Characters You Must Not Read
“Follow me.”
The professor seized my wrist and hauled me straight out of the practice hall.
“Uh, Professor—”
“Do not speak.”
“No, I mean my shift still isn’t—”
“Shift?”
He stopped dead.
Then he turned and looked at me with an expression so strange I almost took a step back.
“The man who just rewrote an Ancient Script is worrying about his work hours?”
“Paychecks matter.”
“…….”
The professor’s face went briefly rigid.
Behind us the students’ whispers rose like a wave.
“…What the hell is that janitor?”
“He stopped the formula just now, right?”
“He overwrote the Ancient Script with something else.”
“That’s impossible. Even the professors can’t do that.”
“Did he save Young Master Rayan?”
“Save him? More like… doesn’t that mean Young Master Rayan’s formula was wrong?”
The instant that last line reached us, Rayan’s face twisted.
He still hadn’t fully risen from the floor, yet he was glaring at me with eyes that promised murder.
No.
More precisely, it was the face of a man whose pride had been ground into powder.
I couldn’t blame him.
An aristocratic young master of an otherworld academy had just failed a basic spell.
And the one who stopped it wasn’t even a mage—it was the janitor.
If our positions had been reversed, I would have been pissed too.
That still didn’t make it my fault.
The thing had genuinely been about to explode.
“Professor.”
Rayan’s voice came from behind us.
“Where are you taking that man?”
The professor did not even glance back.
“My laboratory.”
“A janitor?”
“He is not a janitor.”
The professor’s reply was curt.
“Not from this moment on.”
The practice hall erupted into fresh murmurs.
Even so, one thing kept nagging at the edge of my vision.
The final line that had floated before my eyes.
SECOND COMMAND
STANDBY
That sentence still lingered faintly in one corner of my sight.
As if the moment I moved my fingertip it would answer—like a brush hovering over transparent paper, waiting for the next stroke.
It felt ominous.
No.
If I was being honest, it was a little exciting.
If the characters I wrote truly became spells in this world…
That would be something completely insane.
And every person who had just witnessed that insanity was staring at me right now.
Like they were looking at a monster.
The professor’s laboratory sat at the far end of the third floor of the practice wing.
The door was thick and old.
Above it, a circular emblem and a tangle of intricate lines had been carved deep into the wood.
At a glance it looked like a magic circle.
To my eyes it was something else entirely.
ENTRY RESTRICTED
NO ADMITTANCE EXCEPT AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL
I hesitated in front of the door.
The professor drew a small silver plaque from his coat and held it to the wood.
The characters above the door changed at once.
AUTHENTICATION COMPLETE
Click.
The door opened.
I shut my mouth.
This world’s magic… really does feel like a system, doesn’t it?
The professor stepped inside and spoke without looking back.
“Come in.”
“Am I actually allowed to enter?”
“If you weren’t coming in, why the hell would I have dragged you all the way here?!”
Fair point.
I carefully stepped into the laboratory.
And immediately regretted it.
The room looked like the inside of a madman’s skull.
Hundreds of sheets of parchment covered the walls.
The desk was piled with shattered crystal orbs and blackened metal plates.
On the floor, more than ten half-erased magic circles lay layered over one another.
And characters floated everywhere in the empty air.
FIRE
WIND
WATER
BIND
BARRIER
SEAL
RELEASE
. . .
I narrowed my eyes.
There were simply too many of them.
It felt exactly like opening someone else’s computer desktop only to find a hundred warning windows already open.
The professor shut the door.
“Explain again what you did in the practice hall just now.”
“There isn’t much to explain.”
“Nothing?”
“A warning was floating under the characters that student had drawn.”
“A warning?”
“Yes. It said ‘Backflow Caution.’”
The professor’s eyebrows twitched.
“Backflow… caution.”
He muttered the words under his breath, then immediately began rifling through the papers on his desk.
Sheets flew in every direction.
