Chapter 2
Translator: True Detective
Chapter 2
Living Inside a Friend's Novel
??????
Only question marks floated in my mind. I told my friend I was just going to the restroom. And then.
When I stepped out of the restroom, it was another world.
“Did you have a refreshing dump? Let's get on quickly.”
High-rise apartments, paved roads, cars running on them. It wasn't much different, so why call it another world?
A child Beastkin running urgently, a male and female Beastkin couple eating ice cream together, an elderly Beastkin walking with a cane.
It didn't look like cosplay at all. The ears and tails moved just like real animals.
All kinds of Beastkin I had only seen in novels filled my vision.
“I think I'm screwed.”
“You're not screwed. Let's get on, quickly.”
“Excuse me?”
“I stopped for you because you said you wanted to go to the bathroom. You're the last one. Hurry up and board.”
The person speaking to me since a moment ago was a middle-aged man with rabbit ears and a tail.
There was a bus standing where he pointed, and only then could I see people who weren't Beastkin. They were people who looked to be around my age with various hair colors—red, blue, yellow.
What should I do? This is driving me crazy, seriously!
As I stood there blankly staring at the bus, the man urged me on and grabbed my arm to pull me.
“Come on, come on! You're not going to your death. Be grateful to His Majesty the Emperor for giving welfare benefits even to Soi orphans. If it were the United Kingdom, you would have starved to death.”
Soi?
Thinking, ‘Does otherworldly summoning always start with being an orphan...’, I recalled the events from just before. Unless Soi had become a popular trope in web novels recently, it seemed I had indeed come inside the novel my friend talked about today.
The man grabbed my arm, lifted me lightly, and put me on the bus. Could a gym rat who deadlifts 500kg lift a person this easily? I couldn't even think of resisting before I was loaded onto the bus.
“Sit here.”
The person who spoke to me was a girl with silver hair.
“Black hair is unique, isn't it?”
“Huh?”
I stared at her thinking, ‘Your hair color is more unique, isn't it?’, but that wasn't the issue. I was already almost certain, but I thought of a question to be 100% sure.
“Did you manifest an ability?”
“What?! You're here because you couldn't do it either. Your personality is annoying.”
“Sorry....”
The silver-haired girl turned her face away with a scoff, seemingly offended. Anyway, that confirmed it 100%. It was my friend's novel. He mentioned he thought of a new worldview and talked about stories of ability users.
Unlike the sunny weather outside the window, the inside of the bus was filled with gloom as if it were raining. Amidst that somber atmosphere, someone muttered.
“We, who couldn't become ability users, will live like slaves for the rest of our lives....”
“That's not true! His Majesty said he would let us live well enough too! The Director said it was okay!”
“You believe the words of an orphanage director who is kicking us out?”
“Shut up! Our Director is a good person!”
“Idiot, how can a Soi orphanage director be a good person! He does it for the money.”
“What did you say? You bastard!”
“Quiet down!!!”
It was two people in different seats. Just as the argument was escalating, they quieted down at the shout of the middle-aged Beastkin man from earlier.
What am I supposed to do in this situation, really!?
I looked at the reflection in the bus window beyond the seat next to me. It was my original appearance. The kids here also looked human, just with different hair colors. It was a collection of only Sois.
There was no story about orphan Sois in my friend's talk. He just said it was a world where it was hard for Sois to even survive.
But why does that have to be me?
“If an orphan Soi is an ability user, can they avoid going to where we are going now?”
I spoke to the silver-haired girl who had spoken to me first.
“Probably. I haven't been one so I don't know, but if you're an ability user, you can prove you aren't a demon playing Doppelganger. Since we can't do that, we're going to a place where the Empire can easily manage us.”
My friend's novel had demons too. Demons like Sois. How do they like them? They like them as a meal.
Furthermore, demons can mimic the memories and appearance of the person they eat. This is the ‘Doppelganger’. In this way, demons secretly infiltrate society in the guise of Sois. It was one of the many reasons for the discrimination.
“Do you know where we are going?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“Your Director must have hated you. Seeing as he didn't even tell you where you're going.”
The silver-haired girl seemed to still be sulking about my question earlier regarding ‘ability manifestation’. In this world, asking that seemed to be on the level of asking ‘Are you a bit slow?’. Since I must have looked rude, I apologized with a sincere face.
“Sorry about earlier. I'm just so confused right now. It wasn't with bad intentions. Really.”
“Fine. I'll accept your apology.”
The girl turned her head, which had been turned toward the window until now, back toward me and spoke. I felt this from the first moment I saw her, but she looked incredibly cute.
“Thanks. So, where are we going?”
“To do loading and unloading delivery work.”
“Ah....”
It was true. My friend's novel was a place not much different from the 21st-century modern era. My vision went dark. I remembered going to do loading and unloading work just once with that friend and suffering from body aches for three days. If there is someone who sent me into the novel world, I really want to ask them.
Is this right when I haven't even read it? I said I would read it when I got home. How did that turn into entering the novel...
***
“Alright, let's stand in two lines to check the headcount.”
