I Became a Witch

When I opened my eyes, decades had already passed since the world had once been destroyed and then restored.

That was right. This was not the world I had originally lived in.

After clearing a mythic-grade quest of unknown origin, I had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been dragged into this unfamiliar place — a post-apocalyptic world whose development had stalled at a mere medieval stage.

And yet, the countless 5G base stations left behind by pre-collapse humanity had survived by fusing, in the most deranged way imaginable, with this otherworld's mana base stations. A completely unhinged civilization.

Thanks to that, even in the filthy corner of a sewer-stinking slum where swords and magic flew freely, high-speed mana Wi-Fi blasted at full strength. The age of high-tech medieval neo-humanity had arrived.

In this godforsaken post-apocalyptic fantasy setting, skills were class, status, and the gacha cheat key that could reverse an entire life.

Spin the roulette you were born with, pull a single S-class skill, and you could live large in a seven-star hotel. Pull a garbage skill, and you spent the rest of your days scraping dirt off the slum floor. A filthy world.

But I was the sole exception who could laugh in the face of that unfair divine system gacha.

"…Okay, but taking my precious junk along with it is a little much, don't you think, System-nim?"

The fragile voice that spilled out the moment I opened my mouth sent a full-body shudder through the very person who had spoken it.

Seductive, yet enragingly cute — a sweet voice that sent a tingle straight down the listener's spine. And that was my voice?

With a trembling chest, I looked into the full-length mirror before me.

Standing inside it was a beautiful young girl so unreal she barely seemed like a living creature of this world.

Dazzling pure-white silver hair that seemed to reflect every light in existence, and crimson eyes burning like red jewels.

Shoulders and a waistline so delicate they looked ready to snap at a touch.

And on her chest, two soft, enormous things shaped like oversized slime…

Worse still, every time she breathed, that chest rose and fell ever so slightly, releasing a faint fragrance of violet.

Unnecessarily high quality.

And why was the skin this translucent and white?

It looked so soft and moist that even a light brush of a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠fingertip would leave a red mark.

But those crimson eyes, at least, were filled with the ruthlessness of a veteran hunter who had rolled through countless battlefields… no. Just pure indignation.

"System-nim… you took something precious from me, so you owe me compensation!"

A window suddenly popped open.

"Huh…? You're settling this with a single gacha ticket? That's a terrible deal!"

I hesitated over the draw.

Numbers appeared above the window, and a countdown began.

10, 9, 8…

Ugh. What choice do I have.

Take this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and get lost, I guess.

With a trembling hand, I pressed the draw button.

And then—

"Cawww—!"

With a pop, a crow with a single ridiculous feather sticking up from its head burst out of the window and began circling around my head.

"…A crow for a witch? That trend is so last decade!"

"Cawww—! Cawww—!"

"Shut up! If you're going to keep yapping, get outside and promote the shop!"

Whether it understood me or not, the crow stared at me with a vacant expression, then flew straight out.

"Honestly. How did my life end up like this?"

Barely three days ago, the person inside this body had still been on the other side — on Earth, the world I originally came from — a max-level veteran hunter named Go In-heon.

I had been a seasoned professional who moved freely along the line between main tank and dealer on the front lines, competently clearing whatever quests the big guilds threw at me.

So where had that solid, thirty-something youth gone — the one who grilled pork belly and drank soju with his party after every quest — and why was only this fragile, beautiful girl left behind?

And that sensation every time I walked, the lower half of my body feeling hollow where something used to be, the center of gravity never quite right — that really got under my skin.

Enough that I wanted to pick a fight with the first stranger I saw.

All I had ever wanted was a life of free-riding without the hard work. And the reward for clearing some unidentified mythic-grade quest was this body.

"Shopkeeper, my ass. You perverted system with a fetish for net-catfish silver-haired witches. I'm filing a formal complaint."

Furious, I sighed.

But the me in the mirror only puffed out her cheeks and huffed a sigh through red lips.

Is that even supposed to look angry?

No matter how I look at it, that's the face of a maid sulking at her master.

A deep wave of self-loathing washed over me.

Even when I got mad, I didn't look threatening — I looked like someone you wanted to give a light knuckle-rap on the head.

In the end, I had no choice but to stand in front of the mirror and practice something resembling a witch's cold, all-seeing smile.

"Ah, give me back my solid macho chest already!"

For several days I pieced my mental state back together and thought it through carefully. Becoming a woman was genuinely enraging and absurd, but what was done was done.

And then I reached a conclusion: the current situation was, in its own way, a jackpot.

In this neighborhood, the common sense was that skills locked into the soul — once you drew one, you were stuck with it for life. My authority smashed that common sense to pieces.

The unique ability to pluck skills clean out of other people's souls and store them, or rent out the high-performance skills in my inventory to others.

"Right. What does it matter if I'm a man or a woman? I just sit still and suck up firepower. Done."

I tapped the table with slender white fingers.

The rules of the Skill Rental System were perfectly intuitive.

The rental fee scaled with the borrower's crushing desperation and risk.

And the core mechanism that deserved five stars next to it:

The greater the borrower's desperation and risk, the more the skill's output skyrockets — and a portion of the borrower's growth is fed back into my soul.

