Just a Reincarnated Young Man
There comes a moment like that in life.
A moment when something suddenly clicks into place.
Of course, what flashes through your mind in that split second differs from person to person. For some, it might be a long-forgotten dark chapter from the past. For others, maybe the location of something they'd lost around the house.
My case, though, was a little special.
What came back to me wasn't some old embarrassment or a missing object. It was the memories of my previous life.
So… I don't remember exactly, but it was probably around the time I was seven.
Out of absolutely nowhere, I awakened to the memories of my past life. It happened right after I'd finished a thoroughly drool-soaked nap at kindergarten, cheeks damp on both sides, so it was definitely pretty random. At first I thought it was a dream.
But the memories and information flooding my head were far too vivid to dismiss as just a dream. Even as confusion washed over me, some part of me was cheering inside.
And for good reason — unlike my previous life, this world had them.
Powers you could call superpowers, or supernatural abilities.
Regrets about my past life?
My last memory from back then was thrashing around trying to scrub off the labels of high-school dropout and orphan, only to collapse as a crushing dizziness hit and the world went black. Like hell I'd have any lingering attachments.
Still, the one thing that had kept me breathing through it all had been web novels and webtoons of every kind. By my standards at the time they were a bit of an expensive hobby… but when I had dead time between part-time gigs, or during a break, nothing beat cracking one open for a few minutes.
Maybe that was a big part of why, even though I'd regained my past-life memories at the relatively young age of seven, joy stuck to me thicker than confusion.
Honestly, it made sense. This was basically reincarnation into another world, right? It was like the universe itself had stamped me with official certification that I was the protagonist of a novel. I'd even seriously considered sitting down and drafting out a life plan starting from that moment on.
…Of course, that idea got smashed to pieces before long.
"Dieee! You monster!"
A bright, ringing voice cut through my ears, and I lifted my head on instinct. What filled my vision was the back of a little kid's head that felt somehow familiar. The moment I saw that small fist swinging with murderous enthusiasm, as if whatever stood before her were her mortal enemy, I understood.
Ah. This is a dream.
No wonder my head had been so foggy and every random thought under the sun had been drifting through it.
I carved that newly realized truth into my mind and watched the kindergarten kids putting on what looked like a fairly serious life-or-death battle. I wondered if the WWE match was over yet.
"Ghk…!"
The little kid playing the Administrator — the final boss of the Tower — toppled to the floor with a pretty convincing death cry. The owner of that familiar head of hair planted herself in front of the fallen foe, both arms thrust high, and delivered a triumphant The enemy general is defeated!
A moment later she turned toward me, wearing an expression that said I'd completely killed the vibe, and shouted,
"Hey! Kim Taeseong, what are you doing?! When the Climber takes down the big boss of the Tower, you're supposed to rush over and give support! Keep this up and you're not playing next time!"
Does she even know what "support" means?
Anyway, that was the moment my lips — which had been frozen solid, unable to move no matter how much I wanted them to — finally opened.
"…Screw it. I'm out."
"Huh?! Why all of a sudden?!"
Apparently a Supporter going on strike was that shocking. Man… she used to be cute back then…
While I was getting all nostalgic, the dream kept rolling right along.
"Why am I always the Supporter? I wanna be a Climber too!"
"…What? Are you stupid?"
"You're the stupid one. Dummy."
"What are you even saying? You're the real dummy! How's a guy supposed to be a Climber? Guys can't even get an Authority."
"What?"
That was the truth of it.
In this world, supernatural abilities — or rather, Authorities — were the exclusive domain of women. Not that every woman had one. If they did, men in this world would have been nothing more than trophies or cheap, endlessly replaceable labor.
Only a tiny fraction of women ever obtained an Authority.
It had been a full thirty years since Authorities and the Tower first appeared before humanity, and still no one knew exactly who got chosen. What was certain was this: only those selected on their eighteenth birthday — by Korean age reckoning — received an Authority and became Climbers who ascended the Tower.
If this had been a novel, the comment section would have been on fire with people asking what kind of garbage setting this was and whether the author had some weird ideology. Thanks to that exact setting, even after reincarnating into another world, I had ended up as nothing more than a young man with past-life memories.
