Damned Transmigration - Chapter 5

WeTried Translations

Translator: Joy

Editor & TLC: ZEROSUGAR

◈ Damned Transmigration ◈

Chapter 5: Yuri (3)

──────

Gordon supported Yuri as they made their way to his home, a shabby apartment building.

He climbed the creaking old stairs and arrived at the door to Room 203. Yuri took a brief, deep breath and unlocked it with the key.

Click.

“...”

Yuri’s home was about the same size as the studio Lee Su-hyeok had lived in.

“Heh...”

He had known through the memories that had surfaced, but he had not prepared himself enough.

“There really isn’t a bathroom or kitchen.”

There was no bathroom or kitchen in the room. Yuri stood blankly for a moment before letting out a hollow laugh.

‘My shoes...’

He almost took them off out of habit, then stopped. Habits like that were what got Transmigrators killed. He was even grateful that the floor was filthy. It definitely was not something he should step on barefoot.

There was no bathroom in the room, but at least there was one in the building. He did not urgently need to go right now, but people never knew when nature would call. Yuri left the room again and limped down to the first floor, intending to take a look and steel himself.

“God...”

The shared bathroom on the first floor. Naturally, it was a pit toilet. That could not be helped. Next to it was a shared kitchen with a wood-fired stove, and there was a well behind the building.

“Heh...”

So that meant...

He had to sleep upstairs, shit and piss downstairs, draw well water to wash himself, and light the stove to cook.

Lee Su-hyeok had never gone camping in his life. He held it in if there was no flushing toilet, and he showered with hot water every day. The thought alone made his head spin. He had never served in the military, but surely even the army was not this bad.

“Fuck.”

He went back upstairs. That was all he had, so he would have to adapt somehow. Trying to think positively, he flopped onto the bed.

The window frame was thick with dust from not being properly cleaned, and the glass was cloudy. The world beyond it looked gray, as though another layer of dust had been painted over it.

This was not South Korea in 2023, where Lee Su-hyeok had lived. No, it was not even Earth. This was the Seronis Continent, which shared its name with the game Seronis.

One thing at a time.

He tried to accept it.

He had roughly grasped the current situation through the lessons Lorelia, the Priestess of Order, had given him before his transmigration.

This world was the original reality of the game Seronis. Thirty years had passed since the game’s setting. It was not the game itself, but another reality.

A world where players who had taken first place in the Hall of Fame before Lee Su-hyeok had crossed over. A world where Transmigrators existed.

“Ugh...”

Yuri groaned as he held his throbbing head. He had already died and come back to life, then hurt an otherwise healthy body with self-inflicted wounds. Now, with so much to think about, even his head hurt. It was miserable.

‘I need to watch the people around me. I need to watch out for Transmigrators too... What am I supposed to do now?’

How was he supposed to live in this world? It was not something to brag about, but Lee Su-hyeok was not a particularly capable person. His specialties were eating, sleeping, shitting, arguing online, and playing games. Yuri’s specialties were pickpocketing, stabbing people, and swearing.

If this world really had been inside the game and Yuri were the only Transmigrator, he could at least have used his knowledge of the game he had played so diligently. But thirty years had passed, and Yuri was not the only Transmigrator.

Not relying too heavily on game knowledge applied not only to people, but also to the routes for acquiring items and skills that had existed in the game.

Thirty years had already passed since Transmigrators first began crossing over. Being the first to put one’s name in the Hall of Fame was practically like looting an empty house, but the hidden boss had higher stats than even the official final bosses.

Anyone who had killed that hidden boss before transmigrating would naturally have understood all sorts of game knowledge. Yuri had no idea how many Transmigrators had come here over thirty years, but he had to assume that nearly all the hidden items and skills from the game had already been looted.

‘They must have come here too.’

Thinking about the Transmigrators who had arrived before him reminded him of the few acquaintances he had had in the game’s community.

There had been a community united by the shared sense of kinship that came from enjoying the same shitty game.

Naturally, it was a foreign website. Lee Su-hyeok had not tried to write posts himself in English he barely understood. He had just run everything through a translator and participated that way.

Most of what people did in the community was talk about what a completely fucked-up garbage game it was... or discuss things unrelated to the game. Still, some people seriously dug into the game and shared their own know-how.

Of course, anyone who ever took first place in the Hall of Fame vanished from both the community and the game. Back then, Lee Su-hyeok had not thought seriously about it.

They finally found peace!

People practically welcomed the disappearance of top-ranked players with that kind of attitude.

Among those who had found peace, several remained especially vivid in his memory. When you spent enough time in a community, you inevitably became more involved with people you got along with.

Yuri, or rather Lee Su-hyeok, had been the same.

Chuk-sin-doo.

Cat Panties.