If it weren't for this Beastkin man next to me, I had arrived at a place truly no different from 21st-century modern society.
Its name was Koopong.
When we entered that huge logistics camp, it was full of delivery boxes.
“Two, four, six... forty-three? The number of personnel to pick up today was forty-two? Why is there one extra?”
I'm telling you, I'm not an orphan. My parents are alive and well.
“There must have been another Director who did things half-heartedly. It's always like this! Well, whatever. Starting today, you forty-three are all colleagues. Get along well. You have obtained a lifelong job!”
It didn't really matter if the headcount was different. Because we were Sois.
“Everyone will live in the dormitory next door. Many leisure facilities you might like are installed there. If you work just until you are 60, you can retire and live off a pension for the rest of your life.”
This is driving me crazy. Shit, do loading and unloading delivery work for 40 years?
“It's just because you are confused and unfamiliar right now. You will adapt soon. You are not the first. Existing Sois have also adapted well and are living well now. Everyone write down your names and go. Name tags will be issued tomorrow and work will begin. Rest in your rooms for today, and note that there is a one-hour training session starting at 9 PM.”
I stood in line and it became my turn. The written list was all in Hangul. Because my friend is a nationalist.
Although in Hangul, the names were all Western-style. Because my friend is a flunkyist. A flunkyist nationalist.
Even if I washed my eyes and looked, there were no three-syllable Korean names. Using my real name would stand out. I thought of a name and wrote it down.
Saklasi Stan.
It was a name given to me by an Uzbek brother I met during the loading and unloading gig with my friend.
I, who became Saklasi Stan. Starting today in my friend's novel, my dark life as a despised Soi, an orphan, and an incompetent person begins!
Fuck.
***
I wrote my name and arrived at the dormitory. The various leisure facilities were real; from PC cafes to karaoke, cafes, and convenience stores, pretty much everything was there.
I asked, ‘What happens if my body is in too poor condition to work?’, and it seems they do let you eat and live. The problem is they gather ten or so people in a multi-person room and give 5,000 won a day.
“Okay, let's try it! Those who do the loading and unloading work are provided a private room and a daily wage of 100,000 won. Let's endure for now.”
The assigned private room was exactly like a Gosiwon. I expected at least a studio apartment level, but being in a cramped room made me feel suffocated. It was only at the level of a place to sleep.
Feeling stifled, I looked around the leisure facilities, and shockingly, they weren't free. I, having left my phone and wallet behind to go to the bathroom, didn't have a single penny right now.
Haa.... Shit. It's one problem after another.
Beep—
While I was feeling stifled, a broadcast flowed out.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT
Ah, ah, announcing from the broadcasting room. Is everyone adapting well? To welcome the year 2026, the 43 new recruits are requested to come to the gathering place from earlier by 9 o'clock. I repeat. The 43 new recruits, by 9 o'clock— I sighed deeply, left the dormitory behind, and headed to the place where we gathered earlier.
***
“You are proud members of the Empire! Taking charge of and being responsible for the logistics of the Empire's Busanosk Camp 1 is by no means something to be looked down upon. You become a pillar of the Empire, and the Empire protects that pillar!”
The person who drove the bus with the orphan Sois was even handling the training. He said he was the General Manager.
“You are only 21 years old, so you must be confused! You must be sad because you are incompetent! However, incompetent Sois cannot prove that they are not a demon's Doppelganger. This was the best option for the Empire. Even in the United Kingdom, suspicious Sois are sent straight to prison. You who have come to the Empire at least have hope of living!”
For someone who came from living in 21st-century South Korea, I don't see any hope.
“It will be hard and difficult at first, but if you save diligently, you can even live in the large apartment complex next door. Lights out time for everyone is 11 PM. Now, go and rest!”
I returned to the dormitory with the kids who came with me today.
“If only I could have held a sword every day, I could have manifested an ability!”
Sword? I think I heard a setting about that, what was it?
“You couldn't hold one every day either? Our orphanage let us borrow one once a week.”
“Because they aren't interested in us! Buying swords for each and every one of us must have been a waste!”
Come to think of it, I remembered the condition for ability manifestation.
“Uh?”
It was only possible at twenty years old. It was a setting where you had to do it within the 365 days of that year. Something about it being for the adult setting.
“Did you say today is 2026?”
I hurriedly found the silver-haired girl from earlier and spoke to her.
“…Are you still confused?”
“We are all 21 years old, right?”
“…Since today is January 1st, I guess so.”
“I see!!!”
I was forgetting something important.
“I'm heading out first!”
I ran urgently. There was something I had to check. If this expectation is correct, there is hope even in this beggar-like world. A chance to escape from being at least an ‘incompetent’ among the orphan, Soi, and incompetent titles!
I need to get a sword right now. This was a world where if you become twenty years old and hold and swing a sword, your ability manifests.
Why do they do something only possible for twenty-year-olds? I forgot because I spent my whole life stating my age as older. January 1st. The bar. The reason I became a college student last year but today was my first time at a bar in my life.
Date of birth: January 1, 2007.
I was an early admission student. Yeah, that ‘fast birth year’ thing.
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