WeTried Translations

Translator: Joy

Editor & TLC: ZEROSUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Damned Transmigration

Chapter 5

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Yuri (4)

Years as a pickpocket had left their mark on Yuri.

A deep-seated paranoia compelled him to stash money in every corner of the room.

When Su-hyeok finally gathered it all, the sheer amount made him wonder if buying a safe wouldn't have been simpler.

But the real discovery, tucked away in the frame of the bed, was Yuri’s diary. This was the key he needed, a way to understand the personality and emotions of the person whose life he had stolen.

It wasn't a daily log. The entries were sporadic, scrawled only on sleepless nights when he was overwhelmed by his own circumstances.

It was where he poured out the raw feelings that filled his head and chest, a catalogue of his deepest insecurities.

The diary was less a record of events and more a place to vent his sticky, suffocating emotions, the vast majority of which was a profound self-loathing.

The Yuri on these pages knew he was trash, and he was terrified that his life with the Black Snake Gang was setting him on a path of becoming the kind of garbage that could never be burned away, something utterly irredeemable.

He saw the gang for what it was: an unstable organisation that could vanish at any moment without anyone caring.

To truly live, he had to break away.

But freedom required money. Enough to leave this rural town behind for good, enough to settle somewhere new.

All his savings, every hidden coin, had been for the singular purpose of escaping.

He dreamed of leaving, of finding a better life, maybe even formally studying magic or martial arts. If all else failed, he’d just start over, doing anything else.

The long, rambling entries gave Su-hyeok a painful glimpse into the twenty-year-old’s tragic foresight.

In the end, Yuri’s prediction had been flawless. The Black Snake Gang was wiped out with little effort, and in the process, Yuri himself was stabbed to death.

Thankfully, the money remained.

At first, he dipped into the savings cautiously, using the funds to orient himself in this new world by buying necessities and meals.

After a few days, he began frequenting the shared kitchen on the first floor, relying on Yuri's muscle memory to navigate the local market and cook for himself.

The results were pathetic: stir-fried cubes of some unidentifiable meat served with bread as hard as a rock. Yet, as he forced down the flavourless meal, he was surprised to feel tears streaming down his face.

A sudden, sharp longing hit him.

He missed pristine white rice and kimchi.

He missed the simple comfort of ramyeon and other noodle dishes.

He missed spicy stir-fried pork, crispy fried chicken, braised pig's feet, and tender boiled pork wraps.

The food of a life that was no longer his.

He even made his peace with the outhouse-style toilet on the first floor, a decision born less of desire and more of absolute necessity.

It was a sensory assault, teeming with insects the size of his thumb and a stench that had no intention of going away.

But survival didn't really leave room for negotiation on the matter of basic biology.

A man's got to do what a man's got to do.

The real kicker was that Yuri's body was in perfect working order. His internal plumbing, against all odds and in defiance of its surroundings, was top-tier.

And so he got used to his daily meditation.

Whether it was called regulating Qi or cultivating mana didn’t matter, the practice was the same. He would sit, breathe, and focus on gathering the energy within his body.

He often found himself recalling Lorelia’s forceful instructions.

‘You must maintain the correct posture, even if it is uncomfortable and painful! Please keep this in mind, Lee Su-hyeok-nim! My, Lorelia's, advice is as valuable as gold!’

Compared to the vague nonsense in the <Wind Origin Heart Technique> and <Basic Introduction to Mana> manuals, her clear, practical advice was indeed priceless.

The technique she had given him, the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil, was a complete unknown, though its over-the-top name hinted at something powerful.

Since it hadn't existed in the game, he had no real way to measure its value.

Still, the results were undeniable.

Whether it was the quality of the technique or the innate mana affinity that came with being a transmigrator, he couldn't say.

But with each session, he could feel the energy pooling inside him, a tangible and growing presence that was almost alarming in its speed.

It was then that the grim logic of this world clicked into place.

Any transmigrator, if they simply survived long enough, had the potential of becoming a monster.

He finally understood why the natives were so quick to hunt them down, and why transmigrators themselves so often resorted to killing each other.

‘This is...’

Dangerous.

Ten days in, Su-hyeok identified a bottleneck in his progress.

