Sounds Fun?
Prologue.
A dazzlingly blue sky stretched overhead, and beneath it sprawled the magnificent Alps Mountains. Two men were flying through that sky, stacked one atop the other.
Whiiiiish!
No.
They were falling.
"Scheiße, Scheiße!!"
Click! Click!
Curses erupted from the skydiving instructor as he yanked madly at the parachute cord. Of course, no amount of yanking was going to fix a broken chute.
"Not going so well, huh?"
Kim Jeon-woo, a twenty-three-year-old young man who had been watching the whole thing in silence, clicked his tongue. To think he'd end up living through one of those skydiving accidents he'd only ever heard about. He'd had a bad feeling about this trip from the moment they left.
"Ah, well."
Resigned, Kim Jeon-woo turned his gaze downward. Judging by the look of things, this life was about done.
"Nice view, though."
Even now, Switzerland's natural scenery was spectacular. Behind him the instructor kept screaming something, but Kim Jeon-woo had long since stopped caring.
Death was imminent. Only one thought circled through his mind.
What a shame.
There was still so much he hadn't done. A man who had spent his entire life chasing thrills, and he was going to die without experiencing even half the fun the world had to offer. It really was a waste.
Whiiiiish!!
There was no time left for reflection. His accelerating body raced toward the ground. The earth rushed up to meet him. Only seconds remained before the final period on his life.
"Well, still."
Kim Jeon-woo left one last message for the world.
"Thanks for the good time!"
Thud!
Blink. Blink.
The moment he opened his eyes, sunlight stabbed into them, and Kim Jeon-woo scowled.
What the hell?
As his mind cleared, the first thing that hit him was sheer bewilderment at the fact that he was still alive.
…I didn't die?
"…Young Master! Young Master!"
A fussy, overwrought voice battered his ears. A man was thrusting his face right up against Kim Jeon-woo, who lay on a bed.
"Young Master! Are you conscious?!"
Chubby cheeks, an ugly little mustache, and a face twisted as if he were about to burst into tears at any second.
"Oh, Young Master!"
"…?"
Who was this guy, and why was he so loud? Kim Jeon-woo had never seen him before in his life. He didn't look like a doctor or a nurse, either.
In his confusion, Kim Jeon-woo muttered quietly,
"…Who are you? And where is this?"
"Huuuh?!"
The man's face went deathly pale.
"Young Maaaster!! Have you lost your memory?! Call a priest!! Someone fetch a priest!!!"
"Would you please just shut up…"
1. Sounds Fun?
On the plane to Switzerland, Kim Jeon-woo had been reading a web novel when he let out a short review.
"Wow. What a loser."
He'd said it about an extra who stayed pathetic right to the bitter end. The guy had been a sniveling wreck from his first appearance, and even after his big dark turn he barely made an impact before dying like a wet paper bag.
No convictions. No clear goal. Just a petty villain steeped in inferiority. Exactly the kind of character Kim Jeon-woo despised.
But that was all. After that, Kim Jeon-woo completely lost interest. The thought of the guy didn't last five seconds. He was just an extra who briefly blocked the protagonist's path, nothing more.
"Huh."
Yeah. That was how it had been…
"And now I'm him?"
Kim Jeon-woo — no, Leon Crusif — lay sprawled on the bed, letting out a dry little laugh. For thirty minutes his head had felt like it was splitting open, and then the original owner's memories had more or less poured in.
Leon Crusif.
Third son of the Crusif family, one of the Four Great Dukes of the Latia Empire. A character from the web novel he'd been reading — Billy Wants to Live Quietly.
To live long enough to fall into a novel's world. It was a setup that showed up all the time in the web novels he liked. The situation should have been absurd enough to short-circuit his brain, but Leon just smiled wider.
"Reincarnation? Possession?"
Didn't matter which. He'd been given another chance. And a chance several times better than his previous life, at that.
This body's specs far outstripped those of Kim Jeon-woo, ordinary Korean civilian. A fantasy world where swords and magic ran wild. The son of a ducal house second only to the imperial family in power. And a parade of spectacular incidents still waiting to unfold.
What Leon liked best of all was that this was a chaotic world packed with every kind of fun imaginable.
"Nice!"
