The Morning of Beginnings

With one hand I mopped away the evidence. With the other I tapped at my smartphone, digging up everything I could find on Choi Hyejeong — the original owner of this body.

I'd opened my eyes and found myself a woman. On top of that, I'd learned there was such a thing as the Korea Awakened Association, and that some kind of regular aptitude test was apparently on the calendar. An ordinary person would have been pretty shaken. I wasn't.

"This is how every dime-a-dozen TS possession novel starts, anyway."

I tightened my grip on the rag.

My original name was Park Seungri. A perfectly ordinary Korean guy in his late twenties. Not some chaebol family's hidden child, not a genius, not a hero who'd saved the world. I had done my military service, at least. Hadn't landed a job, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠though. I'd gone through the motions of job-hunting — shown up to interviews, even — but at some point, reading web novels, lurking on forums, and playing games had started eating more of my hours than writing cover letters. I'd gamed, too. During downtime I'd even tried gold-farming, hoping to scrape together a little cash.

Objectively speaking, it hadn't been a successful life. I had, however, read a lot of web novels. Hunter stories, possession stories, regression stories, TS stories, academy stories, constellation stories, streamer stories, wastrel stories, gallery stories — the whole catalog. I'd been a guy with neither money nor time to spare, but thanks to devouring every genre cliché in existence, even this absurd situation made a certain kind of genre-logic sense.

Wake up in a stranger's body of the opposite sex. Looks so pretty they bordered on excessive. A suspicious Association notification. An Awakened aptitude test scheduled for tomorrow.

"This is a textbook TS hunter-novel opening."

The name Choi Hyejeong didn't ring any bells, and neither did the face, so I figured this probably wasn't a novel I'd actually read. That was as far as my guesswork went.

"At least it doesn't smell too bad."

I tossed the rag into the bathroom, came back out, and looked down at the screen again. The picture I'd pieced together overnight was more or less complete.

The original owner of this body was Choi Hyejeong. Twenty years old.

"Twenty, huh."

I glanced toward the mirror. She didn't look twenty. Face and body both were far too mature; when I'd first seen her, I'd figured she was at least in her mid-twenties. There was a reason for that, though. She'd grown up on a small island, in a countryside village that barely even had a proper school, helping her mother dive for seafood. Working her body under the sun on the ocean from a young age — that explained the healthy tan, and why she looked older than she was. The blonde hair and golden eyes were still a mystery, but this was an Awakened world, so I decided to let that one slide for now.

What mattered was that she'd desperately wanted off that island. The poor haenyeo's life, the greasy stares of the village old men — she'd had more than enough of all of it. She'd yearned for Seoul.

Of course, getting there by ordinary means had been impossible. She'd never studied properly, and she had no idea how to make money in the city. Looks, at least, she had in spades — so becoming an influencer or a streamer had been the obvious next step. Her phone still held a complete record of that chapter of her life.

"...She really did try, huh."

She'd started with a dirt-poor country-girl concept. It had failed. Sleazy types looking to take advantage of a broke rural girl had swarmed her, and her DMs had filled up with filthy propositions until she quit. Next she'd tried being a lookbook YouTuber. That had failed too — a combination of sexual-content issues and the fact that she'd still been a minor had gotten the account suspended. Her last fallback, beauty YouTuber, hadn't lasted long either. Her face was so unrealistically pretty that she'd been hit with AI accusations, appearance-editing rumors, and baseless smear campaigns until she finally stepped down on her own.

I looked down at the screen and let out a small laugh.

"Life's not easy, is it."

It wasn't mockery. It was just astonishing that someone could hold a face like this as a cheat code and still crash and burn. She and I weren't so different — neither of us had amounted to much. The difference was that I'd sat in my room reading web novels, while she'd actually thrown herself at the world, betting everything on her looks. Of course, we'd both failed anyway.

After one dead end after another, an agency had approached Choi Hyejeong. A shady outfit with almost nothing on it if you searched online — but they'd told her that her looks had potential. Brand her right, get a little virality going, and she'd be a sure thing. That was how they'd reeled her in. Choi Hyejeong had believed them. The moment she turned twenty, she'd bolted from the island and come up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to Seoul.

It had been closer to running away than moving, and the place she'd settled into was this two-room apartment I was standing in now. It hadn't been free, of course. The security deposit, the cost of coming to Seoul, styling, marketing, video production — every expense billed under every possible heading had piled up as Choi Hyejeong's debt. Money the company had "lent" her until she made it big.

I checked the number on the phone screen again.

"Five hundred million in debt. You've gotta be fucking kidding me..."

Add up everything I'd just listed, billed as "advance investment," and the debt came to a cool five hundred million won.

"Isn't this just a scam?"

At first I'd wondered if the won was worth something different in this world, so I'd searched the forums — but the cost of living, even the price of going full whale on a gacha game, was identical to my previous life. Even the loan you'd take out to start gold-farming was about the same. Which meant five hundred million here was the same five hundred million I knew.

