Starting My Academy City Life as the Champion (1)
The roar of the crowd shook the arena. “SILVERBACK!SILVERBACK!!”
“Waaaaaaaaah—!!!”
“Amazing Korean Gorilla!! I love Korea! Heung-min Son!!! Psy!! BTS!! Jimin ma!!!! Let’s go!!”
Blinding spotlights. My vision blurred by blood streaming down my face. A high-pitched ringing drilled into my ears, and my legs trembled beneath me. The delayed damage from the blows finally hit, and every joint and nerve in my body screamed in protest.
I took a deep breath. In. Out. I straightened my stance.
Beyond my hazy sight lay the champion, sprawled motionless on the canvas. And in that instant, the referee’s voice cracked like thunder against my eardrums.
“Knockout! Knockout!!!”
K.O.
I collapsed right there on the spot.
Coaches immediately vaulted into the ring, wrapping me in bear hugs as they burst into tears.
“Fuck!! Jimin!! You’re the champion!! First Asian ever!! You did it! You won!!!”
At last. I had reached the summit I’d dreamed of for so long.
With shaking arms, I raised a fist toward the roaring crowd. A victory declaration. The cheers crashed over the entire arena like a tidal wave.
Ma Jimin, 28 years old.
Just three years after stepping into the UFC—the world’s strongest stage—after dominating Road FC and One Championship. He becomes the first Asian UFC Heavyweight Champion.
Hot tears carved trails down my cheeks.
I had survived. And I had proven myself.
The chubby middle-schooler who used to cry alone at home, covered in bruises, had climbed to the absolute peak of global combat.
This was enough. It was more than enough…
No matter where you went in Korea, the news was all about me.
From combat sports internet broadcasts to regular network news.
“To win the UFC Heavyweight title at twenty-eight after such a short career is simply unbelievable! It’s a miraculous victory. Even though Ma Jimin is a well-rounded fighter who excels in nearly every martial discipline, it’s true that he still lacks experience compared to other top-tier athletes…”
Who could have predicted this?
If I’d told the bullies from my middle school days, they probably would’ve laughed and flicked their cigarette butts at me. Telling me to stop squealing like a pig.
What a hellish youth that was.
The funny thing was, the moment I won the Road FC championship, every single one of them sent me apology messages. Were they scared of retaliation? Or worried I’d ruin the normal lives they’d built after washing away their delinquent pasts?
Honestly, it didn’t matter.
I had erased the wriggling of those insects from my mind long ago.
“Life really is beautiful sometimes.”
I sat on the grass beside the Han River, cracking open a cold beer. As I watched the shimmering sunset, I spotted a high-school couple filming a Reel on the embankment. They kept giggling and laughing together. Ah, youth. It looked good on them.
I chuckled softly as I watched.
Beautiful. And enviable.
To be honest, I no longer had any real regrets. I’d become champion. I had plenty of money. My apartment with a view of the Han River from Jamsil was home. When I bought the building for my parents and moved them in, they cried buckets. I had two cars now—a cool Jeep and a luxury SUV. Women? No need to even mention it. Girls who never looked at me in school suddenly swarmed me as fans. I kept my distance so I wouldn’t get in trouble for misconduct.
Yes. I had achieved everything.
Everything… yet one corner of my heart still felt empty.
The image of that high-school couple laughing without a care in the world kept flickering in front of my eyes.
Did I ever have friends back in school? Any happy memories? A girlfriend?
After dropping out of high school, I spent every waking moment rotating between the gym, the boxing club, and every martial arts dojo imaginable, training like a demon.
This emptiness came from my beautiful youth that had been completely hollowed out.
I cracked two more cans of beer before heading home alone. My parents had moved to the countryside. Farming had been their lifelong dream, so I bought them a nice building to live in.
“Maybe I’ll read a novel for the first time in ages.”
What I ended up choosing was a novel I hadn’t touched in years.
Welcome to the Academy City. Or Hagohwan for short.
Despite the name, it wasn’t the kind of story where students suddenly fired railguns or fought with superpowers. It was simply a classic harem rom-com set in Kamisato Special District—a massive zone that gathered all kinds of schools.
A typical light novel from that era, dripping with otaku flavor.
“Still, reading it again after so long might feel different.”
How much time did I have to read novels while preparing for a title fight? I was usually catching power naps in the car between training sessions. Taking a proper break and binge-reading all the novels and anime I’d missed didn’t sound so bad.
Anyway, it would be at least two more weeks before any major network appearances came in.
I kept turning the pages.
[“Hey, Shido Toya… Actually, I…!”]
[“Sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the fireworks. What did you say?”]
[“Ah! It’s nothing… nothing at all…”]
As I read, details that never bothered me before started to stand out.
