“No, seriously, what the hell is this situation?”
There was no one else in the room, but the sheer absurdity of what I was facing made me blurt that out instinctively. The situation was so incomprehensible that even Schrödinger’s possibly non-existent god would have nodded and clapped three times in agreement.
Right. First of all, I had possessed someone.
If not, then I must have died and reincarnated, but wasn’t it slightly more realistic to believe I had possessed someone in a novel rather than died in my sleep?
No, wait. There was nothing realistic about possession or reincarnation in the first place.
I looked around.
Unlike my own room, the surroundings were elegant and old-fashioned. The bed was covered in obviously luxurious fabric, and even the decorations and wallpaper were far different from the kind you’d find in a modern studio apartment. There was even a full-length mirror adorned with elaborate embellishments.
So, I got out of bed and approached the mirror. I had a faint hope…. really, just the slimmest possibility. Maybe, just maybe, one of my few friends had pulled a very good prank on me.
And then, I looked into the mirror.
At first, I was awed by the incredibly beautiful silver-and-gold hair and the refined face. These were features so flawless they couldn’t possibly be the result of makeup.
But soon, despair set in.
“No, no… this doesn’t make any sense. Why the hell are you in the mirror…?”
The reflection staring back at me was none other than Nygor Caritas. The final boss and serial killer from my own novel, “How to Survive at the Academy”.
***
Here’s what happened.
My name was Kim Do-hyun. I was just an ordinary writer of indefinitely paused serial novels. Though, thinking about it, could someone who abandoned their serialization even be called “ordinary”?
To be fair, it wasn’t like I wanted to stop writing.
It was just that, at some point, the stories that had once flowed effortlessly from my imagination had suddenly vanished with a “snap!”.
No matter how hard I tried, I simply couldn’t come up with anything new for the novel I had been working on. And honestly, I had no idea why.
Anyway, since I had abandoned my serialization, I should have accepted the backlash as my due punishment. And even the harshest comments.
– Haah… Seeing trash like this calling themselves a writer just proves how messed up the world is. Did you have nothing better to do than drop your novel halfway? Just go die, you useless piece of shit. And seriously, why the hell did you kill off Ellia there? You brain-dead moron, do you even know what consistency is?
The commenter wasn’t wrong. Being a writer who dropped novels made me an idiot, and killing off Ellia in that scene was probably a terrible choice. So why did I get so angry? Honestly, the real problem was that I even bothered to read the comment in the first place. And worse, that I actually responded to it.
Well… yeah. If I couldn’t hold back and ended up cursing them out in return, then I should have at least been prepared for something like this to happen. I should have been… right…?
“Ah, seriously… What the hell am I supposed to do now…?”
As someone who had checked my reflection in the mirror and then immediately tried jumping out the window, I could at least confirm that this wasn’t a dream. After all, falling from the second floor hurt way too much for that. I had nearly died.
So, let’s think this through.
The character I had possessed was Nygor Caritas. He was a professor of theology at the academy and a priest of the Elohim Church. He should have been a figure of utmost holiness. Should have been. The problem was, behind the scenes, he was actually a serial killer who went around bashing people’s heads in with a mace.
For starters, I hadn’t possessed some nameless extra. I wasn’t part of the protagonist’s group, nor was I a side character. I had become the final boss. That was definitely a good thing. At the very least, it meant I wouldn’t just get beaten to death somewhere. But at the same time, it was also a bad thing. It meant I would inevitably get caught up in all sorts of criminals and disasters.
Another plus was that I wasn’t a student at the academy. Considering I had written about how the prestigious institution crushed its students under mountains of assignments and exams, it was a relief that I didn’t have to deal with that.
On top of that, I actually liked the fact that I was a priest. Priests were considered highly valuable personnel and welcomed everywhere. The role of a healer and buffer was far different from that of a disposable frontline soldier or some third-rate magic caster.
And if anyone was wondering whether being a priest would make it difficult for me to defend myself. Well, they should remember once again that Nygor Caritas was a serial killer who went around bashing people’s heads in with a mace. Even if I wasn’t a killer, this body belonged to a battle priest.
…Of course, as someone who had just been an ordinary college student in the modern world, it wasn’t like I could suddenly start cracking skulls with a mace.