FUCKINGSEXY.

USAUSAMI₍ᐢ.ˬ.ᐢ₎.

The four people he had chatted with often.

He did not particularly want to meet them right away. He had no idea how transmigrating to this world had changed them. Still, even if they had only met through the community and talked in its chat room, he had grown attached to them.

‘Are they still alive?’

Of the five of them, including Lee Su-hyeok, Lee Su-hyeok had been the last to take first place in the Hall of Fame.

He had not wanted to slowly crawl up from an uncertain rank, so whenever the opportunity did not look right, he deliberately died without clearing the game.

The other four he had spoken with were also freaks who had thrown away first-place records several times. None of them merely wanted a brief taste of first place. They were all after long-term reigns.

But in the end, they had reached first place before Lee Su-hyeok and vanished. Lee Su-hyeok had neither missed nor searched for those who had gone first.

If they finally put themselves at the first place they had kept postponing, it meant they were that confident... or they had grown sick of the game itself, or real life had become too busy.

It would have been ridiculous to cling to someone he had never met in person and say he missed them. Anyone who finally got first place after putting it off should disappear on their own.

Whoever broke that record was the concern of those left behind.

If they still cared after their record was replaced, they could simply reclaim first place themselves.

That was what he had thought, but no one ever came back.

Neither Cat Panties, Chuk-sin-doo, FUCKINGSEXY, nor USAUSAMI₍ᐢ.ˬ.ᐢ₎ returned to grind their way back into the Hall of Fame.

Then again, they had finally found peace. Why would they pick up this shitty game again when they had nothing to regret?

‘They couldn’t come back because they transmigrated.’

Who could have imagined a truth like this?

“If I’d known, I would’ve come here sooner.”

No. If he had known, he would not have played the game in the first place.

Yuri let out a long sigh and sat up.

The corpses he had seen earlier, and the sensation of bringing down the axe and war hammer, still clung to one corner of his mind.

Lorelia had praised violence, saying that fists were closer than laws, and swords were stronger than pens.

When Lee Su-hyeok, who had lived on Earth in 2023, first heard those words, he could not sympathize at all.

But Lorelia had beaten him senseless. He had rolled across the ground several times and learned how to throw a punch.

He had cut Oh Bong-seok’s ankle with a knife and brought him down. He had dodged Oh Bong-chun’s axe, which had seemed slow to him, shattered the bastard’s jaw, and brought down an axe and a hammer himself.

Now, he thought Lorelia had been right.

‘Strength.’

Transmigrator or not, he needed strength to survive in this world.

‘If I’m strong enough not to die, maybe it won’t matter if they find out I’m a Transmigrator.’

In any case, if he had power, he would be less likely to get stabbed to death like Yuri, the Black Snake Gang’s lowest-ranking member.

Yuri pressed a hand against the bandage over his still-bleeding wound and stood before the mirror.

He had seen mirrors in the waiting room, but Yuri’s face was still unfamiliar. His wavy black hair had grown out messily, but honestly, the face itself was far better than Lee Su-hyeok’s original face...

“Is this racial privilege...?”

Yuri muttered as he touched the bridge of his high nose.

He stripped off clothes that were little better than blood-soaked rags.

His sturdy body carried a decent amount of muscle. His defined chest and clear abs were also much better than Lee Su-hyeok’s originally pathetic body. He could not blame that on racial privilege.

“Is it a difference in civilization...?”

He found an excuse elsewhere. This world probably did not have food delivery apps.

After inspecting his body, he searched the room.

First, the desk drawer.

Several daggers and a few books. Perhaps because he had received Yuri’s memories, conversation came naturally, but could he read? The belated worry came over him as he checked the book titles. Fortunately, he could.

The books had yellowed with age. Yuri had bought them secondhand from the largest bookstore in Oldor.

When Yuri flipped through a few pages, he saw notes written by the original Yuri.

“...”

The original Yuri had suspected it but tried to ignore it. Even the current Yuri could tell after a quick read.

These books were fake.

The mana primer, the Pungwon Heart Method, and the Three Talents Sword Art. They were full of abstract words, with no proper explanations attached.

Perhaps all mana primers and martial arts manuals in this world were like this, and Lee Su-hyeok, who came from another world, simply could not understand them.

Yuri’s body did not hold even a trace of mana. Even if those books were not fake, Yuri had ultimately gained nothing from them.

This book insisted that anyone could become a mage, no matter how old they were or how little talent they had.

It is not simply because you have not worked hard enough that you have failed to become a mage. It is not because you lack willpower or talent. Like a cicada that spends years underground before becoming an adult. Like a seed that will someday bloom and grow into a great tree. You simply have not yet reached the time to blossom.

One day, your efforts may be rewarded. So do not be impatient. Dream of a hopeful future...

