An Easy Way to Make Money (1)
"Ghk— Why the hell are you doing this to us?! What did we ever do?!"
Among the people sprawled across the floor, the sole man still standing upright roared in pure fury.
Of course, he never managed another word.
A cold blade had already driven clean through his leg.
"Kugh—!"
The man whose leg had been skewered by the white-haired woman's sword collapsed with a short, final cry.
Another man stepped forward toward the fallen figure.
Black-haired, clad entirely in black, he flicked the blood from his sword and planted a foot beside the writhing man.
Right in front of the man groaning on the floor, the black-clad figure crouched down.
The black-haired man with the distinctive squinting eyes looked at the moaning figure and smiled faintly.
"Well then... preparations appear to be complete, so shall we begin?"
At those words from the squinting man, the one clutching his leg and groaning suddenly snapped back to full awareness.
Perhaps from the blood loss, his face was growing paler by the second, yet his expression twisted like some demon freshly descended upon the mortal world, radiating an instinctive sense of dread.
Yet the black-haired man and the white-haired woman watching him remained utterly unmoved, as if the sight held no interest at all.
"W-What do you want?! Why the hell did you pull this shit?!"
As though his own safety no longer mattered, the man screamed at the squinting figure, thrashing wildly, unable to contain his rage.
"This is..."
Black smoke began pouring from the thrashing man's mouth as he convulsed.
Watching the spectacle, the black-haired man let out a soft, almost pitying hum.
"Hmm... this seems to have progressed quite far."
The white-haired woman—the very one who had run him through and brought him down—approached and examined the man.
"Can he still be saved?"
"Who can say? They're criminals to begin with. Why bother fretting over such things?"
Leaving the woman's sharp glare behind him, the squinting man moved his left hand in a slow, deliberate pattern.
The black smoke spilling from the convulsing man's mouth followed the motion of those fingers, swirling and gathering until it compressed to the extreme and formed a single black bead.
"Miho is going to feast well tonight."
Looking thoroughly satisfied, the man gave a soft chuckle and slipped the bead into his pocket.
Inside, it clinked against the others already nestled there.
His voice turned playful as he regarded the scene.
"Did you see that? The Black Mana that came out of your own body? Aren't you truly grateful? After all, I just saved your life."
Whether because the Black Mana that had tormented him was finally gone, or simply because he had lost too much blood and passed out, the fallen man no longer moved.
Seeing this, the squinting man confirmed that the sleep magic had taken proper hold.
At a gesture from him, a woman wearing a black mask stepped forward.
"Take this one away. Give him only the bare minimum of treatment, then lock him in 'that room.' The Black Mana has been extracted, but we cannot know what other measures may have been placed upon him."
The masked woman bowed her head, lifted the unconscious man into the air with magic, and departed.
"So what now?"
The white-haired woman, who had watched the entire sequence, pressed him for an answer.
Hearing her, the man offered a smile that looked faintly suspicious.
"We go eliminate the root cause, of course. For the sake of peace."
Where... is this place?
This unfamiliar floor beneath my feet, that oppressive unfamiliar ceiling staring down at me.
An awkward eye level, a body so light it felt ready to float away.
And look—
Look at the man in that mirror.
Who on earth is that man hiding sky-blue eyes behind squinting lids, staring right back at me?
Right. Just what the hell is going on here?
"This place... just where might it be?"
And why does my way of speaking sound like this?
I looked into the mirror.
When I opened my mouth, the man in the mirror opened his. When I raised a hand to scratch my head, so did he.
When I stuck out my tongue, he did the same. When I forced my eyes wide open to reveal the sky-blue irises, he showed me his own sky-blue eyes in return.
At this point, there was no way not to understand the situation.
"It would seem... I have been transmigrated."
I had been transmigrated into this squinting-eyed body.
*
All right, so I've been transmigrated... but what exactly did I do to end up like this?
Let's try retracing my memories.
What was I doing last night?
I ordered fried chicken, that much is certain. Excited at the thought of eating chicken for the first time in ages, I headed to the convenience store for beer.
While walking there I put in my earphones and glanced at my phone.
I put on an upbeat song and opened a novel site.