Still, after sorting out my thoughts, I was finally able to let out a sigh of relief.
No matter how much I thought about it, possessing the body of a serial killer didn’t seem like a bad situation.
If anything, it was actually a good one.
Sure, this body belonged to a murderer, but I wasn’t one. A perfectly ordinary person who had lived in modern society wouldn’t suddenly start bashing people’s heads in. I didn’t even have any particular ambition to achieve something grand. Just looking around the room I was in, it was clear I could live a comfortable life without any trouble.
So then, didn’t that mean all my previous worries were pointless? I couldn’t help but wonder—if the final boss decided to be good, would that really cause a problem for the world?
“What the hell, then all I have to do is live however I want.”
That was the conclusion I reached.
Ah… what a perfect ending, where everyone, myself included, could be happy.
Tada~.
But that blissful fantasy didn’t last long.
In other words, it turned out to be nothing more than a fleeting daydream.
The proof was right there. My bloodstained mace, the crimson splatters all around me, and the corpse that had already been reduced to a mangled mess.
On this dark night, the thick stench of blood filled the alley. The corpse that was beaten beyond recognition lay sprawled across the ground. The bits of flesh stuck between the mace’s spikes whispered the question, “Did I know who the culprit was?”
The bodies that were now nothing more than lumps of meat hadn’t even managed to scream. And in this place, I was the only one left standing.
There was no way I didn’t know who the killer was.
With a mace covered in bits of flesh in my hand and a corpse crushed beneath my feet, how could I not know? The body was mangled exactly as I had written. There was no way I didn’t recognize what had happened.
Right. If I remember correctly, Nygor had been committing murders even before the main story began. As soon as night fell, he would roam the streets, slipping into deserted alleys to kindly bash a few heads in.
Of course, his main killing grounds were places connected to the academy and various story episodes, but he had definitely killed people in unrelated locations as well. A serial killer wasn’t exactly picky about where they struck.
And right now, it was still the academy’s break period. This was an ideal time for Nygor to go on a killing spree. The very idea of there being a “good time” for murder felt utterly absurd, but regardless, that was the reality.
But here’s the thing.
What made absolutely no sense. What was completely and utterly baffling….was the fact that I had possessed this body, yet somehow, murders were still happening while I was asleep. I was the one who had taken over this body. So logically, shouldn’t the killer’s personality have disappeared? Wasn’t that just common sense?
We had agreed on a happy ending, right? I was supposed to live a peaceful, comfortable life, coasting my way through things. That was the deal! When I was deep in thought, working it all out, there hadn’t been a single objection. That meant there had been an implicit agreement, right?
I racked my brain. No, I had no choice but to.
Trying to keep my thoughts moving as if I were calm was nothing more than an instinctive attempt to escape from the unbearable reality in front of me. If I didn’t, I felt like I would end up vomiting out everything I had eaten for dinner.
Yeah, just thinking about how nauseous I felt right now…
Ah.
“Urgh… ugh—blegh…!”
The moment I fully realized what was happening, I couldn’t hold it in any longer and threw up. No matter how I looked at it, this was way too much for a modern person to handle.
Even seeing an intact corpse could leave someone traumatized, but this? Showing a regular guy from the modern world a pile of headless bodies? That was just cruel.
Yeah. To be honest, the moment I opened my eyes and took in the scene before me, my hands trembled, and tears welled up as I shuddered. But I had managed to hold on for quite a while, trying to gather my thoughts.
The vomit I had just expelled thickly covered the corpse. And I squeezed my eyes shut once more at the grotesque repulsive sight.
I was just a serialized writer who hadn’t even fully grasped reality yet. How could I possibly face a scene like this with my eyes wide open?
So I shut my eyes and desperately tried to think of something else.
Somehow, I reached the crazy conclusion that a corpse covered in vomit was at least better than one drenched in blood. But as the thick, fishy stench of blood mixed with the acrid smell of vomit, that thought quickly vanished.
“Urgh… ugh… blegh….”
Overcome with nausea, I couldn’t hold it in and vomited again. Who had time to think when they were too busy painting the floor with their stomach’s contents?
And so, I spent a long while throwing up, gagging at the sight, and then throwing up all over again.
Life… seriously….
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