Chapter 0: Prologue — Aren’t Transmigration Stories Out of Style…?
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 0: Prologue — Aren’t Transmigration Stories Out of Style…?
My head was spinning, yet the surrounding scenery came into focus with eerie clarity.
My memory was a bit hazy due to the dizziness, but no matter how hard I racked my brain, the last place I remembered being was definitely not here.
Is this… an auditorium?
A strange sense of déjà vu washed over me as I watched the crowd of cadets gathered in one space, waiting for something to happen.
It was clearly a place I’d never been and people I’d never met, yet for some reason, I felt like I knew exactly what was coming next.
[Joint Top Students. Cheon Yu-hak and Lilac, please come up to the stage.]
My ominous intuition hit the mark. Two boys—strangers, yet people I knew all too well—stepped onto the stage.
The crowd buzzed with a strange excitement, their eyes fixed on the two figures.
One boy wore a smile brimming with confidence, while the other maintained a noble, arrogant posture, as if being called was only natural.
This was a scene straight out of my memory.
[Traditionally, the highest scorer on the entrance exam serves as the Freshman Representative. However, this year, we had the surprising result of a tie for the top spot.]
[While this is a first since the Academy’s founding, the school welcomes the abundance of talented students. Therefore, we have made the exceptional decision to ask both students to serve as Freshman Representatives simultaneously.]
Applause erupted around me, but I didn’t have the luxury of joining in.
The fog in my mind began to clear, and the situation started to make sense with terrifying speed.
If I wasn’t mistaken, the situation I was in was nothing short of a catastrophe.
Cheon Yu-hak and Lilac.
It was my first time seeing those unnecessarily handsome faces in person, but I had read the sentences describing their appearances until I was sick of them.
They were the two protagonists of a novel my friend wrote.
To be more precise, they were the two eccentric protagonists of a shitty, discontinued web novel my friend wrote.
On the stage, Lilac was the first to grab the microphone.
“Oh, shit.”
Given that the flow of events so far was identical to the beginning of the novel, there was a depressingly high probability that the incident scheduled to follow would also occur exactly as written.
To be honest, my friend’s novel lacked popularity for a reason.
What kind of reader would enjoy an absurd plot where people start exploding during the prologue of an academy story, causing the start of the school year to be delayed?
Now, the important part was the description of the first people to die when that incident occurred.
— Among those gathered in the auditorium, those standing near the left wall met their end without even realizing what had happened to them.
I turned my head slightly and saw the left wall of the auditorium.
Judging by the fact that I could reach out and touch it, it seemed I was destined to die very soon.
“Everyone.”
The moment that irritatingly handsome guy gave a warm, smiling greeting, a sickening sound began to ring out as if to prove my theory right.
“I am honored to serve as your representative on such a wonderful day. My name is Lilac, one of your Freshman Representatives. I look forward to being your classmate and your rival as we learn together until graduation.”
—10 minutes remaining until the start of the Main Quest.
A chilling voice echoed in my head.
“I hope we can provide good motivation for one another through healthy competition. I look forward to the next four years with you all!”
—8 minutes and 47 seconds remaining until the start of the Main Quest.
The contrast between the text floating before my eyes and the Freshman Representative’s bright greeting was so stark I felt like crying.
If my guess was right, that “Main Quest” was a timer counting down to the moment the auditorium wall would explode and I would die.
That’s right.
It seemed I had transmigrated into my friend’s shitty novel as a terminally ill character.