I was chewing over that long-unseen truth, steeped in bitterness, when—
"…Hey."
Even if she was just a being reciting the lines burned into my memory like an NPC, getting blatantly ignored must have made steam shoot out of her ears. I tilted my head at a response that didn't match my recollection, and those tiny lips opened again.
"…I said hey."
Hey? And then what?
"Three…"
Hm?
"…Two."
A countdown whose meaning I couldn't grasp. I just blinked my innocent eyes, and the instant the countdown hit zero—
THWUNK—!
"Gyaaaaah—?!"
Something sharp yet blunt drove straight into the middle of my thigh. Pain so sharp it felt like my eyes were going to pop open.
In that moment I finally understood why the ancestors of the Joseon era, when seated in that particular "thinking chair," had no choice but to spill not only everything they knew but also things that didn't even exist.
And as I was freshly grasping that buried historical truth, the face that filled my vision was the spitting image of the one I'd just been looking at in the dream.
…No, a little different, maybe.
Take the chubby cheeks off that kid from the dream, dye the hair red, grow her a few sizes in height and everything else, and you'd get exactly this.
"Quit sleeping already. Do you even know what time it is, still sprawled out like that?"
"What time is it?"
"It's twelve. Twelve o'clock!"
"What, that's not even late. The way you were looking at me like I was pathetic, I thought it was at least five."
In that case, I figured I could sleep a little longer. With that mindset I reached for the summer blanket that had been kicked and shoved all the way into the corner while I slept, and the moment I pulled it back over myself—
"…Is this bastard insane?"
A mutter packed so full of genuine feeling it felt like it'd been pressed down hard, and the blanket that had been in my hands a second ago vanished like magic.
"Ah, why would you do that?"
"Get up. Get up and go to the shop."
"All of a sudden?"
"The kids got out early today."
"…What?!"
Early dismissal, out of nowhere. What kind of catastrophic news was this?
"Yeah, but there's supposed to be a part-timer."
"Didn't show."
"…Why?"
"Something about the flu."
"Holy crap… we're completely screwed."
In that instant the scene painted itself in my head: a swarm of little monsters with nowhere to go between a school that had let out early and academies running on their usual schedule, flooding into the shop like a tidal wave, and Aunt in the middle of them, sweating bullets and fighting for her life.
"You get the picture now? Wash up and get out there before Mom collapses from exhaustion."
"…Hold on."
"What."
"I understand the situation. I do… but what about you?"
Trying to slip out of this alone? Not a chance…! Absolutely not! You're not dying alone!
"I've got training, dumbass."
"…Ahh."
"Don't 'ahh' me…. Ugh, whatever! Just go wash up already!"
"Wait, wait!"
"What now!"
"We're indoors. What's with the shoes? You planning to dig a grave?"
"If it bothers you that much, clean this place up once in a while! Clean it!"
Apparently the bit about her training schedule leaving no time hadn't been an excuse. Once she'd confirmed I was fully awake, that walking personality disorder — Chaerin — spun around and bolted from the room.
"Oh, right. Mom said to bring you some side dishes, so I left them. Stick them in the fridge. Forget and you're dead, got it?"
Yep. Confirmed personality disorder.
If you're going to say it like that, just put them in yourself on the way out. The kitchen is right next to the front door.
"Seriously… I'm the only one who puts up with that personality. At this rate I don't know if she'll ever manage to date anyone."
"…You wanna die? I'm still here, you know."
"Oops."
As expected of a nationally famous Authority holder… her hearing was uselessly sharp.
Anyway. Time to wash up. Any later and it was going to be a problem.
Born an orphan of purest pedigree, abandoned on the doorstep of a children's home right after birth, I'd never done military service. But the special shower technique I'd honed over eighteen years at the orphanage got me cleaned up fast. When I arrived at the shop, what greeted me was exactly what I'd imagined — no, far more catastrophic.
"Which plan should I go with…"
"Ugh, just pick already! How many minutes has it been?! We've gotta hit karaoke later!"
