My Gender Is?!
My name is Kang Hyundo.
Height: 192 cm. Weight: 105 kg.
Skeletal muscle mass: 51.5 kg.
A gym rat who'd spent half his life doing nothing but lifting iron.
Then one day I open my eyes and find myself turned into a pink-haired beauty—the most gorgeous woman in the entire province?
Where the hell did all the muscle I'd carefully cultivated go?
An extreme identity crisis came crashing down on me, but the moment I checked the flashy stats and broken-tier class floating in front of my eyes—
Hmm.
"Overcome!"
Ah. As expected, for a man, raw power beats muscle any day.
Whatever the reason, I got stronger—so it passes!
It was an ordinary day like any other.
"Hey, everyone. Morning."
Hauling my massive frame through the door, I stepped into the break room where the public service workers at the community center gathered.
I greeted my juniors with a bright hello as I walked in.
"Hyundo-hyung, only showing up now 'cause you're a short-timer?"
That rude greeting came from Juhyeok.
"Powerless and exhausted morning."
That lazy reply from the sofa belonged to Yeongjae.
Including me, our community center's entire public service crew was just the three of us. They were a couple of scrawny punks, but before I knew it, we'd already spent a full year together.
"You little brats. Your hyung shows up and you don't even greet him properly?"
"Ah, hyung, you've got one month left till you're a civilian. Why don't you go study for certifications instead of coming here and bugging us?"
Coming from Juhyeok, that jab hit a short-timer like me right in the soul—a perfectly aimed knife between the ribs.
"You little bastard. Just because you're a Climber, you're gonna scratch the delicate feelings of a weak non-Climber?"
Juhyeok stared at me like I'd lost my mind.
"Looking at that body of yours, you're the one who looks like the Climber… Unbelievable, old man."
He was clearly jealous of my magnificent physique.
"That's why I keep telling you to hit the gym with this hyung after work."
"No thanks. You go do plenty yourself, hyung."
We bickered like this every single day. And now it was almost over.
It was a shame, but discharge was discharge. Nothing I could do about it.
We were still shooting the breeze in the break room when the section chief pushed open the door.
"Kids, we've got work. Give me a hand!"
"Ah, Chief, I've only got a month left—make the kids do it!"
Trying to work a short-timer with one month remaining? Truly evil.
"Help me move some cabbages. You help too, and after work I'll buy everyone Pizza School."
Pizza School.
A pure carbohydrate bomb that completely violated everything this body stood for.
But.
"Deal…!"
I'd blown this month's food budget on expensive protein powder and was walking a financial tightrope.
Can't turn down free food!
"Hurry up, kids! We're eating pizza!"
"Wow, this old man is going crazy over a ten-thousand-won pizza."
"Hyung, put up a little more of a fight!"
These brats had some nerve disrespecting their senior…
"You think I'd be satisfied with just one pizza?"
I locked eyes with the section chief and made my declaration.
"Add spaghetti too, Chief!"
The section chief snorted like he couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"Aigoo, this mountain-sized punk… Fine, I'll buy it!"
"Hell yeah!"
I herded my two juniors—who were still giving me dirty looks over my successful negotiation—and we arrived at a mountain of cabbages.
"Whoa. You tried to get this done for a single ten-thousand-won pizza, Chief?"
At my accusation, the section chief turned his head away as he spoke.
"Hey, I'm working too, you punks. You get free food from me and get paid by the government! I'm buying this out of my pitiful salary while looking over my shoulder the whole time!"
The sorrowful cry of a broke family man. I had no choice but to accept it and get moving.
"Aigoo, what strength does the Chief even have left? Kids, let's finish fast and rest!"
We each grabbed the boxes we had to move, and I assigned the loads.
"I'll take fifteen boxes…! Chief takes ten, Yeongjae you also take ten, and finally—Juhyeok, you're on twenty."
"What the hell is wrong with this crazy bastard? Why am I the only one with twenty boxes?!"
"Because you can just move them with telekinesis."
Before starting his service, Juhyeok had been a Climber who'd reached the mid-10th floor. He'd awakened telekinesis and used to pull in over ten million won a month.
"Aargh, I can't even throw these things!"
Juhyeok snatched up a cabbage and aimed it at me with murder in his eyes.
"Hey now, put that down. I've been your senior public service worker for a whole year!"
Times like these, you raise the senior shield.
He had a good heart deep down, so he sighed and set the cabbage back in the box. Just in case, though, I quickly changed the subject.
"Alright, alright, hurry up! Move it!"
Dodging his glare as best I could, I started hauling cabbages.
I scooped cabbages off the ground with force, packed the boxes, and loaded them onto the cart.
Working together, we finished moving that mountain of cabbages way earlier than expected.
"Man, great work, kids. Go rest in the break room now!"
"Yes, sir."
We lounged around the break room, answering the occasional request for help, and time passed the usual way.
Before long, quitting time rolled around.
Clack—.
True to his word, the section chief stopped by the break room on his way out.
"Kids, take the pizza!"
In his hands: three pizzas, spaghetti, and even complimentary drinks.
"Thanks for the food, Chief!"
I grinned, took the pizzas, and handed one to each of the guys.
"Ah, I'm good—you eat mine, hyung. Pizza doesn't sit well with me. I won't have any."
Our scrawny but pure-hearted Yeongjae. Giving up his pizza for this broke muscle-bound senior of his.
"For real? I'm not refusing!"
"Go ahead—I'll just head home and eat something plain."
Beaming, I turned my gaze on the rich boy, Juhyeok.
"What."
"Just wondering if our refined-taste Juhyeok was also skipping."
"Get lost."
"Tch."
What a prickly guy.
A year ago he used to refuse this stuff and give it away. Not anymore.
