An Unfamiliar Ceiling
An unfamiliar ceiling.
"Phew…"
In the darkened room, ash-gray cigarette smoke billowed in soft clouds over the stark white glow of the monitor.
On the screen floated the web novel I had written.
This time for sure… That was how I had started it, and there had been moments when my heart broke watching the readership get shredded with every chapter.
Even so, I had sat in front of the computer and somehow forced myself through to chapter three hundred.
Repeating to myself that a me who wasn't writing was nothing but a surplus human being.
—Click.
But no matter how many times I hit refresh, the view count stayed at zero.
For the record, it wasn't just the latest chapter—views had been stuck at zero since ten chapters back.
It had been months since even an emoticon had appeared in the comments, and the "Just dropping by~" that always claimed first place on every other work was nowhere to be found on mine.
"The readership is fucking wild, right?"
A self-mocking sigh dragged another gray plume of smoke out with it.
What was wrong with it—style? Genre? Description? Characterization? Not enough input? Not a single one of those thoughts crossed my mind.
Rent, credit card bills…
I didn't hate the world that refused to acknowledge me. I didn't hate the readers who couldn't muster even a scrap of curiosity about my work. I didn't hate any of it.
I was past thirty and couldn't even cover a bill that barely cracked two hundred. The only thing I hated was myself.
"…Alright. Time to sleep."
Outside the window, the sky was turning faintly pale, and people's shoes were starting to appear.
For most people it was time to get ready for work. I lay down on a mattress that held nothing but a pillow.
A semi-basement dark even with the lights on, a mold-spotted ceiling, the feet of people passing outside the window.
I fell asleep with my unchanging world for company once again.
"…Hah?! Hah, hah…"
A sudden choking sensation yanked me upright.
Waking up like this wasn't anything new. It had become a habit of sorts about half a year after I'd started writing.
But…
"Huh. My head…"
It didn't hurt.
In a semi-basement reeking of mold and cigarette smoke, my head always pounded when I got up.
Today, strangely, there was no pain at all. My mind felt crystal clear.
Even the lower back that had been quietly aching for ages felt as solid as it had in my twenties.
"Ha. At this rate, maybe all the hair I lost is still there too?"
I could tell by touch alone.
Not the thin, grease-matted strands I was used to—thick, abundant hair filled my palm.
"Why is this actually real?"
I muttered it without meaning to.
But instead of joy, a strange unease settled over me.
This was a dream.
Reality was so goddamn miserable that I was escaping into something like this.
Proof: the semi-basement that showed literally nothing if you didn't turn on the light was still exactly the same.
"Haa…"
Had the views gone up? No. Of course not.
Any faint hope that it might have been featured on a PD pick or a banner had died a long time ago.
I had… failed. Not just at writing. At life.
It was only natural that something written by a loser like that would vanish without anyone knowing it had ever existed—or that it had ended.
…Even thinking that, I finally swung my feet off the mattress.
I didn't have the courage to end my own life, so I had to live through today as well.
Staying alive was the only thing I could still do.
—Thud…
But the sensation under my soles was completely foreign.
Thanks to the plantar fasciitis I'd picked up in the military, my heels should have been screaming the second I stood up.
Huh. Wait, is this… nah. No way.
I just hadn't woken up from the dream yet.
Clutching my strangely racing heart, I groped along the wall for the light switch.
"…What? It should be right around here… Is this it?"
—Click.
The room finally brightened.
Oddly, the switch sat lower on the wall than usual, but I'd managed to find it somehow…
"Huh?"
Never mind that a room I had never seen in my life was spread out before me.
In the full-length mirror, a complete stranger was staring back at me with startled eyes.
Stark naked, no less.
And even the messy bedhead and half-lidded eyes somehow read as decadent good looks. A certified handsome bastard.
At least 185 centimeters tall, not an ounce of spare fat on a muscular frame, and between his legs something that went past dangling and into outright swinging…
"W-who the hell are you?!"
I shouted at that outrageous presence without thinking.
And then—the handsome bastard in the mirror was wearing the exact same expression as me.
Of course he was. That was what mirrors did.
What. Why. How.
Even as question marks flooded my skull, I slowly stepped closer to the glass.
"Ah-ya-uh-yeo-oh-yo-woo-yoo-eui."
The man in the mirror moved his mouth exactly as I did.
When I made a dumb face, he looked dumb. When I pinched my cheek, it hurt in the ordinary way.
In other words… no. Not yet. This was a dream. It had to be a dream.
"…C-cut it out…"
You're going to make me start hoping.
If this is a dream, wake me up already.
If I stay in a dream like this too long, the drop when I come down is going to leave me gutted.
Thinking that, I opened the window this time.
