I Stepped on Their Shadows and Skills Started Copying Like Crazy - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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01
One day, without warning, colossal towers erupted from the earth across the globe.
And then came the so-called Awakeners—those chosen by the towers, granted strange powers beyond measure.
Since the Great Upheaval, the world had split into two: those who climbed the towers, and those who could not.
And I, Kim Si-hyeon, was….
‘Obviously in the latter group.’
Truth be told, I didn’t envy them anymore.
Things I didn’t have that others possessed so naturally.
Feeling jealous or resentful about such things was itself a luxury I couldn’t afford.
‘I graduated from that kind of thinking back when I was a snot-nosed kid, the moment I realized my parents were something everyone else had but I didn’t.’
It was a shame, certainly, but wallowing in despair wouldn’t pay the bills.
I simply did my best with what I’d been given.
So today, like every day, I was up early for work.
“Whetstone’s ready, got the rust remover and oil rags, needle and scissors in hand. Okay, that’s everything.”
Mending the broken equipment of Awakeners—skills picked up from watching over someone’s shoulder.
That was my job.
Honestly, I could hardly call myself a repairman or craftsman.
A jack-of-all-trades, maybe.
‘I’m not sure you can call this a profession… but since I’m managing to pay rent and put food on the table with it, I suppose it counts.’
Awakeners were famous for good earnings, but like any trade or industry, not everyone who works in a lucrative field rakes in the money hand over fist.
My core clientele were exactly the kind who didn’t.
Awakeners, yes—but salary workers who circled back through the lower floors they’d already cleared, with no ambition to make a name for themselves or strike it rich.
‘In a way, that’s the smart play. At least they won’t die.’
Low risk, low reward.
Even those who chose this safe path supposedly pulled in six figures a year, so everyone was desperate to awaken.
‘Actors, idols, doctors, prosecutors—all of them got knocked off the list. Tower climbing is now the number one career dream for teenagers. Says it all, really.’
I’d felt the same once.
Who wouldn’t want to ascend the tower in style, rake in fortune, and be hailed as a hero by the masses?
‘Though if I’m being honest, it’s not like I’m yearning for it all that desperately anymore.’
Just sometimes, watching my clients head toward the tower, I’d think: ‘I wish.’
‘It’s like… carrying a lottery ticket in your chest every week, I guess. Oh right, I didn’t buy one last week.’
About thirty minutes into my commute.
Right around the time I resolved to definitely buy a ticket this week, I arrived at my destination.
Near the Tower Entrance—a small plaza where Awakeners geared up.
Climbers preparing for ascents and merchants hawking wares had pitched camp, creating a raucous buzz.
“Come on, pick and choose! Fresh Recovery Potions just in! Curse Removal Scrolls for Floor 10 and below! One of these babies and even goblin shaman curses vanish in a heartbeat!”
“Hey there, youngster! First time in the tower, yeah? Ah, how’d I know—it’s written all over your face. Well, this Beginner Survival Kit is non-negotiable! Antidotes, bandages, emergency rations included! No potions? What, trying to bleed out your family fortune? You know how much that costs?”
It was possible to eat, check gear, and recruit parties inside the tower itself, but there was good reason why the market opened here, drawing crowds.
‘The genuine professionals who’ve learned the related skills and operate inside charge prices that defy reason.’
It always came down to money. It always did.
Setting aside the familiar sights and noise, I began spreading out my wares.
‘Alright, let’s get started again.’
“Ah, Si-hyeon! About time you showed up.”
The moment my stall was set, a familiar voice reached my ears.
Kim, one of my regular customers, waved hello.
“Oh, hello. You’re out early today?”
“You bet—got to make every won count. The second one’s due day after tomorrow.”
Feels like I just heard about the new arrival, but already three trimesters must have nearly passed.
“Wow, time really flies, doesn’t it? So that’s why you’ve been working so hard lately.”
“Phew, another mouth to feed—what a headache. Three people we managed fine, but… the worries just keep piling up.”
Yet even as he spoke, Kim couldn’t hide his smile.
“Anyway, do you have any appointments today? If not, could I get my blade sharpened right away?”
“Oh, that’s no problem at all. And thanks for giving me the first job of the day—you’re breaking me in nicely.”
“Win-win for both of us. I’ve tried shops all over, and yours came out the best. But I’ve got to ask—how the hell do you do this? You said you never got formal training.”
“Ah, you’re just being too kind. If I’d learned from a real craftsman, the quality would be different. But their prices are steep. I offer reasonable service at a reasonable rate. That’s the idea.”