He was so wired with excitement he couldn't contain the energy — he thrashed around on the bed like a man possessed.
"Eek!"
A maid who'd come to change his bandages saw the spectacle and stumbled backward in shock.
"Hoo… hoo…"
After a good long stretch of pure lunacy, Leon took a deep breath and sorted his thoughts.
In the original story, Leon Crusif was a third-rate villainous trash extra — pathetic for someone of his station. But so what? That guy had vanished somewhere, and Leon was here now. As long as he was the one in the driver's seat, that future was never going to happen.
If this opportunity had fallen to someone else, they might have settled into a leisurely high-noble life and coasted.
"Not a chance in hell."
Leon had zero intention of living that way. He was about as far from ordinary as a person could get. Force him into a normal life and the boredom and monotony would drive him insane. One of the words he hated most was "peaceful." He always needed stress. Always needed stimulation.
Maybe twenty-first-century Korea had never really been the right world for him.
"Sounds fun."
Leon was a fish that had finally found water.
Billy Wants to Live Quietly was a fantasy power-fantasy novel. The story of a protagonist named Billy Kaintel crushing his enemies with overwhelming talent. And true to the title, the hero wanted nothing more than a quiet life — but the world refused to leave him alone.
Every disaster, danger, and misfortune the world had to offer piled onto Billy with almost unfair intensity. Watching him cut through that hardship with indifferent swings of his sword delivered pure catharsis to the readers.
The novel was split into two parts. Part One covered Billy's academy life, and Part Two…
"I died before I could read it."
He didn't know. Leon had only gotten about halfway through Part One before reincarnating, so the rest was a blank.
"Eh, probably something about saving the world."
Surely Billy didn't actually get to live quietly after that. If he had, the novel would have ended with Part One. The author had scattered so many plot hooks that there was no way it wrapped up cleanly.
Anyway — for now, Leon decided to head for a place called Elprime Academy.
Elprime Academy. The Latia Empire's finest educational institution. The place where the protagonist Billy would spend the next three years getting tangled in every kind of incident imaginable.
Yes. Incidents.
In exchange for overwhelming talent, Billy seemed to have absorbed every scrap of bad luck in existence. The protagonist was basically a walking disaster. Wherever he went, something blew up one way or another.
That was exactly why Leon needed to stick to his side. Because that was how the fun never stopped, right? For a man who hunted interesting events the way other people hunted meals, it was the most natural logic in the world.
An acceptance letter was a given. For the son of a ducal house, even Elprime Academy would open its doors without much fuss — so long as you weren't a complete disaster. And the character Leon Crusif made his first appearance at Elprime Academy to begin with.
"Hmm…"
Leon checked the calendar. Mid-August. About six months until the Elprime Academy entrance ceremony next March, when Leon would turn eighteen.
"Alright. Time to move."
Leon pushed his stiff body up and climbed out of bed. His injured frame screamed for rest; he ignored it completely. He intended to put every scrap of original-story knowledge to work, and that meant there was a lot to prepare.
A lot he wanted to do, too.
Time flew. Before he knew it, only a week remained until the academy entrance ceremony.
In the original story, Leon Crusif may have been a petty little man, but his talent with the sword was exceptional. At the age of fifteen he had already reached the rank of Sword Expert, capable of projecting sword aura.
That same Leon would go on to feel the crushing gap in talent against the protagonist — a mere baron's son — and lose. Multiple times.
Born the son of a duke, gifted with talent no one could dismiss — when had he ever tasted humiliation like that? His first real defeat drowned him in inferiority and shame. Unable to overcome the pain of loss, he eventually fell, choosing to sell his soul to a demon.
And even after all that, he died like nothing under the protagonist's indifferent blade.
That was all he was. Not a final boss. Not even a mid-boss. Just a third-rate villain.
Reading the novel, Kim Jeon-woo had felt so frustrated he thought he might explode.
"If you're going to do it, do it right."
If you were going to fall to darkness — if you chose to become a villain — then commit. That was his philosophy.
Yes. That was exactly why Leon was currently in the middle of selling his soul to a demon.
"Ohhh!!! Nice to meet you!!!"
…One thing was certain. Leon's way of thinking was not normal.