Time to Act

"Sua, did I... do something wrong?"

The moment ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the question reached her, Lee Sua let out a sigh.

Even that was enough to make the other person more anxious, though Sua herself was perfectly calm. There was hardly a thought in her head. Only the dull recognition that the thing which always happened was happening once again.

"I'm not angry. Not even a little."

She had lost count of which explanation this was.

One day, without warning, she had been forced through a very peculiar reincarnation.

She had no complaints about being turned into a woman, and she was grateful they had given her an excellent appearance. But would it have killed them to throw in a gentle face while they were at it? Every single time, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠injustice of it was enough to make her want to die.

"R-really...?"

"Yes. I was just born looking like this."

Sua answered with a sidelong glance at a nearby mirror.

The jaw was keen as a drawn blade, and the eyes, set strangely deep, carried a mysterious air. Snow-white skin, a nose with a high and elegant bridge — all of it was lovely. And yet.

The eyes.

Those excessively sharp eyes were the problem. Put kindly, a cat. Put unkindly, a snake. Even Sua herself had to admit the face sat a considerable distance from anything that looked kind.

There was a mole beneath her left eye, too. Foundation covered it for now, but whenever it showed, the misunderstandings grew far worse.

"It's just... the way you talk sounds angry, too. Could you please just say it outright? I'll really fix it..."

"I talk like this normally."

It wasn't a lie. She was being gentle right now.

"Ah — was it because I sliced the scallions a little thick...?"

"Go do your work."

"Ah, yes... yes!"

The misunderstanding, however, refused to clear so easily, and in the end she had to hear the same thing from the head chef.

"Sua. This is a place where people work with knives in their hands. You stand around looking that murderous, and what do you think — the others get scared, or they don't? How many times have we had this conversation?"

Sua considered it for a moment.

"...Then ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'll quit. Thank you for everything."

She bowed her head, perfectly polite.

It wasn't that the work had been too hard.

The third Reincarnation Perk, still inactive.

Because she had just confirmed that the field in question was not cooking.

The moment she got home, Lee Sua went over the whiteboard in the living room with care. It was nearly large enough to stand in for an entire wall, and still the writing crowded it from edge to edge.

This time, she drew an X through Cooking.

"So it wasn't cooking either. I'm going to lose my mind."

The reason Sua had quit the kitchen was painfully simple. She had only taken the job in order to test an aptitude.

"So what, exactly, is my aptitude?"

The question came out tight with frustration.

Her previous life had almost certainly ended under the wheels of a car. She was sure of it. The last thing she remembered was starting across a crosswalk the instant the light turned green.

A gift, perhaps, for someone who had died wronged despite obeying the signal? She didn't understand how it worked, but a Special Privilege of sorts had come to her all the same.

Both the first and the second were deeply satisfying.

The viciously sharp impression was a problem, granted — but set beside the advantages, it hardly counted. Thanks to this face, the moments she had enjoyed some unearned favor far outnumbered the rest.

Even so, there was a separate reason she was thrashing so hard to find her aptitude.

This. The one perk that still would not open.

"Hey. Just tell me what the aptitude is...!"

It had been named a Special Privilege, so it clearly held enormous potential. The sooner she woke it, the faster her life would turn comfortable. That was the idea. And yet.

"...At this rate, when am I ever going to find it and unlock it?"

At least give me a hint! Please!

The thrashing had gone on for nearly two years.

Sua looked over the whiteboard once more.

Every sort of field was written there, and every single one of them bore an X. She had tried them, and learned they were not her aptitude.

"Ha. Seriously, what is it. There's nothing I haven't tried..."

It isn't something like immortality in a novel or a movie, is it? No — trying to kill herself to test that would be insane. Obviously.

Anyway, over two years she had tried a truly ridiculous variety of things. All of them. Golf had nearly thrown her back out mid-swing, and swimming had nearly drowned her. Every time she set out, full of ambition, to hunt down her aptitude, she came home loaded with nothing but a fresh helping of humiliation. That had become ordinary life.

What is it, then. This talent of mine that still won't unlock.

"...Forget it. I'll cool my head with a game first."

Yes. In this life, too, I am living at the very bottom.

Work a reasonable amount, and spend whatever time was left on a game.

In her defense, spending two years running around in search of an aptitude was already the most diligent thing she had ever done in any life of hers! The problem was that she couldn't find it. Right. The problem was that she couldn't unlock it.

Sua logged in the way she always did.

"First, the daily quests I've been putting off..."

Ten minutes, perhaps. She took her hand off the mouse and covered her face with both of them instead.

"Haa... what is my talent, seriously? I don't want to live like this in a life I only just started, either. Show up already, would you..."

It was that season when the weight of reality begins to press down, and even a game slowly loses its flavor. A life gone stagnant.

"I am seriously going to lose my mind from how stuck this is."

That was where Sua stood.

The guild leader shouted, unable to hide her dismay.

But this Lee Sua is about to change.

