WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 1: 30 Years Have Passed Since the Prologue.
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“Ah, an unfamiliar ceiling....”
Kim Seonwoo murmured in a calm voice.
No, not really. He was so excited that his hands were shaking.
How long had he waited for this moment? An unfamiliar ceiling, an unfamiliar world. Yes. Possession, transmigration, reincarnation, anything!
He had spent an awfully long time preparing for this exact moment. The important part was that he had prepared.
Every citizen of South Korea knew the basic requirements for reincarnation in another world. [Submit a 5,700-character critique filled with gratitude] and [Read through to the ending].
Take that idea a step further, and Kim Seonwoo’s preparations became obvious.
Every novel, webtoon, and game he had read. Every work he liked. In other words, every work he wanted to be transported into received a [5,700-character critique].
Every day, filled with gratitude, without rest, with a different routine every time, meticulous and thorough.
Since he intended to enter those works, he naturally memorized their stories, settings, possible hidden pieces and artifacts, and the relationship charts of their major characters by heart.
He wrote those 5,700 characters for one purpose only, to crush the creator’s spirit until they said, [Then why don’t you try it yourself?]
Of course, most cases ended with authors lacking perseverance giving up, or with various communities publicly tearing him apart and banning him, but in the end, he had won.
He had finally been transported to another world.
Now only one question remained. What work was this?
“Status window!”
No colorful blue augmented reality display appeared.
That was fine. He wasn’t disappointed. Some of the works on his list of targets for malicious comments hadn’t had status windows. If anything, this gave him a clue to narrow the list.
On top of that, he was in the body of a child who looked about four or five years old. Time and potential were practically on his side.
Even the old, ragged clothes and shabby ceiling were good.
- A genius like this in a place like that?!
- A true hero, without equal!!
- I’ll give you the throne and all my wealth! Just spare me!!
Every medium on Earth had already proven that the harsher a person’s childhood, the greater their success appeared.
Kim Seonwoo smirked and got to his feet.
First things first. Maybe he should start with something simple, like making soap.
* * *
Age four. First week after transmigration.
Kim Seonwoo realized that his body was named Ivan Petrovich.
He was rattled to learn that his parents were tenant farmers, ignorant people who didn’t even know their country’s name, let alone how to read.
After failing to make soap, he got a sharp scolding for playing with lye.
He also learned that soap already existed in this world.
Age four. Sixth week after transmigration.
At last, Kim Seonwoo was allowed to walk around the village on egg delivery errands.
The moment he saw a newspaper rolling along the ground, he began to sense something strange.
“If this society can print newspapers and distribute them all the way out to a rural village like this, then it’s not even medieval.”
Most of the works on his transmigration list were crossed out that day.
Age four. Fifteenth week after transmigration.
Kim Seonwoo finally heard the name of the country where he lived.
After learning the name of the king, who had only ever been vaguely called the ruler, he immediately returned home and threw his precious transmigration list, kept in one corner of the room, into the fire.
The country was unfamiliar. The ruler was unfamiliar. Every neighboring kingdom had an unfamiliar name.
What mattered now was no longer, What work have I been transported into?
It was, What genre is this, exactly?
Please, let it not be dark fantasy. A modern Korean’s survival rate as a tenant farmer, without a status window or any transmigration perks, usually fell below five percent.
Age eight. Fourth year after transmigration.
A Demon King suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
The war was still a story from faraway lands, but the extra editions distributed every day carried nothing but grim news.
Winter, age eight.
Kim Seonwoo’s, no, Ivan’s father was taken away by a conscription officer.
Ivan’s mother began doing labor exchange work to feed young Ivan.
That was when Kim Seonwoo’s sense of self began to slip, ever so slightly.
Age ten. Sixth year after transmigration.
Kim Seonwoo could now follow his mother and handle labor exchange jobs fairly well.
Age twelve. Eighth year after transmigration.
Kim Seonwoo finally learned to read. It was payment for secretly delivering eggs to the village chief’s home for six years.
Age fourteen. Tenth year after transmigration.
News of his father’s death arrived in the village.
The funny part was that the official notice had been issued two years earlier.
He accepted a few coins in compensation for a life and watched his mother sob. Two thoughts came to mind.