From the guy camping the counter all day unable to make a single decision while the place was drowning in work, to the dishes that looked like they'd been abandoned for at least twenty minutes, to the receipt paper still spooling out in real time and growing thicker by the second…
If there was a hell designed for lazy people, this had to be it.
A scene that could only be described as a war zone. And in the middle of it, the thing that truly made me marvel was—
"Oh my, Taeseong, you're here?"
—Aunt, who had been shouldering that entire war zone alone and still hadn't lost her kindness or her smile.
This was from my previous life, but I'd done enough part-time jobs here and there to know. Keeping not just kindness but a constant smile when you were too busy to even go to the bathroom was no small feat.
Someone might say kindness is the bare minimum when you're running a business…
But half the places that go under can't even manage that bare minimum. More than anything, when a person's body is exhausted, it shows first in their attitude and their face.
In an age when private rooms had become the default for manhwa cafes, the fact that Aunt's slightly behind-the-times shop still did well was probably thanks to things like this.
"Sorry I'm late, Aunt. I ran the whole way, but…"
"No, no. I'm just grateful you always come help out whenever it gets this busy."
How on earth did an angel like this produce a personality disaster like Lee Chaerin…?
"Should I start with the food? Looks like the orders are pretty backed up."
"Will you be okay? Doing it all alone will be hard…"
"Nah, I can handle this much while doing dishes."
Besides, the "food" here was closer to assembly than actual cooking. All I had to do was add the ingredients according to the recipe and wait for the pre-set timer to go off. The dishes I could knock out in the leftover time.
"Alright then, I'll leave it to you. I'll finish up the drinks and the piled-up table cleaning real quick and come help—"
"No rush. Take your time. Really."
Maybe she'd felt a flash of guilt about dumping her work on someone who, titles aside, was basically a stranger. Aunt looked genuinely sorry, but I honestly didn't mind.
According to the big data I'd accumulated helping out at her shop, today only felt this busy because of the sudden part-timer desertion and a temporary customer bottleneck. It wasn't actually that bad.
Besides, you kids…
You'll all head to academy around five, right? And it's the end of the month, so pocket money's probably running low.
See? Done.
—There was a time when I thought that, too.
"Order up!"
"We've got an order!"
"Taeseong, order over here!"
"O-order…"
What is this, auditory hallucination? Why do I keep hearing Aunt's voice telling me food orders are coming in…?
"Tae… Taeseong…? Are you okay…?"
"Y-yeahhh…"
That was a lie.
I'd done what felt like a million won's worth of dishes. There was no way I was okay. To someone who doesn't know, a million won might not sound like much, but measured against the shop's bestsellers — tteokbokki or ramen — that was roughly two hundred bowls. Add in the trays and other dishes that went out with every order, and—
"Taeseong?"
"…Ah, is there an order?"
"No, that's not it…"
"Then should I clean the tables?"
"No, that's not it either… The customers all seem to have cleared out, so go on home and rest."
"Huh? Already?"
The question Has it even been that long? barely formed before I checked the clock on the wall. The hands were already pointing at five.
"What is this, a bug…?"
"Hm?"
"No, no, nothing. But are you going to be okay? Closing up alone will be rough…"
"It's just… you look especially tired today… and Chaerin said she'd come help with closing anyway."
Ah. In that case, fair enough.
Normally I would have answered Aunt's concern by shooing her home instead. But maybe because I'd pulled an all-nighter writing a report for school yesterday, the polite refusal stuck in my throat and wouldn't come out.
"Then I'll shamelessly head out first."
"Go ahead. Looks like it rained outside, so be careful on the way."
"Yessir."
Looking back, I should have engraved Aunt's words in my ears instead of letting them slide by…
Maybe the problem was that I'd jammed my feet into whatever shoes were handy instead of my usual pair, rushing because I felt I had to hurry. Or maybe it was that the second I got home, I forced my still-tingling, dish-wrecked fingers to boot up a game so I could pass out the moment I hit the bed.
"W-watch out—!"
CRUNCH—!
…Ah.
Today, my phone died.