Dud on the Run (1)
"Yahui, you feeling okay today?"
"Huh? Oh, uh. Yeah, I'm fine."
"Think you can go to school tomorrow?"
"Yeah."
I answered the boy who was watching me with worried eyes, forcing an awkward smile onto my face. He seemed at least somewhat satisfied by that.
"Good. Then get some proper rest."
"We're heading to school now."
"Don't sit around crying that you're bored!"
"Exams are coming up, so don't forget to study!"
The other kids behind him each threw in a parting remark of their own before disappearing down the hall.
Only then did the room fall silent.
...Yeah, I really can't get used to this.
For the record, the place I currently occupied was not the hospital where I was fated to spend the majority of my life. It wasn't the home I had visited a handful of times, either, nor the school I'd longed to attend but never managed to set foot in.
So possession... is actually a thing that happens, huh.
Not only had I become Yahui, the supporting character of Codename: Baby—I was now sitting in the orphanage where he'd spent his childhood.
The same orphanage the manhwa had brushed past in barely a few panels—a place so briefly touched upon that it was impossible to know whether anyone had even lived there, let alone how.
"Good grief..."
I had woken up in Yahui's body just yesterday.
And overnight, chaos had erupted around the Yahui whose insides had been swapped out. To everyone else, it must have looked like his memories had simply evaporated, so their reactions were only natural.
Thank goodness there was a plausible excuse for the memory loss. Though whether that counts as luck or misfortune, who's to say.
Right before I woke up in this body, apparently Yahui had taken a nasty tumble down the stairs. And it hadn't even been his own fault—an orphanage counselor's mistake, from what I gathered.
As a result, the orphanage director had chosen to hush the whole thing up rather than make a big scene over a kid who (seemingly) lost his memory. Clearly worried that I might trigger an official inspection if she pushed the issue.
Not that I think it was purely an accident...
As it happened, today's date was November 9th. The day before the exam required for admission into the Hwadam Army Special Military Academy.
In other words, tomorrow—of all days, tomorrow itself—the Hwadam Army entrance exam the original Yahui had been aiming for would take place. It was a coincidence too suspicious to simply wave away.
Was this the same obstacle the original Yahui faced in the story?
I had no way of knowing. The manhwa never described exactly how he'd been sabotaged.
But the timing was far too convenient. An accident two days before the entrance exam—if that was coincidence, it was a damned well-orchestrated one.
At least there's one silver lining: the body itself is in perfect shape. No clue how the original Yahui fared, but still.
Right after the fall, I'd been rushed to the hospital and given a full examination—no injuries to speak of.
As for the memory thing, well, the moment my clean bill of health was confirmed, the director basically clamped a hand over everyone's mouth, so I never even got a proper diagnosis for that.
Of course, since I wasn't actually suffering from amnesia, none of that was bad news for me.
It was only not bad news. My prospects remained as murky as ever.
Okay, so what do I actually do now?
I'd shaken off most of the shock of waking up inside a manga character's body when I got up this morning. I had no other choice. My current situation simply didn't allow me the luxury of dwelling on existential crises for long.
First things first—I have to take that exam no matter what. If I do nothing, I'll be sold off exactly like in the original story.
Forget the original Yahui's talents and whatever else—being sold to a criminal syndicate and raised as a knife-for-hire was a life I politely declined. Even if it turned out the academy wasn't for me and I ended up dropping out later, heading that way now was still the better path.
Conveniently, the Hwadam Academy granted its final successful examinees the right to move into the dormitories that very day. Pass tomorrow's exam, and I could escape the orphanage's clutches immediately.
It was the only exit currently available to me... well, not the only one, but certainly the most probable and most advantageous.
Sabotage... they probably won't push further. Even without any physical injury, to everyone else I'm a person whose memories have been completely wiped.
Could someone with incomplete memory actually sit an exam properly?
So whether this accident was deliberate or genuinely a stroke of bad luck, the people here wouldn't dare try anything more. An accident two days before the exam could be written off as "poor kid, so unlucky," but another incident just one day apart would start people asking "isn't that suspicious?"
The real question is whether the original Yahui's talent is still in here with me.
The body itself seemed solid enough. I mean, I'd tumbled head over heels down thirteen stairs without so much as a sprained ankle—never mind a brain hemorrhage.
Compared to my old body, too weak to even go for a run because of my heart, this one was practically superhuman. Whether the rest of his talent had come along for the ride was the thorny question now.
Even if the talent didn't carry over, it wouldn't matter.
I placed a hand over my chest. A normally beating heart pulsed steadily against my palm. It was a rhythm that moved me just by existing—and a vibration that made it impossible for me to stay still.
Whatever role this possession thing played, this is an opportunity I fought for myself.
I no longer needed to worry about my heart acting up before every action. No more restrictions justified by "you can't strain your heart." On top of that, the future had already been foretold: stay put, and my life would be ruined.
In that case, obviously I had to try.
Obviously I had to struggle with everything I had.
"Honestly, I think 'Yahui' would want me to do the same."
I glanced at the mirror mounted on the wall. Bright yellow eyes glinted back from its surface.
