Chapter 0 Prologue
Prologue
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 0
Chapter Title: Prologue
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◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ If you truly wanted to live, you could have survived just fine.
But if you die because you lack the will to live, is that suicide... or an accident?
No. From the very moment I became convinced that no matter how much I struggled, my life would never improve, hadn't I already been dead?
- Jeong Yi-an, age 35. Researcher at OO Hospital. Presumed to have suffered burns and suffocated from smoke in a fire started by a psychiatric ward patient, unable to evacuate in time.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Having returned to my childhood, I wanted to make a ton of friends this time around during high school and try living like an Insider for once.
"Ha, this asshole has no manners. Spouting off like he knows everything?"
The guy sitting next to me—who I thought was a friend—said his dream was to become a scientist, so I just gave him a bit of newbie advice.
But the moment I started sharing stories from my grad school days, his eyes suddenly went wild.
I tried my best to calmly clear up the misunderstanding,
but by then, the rumors spreading through the class had already spiraled out of control, twisted beyond anything the people involved could manage.
When I snapped back to reality, I had been branded the "crazy freak" within the class.
...
Thinking about it, even before regressing, I had always been an Outsider.
Saying what people wanted to hear instead of sharing honest thoughts, pretending to be clueless instead of exchanging real opinions—those kinds of shallow relationships never suited me.
I regressed to the winter of my third year of middle school, and now it's been one month since starting high school.
My grand ambition to become an Insider? It got crushed early on and vanished without a trace.
Now my goal is simple: lay low until graduation, strike it rich with Bitcoin, and live a life without ever having to work.
"You've already turned into a boring adult. Bitcoin? No way that's gonna get expensive, so just focus on studying something that fits you. It might come off as snarky since your grades are below mine as the Top Student, but you've got real talent. Keep at it steadily, and who knows? I might even hire you when I start my company someday."
"What? Later on, AI's gonna starve artists to death!? What do I do... Maybe if I focus on super niche stuff, I can hang on longer! Like drawings of furry beastkin... Even AI might get offended and struggle to draw that kinda thing, right?"
But with these girls constantly dragging me into things, staying quiet isn't as easy as it sounds.
"How does a total nerd like that always end up hanging with them? Those girls are so pretty, guys from other schools even come by just to check 'em out..."
"...Must be 'cause of his dick or something? Think I could get tight with pretty girls too if I studied harder?"
Ugh, come on.