“What the fuck is this, some self-help book?”

Yuri let out a hollow laugh and threw the otherworldly self-help book away.

So that was it.

Twenty-year-old Yuri, who had come from an orphanage, lived by pickpocketing, and joined a stupid gang and lived as its lowest-ranking member, had wanted to become a mage or a martial artist.

He kept secondhand magic and martial arts books in his drawer, making efforts in his own way. Whenever he achieved nothing, he read those books and found comfort in them.

Yuri’s memories surfaced and mixed together. The current Yuri was different from the Yuri of the past, so he did not inherit the emotions that had accompanied those memories.

But he did feel something now. Bitter, Yuri dropped onto the filthy floor.

He crossed his legs as Lorelia had taught him.

The original Yuri had possessed neither inner power nor mana. He had gained nothing from those books. But the current Yuri was different.

When Transmigrators crossed into this world, they awakened tremendous mana affinity and comprehension. Given a trigger, they could naturally become mages or martial artists.

Yuri already had that trigger, thanks to Lorelia, the priestess assigned to him.

Lorelia called this qi and inner power.

In the end, only the words differed. The meaning was the same. If you took the mage route in the game, it was called mana. If you took the martial artist route and learned martial arts, it was called qi and inner power.

“Fuuu...”

What he needed was concentration and awareness.

This was not ordinary breathing. He was not taking in air. He was aware of the mana, the qi dissolved within it.

That was all. With that alone, a Transmigrator understood qi.

Gasp.

His breath caught in his throat. It was not blood entering through his mouth and clogging it. Qi had entered with his breath. It had neither taste nor smell.

He could not let his mind or posture falter. He had heard enough about the dangers of Qi Deviation to grow sick of it. As Lorelia had instructed him, he guided the qi he had first swallowed in this body into the energy channels within him.

The qi swallowed through breathing was impure and muddied. But after passing through the cultivation method, the impure qi left with his exhalation, while refined qi was guided through his meridians to his dantian.

Lorelia had said the name of this cultivation method was the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil.

“...”

He opened his eyes.

Quite some time must have passed, because the light outside the window had changed. Yuri got to his feet, drenched in sweat, and approached the window. When he opened the dirty gray window, a cool breeze chilled his heated, sweaty skin.

It was dawn.

“...Next time, I should open the window first.”

Yuri glanced at the books he had thrown onto the bed, then turned around.

A large chest of drawers stood in the corner of the room.

The sight made his feelings complicated. Yuri hesitated for a moment before approaching it.

Miscellaneous items. Clothes...

The bottom drawer.

“Damn.”

There were letters.

At the sight of them, Yuri unknowingly bit his lip. He knew who had exchanged those letters with Yuri.

The only person Yuri had consistently exchanged letters with was Elena, his childhood friend from the orphanage.

Elena Heinderga.

Unlike Yuri, who still had no surname, Elena possessed a proper family name.

Born with a talent for magic, Elena had been able to handle mana from the age of ten without anyone teaching her.

The director of Oldor Orphanage had written about Elena in letters sent to several mage towers, wondering if there might be a chance. The master of the Dersia Mage Tower, famous for lightning-affinity magic, had become interested in Elena and come personally.

‘Heavenly Thunder, Orca Dersia.’

The Mage Tower Master he had killed dozens of times in the game. Heavenly Thunder, who had inherited the Dersia surname. Unlike the Black Dragon Society’s Monstrous Tyrant, who had died with his limbs and head severed, Heavenly Thunder Orca was still the master of the Dersia Mage Tower.

That Heavenly Thunder Orca had recognized Elena’s talent. That was how Elena entered the Dersia Mage Tower.

Ten years had passed since then. Yuri and Elena had not met in person, but they still exchanged letters.

Still, there were not many letters for something that had accumulated over ten years.

Yuri sorted them by the years and dates written on the envelopes.

In the beginning, after Elena left for the Mage Tower, they had exchanged letters fairly often. But as was often the case with childhood friends, the time between their letters gradually grew longer.

He did not know exactly what feelings the original Yuri had held toward Elena. The current Yuri only had memories.

But the Yuri in those memories had not often written to Elena or opened and read her letters.

He felt some resistance, but this was no time to worry about his conscience.

He read the first letter.

Elena had come from the same Oldor orphanage. They were both ten years old. The letter detailed the life Elena was living in her new home after the Mage Tower Master had personally come to recognize her talent and take her away.

What had Yuri felt as he read this letter? He had remained at Oldor Orphanage, regularly getting into fights with the other orphans.

Yuri kept reading.

Elena seemed to be doing well at the Mage Tower.

New friends. New magic she had learned.

A life that could not compare to the orphanage.

