a dream? No, even if it is, I don't mind. If this is a dream, I wish I could stay in it without realizing it's a dream.'

It couldn't be a dream. As a Lucid Dreamer who had experienced countless dreams, it was impossible for him to confuse reality with a dream.

If it were a dream indistinguishable from reality, it would no longer be a dream but another reality.

"What, what is it? Brother, are you crying...?"

"Ah, you... Kim Mi-yeong?"

Finally, Ian turned his gaze to the woman who had been talking in front of him.

And he remembered. Kim Mi-yeong, his ex-girlfriend from long ago.

She was a year younger and his first girlfriend, a college junior. They dated for a long time, almost the entirety of their college years. After breaking up, he laughed at his immaturity but had even considered marriage for a while.

When his girlfriend broke up with him unilaterally, Ian clung to her desperately.

'Mi-yeong, why are you doing this all of a sudden?'

"It's not sudden. I've been thinking about it for a long time. Honestly, our relationship isn't the same as before, and I'm unsure if we can have a future together."

While she graduated and advanced to a team leader position at a prestigious company, Ian was a perpetual senior, repeatedly taking leaves and returning to school.

From his position of having nothing and an uncertain future, letting her go would have been the right choice, but the young Ian didn't have the luxury to think that far. He clung to her like a child.

Perhaps because of that, what could have been a good breakup turned into a very bad one.

But that was all in the past. For the current Ian, the joy of meeting an old friend after a long time outweighed the past pain.

How hungry must he have been for human connection to find even an ex-girlfriend he had broken up with unpleasantly so welcome.

"Mi-yeong! It's really been a long time."

"...Are you crazy? Didn't you hear what I just said? Let go of me, people are staring..."

To her, Ian's current state was very strange.

He had been standing there in a daze, ignored her when she said they should break up, and his expression kept changing as he looked around.

Then, just when she thought he was about to cry, he suddenly hugged her with joy.

'Maybe the news of our breakup was that shocking to him? Brother, you really... '

Mi-yeong fell into her own delusion. It wasn't entirely unreasonable.

The original Ian had clung to her and begged, and Mi-yeong, though her heart was already gone, had taken an ambiguous stance, making it even harder for him.

Of course, for the Ian with future memories, there was no desire to repeat the same past. He had no lingering feelings.

'She was pretty, but seeing her again, she's not as good as I remembered. Nostalgia can be scary.'

As a Lucid Dreamer, a profession considered the hottest in the future, Ian, despite being a third-rate one, had naturally become more discerning after being approached by many women.

"Sorry, I surprised you by hugging you suddenly. I'm sorry for saying strange things."

"Um, I was just a bit taken aback."

Mi-yeong answered with a slightly flustered face.

To think she was feeling nervous again after proposing a breakup. It was strange, but the current Ian felt different from usual.

It was as if he had changed. She had thought of him as a clingy man just a moment ago.

Especially, he wasn't the type to suddenly hug her in front of people. Ian would have been flustered even by the slightest hint of a breakup.

Then, Mi-yeong noticed a tattoo on Ian's hand that she had never seen before.

"Hey, Brother, you got a tattoo?"

"Tattoo?"

All Lucid Dreamers had a mark on their hand. Realizing this, Ian felt puzzled.

'Clearly, I didn't have a Lucid Dreamer's mark at this time.'

He could estimate the exact time because it was the day his first girlfriend broke up with him after a long relationship.

The first Lucid Dreamer would appear a month from now. Ian had awakened as a Lucid Dreamer much later.

'Maybe it's the effect of using the Premonition Dream skill.'

Ian called up his skill window out of curiosity.

Sure enough, despite being before his awakening as a Lucid Dreamer, the skill window appeared.

〈Premonition Dream〉

At that moment, Ian stood at a crucial crossroads in his life. He couldn't hear Mi-yeong's words about the breakup.

While Ian was lost in thought, Mi-yeong continued to talk.

"Anyway, we're breaking up..."

Suddenly, the skill window became blurry and the text scattered. A system message appeared.

"No!"

Although he had thought the skill was useless compared to the unique skills of other Lucid Dreamers, the thought of losing it made Ian feel bitter.

Was this the one-time limit mentioned?