In other words, lend broken skills to people driven to the brink — no, to poor souls — work them like dogs, and I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠become the free-riding strongest in the world without lifting a finger.

Getting stronger off other people's effort. That was pure lucky vibes, wasn't it?

I renovated an abandoned alchemy workshop in the deepest part of the slum into something hip and atmospheric, then opened a shop with no signboard at all.

Anyone who was meant to come would find their way here with uncanny accuracy, even if the world itself was piling unfair hate on them.

The first floor became the shop; the upper floor, my living quarters.

Strange rumors had begun circulating through Ashvalley Slum, where the witch's shop was located, for the past few days.

"…Hey. That light's on, right?"

The vagrants gathered around a campfire turned their gazes toward the end of the alley — toward the alchemy workshop that had stood abandoned for decades.

"Are you insane? That's the place where a mad alchemist got arrested for boiling people. Who the hell would go in there?"

"But I'm telling you, the lights have been on every night these past few days. And don't you smell that? In the middle of a sewer, some kind of flower scent…"

Just then, a silhouette brushed past the window. Pale silver hair flashed in the moonlight.

"Eek—! Did you see that!? Just now!"

"White hair…? A cursed workshop, a flower fragrance, and a white-haired witch drinking something in the middle of the night…?"

The vagrants stared at one another, then, without anyone needing to say it first, packed their things and moved on.

From that night on, a new urban legend began to spread through the slum.

In the deepest part of Ashvalley lives a witch with white hair and red eyes.

If you value your life, stay well clear of her.

"Alright… opening prep is done, so let's check the product list."

I smirked to myself as I looked over the skill list floating in my inventory window.

The broken skills stacked as base rewards glittered in red holograms.

There were quite a few cheat keys that even executive-level members of major guilds would kill to have.

With a lineup like this, if I just reeled in the right customers, I could probably toy with an entire megacorp without breaking a sweat.

That said, how do I promote this discreetly and yet on a massive scale?

For market research, I turned on my smartphone and scrolled through the real-time featured posts on the gallery I usually lurked in.

Across the mana-infused liquid crystal screen, posts that were pure filth poured in without end.

"Hmph. The keyboard-warrior cockroaches in their rooms are having the time of their lives."

Reading the community vermin's filthy comments made my faith in humanity hit rock bottom, but at the same time the corner of my mouth twitched.

A brief digression.

I needed to lay out the full story of the unfair pile-on that poor young lady those cockroaches were yapping about had suffered.

What kind of house was the Conti family?

A prestigious, storied count family renowned for its swordsmanship, which had shattered demonic beasts with nothing but a single blade on the empire's western front.

But in a post-apocalyptic world where skills were more terrifying than steel, that kind of orthodox playstyle was nothing but a free ticket to getting exploited.

And one more thing that needed clarifying: Beatrice, the Conti family's young lady, was not even F-class.

She was an unawakened — someone for whom not a single skill had manifested from the skill gacha that nearly everyone in this world spun at least once.

Born into a famous house of swordmasters, yet unable to pull a single skill!

She was the perfect target for a world eager to sneer at an "F-class useless young lady."

The incident had begun just two days earlier. With the imperial court's silent consent, the Bell marquisate — a nouveau-riche noble house that had been a minor barony only a few years ago until it colluded with outworlder guilds and rocketed up the ranks — had joined forces with a major guild of those garbage outworlders to monopolize mana stone distribution rights, and they had attacked the Conti family.

A dawn raid.

They had deployed the latest artifacts, modern heavy weapons, and every broken cheat-key skill imaginable to massacre the Conti knights and set the estate ablaze.

And what had our Lady Beatrice been doing in the middle of all that?

Nothing at all.

A genuine zero-contribution performance.

Even as she watched her house go up in flames and every member of her family die in real time, there had been nothing she could do.

In the end, having lost everything, she had taken only the family heirloom sword and vanished somewhere. That was the tear-jerking behind-the-scenes story of Lady Beatrice Conti.

But the more people in this world who were driven into a corner and unfairly hated, and the deeper their despair, the more vertically the rental firepower of my shop would climb. That was the principle.

"The problem is when those precious customers, desperate enough to crawl all the way into this sewer, will actually show up."

Today was also the first day of business, so I could wait a little longer.

Lately I had been into black tea.

I used to prefer coffee over tea.

Maybe my tastes had shifted along with my appearance.

I crossed my black-stocking-clad legs with a sultry elegance and lifted the teacup.

The smile reflected in the cup looked rather witchlike.

Wow. I really am serving looks right now.

Silver hair slid smoothly over my shoulder.

…But what if business doesn't take off?

If no customers come, the electric bill…

No.

Stay calm, Celia.

Witches don't worry about electric bills.

Witches… dominate the electric bill!

Right at that moment—

"Caw—!"

The crow that had gone out earlier flew back in through the window.

"Hey, Kkamagi! I told you to go drum up business — why are you already back?"

At the same time,

Ding-a-ling—.

The old bell hanging on the shop door rang out with a sound like it was being torn apart.

Standing there, gasping for breath and caked in rainwater, mud, and dark-red blood that belonged to someone unknown, was a black-haired, violet-eyed beautiful young girl.