Simply meditating and stockpiling internal energy was inefficient, because his body was too frail to properly utilise it.

The incident with Oh Bong-chun had proven that much; a single punch had resulted in a sprained wrist and torn skin.

Using Qi to strengthen himself was helpful, but it didn't fix the fundamental issue.

He immediately added bodyweight exercises to his daily routine and began toughening his fists against the wall by the window.

But that was just maintenance. What he really needed was a proper martial art.

He had the the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil heart technique and the Sacred Flame Release technique, but that was a foundation, not a complete system.

The idea of using a weapon surfaced briefly, a logical shortcut to killing power. However, it was immediately crushed by the memory of Lorelia’s voice, roaring with disapproval.

Their old arguments played out in his mind.

‘A body trained to its limit is superior to any weapon,’ she’d insisted.

‘Weapons are for cowards who lack the courage to face death with their own flesh!’

‘But a sword is stronger than a fist,’ he’d countered.

‘A prejudice! A trained fist can shatter a sword!’

‘A sword can cut a fist without any training…’

‘Then you hit the swordsman before he can cut you!’

Lorelia’s hatred of weapons was absolute.

She believed that while a weapon user might get stronger faster, someone who focused solely on their body would ultimately be physically superior.

‘And mana comes from your own body,’ she’d lecture, waving away concepts like Mind-Sword and Mind-Weapon Unity.

‘Wrapping it directly around yourself is the most natural and powerful way to use it!’

Faced with that torrent of conviction, he could only ever nod his head. And so, her philosophy was now his limitation.

Unarmed combat it was.

"It's not like a fist fighting manual is going to fall from the sky," he muttered to himself.

A quick tour of Oldor’s bookshops confirmed his suspicion. There was nothing of the sort to be found in a rural town like this.

Then, another piece of Lorelia's advice surfaced in his mind.

‘You can just create the skills yourself!’

It was the standard path for powerful transmigrators who made it. They would replicate their builds from the game, combining magic and martial arts into a proven system.

The problem was, his build was... unique.

His character, ‘UrMumSpammer,’ used no weapons, and no armour either. The entire strategy hinged on a skill that gave him more power for every piece of gear he wasn't wearing.

Following that logic to its conclusion, the character eventually fought with no equipment on at all, leaving him in just his underwear.

This wasn't just for show, it was the engine for his entire playstyle, and the stacking stats were just the start.

Blessings would activate depending on how the fight was going, with his evasion stat climbing to a point that felt like it was breaking the game.

He fought by using powerful abilities that cost him his own health.

This was the key.

As his health bar shrank, his stats would surge. That surge would then recalculate his other bonuses, amplifying them further. If he was on the brink of death, a berserk state would kick in, pushing his power to its absolute peak.

To survive this self-destructive loop, he depended entirely on life steal.

So the strategy for UrMumSpammer was to trade armour for a massive health bar, then use pure skill to dance on the knife's edge of low health, wielding the incredible stats that this constant risk generated.

But bringing that concept from the game into reality was a fantasy.

In the real world, stats didn't just magically increase because you decided to run around half-naked.

Even so, he figured he could salvage the core concept.

The Sacred Flame Release Lorelia gave him was an unarmed skill, and his most familiar playstyle was already that of a martial artist.

He'd have to scrap the part where he was forced to fight in his underwear, but he might be able to find the other necessary skills down the line.

This left him with a clear path: he had to forget about weapons. It was a strange handicap to impose on himself.

Humanity's greatest advantage was its use of tools, so choosing to fight with bare hands felt like a step backwards, like willingly becoming a chimpanzee.

‘Wait, don't chimpanzees use tools too?’

The random image of a chimp with a shotgun from some old film popped into his head, but he quickly shook it off.

If he got his internal energy strong enough, he would be able to shoot it from his fists, which was basically a gun anyway.

So, on top of training his body and needing a real martial art, there was another problem that was quickly turning into a full-blown crisis.

The original ‘Yuri’ had been completely inept with mana.

Despite having read the Basic Introduction to Mana and the Wind Origin Heart Technique, he’d achieved nothing.