I reflexively dodged a few of them.
He finally pulled out an old piece of parchment and spread it in front of me.
On it was a character for Fire almost identical to the one I had seen earlier.
Beneath it, lines that looked like mere decoration clung to the main glyph.
The professor asked, “Can you see this?”
I looked down at the parchment.
I could see it.
I could see it far too clearly.
BASIC IGNITION FORMULA
Output: 3
BACKFLOW WARNING
NOVICES PROHIBITED
I slowly raised my head.
“Professor.”
“What.”
“This… isn’t something a beginner is supposed to use, is it?”
His face hardened.
“Why do you think that?”
“It’s written right here.”
I pointed to the lower part of the parchment.
“‘Novices Prohibited.’”
The professor stared hard at the spot I indicated.
But to his eyes, it clearly did not resolve into readable characters.
“That is decorative flourish.”
“It looks more like a warning label to me.”
“It has been known as decorative flourish for thousands of years.”
“Then it has been wrong for thousands of years.”
“…….”
The moment the words left my mouth I realized what I had done.
Ah.
I did it again.
The corner of the professor’s eye twitched.
Less than ten minutes after insulting the entire magical system of the Academy, I had just casually denied thousands of years of research.
I carefully added, “I only mean that is how it looks to me.”
“To you?”
“Yes.”
The professor fell silent for a moment.
Then he set the parchment on the desk and opened another drawer.
“Then read this as well.”
What he produced was a black metal plate.
It was about the size of a palm, its surface etched with faint blue lines.
“This is?”
“An Ancient Formula sent by the Royal Society.”
The professor’s voice was flat.
“They claim it was discovered in a sealed underground sector.”
“Is it all right to show something that important to me?”
“If you are a fraud, nothing will happen.”
“And if I’m not?”
He closed his mouth for a beat.
“…From that point on, it will no longer be your problem alone.”
Not an answer I particularly wanted to hear.
I stared at the metal plate.
At first it was blurry—like trying to read letters that refused to come into focus.
Then, all at once, the lines rearranged themselves into characters I could understand.
CURRENTLY SEALED
Unlock Conditions Insufficient
ADMINISTRATOR PRIVILEGES REQUIRED
I swallowed hard.
Administrator privileges?
What the hell is this now?
The professor studied my face.
“You read it.”
“No.”
“Do not lie. It is written all over your expression.”
Damn it.
I had never possessed any talent for keeping a poker face.
The professor’s voice dropped low.
“What does it say?”
I hesitated.
Was I even allowed to say this?
Three days ago I had still been an ordinary person.
No status window.
No swordsmanship.
No magic.
And now I was reading a sealed Ancient Formula belonging to the Royal Society.
Speaking would make things complicated.
Staying silent would probably make them even more complicated.
In the end I answered.
“Currently Sealed.”
The professor’s eyes widened.
“Continue.”
“Unlock Conditions Insufficient.”
“……Continue.”
“Administrator Privileges Required.”
His hands stopped moving.
The air inside the laboratory turned cold.
“What did you just say?”
“Administrator Privileges Required.”
“Administrator…”
He slowly looked down at the metal plate.
His face had gone pale.
“Where in the world did you learn something like that?”
“I never learned it.”
I spoke honestly.
“It just… reads that way.”
“It just reads that way.”
The professor did not smile.
He did not raise his voice either.
He simply spoke in a very quiet tone.
“Han Seok-beom. From this moment, answer every question I ask with extreme care.”
“Yes.”
“Which country are you from?”
“Korea.”
“No such country exists.”
“I figured you’d say that.”
“In this ‘Korea’ of yours, are there others who can read the Ancient Script?”
I thought for a moment.
There were people who could read Chinese characters, sure.
But what I was reading now…
It looked like the meaning of Hanzi, yet the understanding slammed into my head automatically.
Even the fact that modern-sounding phrases like “Administrator Privileges” resolved so naturally in this world felt wrong.
I finally said, “There are similar characters. But what I see here is a little different.”
“How is it different?”
“The meaning… forces its way in.”
“Forces its way in?”
“Yes. The instant I look at the characters, the meaning is driven into my head.”
The professor said nothing for a long time.
Then he slowly sat down in his chair.
His hands were trembling.
“Impossible.”
He repeated the same word.
This time it was not denial.
It was closer to fear.
“Professor?”
“The Ancient Script is not a script meant to be deciphered.”
He muttered as if to himself.
“The Ancient Script is a script that issues commands.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“There is a line in the ancient records. The text is so old the interpretation is incomplete, but the Royal Society has reconstructed it roughly like this.”
He opened a book so ancient its pages looked ready to crumble at a touch.
Familiar yet alien characters marched across the paper.
Strangely, most of them refused to come into focus.
Only fragments resolved.
CHARACTERS
COMMANDS
WORLD
The rest remained blurred—exactly like trying to open a file without sufficient permissions.
The professor continued, “The Ancient Script is the set of commands used when the world itself was created.”
I closed my mouth.
My heart began to beat more slowly, more heavily.
Commands used at the creation of the world.
The lines that had appeared before my eyes earlier rose again in my memory.
FIRST COMMAND — CONFIRMED
SECOND COMMAND — STANDBY
The character I had written—Stop—had been accepted by this world as a command.
In that case…
“The characters I wrote…”
“May not have been a simple formula at all.”
The professor looked straight at me.
“Is that a good thing?”
“How could it possibly be good?”
His voice was absolute.
“You just read a sealed Ancient Formula.”
“…….”
“On top of that, you overwrote a live formula mid-cast with a direct command.”
“…….”
“If word of this spreads outside, more than a few parties will want you.”
“For example?”
“The Royal Family.”
He folded one finger.
“The Church.”
A second finger.
“The Mage Towers.”
A third.
“The Knight Orders.”
A fourth.
“And the black market.”
A fifth.
Just hearing the list made my stomach turn.
“Can’t I just keep working as a janitor?”
“It is already too late.”
The professor’s tone was merciless.
“The students in the practice hall already saw everything. Especially Rayan Erhardt.”
“That noble young master?”
“Eldest son of Marquis Erhardt.”
He continued, “His pride is fierce, and his mouth is loose. He will not want his failure recorded as your achievement.”
Worst-case scenario.
Three days since falling into another world.
I had barely secured a single meal ticket, and already I had shattered a noble young master’s pride and read a Royal Society-level secret.
Living an ordinary life was officially off the table.
That was when it happened.
Knock. Knock.
Two sharp raps sounded against the laboratory door.
The professor’s face stiffened.
“Who is it?”
A calm voice answered from the other side.
“Rayan Erhardt.”
Ah.
Why is he already here?
The professor looked at me.
I shook my head hard—do not open it.
He walked toward the door anyway.
Characters rose above the wood.
I nearly laughed out loud.
Shame: Strong?
The professor opened the door.
Rayan stood there.
His color had returned somewhat since earlier, but his eyes had grown even sharper.
He glanced once at me, then bowed his head to the professor.
“Professor. There is a matter regarding the recent practice that I wish to correct.”
The professor’s eyes narrowed.
“Correct?”
Rayan clenched his teeth.
“That janitor illegally interfered with my formula.”
I had expected something like this.
I just hadn’t expected it this fast.
Rayan looked straight at me.
“I formally request a duel.”
“What?”
The word slipped out of my mouth sounding completely brainless.
“Prove yourself according to Academy custom.”
Rayan declared.
In that instant, new characters rose before my eyes.
DUEL CONDITIONS DETECTED
SECOND COMMAND CANDIDATE
And beneath them, a single character slowly took shape.
DEFEND
I stared at the character floating in front of me and thought,
No way.
The second command is already showing up like this?