Expecting the usual view of nameless people's shoes, or maybe a tire.
Instead.
"KYAAAAOOO!!"
Warning. A Class-A Transfer Situation has occurred. Citizens, please remain calm, maintain order, and proceed to the nearest shelter. Repeating. A Class-A Transfer Situation…
Far in the distance, a colossal tower rose all the way to the sky.
Below it, buildings of every kind and high-rises packed together like an anthill.
Between them, wyverns wheeled through the air belching fire, and people sprinted up the sides of skyscrapers.
"…No way."
I knew the moment I saw it.
This was the 2100s Seoul I had always pictured in my head—the one where the Tower had appeared.
And I knew this wasn't a dream. This was reality.
I had transmigrated.
Into the fusionpunk web novel I had been writing.
—Thud!
I slammed the window shut.
—Rattle!
I opened it again.
Huh. Why was there a wyvern right in front of our apartment?
A second ago it had been way off in the distance.
"KYAAAAOOOOO!!!"
And those vertically slit eyes were locked on me.
The moment its hideous maw filled with seething flame—
—WHAM!
Some middle-aged guy who had been running up the wall kicked the wyvern square in the jaw.
"Hyaah!"
"Kyaaak…!"
After knocking the wyvern back for a moment, the stranger called out to me.
"Hey! Lazy young man who just woke up! Close that window! If sparks fly in, I'm not taking responsibility!"
"Yes, sir!"
"…Heh. That package of yours is Special-class, though."
I shut the window again.
All kinds of noise filtered through the glass.
Roaring flames, more kyaooo~, crisp impact sounds, the crackle of something like electricity.
With the chaos outside as background music, I started sorting through the situation.
First of all, I am…
The protagonist.
Name: Park Taejin—which also happened to be my real name.
Occupation: D-class hunter.
The strongest proof that I had transmigrated into my own web novel, and the ability Taejin had awakened, was Reinforcement.
Exactly what it sounded like—boosting physical ability or strengthening weapons… A simple, almost bland power, if you looked at it that way.
It couldn't even begin to compare to the S-class or Special-class hunters who handled things like conceptual collapse, elemental attunement, or spatial severance.
"…Or so people think."
My Reinforcement wasn't just about pumping up the body or juicing a weapon's power.
To put it stylishly: it elevated the existential value—the very concept—of objects and people.
In plain terms… it was an ability so close to omnipotent it could handle almost any situation.
The reason a hunter with a power like that was stuck at D-class was painfully simple.
Because the protagonist himself had no idea that was what it could do.
For the record, the point where the protagonist finally realized his ability had that kind of potential was somewhere around chapter two hundred…
…Is that why it flopped?
The real success arc only kicked in around chapter two-fifty, if I remembered right.
Until then he just flailed around, got stabbed in the back, cried and whined… Looking back, why would anyone even read this crap?
Wait…? I think I might have just figured out what a web novel actually is…?
"…Anyway."
I banished the truth of web novels—realized far too late—to the far side of nirvana.
Honestly, part of me wondered if I should try writing again…
But sitting in a corner hammering a keyboard while holding an ability that could reach the peak wasn't self-actualization. It was a waste of a life.
And there was one more thing I had realized: a boring person writes boring things.
The world—and the imagination—of someone who spent every day rotting in a gloomy semi-basement only went so far.
Sure, a white-horse-riding superhuman could pump out god-tier masterpieces anywhere, anytime. Unfortunately, I had never even ridden a shitbox car, let alone a white horse.
So first, I needed to become an interesting person.
To become interesting, I had to live an interesting life.
And an interesting life was… what, exactly? How was I supposed to live for it to be fun?
"Hmm… Do I need a lot of money…?"
Money wasn't everything, but as some famous boxer once said, there wasn't much that came close.
I agreed completely.
I had learned in my previous life, down to the bone, that a life without money wasn't even a speck of fun.
So first: make money.
But more important than making it was where and how you spent it.
"…True enough."
Money was ultimately a means.
So I'd think about that after I actually had some.
Hmm… All this money talk suddenly made me crave a pork cutlet…
—Ding-dong~
The doorbell rang out of nowhere.
Huh. Weird.
The protagonist I knew was a washed-up D-class hunter. Nobody ever came looking for him.
So I should ignore it… Instead of thinking that, I walked to the front door.
At the very least, it wouldn't be a landlord glaring daggers about overdue rent.
And then.
"Oh my, Taejin, you were home? When you didn't open the door I thought you'd already left for work… Kyaah?!"
A complete stranger stood in the doorway.
Not just pretty enough to make my heart race—pretty enough to make it drop straight into my stomach. A stunning older woman.
As if she were here to show me exactly what an interesting life was supposed to look like.
"P-put some clothes on!!!!"