Transformation or Death

Chapter 1

Reader’s discretion is advised, this novel contains heavy topics such bullying and suicide.

Chapter 1 

Save Me 

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. 

Even more so if that unhappiness leads to an extreme choice like suicide.

There are those born into affluent families who choose suicide simply because they were abandoned by friends or lovers. On the other hand, there are those who lost their parents at a young age, drifted from place to place unemployed, until their last glimmer of hope faded like a dying candle, finally driving them to jump into a river.

The degree of unhappiness felt varies from person to person, and it is wrong to condemn an individual’s choice solely on the grounds that they are less unhappy than others…

However, the story changes if there is a crazy person here who commits suicide without feeling unhappy at all.

“Keck…keh, keck!”

Would you understand if you opened your eyes to find yourself hanging alone in an unfamiliar room? No one would understand that. Of course, neither would I.

While others choose suicide out of unhappiness, here I have become someone who chose suicide and became unhappy in real-time.

Like a chandelier caught in the eye of a storm, tossed this way and that, I dropped to the floor with a thud like a doll dropped by a puppeteer.

Whether the noose was loose or my struggle was too fierce, I don’t know why, but in any case, I was fortunate to have survived.  

“Kuhuk…uck…ueok…”

Grateful for my regained breath, I continued to retch dryly several times.

Once that finally stopped, my body went completely limp. Unable to get up, I lay sprawled on the floor.

What met my eyes was an unfamiliar ceiling. If it had to be an unfamiliar ceiling, I wish it had at least taken me to another world.

This place had a very familiar modern interior structure. It was just a little old.

Moldy ceiling and yellowed wallpaper. Even the outlets on the wall were discolored. From the interior, it appeared to be some old motel room, not an actual living space.

“Wow shit… What the hell…”

As I calmed down a bit, I slowly lifted my body. Having narrowly escaped death, an exotic experience few people have in life, left me dumbfounded.

Perhaps that’s why I now realized that my voice was different from usual.

Not just my voice. My hands too were different. The slender hands I’m often complimented on were now rough and calloused.

“What the hell is this?”  

I ran those hands over my body. While still maintaining the firmness unique to men despite not exercising much, it was not a muscular physique that greeted me.

I quickly found a mirror and checked my appearance. 

My hair was shaggy and long, apparently from lack of care. My body, as expected, had the stocky frame of a man. My face too had thick features, enough to call me a hunk.

The kind of face that would make people click their tongues and say what a waste when passing by, or think even with that face, he’d get ‘girls’, the unlucky bastard.

The problem was, this was not my face.

“What the hell is this?”

Perhaps it was the aftereffects of the suicide attempt that hadn’t worn off yet. I couldn’t accept reality. My mind went blank, unable to keep up.

No matter how much I examined the mirror, the face didn’t change. It wasn’t a temporary delusion.  

That somewhat familiar male face made me feel that suffocating sensation from earlier again.  

Clutching my throbbing head, I looked around to find a white envelope that seemed to be a suicide note, along with a wallet, lying on the desk.

Gulp. Swallowing hard, I grabbed the white envelope first.  

Unfolding the suicide note, the first thing that caught my eye was the lament of having no hope left to live after being an orphan, a high school graduate, and failing the national exams.

Having also lost my parents in an accident and lived most of my life as an orphan, it was a relatable life story.  

As I read through the note, however, I couldn’t overlook one particular phrase.

‘To the Magical Girl Blue Sirius…’

Magical Girl?  

The rest was a lengthy justification claiming his death wasn’t her fault, just his own choice.

Blue Sirius. A name I felt I had heard somewhere before. No, more than just heard of.

She was one of the characters in the webtoon I used to fervently follow, ‘The Magical Girl Chronicles.’

Wiping the cold sweat streaming from my anxiety, I picked up the wallet next to it.

With only 30,000 won in cash and a checkbook whose balance I didn’t know, that was all the money I had. I’ll think about money later. That’s not important right now.  

I searched for the resident registration card and looked at the recorded name.

The face on it looked younger than the one I had seen in the mirror, but it was definitely the same as my current face.

And the name is….

Han Jae-jung.

That name evoked faint, wistful memories from beyond.  

‘As expected.’  

When the name Blue Sirius came up, I had a hunch, and my guess was right.

Han Jae-jung was the ex-boyfriend of the Magical Girl Blue Sirius, who, after severe cyber-bullying during their relationship, broke up with her and ultimately committed suicide.  

He was the trauma-inducing character who actively contributed to creating the first casualty in the webtoon ‘The Magical Girl Chronicles.’

And it seems I have been reincarnated into that very starting point of tragedy.

…Shit.

I take back what I said about taking me to another world. 

I’m already here, so where else would I go?

It looks like I’ve come to another world.

*** 

Ippotranslation

***

I went to a PC bang (internet cafe) and started surfing the internet. The overall portals and sites were similar, but the trending people and events were starkly different from where I used to live. 

– High expectations for the emergence of the super rookie Magical Girl Red Vega, who defeated a villain…

– Album finally released by the aspiring singer girl ‘Pink Deneb’.  

– Dramas are now in my hands too… Actress Lee Hye-ju and Magical Girl Black Sadr, an anticipated combination.

While comedians, idols and singers still existed, magical girls were undoubtedly the biggest trend.

The social pages were abuzz with news of magical girls defeating villains, and the entertainment pages were buzzing about magical girl media appearances. 

