Dual Personality? (1)

Flash!

The light that had swallowed my vision finally cleared, and the world snapped back into focus.

I was outside the Tower.

Not much time had passed, apparently — awakeners were still stretching their hands toward the Tower, filtering in one after another.

"Hmm."

I watched them for a moment, then clenched my fist and threw a few experimental punches into the empty air.

Whoosh, whoosh!

My movements felt a little sluggish. Fatigue, maybe.

"Hm."

I started stretching, working the stiffness out of my body.

Jumping jacks, waist twists, side bends — the whole routine. The only calisthenics I knew: the old ROK Army physical training drills.

They were a relic from before I was even born, and yet the military still ran them every single morning. To this day, Korean soldiers still shouted the cadence and went through the motions at dawn.

If only I'd awakened a little sooner.

I could have skipped the army legally. Instead I did my full term, got discharged, then awakened. Perfect timing.

Anyway — I stretched every muscle I had and powered through the full set, and I could feel the other awakeners' eyes locking onto me.

Of course they stared. A kid — a little girl, no less — grinding through military calisthenics in public was bound to draw looks.

Most of them lost interest and looked away soon enough.

A few, though, watched me the entire time, thumbs flying over their phones.

Something like that, probably.

"Ah."

The second I finished the last breathing exercise clean, my head cleared.

It was the same feeling I'd had after clearing the first floor not long ago — like waking up from a deep dream.

"No."

Seriously, what the hell? Why did this keep happening every time I entered the Tower?

Was there another self sleeping inside me, like a werewolf? And the moment I saw the Tower, that wild side just couldn't be contained?

But the memories are way too clear for that.

Clear memories would have been fine. The problem was that the sensations and emotions from those moments were vivid enough to make my skin crawl.

Crushing a goblin's chest had felt good.

Snapping a goblin's neck with one hand had filled me with a euphoria like I'd claimed the whole world.

Which was exactly why I'd been so pissed at the goblin shaman that tried to spoil the fun by running away at the end.

Every last one of those feelings was hideously, unforgettably sharp.

But I'm not some psycho who gets off on hunting monsters.

Ah — right, body swap. Psycho bitch, then.

Either way. I was not a mental case who got a thrill out of slaughter.

Originally I was the kind of soft guy who couldn't even kill a bug. Peak gentle-man energy.

This…

Last time the SSS Rank dopamine hit had been so strong I'd just shrugged it off. Not today.

For now I was fine as long as the targets were monsters — but what if a day came when monsters weren't enough?

I could end up as a criminal who hurt people. That wasn't some wild leap, either. Awakeners who got dragged around by their own traits and committed murder showed up on the news regularly enough.

So this isn't purely a good thing!

I hadn't even achieved my dreams yet and I was supposed to turn into a raving serial killer? Absolutely not. Hard pass.

"R-right, home first!"

Standing around outside clutching my head wasn't going to produce any answers.

I hurriedly called a taxi home.

I took a quick shower, roughly dried my hair, and immediately opened the Mage Gallery.

Medicine from a pharmacist, disease from a doctor — right?

If this was a trait problem, the Mage Gallery degenerates would know best.

Word that I'd cleared the second floor with an SSS Rank must have already spread — the gallery was in full meltdown.

A quick skim showed the usual: people wondering who Heavenly Demon really was, and a whole lot of desperate praying that this newcomer Heavenly Demon was not a warrior-class.

"Hmm. They praise this one, as expected."

On a normal day I would have gone through and replied to every comment, elevating the Heavenly Demon's renown.

This was an emergency, though. Sadly, I didn't have the bandwidth to answer that thunderous outpouring of love.

These assholes. Instead of answering what I asked, they were just bitching about the nickname again.

At this rate I was going to have to hard-verify that I really was Heavenly Demon…

"Ah, right."

I'd completely forgotten to take a verification shot.

I'd meant to, but the second I stepped into the Tower it slipped my mind.

And even if I had remembered, whether that version of me would have calmly posed for a selfie was still an open question.

"At this rate I can't prove to the world that I'm Heavenly Demon…!"

I could almost hear the stampede of sponsors who had been about to flock to me turning around and walking away.

Just as the ghosts of departing sponsors were flickering in front of my eyes, MagicLover dropped a comment.

"This guy actually knows a surprising amount."

MagicLover — a fixed-nick user who showed up under pretty much every post in the Mage Gallery. A true ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠gallery addict, but his knowledge ran as deep as the ocean, so he was useful more often than not.

What the hell does this guy even do?

Day or night, any hour you could name — the second you forgot he existed, he appeared. Insane activity levels. At this point I half-suspected he wasn't a person at all, but some corporate AI they kept running.

Well — gallery rules allowed light nick-drops, but blatant buddy-buddy networking was banned, so I had to keep the curiosity to myself.

I fired off a reply immediately.

"WarriorBro" was Mage Gallery slang for warrior-class types.

Lately, thanks to a certain user with that nick, the more popular insult had shifted from WarriorBro to "MuscleApe."

"Yeah. This guy."

Definitely a hybrid-class. He spent so much time defending warriors in the Mage Gallery that his nickname was literally "Warrior Human Rights Activist" — a deeply weird guy.

If he wanted to stan warriors, he could just hang out in the Warrior Gallery. Why plant himself in the Mage Gallery? No idea.

Maybe he just liked stirring the pot. Then again, the other users casually roasted him half the time, so who knew.

Whatever. When it came to warrior info, this guy was the sharpest knife in the Mage Gallery drawer.

"No way."

My hands trembling, I slammed out replies as fast as I could.

No response. Dead silence.

"Ah, fuck."

This crazy bastard had actually blocked me!

"Ugh, aaaah."

I wanted to scream right then and there, but the neighbors would lose their minds, so I forced the rage back down.

What was I supposed to do with all this boiling emotion?

I was seriously considering beating a pillow into submission for emotional release when—

Ding!

With perfect timing, WarBro dropped a link in the replies.

I clicked the link WarBro had posted right away.

"Berserker, huh."

A trait that flipped a switch and blanked your mind.

Mine was different — I stayed lucid, just with a slightly warped way of thinking. Not the same flavor.

I felt pain just fine. So that one was out too.

"This bastard."

In the end, there was zero practically useful information.

The takeaway was just that people whose personalities flipped because of a trait all acted up and then died.

In other words, I was stuck. I was still staring into the void trying to figure out what to do when—

A new comment dropped.

"Magic?"

What kind of magic was he talking about?

It felt like a lightning bolt had cracked straight through my skull.

I could see the thread.