"I didn't even make two hundred million in my entire last life, and I wake up five hundred million in the hole. That's way more of a horror story than the supernatural possession itself..."

And yet it wasn't a completely incomprehensible number. The agency was shady, no question — dropping five hundred million on a twenty-year-old island bumpkin because they thought she'd become a celebrity? That wasn't normal. But they hadn't been wrong about the eye for talent. Objectively speaking, this face looked like it could make money. I had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠no choice but to admit that much, damn it. I was the one who'd taken one look at this face after waking up, gotten so mesmerized I'd gotten myself off, and passed out.

"Irina... they picked a good name, at least."

After the agency got involved, Choi Hyejeong had become Irina.

Her SNS handle was LINA_LEE. The concept: a haughty urban-beauty hunter. A woman who made money hunting, lived in a luxury officetel, used expensive cosmetics, and dined at high-end restaurants. In a single stroke, the island bumpkin had become the kind of expensive woman ordinary people envied and could never quite reach.

In reality Choi Hyejeong was still a Normal Human who hadn't Awakened — but the agency had packaged that fact with considerable cunning. They hadn't outright impersonated a hunter. They'd slapped on the conveniently vague title of "hunter-lifestyle influencer." Once a minimum of virality kicked in, the response had come. Followers grew. Comments piled up. Sponsorships started rolling in — cosmetics, hotels, restaurants, even hunter gear.

That didn't mean everything was going smoothly. It was still a dime-a-dozen concept, and the market was already flooded with AI influencers, the rate competition brutal. Naturally, Irina — a celebrity "hopeful" — commanded rock-bottom ad rates. And of course she'd been saddled with a high-maintenance celebrity concept, so the settlement money all vanished under headings like image-maintenance fees, planning costs, management fees, and production and equipment expenses. A paltry income, nowhere near enough to maintain the glittering exterior the public was supposed to envy.

In the end, more money went out than came in. The debt showed no sign of shrinking, and Choi Hyejeong found herself bound tighter and tighter to the agency. Reading the chat logs with the agency president, I couldn't help clicking my tongue.

"These bastards have no intention of letting her go."

The guy had played the part of someone looking out for Irina to a T. We're investing because we believe in her potential; we're not running a charity here — that was the line he'd used to stall, over and over. Meanwhile Choi Hyejeong's debt had kept growing.

No. Fuck.

It's my debt now.

Whether it was a genuine investment or a calculated scam designed to exploit her, I couldn't tell from the chat logs alone. But with a contract that had no clear repayment terms, and everything hanging on this "investment potential" they dangled over her head, my situation was no different from a dog on a leash.

Choi Hyejeong hadn't been a complete idiot. She'd at least been able to do the math and see that more money was going out than coming in. Playing fake hunter for ad money wasn't going to get her out of this swamp, and she'd figured that out. Which left only one answer.

"Mm-hmm. Yeah, alright. Fine — I'll become a real hunter."

Might as well, at this point. What other option was there? I'd do it. She was already being sold on a hunter concept. If I actually certified as a hunter, the product value would go up. Ad rates would change, and if I got lucky, hunter work itself might earn enough to pay off the debt. That was why Choi Hyejeong had applied for the Awakened aptitude test behind the agency's back.

When I'd first seen it, I'd figured it was just another Awakened-world cliché. But after spending the night piecing together this body's past, I understood — this was closer to Choi Hyejeong's last desperate struggle.

She'd gone and applied for the test on impulse, but the island girl had been plenty scared of it. She'd left notes everywhere, each one imagining the worst possible outcome.

The anxiety had driven her stress through the roof. That was everything I'd learned overnight.

I finished my shower, came out, downed some coffee, and watched the sun rise through the window.

"Alright. To-do list is set. No more getting off, and pay off the debt."

Park Seungri, Choi Hyejeong, Irina — whatever. At this point, they were all me. The wandering, the despair, the drawn-out crying over a new identity after a TS — I'd seen that web-novel cliché enough times to be sick of it. I'd already gotten myself off so hard I'd fountain-sprayed the entire apartment. Whining about it now was less important than figuring out how I was going to live from here.

I scrubbed my face with my hands. I wanted to run, but there was nothing I could actually do. No money, no connections, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and not even enough information about this world. In my last life I'd hated hard work enough to sit in my room reading web novels. I wasn't about to go get a factory job now, or go back to the island and live as a haenyeo.

"Anyway."

I'd become this pretty of a woman. Obviously life was going to be easy mode from here. I didn't have a great voice or game skills, so a VTuber debut was out of the question — but if you were born a pretty girl with a good body, life was supposed to be easy. That was the TS reincarnation cliché.

"Might as well enjoy it."

Four hours later. 10:00 AM.

The aptitude test, scheduled on the one day off she got a month. I'd stayed up all night to get there, and as I reached to open the closet, my hand froze.

"Wait. How do you even put on a bra...?"

A roadblock, right from the start.