"Right, big brother?"
Why was it me, of all people, who ended up in Yahui's body, at this precise moment in time—right before the event that would ignite every tragedy to come?
And in that final moment, why did my brother, seeing me collapse, simply stand there watching instead of calling for a nurse or a doctor?
Or even before that—the conversation we'd exchanged right up until I fell. The golden eyes I'd never registered, the silhouette I knew so well.
Looking back on it now, you—the one who never once told me your name—
"For the record, I don't think of it as stealing."
...So where exactly did the original , the one who should have been inside this body, go?
I gave my answer to the question I'd turned over countless times since waking up here.
"You were the one who suggested it first."
If my last memory wasn't a hallucination, then my possession of this body had happened with Yahui's consent.
I didn't consider how such a thing was even possible. What mattered was that I had chosen to believe it.
I was, at heart, a thoroughly selfish person—I didn't refuse anything that worked in my favor.
So the exam is confirmed... hmm. Where was the test site again?
I searched the notebook for the location. As I did, a neatly folded invitation slipped out and fluttered to the floor. An information packet for the military academy exam.
Military-sensitive information being what it was, the actual test site location wasn't printed anywhere. All it announced was that shuttle transportation would be provided, and listed several designated meeting points.
Would a meeting point inside Sejong City be too risky?
The closest one was a thirty-minute bus ride away. By car, it probably wouldn't even take twenty minutes.
If they realized I'd escaped and came after me, I could be caught red-handed just waiting there.
Besides, there's no guarantee I could even leave on time.
Sabotage didn't have to mean outright violence. If the counselors locked the doors, or if I got stuck with the dawn shift, there'd be nothing I could do about it.
The problem is...
Would it be better to go to a different meeting point?
But the second and third ones were each about two and a half hours away by bus. Considering the shuttles departed once enough candidates gathered—at 8 a.m.—I'd have to leave no later than 5 in the morning.
No wait, with the money I've got I can take the bus exactly once... if I walked from the transfer point, that's at least a 4 a.m. start. And no buses running at that hour anyway.
Unfortunately, I was broke. This damn orphanage gave a pitiful allowance, and whatever little I managed to save, they'd find some scheme to confiscate right back.
At least, that's how Yahui's notebook records read. Which meant leaving before dawn was absolutely out of the question.
"Ha... God, this is pathetic."
Should I have asked the kids for a loan before they left for school?
No. Absolutely not. It was Yahui's friends who had told the orphanage he was preparing for the military academy exam. The manhwa never specified which one did it—and that was exactly why not a single one of them could be trusted.
And I don't have time to go hunting for a hidden emergency stash either.
Say there was a stash hidden so well that even the counselors or the director couldn't find it. Did they really expect me to locate it easily?
So hunting for hidden money was ruled out immediately. Time was limited—I couldn't afford to waste it on variables I couldn't verify.
Escape today, spend the night outdoors, then take the exam... yikes, that's a brutal way to start.
But it was the only way. I steeled myself.
"...Better to leave before the kids get back."
Once the school kids returned, my watchers would double. If I had to pick the optimal timing, it was now—while only the adults remained at the orphanage.
With every preparation complete, my legs quietly slipped past the boundary of the residential quarters.
"So Yahui's resting today, then?"
"Yep. Says he's feeling under the weather, so he's out for today."
Meanwhile, back in my old world, I had never once expected to find myself playing an actual stealth-action game in real life.
I passed through the office space connected to the dormitory. It was a room with so many windows it bordered on oppressive, and my heart pounded—but nothing was going to stop a determined escape.
"Good grief. All he did was break a leg—why did his memories have to go and..."
"Honestly, I'm not so sure myself. You don't think he's just faking it, do you?"
Pressed flat against the wall right below the windows, inching across the floor on my belly, the counselors' voices rang out with painful clarity. Thump. Thump. My heart was beating a little too fast from the tension.
If a counselor came out with that "see, I knew something was off, I'm going to check" attitude, I'd be discovered on the spot. The rising anxiety was impossible to contain.
If I got caught here, the beating would be the least of my problems—they might hand me straight over to the syndicate. A bead of sweat slid along my jaw, down to my throat.
"Oh, that can't be it. When Hyeonseong went to visit, he barely reacted at all. You know how terrified Yahui is of Hyeonseong."
"Hyeonseong did beat the daylights out of him, I suppose. Cracked a bone in his arm just recently..."
After an eternity in which every second stretched into a full minute, I finally reached a window just wide enough to squeeze through.
The front door? Far too exposed. Slip out through a window first, then follow the wall that encircled the orphanage—that was the safest route. Or so Yahui's notebook claimed. Bless the written record.
"Still, better safe than sorry—maybe I should ask you to double-check again..."
The counselors' conversation drifted farther and farther away. By the time I'd finished my escape and shut the window behind me to destroy the evidence, I could barely hear them at all.
Click. Only then did my pounding heart begin to settle.
I immediately pressed myself against the perimeter wall.
Sharp iron spikes lined the top of the concrete fence, but my desperation won out over their danger.