This guy. Why did he suddenly go deaf every single time something important happened? The heroine was practically screaming her feelings right next to him, yet he was too busy fishing for goldfish to notice.
Thinking about it now, isn’t this guy actually impotent?
And how could someone who plants flags with at least two girls per volume seriously not realize it?
That wasn’t all. The main plot of Welcome to the Academy City revolved around “the protagonist’s search for his lost memories.”
Yes. That cliché.
A girl he promised his future to as a child. But as they grew up, the memories grew faint, and the two were separated. They each carried a token so they wouldn’t forget each other, but other heroines were also connected to the protagonist in various ways from childhood. No one knew which token was the real one. Readers fought endless “who’s the true heroine” wars, sales exploded, and popularity polls decided the official ranking. That was how love comedies worked back then.
But looking at it again, it was hilariously stupid.
Who cares about a promise made at age eight? Just date whoever you like now.
The real problem was that this idiot protagonist couldn’t even recognize the actual promised heroine when she stood right in front of him. Instead, he’d go crawling after other girls.
But what frustrated me most was the crisis scenes.
When his childhood friend from the kendo club fell into a trap set by the opposing team and nearly suffered something horrible, this moron charged in alone to “save” her, only to get beaten half to death. Watching that, the heroine would awaken with the line, “Toya went this far for me…!!” and then proceed to beat up everyone else.
…I was losing my mind.
“Come on!!! Even this is too much!!”
I finally slammed the book shut and shouted.
Had I become too grounded in reality? Scenes that used to make me chuckle or feel moved now seemed childish and irritating.
If you’re weak, at least go train. He had the perfect childhood friend as a training partner right beside him, yet from volume one to ten he never changed. The description clearly said he was a classic muscle-pig type, but he never actually trained?
“Sigh…”
In the end, I had no choice but to let go of the novel that held memories of my childhood.
Whatever. Let’s just sleep. What good is reading novels? It’s not like it’ll bring my youth back.
I lay down on the wide sofa and surrendered to the wave of drowsiness that crashed over me…
“Hey, hey, dude. You think this bastard’s just pretending to be unconscious?”
What the hell is this noise?
“He’s not dead, is he?”
“I told you to control your strength, man.”
“Forget it, let’s just take his wallet and bounce. Getting caught by the Disciplinary Committee would be a pain in the ass.”
When I opened my eyes at the muttering, a tanned high-schooler with bleached blonde hair was shoving his face right in front of mine.
“Oh, this guy’s awake—”
“Jesus, you scared me!”
I threw a hook straight into his jaw without hesitation.
Crack.
With the sound of his jaw twisting, the tanned delinquent crumpled onto my stomach.
“H-hey, Shou!!!”
I kicked the unconscious punk aside and scrambled to my feet, quickly assessing the situation.
The first thing I saw was a row of traditional Japanese-style houses and, floating beyond the horizon, a massive drone.
Today as well, Kamisato Broadcasting Station supports your enjoyable school life!
Kamisato. Kamisato…?
“You son of a bitch! How dare you do that to Shou!!!”
“Shut up for a second.”
Slap.
“Guh!”
I backhanded the charging delinquent across the face and fell into thought.
Kamisato was definitely the name of the city from the novel I’d been reading right before falling asleep—Welcome to the Academy City.
Kamisato Special District.
Plus that enormous broadcasting drone. It matched the descriptions in the novel perfectly.
But the most shocking thing was my own face reflected in the cracked smartphone screen lying on the ground.
Flabby cheeks, a double chin, rounded shoulders—the body of a textbook unathletic obese person.
This was exactly how the protagonist looked in volume one of Hagohwan.
“Shou! Sudo!! You— you pig bastard—!!”
“Ugh, so noisy. Can’t you shut your mouth?”
Crack!!
A perfect uppercut to the jaw. He joined his two friends rolling on the floor.
After quickly cleaning up the random street thugs who had jumped me, I finally processed the situation.
Did I really enter the novel? But why???
Was it because I cursed the story right before falling asleep? You crazy bastard. This series ended ten years ago. And I’m Korean—how the hell would I get isekai’d into a Japanese light novel?
While I stood there in a daze, lost in confusion—
“Toya!!!”
A clear, bright voice called from behind me.
When I turned around, a girl with brown hair in a ponytail was running toward me in a panic.
I knew this girl.
She was the title heroine of Welcome to the Academy City—Shinohara Misaki.
Misaki’s face turned deathly pale as she stared at the trio snoring on the ground.
“W-what happened here? Why are the guys from Kamimura lying here?”
“No idea. Maybe I studied too hard last night.”
I brushed it off, but that wasn’t the important part.
Even through her blazer, the overwhelming weight and volume were impossible to ignore. It was like a black hole, sucking every gaze in the area straight toward it.
Whoa. They’re huge.