Don't Transmigrate Into a Doomed World
"I want to transmigrate into a novel."
Some people say that. Kim Il-yong, a novel editor with ten years in the business, has an answer for them.
"Please don't."
If there's a novel you want to transmigrate into, pick a lively one overflowing with happiness. Pick one where cheat skills turn you into an unstoppable munchkin. Pick one where they'd still sing your praises even if you shit yourself in the street. If the novel you're reading as a reader—or writing as an author—is a doomed world with neither dreams nor hope, do not transmigrate.
Il-yong the novel editor has been there.
"There's genuinely no way out."
The world Il-yong experienced is, in every sense of the phrase, a lost cause.
Demons lurk around every corner, trying to drag Hell down to the mortal world. Demons work to shake a vast empire until it tears itself apart. After countless human sacrifices, an Evil God stirs toward resurrection. Cultists push to the bitter end to summon an outer god. The World Tree is corrupted, and half the continent is blown off the map. A sealed Demon King rises again to invade the human realm. And then they try to drop the moon and end the world.
A doom route with a fatality rate of 99.9999%.
And yet, for some unfathomable reason, you transmigrate into an extra with not a single ability to your name. No distinguished background. No talent. No cheats.
"A status window? Yeah, there's one."
You might think a status window is a cheat in itself. Until it starts attacking you, that is.
"A protagonist? Yeah, there's one."
The protagonist is the author's failsafe against the apocalypse—a legendary hero reincarnated after a full hundred years. The hero is strong. Strong enough to stand beside the gods.
"But he was the only one who survived."
The world is in such a state that only he makes it out alive. Anyway, that's the kind of mess a doomed-world setting is.
If you ever get the chance to transmigrate, whatever you do, don't pick a doomed world. Throw your hero complex and your edgy middle-school delusions in the trash.
"If you've already transmigrated into a doomed-world novel..."
If you've realized the world itself is trying to kill you.
"Good luck."
If you scramble like a madman, you can survive.