Ch 164
Became a swordsmanship instructor at the academy
Chapter 164
If you have no expectations, you won't be disappointed
It feels slightly different from teleportation magic.
I was a bit flustered at first, but I quickly got used to it.
It was such a familiar room.
Looking at my reflection in the mirror in one corner of the room, I appeared to be in my early twenties?
It wasn't Kang Shin-hyeok's sharp, well-defined face, but rather a scruffy-haired man you could see anywhere.
I expected this, but it seems I need to overcome Lee Min-chan's trauma, not Kang Shin-hyeok's.
Seeing the military uniform hanging on the coat hanger, I wondered if I was on leave, but fortunately the rank insignia showed sergeant and there was a reserve forces mark overlocked on it.
Well, the hair was too long for an active soldier anyway.
Lumiel said she would adjust it to the lowest difficulty, so I thought it would be around the level of getting bullied during a middle school field trip, but being an adult makes me slightly worried.
During my school days, there wasn't much difficulty besides getting bullied by delinquents a few times.
Rather, there were far more incidents and accidents after becoming an adult.
I was about to go out when I noticed a phone next to the computer desk and immediately pressed the power button.
October 9, 2015.
Between my face earlier and this phone model having no fingerprint recognition feature and being extremely outdated, I had roughly guessed, but it really was a long time ago.
I died at 29 in 2021, so this was a full 6 years before I was reincarnated as Kang Shin-hyeok.
What was happening during this time period?
It would be about a year after my discharge from the military. My girlfriend broke up with me two months before discharge, so that wouldn't be it.
After discharge, I went to a shipyard to earn money.
Since I entered as a regular employee of a subcontracting company rather than a daily wage worker and received hourly pay, it didn't pay as much as I thought and had various other problems, so I quit after exactly one year to receive severance pay.
But since I'm currently in my room at my family home, had I already returned from the shipyard?
After that, I said I would prepare for civil service exams, but the writing I was doing for stress relief became monetized and I started my career as a writer.
Thinking about it alone wouldn't give me answers, so I left the room, but I couldn't sense anyone around.
It seemed to be lunchtime.
At that time, my father worked in the provinces and only came up on weekends, and my mother ran a small daycare center in a nearby apartment.
My sister, who was born the year after me, was at university in Seoul... No, was she a job seeker? I don't remember well.
Since we had so little contact even before I cut ties with my family, only meeting occasionally during holidays.
Anyway, I'm completely unemployed right now.
I boiled and ate some ramen, then turned on the computer.
I saw a game I used to enjoy playing and launched it, and it was quite fun since it had been a while.
The game was perfectly recreated, including the losing opponents hurling insults.
But after playing a few rounds, I got bored and turned off the computer, then opened a word processing program.
This is...
[Other World Manager Part 5]
I understood immediately upon seeing the title.
This was when I had just started writing my first work.
My first commercial work that was serialized on a flat-rate site rather than a pay-per-chapter one.
A so-called ‘fan service’ story with tons of 19+ scenes.
It wasn't a famous site, but it briefly reached number 1 on the popular works ranking and the revenue wasn't bad at the time.
Of course, back then I thoughtlessly wrote 2-3 episodes per day, sometimes even up to 4.
The flat-rate market worked by pushing through with volume, even if written mindlessly.
In terms of efficiency, I didn't earn that well, but that money was quite significant at the time.
Honestly, looking back now it was crude beyond belief, but it was also a time when there weren't many competing works since the market hadn't grown yet.
Once you complete a novel, it brings in steady revenue.
Since it was 19+ and a flat-rate work, it didn't go on many sites, but even 5 years after completion, it still brought in monthly revenue equivalent to a carton of cigarettes or two chickens, which was quite nice.
What was the story about?
Quickly looking through parts 1 to 3, I roughly remembered.
It was about a protagonist who was a former hero who defeated the demon king in another world, returning to Earth to work as a manager for a failed girl group.
Romance between a manager and entertainers, with 14 heroines... No, was it 16?
Haha. It's really fantasy.
No matter how much people might like 19+ content with many women...
I thought about revising it many times.
Living day to day to prevent cobwebs from forming in my mouth made it difficult, so I never got around to actually doing it...
A third-rate unpopular writer doesn't have the luxury to look back.
There's no point dwelling on finished works since it won't earn more money.
All the comments I saw later were just criticism, which killed my motivation...
Is rewriting this for the better the trauma I need to overcome?
I know the story flow, but it's only part 3 and I need to get to the ending somehow...
Moreover, if I remember correctly, I wrote this work quite long.
These days 300 episodes is standard, but back then 200 was the norm, yet this work was about 260 episodes...
It's only part 3 now, but even writing two parts per day would take 130 days, at least 4 months.
If time here flows the same as outside time, all my planned things would be disrupted...
I hope that won't be the case, I thought as I continued writing.
Still, since it was something I'd written before, I achieved the miraculous record of one episode in two hours. I finished writing one episode and was about to revise it when I heard the door lock opening.
Coming outside, I saw my younger brother.
Seeing him in a school uniform, he was still a student... Right, in 2015 he would be a high school senior.
My brother went to a vocational school and didn't attend university, so being a senior wasn't particularly important.
"Lee Si-woo! It's been a while."
I never even considered the option of returning, but this guy was still the only one I occasionally thought about.
While I cut contact and stopped seeing other family members, he was the only one who still contacted and occasionally met with this guy.