Anyway, I headed home in high spirits, pizza in hand.
"Muscles! Today this hyung is slamming high carbs for the first time in forever, so let's train hard!"
The second I got home I set the table and demolished the pizza to fuel the workout ahead. Exactly thirty minutes of digestion later, I charged into the gym determined to burn every last carb I'd absorbed and launched into a high-intensity session.
"Hup! Hup!"
Today was upper-body day.
I hammered through a three-split iron session, frying my front upper-body muscles.
"Last set—weighted pull-ups, thirty reps!"
Finish by blasting the back, and done.
"And for the finale, of course—strawberry protein."
I shook my favorite strawberry protein and downed it in one shot.
Showered at the gym, completed every last routine.
"Whew. Another fulfilling day…"
I walked home gazing at that absurdly massive Tower you could see from anywhere in Seoul, sinking into that special muscle-man sentimentality. After a bit of rest like always, I turned off the lights and got ready for bed.
If the muscles are gonna recover, I've gotta be asleep by ten at the latest.
A proper living man, I drifted into deep sleep dreaming of an even more massive body tomorrow.
The moment Kang Hyundo sank into deep, snoring sleep—
—a message window appeared before his eyes.
You have 'Awakened'.
Trait: Heavenly Demon Physique (EX) has been confirmed.
Your body is transforming to match the trait.
Brilliant light flooded his entire body. Bones and muscles split and reformed; skin seethed and boiled—yet Hyundo slept on.
Before long, every change was complete.
And there, lying in clothes that no longer fit, was a pink-haired young woman.
6:30 a.m. Dawn.
Brrring!
The alarm blasted and my eyes snapped open.
"Ugh!"
I stretched and got up.
But—
Huh?
The sound of my stretch was wrong.
"What the fuck?!"
The curse that left my mouth carried none of the thick, charismatic baritone of a man. A clear, lovely voice rang in my ears.
And the voice wasn't the only thing wrong.
"My massive arms?"
What met my eyes were arms so thin they looked ready to snap.
The expensive tan I'd paid good money for had evaporated somewhere too—dazzlingly pure white skin stared back at me.
And immediately below that, my gaze dropped to a pair of enormous breasts.
"What the hell? Where did my two eternal friends Firmie and Tautie go, and what's with this gynecomastia?"
Where had the chest muscles I'd been so proud of gone, replaced by nothing but fat?
Cognitive dissonance slammed into reality. I bolted for the bathroom mirror.
"Aargh, shit…!"
My bottoms, no longer the right size, started slipping down. I yanked them off on the way and reached the bathroom.
"You've got to be kidding me?"
In the mirror stood some stunning young woman.
Height maybe a little over 160 cm—just right. A face that looked like someone had spent hours customizing a game character.
"Holy shit… she's insanely pretty?"
Pretty enough that a vulgar curse just slipped out.
And the body? Not the athletic, high-mobility type that matched my personal ideal—but a distinctly feminine figure that would absolutely nail mainstream tastes.
And the finishing touch: deep pink hair the exact same color as my protein packaging.
"This… is me?"
An impossible situation.
Hoping to wake from a dream, I slapped my own cheek and even splashed my face with cold water.
Reality was merciless. Nothing changed.
"No way… I've been castrated? I have to sit on the toilet to piss?!"
On top of everything, my usual morning routine meant I urgently needed the bathroom the second I woke up. I felt like I was about to lose my mind. The urge only grew stronger.
In the end I squeezed my eyes shut and had no choice but to sit on the toilet and do my business.
"Ugh. Damn it!!!"
The strange sensation filled me with crushing self-loathing. Factor in the hormone shift and even my normally optimistic self started pumping pure depression.
I staggered out of the bathroom and just sat there blankly on the floor as thoughts piled up.
"I have to live as a woman from now on?"
Isn't becoming a beauty a good thing? people might think. But this body of mine had been trained nonstop since I was a kid. How much had I invested in it?
From my mid-teens onward I'd poured most of my life's growth hormone into that muscular frame.
And now I was supposed to live as a beautiful woman?
I hung my head, unable to accept it—and my eyes landed on the dumbbell I lifted every morning.
"From now on I won't even be able to lift a dumbbell this light…"
With arms this thin, I'd be stuck making friends with pink dumbbells.
"…"
Yet that 20 kg dumbbell refused to leave my sight.
Finally I stood up in pure resignation and walked over just to try picking it up once.
"Yeah right, like this body could ever lift—aaaaah?"
But the dumbbell rose with absurd ease.
This was definitely the same dumbbell I used every morning before work for a quick muscle pump to look good. Yet it felt like lifting a single egg.
It's light!
"No way… this too?"
I immediately grabbed the EZ-bar loaded with a full 100 kg of plates for barbell curls.
It rose with zero strain on my biceps. Completely weightless.
"It's light! …It's light, hahahaha!"
As if this weight was nothing. Everything I touched moved like a feather.
"Then…"
What had hurt the most was the thought that all my effort had been for nothing. How many years of grinding had I endured to build a body strong enough to lift heavier and heavier weights?
But.
The muscle was gone—yet I had grown stronger.
So I changed my thinking. Simple equivalent exchange.
It had taken the masculinity I'd cultivated for half a lifetime and given me power beyond it in return.
"No…!"
A miraculous piece of logic suddenly flashed through my mind.
Cross-dressing is the manliest act a man can perform… so doesn't that mean a man who became a woman has gone beyond the manliest act of all…?
In other words, this appearance right now was simply the ultimate expression of my extreme masculinity.
Anyone could see it was complete nonsense—but once my self-justification was finished, no logic could touch the inside of my head.
And so, inside that tiny one-room apartment—
—the heavy clang of iron rang out from the crack of dawn.
Accompanied by bright, lovely laughter.