A new room. A wonderful city. The recognition of those around her.

The frequency of the letters began to seriously decrease when they were fourteen.

Elena had become a full-fledged mage with unprecedented speed, leaving her apprenticeship behind. She was even given a personal laboratory and devoted herself to magic.

The contents of the letters changed as well.

They differed from the past, when personal stories and emotions had filled the pages. The letters Elena sent at fourteen contained little more than formal greetings, and her emotions were dry.

That was when Yuri first began stealing on the streets.

When he turned seventeen and became independent from the orphanage, he received a letter that contained something other than formal greetings for once.

Hello, Yuri.

It has been a long time since I last wrote to you.

I am sorry. I have been so busy with research lately.

You are seventeen now. If I remember correctly, you had to leave the orphanage when you turned seventeen. Is that still how it works?

Yuri, what are you going to do after leaving the orphanage? Do you remember? We used to talk about things like this all the time when we were children.

We were too young then, and we knew nothing about the world outside the orphanage.

I said I wanted to eat candy every day, and you said you wanted to become a legendary adventurer.

I do not know whether you still have that dream, but Yuri, the director worries about you a great deal.

I am worried about how you might take these words, but...

I am doing very well.

Yuri, if you have nowhere to go after leaving the orphanage, it is all right for you to come find me.

Seventeen-year-old Yuri had not gone to find Elena.

Yuri and Elena had not met since they were ten. After becoming independent from the orphanage, Yuri had lived by pickpocketing in the back alleys.

He vaguely remembered the reply he had sent to that letter.

He had said he was fine and there was no need to worry. He could take care of himself, so she should stop worrying about him and mind her own business.

He read the later letters.

Formal greetings.

Dry emotions.

The final letter.

Hello, Yuri.

I thought a lot after reading your last reply.

You said it was all right if I did not send you any more letters. You said you knew I was busy.

It is true that I am busy.

Not just because of research. Recently, I have also been going out often, as the Mage Tower Master advised.

What was it she said? That Dersia mages should not be nothing but bookworms.

So I recently registered as an adventurer and completed a few easy quests.

I submitted a report saying they were too easy, but the Mage Tower Master is quite mischievous. She told me to try something difficult if the easy work was so simple, then arranged a Grade 4 quest for me.

Ah, did I mention it? I reached the fourth magic tier in my last magic-tier assessment.

Even if I have only just reached the fourth tier, is it not too much to tell me to attempt a Grade 4 quest? The grades may match, but I still lack experience.

And... um... I was recently given a house. I was not the only one. Our Mage Tower gives houses as gifts when someone reaches the fourth tier.

I do not know whether it is more convenient or less convenient than living in the Mage Tower. It is nice to have more private space, but unlike the Mage Tower, no one here prepares meals for me every day.

I tried cooking for myself, and honestly, it was terrible. I may have talent for magic, but I clearly have none for cooking.

Should I hire a housekeeper? That seems too excessive. I do not like having other people in my space.

Well, that is enough about me. How are you? Are you really doing well? Yuri, you never write about how you have been in your letters.

Mr. Gordon and the director have not said anything about you lately either. Are you doing something bad?

You cannot keep living that way forever.

I will wait for your reply.

PS. I am sorry. I should have said this first, but I forgot while writing. As I mentioned above, I will soon have to leave the Mage Tower to complete a Grade 4 quest. I think it will take around half a year, to be safe.

You do not need to worry about me. I will not be going alone. Other adventurers will be coming too.

I will send a reply when I return from the quest.

Your friend, Elena Heinderga.

By the time he had read every letter, it was already morning. Yuri stared at the stack of letters for a while, lost in thought.

“Tch.”

Twenty-seven-year-old Lee Su-hyeok and twenty-year-old Yuri had much in common.

That was why Lee Su-hyeok could easily understand what Yuri had felt from those letters.

Inferiority.

Jealousy.

Self-loathing for feeling such things.

Yuri had not replied to that letter.

Elena might have begun writing only formal things in her letters from the age of fourteen because of Yuri’s attitude. Or perhaps reality had worn Elena down, forcing her to recognize the unavoidable distance between them.

But Yuri could feel this much. Seventeen-year-old Elena had sincerely worried about him and invited him to come find her.

And even in her final letter at nineteen, she worried about Yuri’s life and future.

Yuri had nothing, but he had not let go of his pride. He rejected Elena’s pity.

Yuri could understand that.

Elena’s letters subtly carried both self-display and contempt for Yuri.

And Yuri had lived the sort of life that invited contempt.

Was that why he had kept reading those stupid books?

Yuri got up, rubbing his stiff lower back.

The book he had thrown onto the bed caught his eye.

“...I should go to the bathroom.”

Yuri let out a long sigh and left the room.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried