The World Is Not Equal
I died in a mysterious explosion and woke up in a gender-reversed world. And then I got captured by bandits and ended up waiting to be sold as a slave.
“I’m so fucked.”
I tapped on the iron bars of my cage and let out a long sigh. Honestly, I knew better than anyone why things had turned out like this. I’d been too arrogant and careless at the same time.
And with good reason—this wasn’t just any ordinary gender-reversed world. It was the one I’d come up with myself, even if it was only a setting for a story. A massive labyrinth where every treasure and miracle in existence lay hidden. Adventurers who explored its depths, unearthed ancient mysteries, and raised their own status. And the completely flipped concepts of chastity between men and women.
I’d possessed the body of a worthless orphan with nothing to his name, but I had knowledge that no ordinary orphan would possess. For example, during the temple’s thrice-weekly food distribution, I’d recite common lore about the church, act all pious, and score an extra piece of bread. Or I’d use the fact that I was a young boy in a gender-reversed world to act cute around older women and collect tips.
…It made me feel pathetic, sure, but when you’re starving, who cares about pride? Thinking about what the old me would’ve liked made it easy enough. I remembered most of the other useful setting details too… but the problem was that every last one of them was related to the labyrinth.
Weak points of specific monsters. Hidden gimmicks that only triggered under certain conditions. The entity that dwelled at the deepest level of the dungeon, and so on. If I were an adventurer, I could’ve used that information to its fullest. But right now I was just a powerless orphan. Exploring the labyrinth myself was too dangerous, and selling information was even riskier. Having no strength to protect myself turned out to be far more miserable than I’d expected.
That was more or less how I’d scraped by day after day—until one morning, a translucent screen suddenly appeared before my eyes.
Survival 1-Year Special Benefit! Free Gacha Ticket x10 Granted!
“I was genuinely shocked back then.”
I’d tried shouting for a status window just in case, but nothing appeared, so I gave up… only to find out it wasn’t a growth system at all. It was a gacha system.
Tears streaming down my face, I rolled the gacha. Most of what came out was mediocre junk. The so-called elixirs were basically just cheap tonics. The potions were the lowest grade, only good for first aid. A dagger or a bundle of arrows that blacksmiths threw in as a bonus when you bought a lot. I sold everything and used the money to buy winter clothes and a decent self-defense weapon.
If you don’t have a home, at least your clothes should be warm. If you don’t have strength, at least your weapon should be sharp.
“If I’d known it would come to this, I should’ve eaten the elixir instead of selling it.”
If I had, maybe the bone-chilling cold creeping up from the prison floor wouldn’t feel quite so brutal. Those cheap bastards. Taking my weapon was one thing, but stripping me of my clothes? The least they could do was give me something else to wear. Instead they tossed me a ragged scrap of cloth and left me here to freeze. What if I died before they could sell me?
I clicked my tongue inwardly for a moment, but I couldn’t really complain. After all, this was my own damn fault.
That’s right. Somehow, out of ten pulls, nine had been pathetic 1-star trash… but the very last one had been a 3-star skill.
Skills weren’t convenient things you could activate with the press of a button like in games. It was more like the system had crammed the instruction manual and the minimum resources needed to use it straight into my brain. Since my original setting didn’t include any system, I’d had to test it myself and make educated guesses.
If the skill I’d drawn had been Fireball, I would’ve gained enough mana to at least be called a mage by a hair’s breadth. The same went for swordsmanship—I’d have become as strong as an adult. Holy arts would’ve granted me divine power.
But the skill I actually got was…
“Pickpocketing.”
More precisely, it was called Eyes Faster Than Hands: Pickpocketing. I’d wondered how something as simple as swiping wallets could be 3-star, but the technique was ridiculously advanced. I’d never been caught once. That said it all.
…And that was exactly the problem.
I had the knowledge but no real power to use it. Then this half-baked strength fell into my lap, and I guess I lost a bit of self-control. Yeah, no point hiding it. Over the past few months, I’d become a living legend in the pickpocketing world.
Stealing from ordinary people struggling to survive every day pricked my conscience, and the profits were pretty mediocre anyway. So I went after thugs and members of criminal clans instead. Before I knew it, I’d become famous. And of course, that fame eventually caught up to me and got me captured.