It was truly the heyday of magical girls.  

Seeing this removed any lingering doubts I had. The faint hope that this was some prank hidden camera set up to fool me had died completely.

This was definitely the world of ‘The Magical Girl Chronicles’ webtoon.

“I’m screwed…”

You’re not happy to be dropped into the webtoon you used to obsess over? Of course not.

If you knew the survival rate and ending of this world, you would never say that.

Citizens who can’t use magic live in daily fear of being randomly ambushed by villains anywhere.

And even the magical girls protecting those citizens ultimately all died in the crappy ending of this webtoon.

Why did I say used to obsess over this webtoon?

‘The Magical Girl Chronicles’ is a work where the author rushed the development due to lack of profits, abandoning plot setups and plausibility in order to give the worst possible ending.

Yet despite that awful ending, we fans swallowed our bitter disappointment without a single malicious comment…

Out of all the many vicious comments on the final chapter, why did I have to be reincarnated into one of those?

Fiction is meant to be enjoyed, but becoming part of it holds no joy whatsoever.

It’s a world where a villain suddenly appearing to tear everyone here to shreds would be unsurprising.

I’m scared to death. Even simple browsing requires constant vigilance of my surroundings. Anyone seeing me would think I’m some lunatic searching for things I shouldn’t at a PC bang.

Ah, my head hurts.

And another problem has arisen.

My headache wasn’t simply from the desperate situation.

“Ugh, ueuk…”

A wave of nausea rose up from the depths of my throat under the dizzy headache. I quickly rushed to the bathroom and threw up whatever was inside. Just stomach acid, as I hadn’t eaten anything.

I thought web surfing would be fine, but I guess not.

This Han Jae-jung person seems to have severe trauma from past cyber-bullying related to media exposure and media consumption. 

While my mind is me, my body is undoubtedly Han Jae-jung’s own.  

I thought avoiding comment sections would be enough… But my body’s defense mechanism was stronger than I imagined.

Somehow, he didn’t even have something as common as a smartphone.

With that level of trauma compounded by successive failures shattering his self-confidence, his decision to commit suicide makes sense.

‘May you rest in peace…’

After a brief bow towards the Han Jae-jung in the mirror, I left the PC bang.

The stale city air was strong, but the breeze definitely helped me feel a bit better.   

In any case, the situation was more serious than I imagined.  

This world’s ending is a bad ending.   

All magical girls die, leaving human society doomed to be destroyed by villains.  

The tragedy begins when Blue Sirius, unable to cope with the overwhelming stress, is killed by a villain.

While Han Jae-jung’s death, which could be seen as the initial cause, has been averted by my reincarnation, many other dangers still remain for the magical girls.   

What should I do from now on…?  

Lost in this dilemma, I muttered whatever came to mind. “Status window.”

Isn’t this the norm when reincarnating into something? I tried saying it out loud, just in case. 

Nothing happened.

“St, status! Tutorial! Skill window! Shop!”  

Luckily there was no one around, or I might have been mistaken for a lunatic with that level of raving. Letting out my rising frustration, I shouted louder. “Status window! Status window!! Status windoooow!!!”

“Crook.”  

“Huh?”

An unlikely voice responding to status window made me turn around.  

From the dark back alley where no one was around, a monster with two legs too difficult to be considered human emerged walking.

It was a villain.

“Oh, this isn’t right.”  

Even if there are no such things as setup foreshadowing in real life, isn’t this encounter a bit too sudden? I don’t have a smartphone to call for help, and there’s not a single person on this street.

It’s too far to go back to that PC bang. I’m not even sure if I can properly escape.

I didn’t properly check the time in my flustered state.

While wandering around at night wasn’t so dangerous until recently, here, it’s different.

“Oh shit.”  

Judging by its size, at least grade C or B. And its inability to speak indicates a lack of higher intelligence.

The kind a magical girl could deal with in 3 minutes, but a monster far beyond what I can handle.

“I’m screwed.”  

Puck!

A strong impact struck my abdomen. That villain bastard didn’t give me a moment to compose myself before attacking.

Nearly dying from a noose earlier, now a deadly blow? Seems I have plenty of chances to die.  

Rolling on the deserted road, I vomited stomach acid again. The impact was so strong I couldn’t even breathe properly. The villain snorted loudly.

“Ugh…keck…”

With so many chances to die, now I feel I’m going to die an unjust death.

Since I ended up in the world I was obsessed with, at least let me see an actual magical girl before I die. Encountering a villain and dying less than a day after arriving? Can there be a more tragically absurd death?  

I’d have been less resentful dying in that earlier suicide show without knowing anything.

I finally had the chance to change the ending of the world I loved, only to die this pathetically.

Through my blurred vision from being flung so far, I saw the villain approaching.

“Didn’t even get to see a magical girl…damn it…”  

At that moment, a metal ball came flying in from somewhere, relentlessly pummeling the villain coming towards me.

“…?”

Did a magical girl arrive already? But that’s an ability I don’t recall from the original.  

No, don’t jump to conclusions.

Maybe an unseen magical girl from the original has come to help.

For now, I’ll beg. “Sa, save me.”  

That metal ball zoomed right up to my face and spoke.

[Transform.]

…What?

T/N:  Consider reading to chapter 20 before dropping or review this novel, it has a lot of good aspects.

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