That's right. Quit the game and live like a proper person. That's the plan!

My pride's gotten involved now. I can't let this go.

My aptitude. I'm going to find it.

So the first order of business was quitting the game. And it wasn't an empty excuse — the thing really did eat up a great deal of time.

"I'm going to try living a little differently."

"No. It's not that kind of problem."

After that, she began to explain the situation, step by careful step. Of course she couldn't go so far as to mention the Special Privilege, so she left that out entirely, and spoke only of wanting to make an effort to find her aptitude.

"Twenty-two."

"It really is. I'm out of money now, too."

"...Yes."

Then, all at once, the conversation began to drift somewhere else.

"My photo?"

How long ago was that supposed to be. Anyway, it had happened. The voice messenger had synced with the game, and her profile picture had ended up plastered front and center for everyone to see.

"I... do think it looks the same."

Other people might see it differently, after all.

"But why bring that up all of a sudden?"

"...A good opportunity?"

As those words always did, a good opportunity sent unease rushing out ahead of anything else. What if she suddenly made some bizarre proposal? Sua had thought of her, all this time, as a genuinely good person. Just as that anxiety — the fear that the image might crack — was at its peak:

"Huh?"

What the guild leader had sent was thoroughly unexpected.

"...A MuTube short film?"

This person — I thought she was a shut-in no-life like me, and she's been living like a functional human being? Today my illusions are getting shattered in more ways than one.

Setting that aside, it was still terribly sudden.

"Uh... um... this is really sudden..."

She was blankly working her lips when—

"...Huh?"

A single thought flashed through her like lightning.

...Acting?

As it happened, among everything Sua had written on the board, the one thing that did not yet have an X through it was acting.

Acting. Now that I think about it, I haven't tried acting.

Should I do this?

No. No, don't.

Sua shook her head at once.

What if I put my face out there and all I get is humiliation?

Yeah! That's the scary part!

...Hmm. But thinking about it, that exact thing has already happened far too many times.

This was hardly the first or second time Sua had nursed a hope like this. How often had she marched off puffed up, certain that this one was her aptitude, only to come home in tears and kick the blankets?

Right.

In that case...

Whether it turns into a real attempt or just another mistake, let's try one more time.

Kicking the blankets once more won't change all that much, will it?

"I'll give it a try. Thank you for the opportunity."

There was nothing left to deliberate. Her mouth had already let the yes out.

Then the detailed instructions arrived by text, and before she knew it her eyes had flown wide. With good reason.

"...Wait, this channel? This is a massive MuTube channel!"

The guild leader's true standing was more impressive than she had ever imagined.

One week later.

The day of the audition for the MuTube channel Snack Movie.

A major channel, the kind where a single short film of simple make, once uploaded, cleared more than 1.3 million views inside a day. And this was their audition.

The moment she arrived, Sua considered turning around and going home.

"Why did I apply. Why."

She hated places full of people.

But she had already come. What was she supposed to do about that?

It was far too late to back out. Only this morning, on the phone with the guild leader, she had already told her she was leaving now, and that she would see her on site.

Anyway.

"Trust a major channel. There are so many people."

The numbers were overwhelming. People with STAFF across their backs hurried this way and that, and every so often high-end filming equipment went trundling past. It was hard to breathe.

Not having friends really shows at a time like this.

It went without saying that Sua was alone. There was no one to wait beside her, no one to pass the time with, no one to loosen the nerves.

Well. Maybe it wasn't such a large problem.

She had a friend called a phone, after all.

She was fidgeting with it for no particular reason when—

"Is Lee Sua here! Lee Sua!"

"Ah, yes!"

At the voice calling her name, Sua shot to her feet. The woman in the baseball cap found her, and her mouth fell open.

"You're... Sua?"

"Wait... no way?"

Sua went blank as well. The guild leader was a far more polished woman than she had ever pictured, and whatever Sua was feeling, the guild leader seemed to be feeling it several times over.

The hand that suddenly caught her by the shoulder said as much.

"Same as the photo, my foot! The real thing is so much better!"

"I-is it..."

"You're not angry, though, right? That expression..."

"Absolutely not. I was just born looking like this."

"Good. This unnie brought you a golden opportunity, and she almost got her feelings hurt. Anyway, want to take a look at this?"

"What is it?"

"The script you're performing today. There's only a really short bit in it. A face like yours is a guaranteed pass, but form is still form."

The guild leader kept praising her after that. A face like this didn't belong on MuTube — it belonged in the actual entertainment industry. To think a talent like this had been doing nothing but play games.

Sua's own thoughts, for their part, amounted to very little.

Good thing there actually is a script.

The only reason she had come all the way here today was to confirm an aptitude.

Still standing in the line of people waiting, Sua opened the script.

And that was when it happened.

Tap.

The instant her fingertips met the page—

"Huh?"

Her mind went faint and distant, and something rose in front of her.

"...What? Time for what?"

The mutter had barely left her when the world around her turned itself inside out, as if by magic.