Not that they had any solid evidence. The technique was far too stealthy and quick to be ordinary pickpocketing. But these guys didn’t need evidence. This was a labyrinth city crawling with adventurers—a rough crowd by nature. The ones who ran criminal organizations here had to be even more dangerous. They’d kidnap first and ask questions later, acting purely on suspicion.
‘Whether you’re really the pickpocket who’s been robbing our boys lately doesn’t matter. If we grab every suspicious brat, one of them’s bound to be the real deal. …And even if you’re not, we’ve got plenty of uses for you, so don’t worry.’
The middle-aged woman who’d smirked and stroked my face had been the boss of this place. Covered head to toe in gaudy jewelry like some vulgar nouveau riche, she’d proudly laid out her plan. If I really was the pickpocket, great. If not, she’d just pin her organization’s crimes on me, sell me as a slave, and be done with it. My body might be young, but my face was pretty enough to make up for the petty cash I’d stolen. And even if I didn’t sell, she could always use me until she got her money’s worth. I could still see her leering face clearly.
That’s right. This world wasn’t just gender-reversed—it was practically medieval. More than enough to make an innocent person disappear if someone felt like it.
…Though in my case, I really was the pickpocket, so I couldn’t exactly claim innocence.
“Sigh…”
I never thought I’d get caught. And even if I did, I never imagined they’d frame an innocent person without evidence. My hands and feet were tightly bound, and my only hope—the gacha system—had no currency left to roll with. Obviously, I’d been so obsessed with pickpocketing because of the gacha. It let me trade cash or monster magic stones for tickets.
All the money I’d stolen had already been dumped into the gacha and blown up in spectacular fashion. The emergency fund I’d saved for living expenses had been taken when I was captured. In other words, I was going to be sold as a slave whether I liked it or not.
“If I have to be sold, I at least want it to be to a pretty older sister…”
Yeah, the odds of that were basically zero. Still, I didn’t want to starve to death, so I stared quietly at the water they’d given me in a dog bowl. My reflection on the still surface was exactly as the boss lady had said—quite good-looking.
My skin was pure white despite spending all day outside with no home. My features were soft and round, cute in a way that suited my age, but I could tell I’d grow up to be handsome. The only real problem was my unnecessarily bright pink hair and eyes.
Pink hair on a guy? What kind of bizarre combination was that? But I had no one to blame but myself for adding “diverse hair colors” to the setting. And if you flipped the gender roles, it made a weird kind of sense. Pink-haired heroines were always valid, after all. I guess I was something like that now.
…Or maybe not. Whatever. One thing was certain—an attractive slave like this wouldn’t come cheap. A rich woman would definitely buy me. Unless she was a gold spoon or some business genius, it would’ve taken her a long time to accumulate that kind of wealth. High chance she’d be middle-aged or older.
All I could realistically hope for was that she’d aged gracefully and didn’t have any weird fetishes.
“Haaa…”
Another sigh slipped out. Being locked up and just waiting for the day I’d be disposed of was starting to mess with my head. I flopped onto the cold stone floor and stared blankly at the ceiling.
While I was killing time counting stains without a single thought in my head—
BOOM!
“?”
The sound of something breaking echoed from far away. Then came scattered, chaotic shouts. I shot upright, straining my ears, and finally started to make out the words.
“What the hell is this bitch?!”
“You knew this was the Twin Dagger Clan and still—huh?”
“Boss! Where are you, Boss?! This crazy woman is insanely strong!”
“Wait…?”
Was this what I thought it was? The occasional adventurer guild crackdown on criminals. People who entered the labyrinth and made it out alive gained power, big or small. When those kinds of people started committing crimes against other humans instead of monsters, ordinary guards couldn’t handle them. So the labyrinth city regularly partnered with the adventurer guild to wipe out criminal organizations.
Just like today.
The moment I realized what was happening, I started banging on the iron bars and shouting.
“Over here! There’s someone here! Please help!!”
I was locked in the underground prison. If the extermination team missed me, I’d slowly starve to death. This was both my chance to escape and my desperate struggle to survive.
Maybe my earnest plea had reached the heavens. Not long after, I heard footsteps approaching. The heavy door burst open with a thunderous crash.
“Damn it! Where did a monster like her come from….”
But the person who came through the door wasn’t the savior I’d been hoping for. It was the owner of this place—the Twin Dagger Clan, though it was really just a bandit den. The very same boss who’d bragged about selling me for a high price. I didn’t know her name, but that vulgar woman had apparently abandoned the fight halfway and fled here.
Well. Shit.