“Yeah, sure, but it’s not like you just do one or two things. Blade sharpening? You’ve perfected that. You work with leather and metal too, don’t you? And last time I was here, I could swear I saw you doing some sewing as well—am I right?”
Kim’s unexpected barrage of compliments.
I could only smile awkwardly.
“Well… after I turned eighteen and left the orphanage, I picked things up as I went along—you know, learning by watching others do it.”
“That’s exactly what I don’t get—how you learn that much just by watching over someone’s shoulder.”
“Ha, well… I can’t really explain it any other way than saying I was born with it.”
Kim chuckled at that, clearly unconvinced.
“Sure, let’s go with that.”
“But I’m serious.”
“That’s why I said it.”
Kim patted my shoulder knowingly, as if he understood everything.
He seemed to think I practiced every night, drilling one technique after another.
‘But I really was born with this.’
What could I do? Nobody believed the truth anyway.
“Why don’t you sit nearby and rest? I’ll grab the best whetstone I have and sharpen your blade right away. You need to get to work, after all.”
“Right, right. Then I’ll leave it to you. I’ll be over there in the smoking area burning through a cigarette or two.”
Once Kim left his seat, I pulled out the whetstone I’d brought and began sharpening the blade.
Scritch, scritch, scritch!
‘Is it really so unbelievable?’
I was abandoned in front of an orphanage when I was barely old enough to remember.
I’d only attended school through high school and never formally studied anything else.
But I’d done almost everything just to survive.
‘PC bangs, convenience stores, restaurants… I’d done pretty much every low-barrier job most people try once right after leaving the orphanage… Then I started looking for more unusual, better-paying work. Was it after the freezer warehouse job?’
And through all those experiences, I’d discovered my talent.
‘The thing is, I can mimic just about anything—it’s almost uncanny.’
I’d been aware of it since childhood.
While I was hopeless at studying, I had a knack for picking up anything physical.
At first, I thought I just had decent instincts for work… but it was more than that.
Not just mimicry—genuine mimicry.
This was talent itself.
Once I understood this gift, I deliberately sought out as many different jobs as I could.
To make the most of my strength.
At the blacksmith’s, I learned hammering by watching over shoulders, breathing in the smell of iron.
— Hey, watch out. Get back over there.
At the junk shop, I learned disassembly and assembly while covered in dust.
— What are you staring at? Just watching doesn’t make it happen, kid.
After several repetitions of situations like that, I’d get a sense of it.
Whether I could do it or not.
— Should I give it a try? I think I’m starting to understand.
Then I’d prove it with results. The reactions varied.
— …This is something even spirits would weep over. You pulled this off in just a few days? You’re really doing this for the first time?
— First time? Come on, at least lie convincingly. I’ve made my living doing this for years. Why would you even bother lying about something like this?
— You’ve got a nice little trick there. Still, it’s probably just a cheap imitation.
Shock, suspicion, envy. And very occasionally, admiration and awe.
It couldn’t have been pleasant for someone who’d spent years building skill through effort to watch a greenhorn pull off a convincing imitation in a matter of days.
So I always held back, revealing just enough of my talent to scrape by.
Just a guy who picked things up quickly, a capable and reliable worker.
It was best to move on once I’d learned what I needed, before that reputation set too deep.
That’s how I built up my skills, piece by piece.
In a bleak life with nothing to fall back on, this gift was all I had, and I’d survived on it until now.
And this was the result of all that!
“Oh, that turned out well.”
The well-honed blade caught the sunlight, gleaming with brilliant shine.
“Hmm, the whetstone performed beautifully today.”
This might be my personal best for blade sharpening.
I headed straight toward Kim smoking in the distance.
“The whetstone worked perfectly today! Come take a look.”
“Oh yeah? Great. Let me check out your handiwork, then.”
Kim smiled and stubbed out the cigarette he’d been finishing.
That was the exact moment the smile vanished from his face.
“Watch out!”
Watch out from what?
With a sound I couldn’t identify, Kim threw himself at me.
“Huh? What’s… Oof!”
I was about to ask what was happening when Kim literally crashed into me.
At me.
Crash!
Awakeners are Awakeners indeed.
In the blink of an eye, I was already dragged by his crude grip and hurled far away.
“Ow, that hurts….”
I pushed myself up from the ground, cradling my scraped arm, when something felt wrong.
“What in the world is happening here, hyung….”
The sharp reek of deep earth and the iron-tinged smell of grass stabbed at my lungs.
By the time I noticed the thick, humid warmth in the air, the landscape itself had transformed.
“…What is this?”
Moments before, I’d been standing in the heart of Seoul’s urban sprawl.