First, this world’s genre was probably a strategy simulation.
No wonder everything was so detailed. If it had been an RPG, there usually wouldn’t be this many countries. Wasn’t it normal for settings the player could never experience to go unimplemented?
It probably wasn’t a novel or webtoon, either.
This world was proof. The setting was too oddly specific for an ordinary otherworld story, with simple gunpowder weapons and steam engines, knights and mages, the Demon King and other races all existing together.
If someone wrote a novel with this kind of worldbuilding, the readers would say things like, “What the hell is that, you nerd?” and “He’s talking about things only he understands again.” It would obviously end with the free serialization going on indefinite hiatus.
That meant he had to head for the front lines. If he lived and died as a tenant farmer in this backward countryside, he would never set foot in the main story even once.
The ending of a strategy simulation usually came with world conquest. Surely he had to avoid an ending where the Demon King’s army conquered him while he knew nothing.
And the second thought was...
“Don’t worry, Mother.”
He stroked the hair of his mother, who had cried herself to sleep, then handed an enlistment application to the recruiting officer. The annual pay was fifteen copper coins, and he signed a contract to send every last one to his mother.
Ivan Petrovich wanted this woman’s hands to blister no more.
It wasn’t some sudden burst of filial devotion. He pitied this great woman who devoted her whole body to surviving for a complete stranger like him.
And he felt guilty, because by taking over the body of the young boy named Ivan, he had all but killed her only child.
Age eighteen. Fourteenth year after transmigration. Fourth year of military service.
Thanks to a small military merit and a bit of luck, Ivan’s status changed from conscript to regular soldier.
He realized that Ivan’s body had more talent for fighting than expected.
Age twenty-two. Eighteenth year after transmigration. Eighth year of military service.
When the front line had been pushed back to a critical point and half the Allied Nations were burning...
A Hero appeared.
At that point, Ivan finally understood this world’s genre.
This was a Hero story, a proper RPG.
Still, the Hero was only a story from a distant country, and the front where Ivan had been deployed continued to collapse miserably.
Age twenty-eight. Twenty-fourth year after transmigration. Fourteenth year of military service.
The Hero Party turned the tide by intercepting the Demon King’s commanders.
Ivan was assigned to the unit for securing recovered territories and rooting out enemy forces.
That long name could be shortened simply.
- Annihilation Unit
It was a special operations unit deployed when the Hero Party killed an enemy commander and the confused enemy camp began to fall apart.
For about a year from then on, Ivan traveled with the Hero Party and shared the same military camps.
Age thirty. Twenty-sixth year after transmigration. Sixteenth year of military service.
The Hero Party killed the Demon King.
Ivan decided to wait for the ending.
All he wanted was to escape this tiresome world.
Age thirty-two. Twenty-eighth year after transmigration.
Even two years after the Demon King’s death, there was no ending.
During that time, the Annihilation Unit’s personnel had dwindled to a fifth of its former strength.
When no replacements came, Ivan realized that his superiors intended to disband them.
After carrying out one final mission that was practically a death sentence, Ivan considered this situation a long epilogue and applied for discharge.
His mother back home had already died ten years earlier, so he was completely alone.
He established an orphanage near the capital and took in war orphans.
It was a small act of hypocrisy.
Age thirty-four. Thirtieth year after transmigration.
Still, even now, after all this time.
The end credits had yet to appear.
* * *
The thought that this might not have been an RPG became certainty because of a guest who visited the orphanage.
“Fuck.”
“Pardon?”
“Fuck. This was an academy story?”
“Senior...?”
The guest smiled awkwardly at the orphanage director, a war hero with eighteen years of military service, a former member of the Annihilation Unit, and an acquaintance of the Hero Party, who had suddenly cursed.
The guest sent by the royal court broke out in a cold sweat while recalling the orphanage director’s countless nicknames.
The Great King’s Executioner, The Logging Machine, the Man Who Slaughtered the Seven Dragon Generals, the Immortal, the Reserve. A living legend among conscripts.
That frightening man looked ready to split them open with an axe if they misspoke, so the guest kept smiling awkwardly and held their breath in silence until the orphanage director’s anger subsided.
* * *
Footnotes:
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