Perhaps Yahui's own memories of climbing these walls lingered in this body—my limbs moved on their own, and the escape went smoothly. For the time being, I had broken out of the prison called the orphanage.
"Okay. My phone could be tracked, so power off first..."
I stuffed the dead phone into my pocket and broke into a proper run.
The dull gray sky had finally shoved the season fully from autumn into winter. Every exhale bloomed into a pale white cloud.
Ah, healthy bodies are just the best.
I could run. I could actually run!
Mom and Dad would have been overjoyed to see me like this. Hmm... actually, would they even care?
I thought of the parents from my previous life—generous with material comfort, stingy with love.
A dull ache bloomed somewhere in my chest, but it was nothing more than a phantom pain. This body's heart was perfectly fine. It didn't hurt. Nothing was wrong.
...I hope you're both healthy, wherever you are.
After all, your son intended to live well and healthy in a whole different world.
Ding.
"That's 1,500 won."
I didn't even have a bus card, so I paid cash. Worried a youth fare might raise suspicion, I squeezed out nonexistent savings to cover the adult price as well.
The driver glanced at the fare, then shut the front door without a word.
"..."
Carrying the vague worry that the CCTV footage might be used to track me down, I boarded not at my usual stop, but at one much farther out.
I hoped measures like that counted for something. Whether they actually would, I couldn't say.
With the hood of my zip-up pulled tight beneath the hood of my padded coat, and my mask adjusted snugly over my nose, barely more than my eyes remained visible of my face.
And the bus carried me far, very far away.
About an hour into the journey, the mountain fortress across the river finally came into view.
I was headed toward the second-nearest meeting point, in the city of Gongju.
From here on, I walk.
The buildings clustered haphazardly all around only made the ancient fortress stand out more starkly. Unlike my old Earth, this world had made Sejong City its capital—and this was the result.
Here, Sejong City and every city around it had developed tremendously, much like Seoul in my previous life, the so-called Republic of Seoul.
If I loop through downtown Gongju before heading to the meeting point, even the orphanage people would have a hard time cornering me.
There was a chance they'd send someone this far, but that part was beyond my control.
Part of me wants to push all the way up to Seoul...
Unfortunately, the Hwadam Army entrance exam couldn't be taken outside one's assigned district—a measure to distribute candidates evenly across testing sites.
But Gongju is under Hwadam Army jurisdiction, famous for having soldiers from the garrison all over the place. Hwadam's influence here is stronger than in other cities too. So even if someone corners me at the exam site entrance, the odds tilt in my favor.
Since its founding, the Hwadam Army had always been starved for manpower—despite being the single most critical institution for national security.
So if I got caught at the exam site entrance and kicked up a fuss—"I just want to take this exam, why are you stopping me?"—and any patrolling Hwadam soldier happened to overhear, the balance of power would likely shift my way against the orphanage.
The Hwadam Army was single-mindedly desperate to fish out any talent worth having.
So all I have to do is play my part. I even brought a wristwatch to keep time.
Before powering off my phone, I'd marked several key points around downtown Gongju and copied the distances to the meeting point into my notebook.
Even without that, I could find my way to those landmarks by reading road signs or asking passersby.
This was the best I could manage.
Phew. Let's do this.
Everything left in my pockets totaled exactly 700 won—budgeted for bottled water. I slapped my own cheeks twice and strode forward with purpose.
WEEEEEOOOOONG—!
"Huh?"
About an hour into my walk, a siren wailed so loudly it felt like my ears would tear apart. It was loud enough to jolt not just me but everyone around me into looking up.
"What the—what is that??"
The siren droned at a steady pitch for a full minute. Even after it cut out, my ears rang with a painful buzz.
"Jesus, what the hell..."
"Honey? Did you hear that siren? Uh, um..."
"M-Mom? Yeah, I'm heading home right now. Uh-huh."
As I stood there clutching my ringing ears, the people around me began moving with practiced, coordinated efficiency.
An automated announcement followed on the heels of the siren. An announcement that reminded me, anew, that the ground beneath my feet belonged to a world very different from the one I'd known.
Unlike my old Earth, this world was one where Dimension Gates erupted again and again, spewing out otherworldly creatures.
Should I call this bad luck, or what...
The one blessing was that an ordinary Dimension Gate only disgorged its monsters a full 24 hours after the first signs appeared.
If I pushed hard and made it at least as far as Sansui-dong, I could slip past the affected zone without any real trouble.
WEEEEEOOOO—EEENG!
"...?"
Just as I was about to quicken my pace, the siren sounded a second time—a pitch distinctly different from the last.
"...What now?"
"...You've got to be kidding me!"
"Don't grab your stuff—RUN!"
In an instant, the atmosphere—flustered, yes, but still holding a measure of composure—shifted entirely.
A Sudden Gate.
Unlike ordinary Dimension Gates, which waited at least 24 hours after their signs appeared before spewing out otherworldly creatures, these were a special breed of gate that disgorged their horrors within ten minutes.
"KYAAAAAH!!"
"A m-monster!!"
Screams erupted from the intersection corner dead ahead—the very direction I needed to go.