Yet the familiar gray forest of office buildings had vanished without a trace, replaced by a dense rainforest that stretched out before my eyes.
Ah, I understood.
‘A New Influx Event.’
Without warning, the Tower capriciously threw its tantrums whenever you thought you’d escaped them.
A New Influx—or rather, a Kidnapping Event.
* * *
Oppressive heat and vegetation so thick you couldn’t see a hand’s breadth ahead.
‘They said Floor 1 was just an open wasteland with a handful of goblins….’
Nothing about this matched what I’d heard of Floor 1.
‘This is definitely the Kidnapping Event.’
Irregular events like this one were supposed to be unpredictable, and it was proving exactly that.
“Ugh….”
“…!”
A faint groan drifted from somewhere nearby.
I panicked and tore through the surrounding foliage until I spotted Kim’s form sprawled face-down on the ground.
“Hyung! There’s an arrow….”
An arrow buried deep between his shoulder and neck.
That’s why he’d thrown me out of the way.
“Ah, yes. Si-hyeon, you’re safe.”
Kim spoke with the casual calm of someone stating the obvious.
I helped him sit up and examined his wound.
“Just leave it alone. Why would you….”
“Kid, something like this heals with a little spit.”
Kim just laughed stupidly.
“Besides, I took this one for you. If it’d hit you instead, you’d be dead. They were aiming straight for your heart. Forget about it—just make sure to thank me. Not with words, mind you. With something real.”
There was nothing I couldn’t do for someone who’d saved my life.
“Of course, absolutely. I don’t have much, but aside from my deposit on the apartment, if I scrape together everything else….”
Tap!
Kim cut me off and lightly tapped my back.
“What kind of person do you think I am? A senior in life and an Awakener besides—would I really strip away a young man’s entire savings who’s trying his best to survive? Forget it, kid. Just go out and buy dinner. Pork belly and soju, that’s all.”
“Hyung….”
“Got it?”
The firmness in his eyes made clear he wouldn’t hear any answer but yes.
There was nothing else I could say.
“Yes—and I’ll get the good quality Korean pork, refrigerated not frozen. Just please stay alive.”
“How could I die? I’ve got my wife and a child on the way. I’m a man who can’t die even if I wanted to. Kid. Heh heh.”
But for all he said, his complexion told a different story.
“Hyung, are you alright? Your color….”
His face had grown noticeably pale.
“Huh… I think it was a poison arrow. It’s strange enough that a goblin on Floor 1 would shoot at all, but a poison arrow? The Kidnapping Event is vicious, I’ll give it that. Cough.”
“Hyung, we need to get to somewhere safe, quick—!”
Though truthfully, I had no idea where that somewhere safe might be, only that here wasn’t it.
I tried to move Kim to a different spot….
Rustle!
Three green-skinned creatures emerged from the undergrowth.
Small-bodied, with razor-sharp claws and eyes gleaming with hunger.
They looked exactly like the goblins in the videos that Awakeners posted online, crude weapons and all.
“Grrrgh… Kraaagh!”
They must have seen an easy meal in an Awakener already bleeding and weakened.
They drew closer, licking their lips.
“Three Marines. We can handle this much.”
Kim limped forward on unsteady legs and stood in front of me, his frame barely holding together.
A sword hung from his hand—he couldn’t even remember drawing it.
“Listen here, you wretches. I’m the man who awakened and carved out his legacy by slaying goblins. Don’t dare bare your fangs at me without fear. Go on, show me what you’ve got.”
He charged forward, his face looking as though he might collapse at any moment.
Yet the tip of his blade remained merciless.
Crack!
The sword traced an arc through the air, and something flashed—the head of one goblin severed clean, tumbling to the ground.
“See? I told you. No use trying.”
In the blink of an eye, three goblins had become two.
‘Thank goodness. He seems in better shape than I thought.’
That was the exact moment I had that thought.
“Wait… my body…”
Kim’s voice wavered with panic, and the sword slipped from his trembling fingers.
Before he could finish speaking, he pitched forward and collapsed.
“No, what—what’s happening?!”
His violent exertion must have accelerated the poison’s spread through his body.
The two goblins before us bared their teeth, their mouths splitting wide.
As if in mockery.
“Keke-keke!”
The situation had reversed in an instant.
Sprawled on the ground, Kim called out desperately.
“Si-hyeon, run! Get away and find the other Awakeners! There have to be more people somewhere else!”
“But… what about you?!”
“Look at me, boy. I’m done for. Go. The living must survive.”
Even as he spoke, the goblins crept closer, gauging my reaction.