I was reading the novel I'd been enjoying, walking toward the convenience store, when—
A loud noise, a powerful impact slamming into me, a brief blackout... and the next thing I knew, it felt like I was flying through the sky.
...Don't tell me I got hit by a car.
With a heavy heart I lowered my head and covered my face with one hand.
"This is quite the predicament, isn't it?"
Shut up for a second, mouth of mine.
I raised my head again and looked forward.
But what I saw was not the face I had always known as my own.
For starters, I have never seen a man who looks like this.
I don't even know what work I've been transmigrated into.
What if the work I landed in is dark fantasy—something with a "dark atmosphere," so to speak?
Is the work I transmigrated into even a comic or a novel? For all I know it could be a game.
No— is the thing I've been transmigrated into even a creative work at all?
The most likely candidate is the novel I was reading when I (presumably) got into that traffic accident.
The Reincarnator Wants to Live—though nothing is certain yet.
First I examined the place I was in.
Neatly made bedding and a desk. A longsword leaning against the wall, short blades hanging in clusters. A living room that contained only a television, a calendar showing it was January, a refrigerator holding nothing but frozen fried rice and kimchi.
I needed more information.
I turned on the TV.
Luckily, the news was on—something about a superhuman committing a terrorist attack right in the middle of Busan.
After that came a story about a con man who used real magic while pretending it was stage magic, followed by a viral video introducing some martial artist who had become an internet sensation.
"This alone is still insufficient..."
I searched the house again.
After roughly two hours of combing every corner, I managed to dig up a few useful things.
A wallet, a phone, a handful of documents, and a Warna Academy student ID bearing the name "Baek Sejin" along with a photo of this face.
"Warna Academy... that name does not sound entirely unfamiliar."
In the end my questions were answered by the news anchor's voice drifting from the television.
"...Next story. Kim Gabyul, who drew attention as Korea's youngest Divine Magic User, is reportedly enrolling at Warna Academy."
Kim Gabyul. The moment I heard that name, I knew my guess had been correct.
Kim Gabyul is a character from the novel The Reincarnator Wants to Live.
Blessed by Archangel Gabriel from the moment of her birth, she became the youngest Divine Magic User.
She ends up fighting a villain who infiltrates the academy and is critically injured.
Compared to her popularity within the story, her actual screen time was so small that I had grown rather fond of her—only for her to get wrecked the moment she appeared. The sheer absurdity of it made the scene stick in my memory.
And now I've been transmigrated without even finishing the novel. Isn't that a bit much?
Moreover, true to its title, The Reincarnator Wants to Live is a story where every kind of incident and accident runs rampant.
And most of them happen at the academy or in its immediate vicinity.
If that were all, it would still be manageable.
The problem is that I have to go to the academy.
"If it were up to me I would just throw everything away and laze around, but..."
One might think, "Then simply don't go to the academy."
But that is not an option. If I do not interfere with the original flow of events, this world will proceed exactly as the original story did—
and Kim Gabyul will once again be critically injured.
Assuming, of course, that I am the only one who has been transmigrated.
Besides, getting hit in the same place twice just feels awful, doesn't it?
How would it feel to get hurt again where you already got hurt?
Of course our Gabyul probably won't even remember that she was hurt before, but still.
Poor Kim Gabyul—barely any screen time, forced into early retirement, and then scolded by readers for being a nuisance.
"Haha, this is so unfair I feel like I might cry."
But what choice do I have?
What matters now is how I deal with the present situation.
From this moment on, my goal is to train Kim Gabyul properly so that when that villain comes again she can handle him.
And if I can take care of the villain myself beforehand, all the better.
There were plenty of other reasons to attend the academy as well.
First of all, I know almost nothing about this world.
If I simply refuse to go to the academy under those circumstances?
I would be the perfect mark for every scam out there.
In this dangerous world, cultivating the strength to protect myself is also essential.
Moreover, Warna Academy is the most prestigious academy in Korea.
If I graduate from Warna Academy without incident, it is obvious that my life from then on will become considerably more comfortable.
Come to think of it, going to the academy doesn't feel quite so unfair after all.