'Am I supposed to survive without even a unique skill? Was my role just to be an information shuttle?'

Ian was so frustrated he felt like going crazy.

Humans who had once looked down on him as a third-rate Lucid Dreamer suddenly appeared, calling him the last hope of humanity and took him to the Arctic.

Then, they made him memorize all kinds of knowledge and information to prepare for the end of the world.

When Ian, with a serious expression, shouted "No!" Mi-yeong misinterpreted it as him not wanting to break up and blushed.

"You're acting strange today, but you're kind of cool. Well, if you want, I can give you a chance to prove yourself..."

Annoyed by Mi-yeong's rambling, Ian sighed. This wasn't the time to casually talk about breaking up.

Deciding to quickly wrap things up, Ian coolly replied.

"Sure, let's break up."

"Um, I knew you would... What did you say?"

Mi-yeong was taken aback by his unexpected response. Although she had proposed the breakup, she had secretly hoped Ian would cling to her and wanted to test his reaction.

"You said we should break up, right? It's fine. Anyway, it was nice seeing you after so long."

"Wait... It's like you were waiting for this to happen."

Was she always this talkative?

For Ian, who had never readily agreed to a breakup, Mi-yeong's reaction was fresh. At the same time, it felt cheap.

'Was I like that in the past?'

This was why experience and maturity couldn't be ignored. As the saying goes, ten years can change a lot. The world could end in ten years.

"Actually, you wanted to break up with me too, right?"

At that moment, a new system message echoed in Ian's mind.

"Yes!"

Ian couldn't help but exclaim in joy, even taking a fighting stance.

Naturally, Mi-yeong, who had no idea what was happening, blushed, but this time in a bad way.

Seeing her expression sour, Ian, who was about to break up anyway, didn't bother to explain. He felt a sense of relief.

It felt like he had finally shed his clingy past.

Why did it have to be the moment of breaking up with her? Was it because he had a mundane life with no family or special something? Ian thought it was a strange timing, but so what?

From now on, his life would be completely different.

'First, I need to become stronger to save the world or not, right? Let's check out this new skill.'

Ian called up the newly created skill window.

〈Preview〉

One thing Ian had going for him was that he was the only Lucid Dreamer in the world.

And now, he had a new skill.

A hidden-grade skill, which had never appeared before.

'If I had this from the start, how great would it have been?'

Tears welled up in his eyes.

When he first awakened, he received a unique skill, the legendary-grade 'Premonition Dream.' One of the rarest unique skills in the world.

But what good was a legendary-grade skill if he couldn't use it?

It was a skill with such high risk that it could only be used in the last moment.

For ten years, Ian had possessed this skill like a pie in the sky. He was confident he could use any new skill better than 'Premonition Dream.'

There were various ways for a Lucid Dreamer to grow. It didn't have to be a powerful combat skill; the type of unique skill one had made a huge difference.

'If I had this ability earlier, I could have lived off gambling alone.'

Ten seconds might seem like a fleeting moment, but in certain situations, even one second could be a crucial moment of life and death.

Ian couldn't hide his joy and excitement, grinning widely. For a moment, he forgot he was in the middle of a breakup.

'What, are you that happy to break up with me? Do you have another woman?'

As her misunderstanding deepened, Mi-yeong began to regret proposing the breakup. The more she saw Ian's strange reaction, the more she felt something was wrong.

Noticing Mi-yeong's angry expression, Ian finally realized and said indifferently,

"Still here?"

"...You jerk!"

With tears welling up in her eyes, Mi-yeong hurled insults at Ian and left. Ian couldn't understand her reaction at all.

'She proposed the breakup first. Why is she acting like she was dumped? Women's hearts are truly incomprehensible.'

Shaking his head, Ian hummed a tune as he headed home. Could there be a man who had a cleaner breakup than him?

He had a lot to do from now on. He needed to assess his surroundings and prepare for the appearance of dream fog.

'Come to think of it, will my level and stats remain the same? If they are inherited, that would be amazing.'

Even if his level and stats were mediocre by future standards, starting at a higher level now would be a significant advantage. While others started at level 1, he could start at a high level.

Realizing this, Ian called up his stat window to check his current abilities.