Most of the contact was late-night calls like “Brother, I need taxi fare,” “I'm a bit short on drinking money,” “I forgot my wallet,” asking for spending money, but he was the only one who didn't cross the line of family.
Since I had no expectations to begin with, there was no disappointment, and he was originally the irresponsible youngest anyway.
The spending money this guy borrowed from me was within an acceptable level for family.
When he asked for 1.5 million won for beauty school tuition, I had to tighten my belt considerably, but I somehow managed to pay it in 3-month installments on my credit card...
Come to think of it, I never got that money back.
It wasn't completely lost though - instead, he said he'd repay with his body and came to regularly cut my hair and give me perms.
He also promised that when he opened his own salon later, he'd cut my hair for free for life since he became a hairstylist thanks to me.
"What do you mean it's been a while? We saw each other this morning. Mom's not back yet, right?"
Ah, that would be true for him.
"Yeah."
"I'm hungry. Aren't you getting peckish, brother?"
"I had ramen earlier, but... Should we order chicken?"
"Do you have money, brother?"
"Hey, even if I'm currently unemployed, wouldn't I have money to order chicken?"
"Ohhh, our brother is so cool."
I told him to look through delivery menus and choose while I went to my room to find my wallet, but there was no cash at all.
Fortunately I had a card, but it was a debit card.
Not knowing how much balance I had, I opened the bank app, and the balance was...
[Geosung Bank 123456789-12-123 Account Balance: 8,750 won]
I'm broke.
I did have one housing subscription account with 2.4 million won, but I couldn't withdraw money from that.
Considering the timing, I should have received severance pay... What happened?
Come to think of it, the shipyard subcontractor I worked for said they'd give me severance pay two months later.
"Brother, I chose. Should I call and order?"
But a month later, the shipyard completely shut down and the company went out of business, so I never got my severance pay.
Wait, could this be the trauma rather than the novel?
I was definitely extremely frustrated about it...
I immediately called and requested they pay as soon as possible, explaining the difficult situation.
They replied they'd pay within a week, so I thought it was resolved, but the surrounding environment remained the same.
It seems I was barking up the wrong tree...
"Brother, should we order chicken or not?"
I thought about borrowing some money from my sister for now and called her.
At first I was confused whether she was a college student or job seeker, but if my brother was a senior, she probably had a job by this time.
—What?
A voice full of irritation.
"Huh? Sister, Si-woo and I want to order chicken..."
—Now you're using Si-woo as an excuse? Eat rice instead of chicken. I told you I'm broke and having a hard time too!
She snapped harshly and hung up.
Her irritable nature was the same then and now... Wait.
On a hunch, I searched through the call history and found that while there was nothing today, there was a record of contact yesterday evening.
That was it.
It seemed we couldn't have chicken, but fortunately I think I know what trauma I need to overcome.
Since childhood, my sister and I were compared a lot since we were born a year apart.
My sister was an excellent student who competed for top rankings school-wide since middle school.
I wasn't as good as her, but I was around 30-40th place.
In high school, I even made it to the advanced class.
But I didn't finish my studies.
It wasn't bullying or school violence - it was just that our family was too poor.
I think it was during my sophomore year when my father made a mistake with guaranteeing someone's debt, and overnight our house was seized by the court and we became fugitives.
Still, we didn't end up on the streets, but we went from owning our home to renting the second floor of a house for 270,000 won a month with a 3 million won deposit.
The deposit and one month's rent were helped by relatives on my mother's side, but since my mother was a full-time housewife at the time, our immediate livelihood was uncertain.
Back then, there was no free education or free school meals at all.
My mother started working through a friend's introduction, but her income alone wasn't enough to support all three of us.
In the end, I had no choice but to drop out and earn money.
My sister was a senior, my brother had just entered middle school, and I was the only male with any sense in the household.
Fortunately, my father returned sooner than expected, but only the private loan debt was resolved - the bank debt remained.
Starting with part-time work at a building cleaning company, I did everything someone my age could do: PC cafes, convenience stores, restaurant dishwashing, warehouse organization at distribution companies.
In between, I passed the qualification exam and took the college entrance exam.
The qualification exam was naturally easy since it was high school freshman level content, and I actually passed easily.
The college entrance exam also turned out better than expected, perhaps because attending cram school for a few months while reducing sleep time helped.
But I couldn't go to university.
The family couldn't afford to send two people to university right away.
My sister scored much better on the exam, so I yielded to her.
While my score was disappointing, I thought I could go at the proper age later since I took it a year early.
But luck doesn't come twice.
Honestly, I put in less effort too.
It sounds like an excuse, but at that time I was working at a construction site where my mother's acquaintance was the supervisor.
It ended at 5 PM, but I had to wake up at 6 AM to leave, and while the daily wage was decent, the work intensity was just as tough.
Still, my score was good enough to apply to a regional national university, but with debt still remaining and my sister's tuition being an issue, I continued working.
I kept working until going to the military, contributing to my sister's tuition and household expenses.
Of course, I didn't give all my salary to the family - about half?
Honestly, at twenty I had no friends who were working, and since I was earning money, I bought drinks for friends often and it wasn't too bad.
It would be a lie to say I wasn't envious of friends attending university, but I thought I'd work hard during the four years they spent in college and use that money for business or trade.
Setting everything else aside, I thought this level of sacrifice for family wasn't even really a sacrifice.
But I was completely mistaken.