They had learned something from their comrade’s swift execution, and now they moved with caution.
What could I do?
I had to decide quickly.
There was no time.
‘Think. Think harder. What can I do to survive?’
Run? Abandon this man who threw himself in front of me and took the poison arrow, just to save me?
That was never an option.
Then there was only one way.
‘I have to stand and fight somehow. But how?’
Then it came to me.
The one thing I was best at.
No—the one thing I actually knew how to do.
‘I can replicate it. What he just did.’
Could I? I didn’t know.
It had been too fast.
But I had to try.
I had no choice.
“I’m going to borrow this for a moment.”
I steeled myself and gripped the sword lying on the ground.
Kim saw what I meant to do and tried to stop me.
“No! Don’t. They’re not as easy as they look. They’re creatures that hunt Awakeners from the Tower itself! Not just one—two of them…!”
“Even so, I can’t just die here like this.”
“Why should you die for me?! Didn’t you hear what I said?! Leave me and go! I’m already finished!”
“I heard you loud and clear.”
“Then why won’t you leave? Why would you want to die for some old man you barely know?”
His voice was pleading.
His eyes trembled with the fear of death.
Yet through it all, his one sincere wish was that I would leave him behind and survive.
‘Even now, this person…’
That was why I had to do this.
“No. We’ll live. Both of us. We’re getting out of here alive. And you’re no stranger—you’re the number one regular at Si-hyeon Workshop. I can’t let you die here.”
Baseless confidence.
But the moment I spoke those words aloud, the confidence became real.
‘I’ve always lived this way.’
While others complained about not having this or that, I’d survived with nothing at all—just baseless confidence and this body of mine.
‘It’s not so different now. My whole life has always been a matter of starving to death or getting cut down—either way, the same.’
Death by hunger or death by blade made no difference.
Truth be told, even now facing this directly, I’d been more terrified of the relentless monthly rent and utility bills than that rusted sickle.
The grace period was over.
Had they decided I wasn’t much of a threat?
One of them strode forward.
Thump-thump.
My heart hammering in my chest.
Sweat beaded on my sword hand as tension gripped me.
But only for a moment.
Survival instinct soon eclipsed fear, wiping away thought and hesitation alike.
All that remained was survival, nothing else.
‘It comes.’
“Grraaaagh!”
The goblin closest to me charged forward, swinging a rust-stained sickle in a wide arc.
Filthy spittle sprayed between its yellowed teeth.
“Hah—!”
No time to think which way to dodge—only movement born of pure survival instinct.
Whoosh!
The sickle carved a crescent through the air, missing my stomach by inches.
The very space where my belly had been a heartbeat before.
Its attack deflected, an opening came to me.
‘An opening!’
The exposed green neck caught my eye.
A fleeting chance.
I’d only meant to slash at its throat.
But the moment my hand moved, something flashed.
“—!”
That Swordplay the older man had shown me.
Or what the Awakeners called a skill.
‘I see it. The path.’
I can do this.
I felt it.
The reason I’d survived alone in this harsh world—my one weapon.
That talent screamed within me.
Follow this arc and strike.
‘Then—!’
Without hesitation, I traced that trajectory.
Flash—!
Crunch!
With the dull, wet sound of bone and flesh parting, the goblin’s head flew through the air, its master gone.
Thud.
The goblin’s head hit the ground, eyes still open.
I stood frozen for a moment, staring at that surreal sight, replaying what had just happened.
‘…Cut clean through in a single stroke?’
The lingering sensation on my fingertips—familiar, faint.
Not so different from butchering meat, which made it somehow unsettling.
“…Is it the blade that’s good?”
“Eee-eee-eek!”
Having lost two companions in an instant, the remaining goblin bolted, screeching as it fled.
Behind me, I heard Kim’s voice.
“What—what the hell was that, Si-hyeon? You just mimicked my skill—?”
“I’m not entirely sure—”
I turned to answer him.
[New Awakener Registered: Kim Si-hyeon]
[You have acquired the unique ability ‘Shadow Mimic’.]
※ You can engrave and record a target’s ‘skill’ onto your shadow, then reproduce it.
▶ Shadow Engraving: Flash Cleave (Grade: D− / Source: Kim Jin-chul)
A lottery ticket I’d been holding onto in my heart without any real hope.
It had hit.
Finally.
Just by treading on a shadow, skills copy themselves over.
Author |
Killing Part
Publisher |
Samyang C&C Co., Ltd.
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Editorial Department
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Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. – Dream Books
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Without written permission from Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. – Dream Books, no part of this book may be used in any form or by any means whatsoever.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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