So what would happen if he suddenly started walking around with a dantian full of internal energy? Someone who didn’t know him might not notice, but anyone who knew the old Yuri would become suspicious immediately.

He realised it wasn't just about being wary of acquaintances; to avoid being discovered as a transmigrator, he had to learn how to hide his very nature.

He recalled Lorelia's lecture on the unique affinity of transmigrators.

Their ability to freely manipulate mana meant they could, with enough effort, create entirely new techniques.

Of course, he saw right through her suggestion; it was her way of pushing him to bring his absurd UrMumSpammer character to life, underwear and all.

But that concept was fundamentally impossible here. Reality didn't hand out stat boosts for fighting half-naked.

The useful part of that advice, the part he could actually work with, was the idea of creation.

Hoping to find some kind of reference, he searched the library and other shops again, but came up empty.

He hadn't changed his diet or done anything special, other than diligently practising the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil every day. A few hours of it would clear his mind and leave his body feeling light and refreshed.

Sometimes, a dark, foul-smelling sweat would pour out of him, and on those days, his condition felt especially good, as if his body were purging itself of long-held toxins.

The true sense of crisis didn't hit until he ran into Gordon at the general store.

"Have you been eating something good lately?" Gordon asked casually.

"Huh? Uh, why?" Su-hyeok replied, caught off guard.

"No reason," Gordon said, looking him over.

"You just seem to be glowing. Your skin's smooth, and your dark circles are gone."

He stammered out an excuse about getting more rest and hurried back to his room. The moment he got home and saw his reflection, he knew.

'I'm screwed.'

His skin, once dull and tired, was smooth. The dark circles that had been a permanent feature under his eyes had vanished completely. His eyes themselves seemed brighter, more alive.

The subtle changes had been happening all along, but he hadn't seen them until they were pointed out.

He needed a plan.

While he couldn't do anything about his newfound vitality, the internal energy was a problem he had to solve.

With no better ideas, he settled on a crude, direct solution. He focused inwards, examining the flow of energy through his meridians and to his dantian.

The theory was simple: if he could block the meridians or twist them to cut off the dantian, perhaps from the outside it would seem like he had no energy at all.

It was a spectacularly bad idea.

The moment he tried to slightly alter the smoothly flowing ki, an agony unlike anything he’d ever known ripped through him, as if his entire insides were being turned upside down.

The pain was so absolute that he couldn't even scream spending the next three days convulsing on the floor.

It took him another full day to slowly coax his body back to a functional state.

He knew with certainty that if it weren't for his natural transmigrator's affinity for mana and the restorative power of the Heavenly Art of Annihilating Evil, he would have been permanently crippled, if not killed.

‘This won't work,’ he thought, the conclusion was stark and unavoidable. Not at his current level, anyway.

After throwing away the clothes he’d been stewing in for days, soiled with sweat and other humiliating filth, he left his room for the first time in five days to wash.

As he opened the door, something that had been wedged in the frame came loose.

Thud.

It fell to the floor.

"What's this?"

It was a plain letter, with no sender or recipient written on it.

Who on earth could have left this? And when? He was certain he hadn't heard a knock while he was out of commission.

He opened the letter.

Due to a small mistake, I was unable to deliver this on schedule.

Are you alive? I trust you are. You are not someone who would die from such a trivial problem. In fact, I would have known one way or another if you had.

If you are worrying about my situation, please don't. As I said when we parted, I do not fear disciplinary action.

This is the promised gift. Its name is the Veil of Deception.

I must mention that this is a special case. My family had reservations about going this far, but I am a person who keeps his promises.

It is a fact that they benefited from your actions, and they eventually acknowledged that a reward of this magnitude was necessary. They have accepted my unilateral decision, even framing it as an apology for the delivery error.

At the same time, this is both a reward for you and a formal warning to me. It means that by giving you this special consideration, I must take direct responsibility if anything goes wrong.

I am prepared for that. Since I am the only one who knows you, the responsibility is mine alone.

I wish you peace.

P.S. This letter can only be opened by you. It will explode one minute after you do so.

Do not worry about being traced, and do not attempt to trace this.

"That's right..." he murmured.

He'd been so consumed with survival for the past few weeks that he'd completely forgotten.

This was his payment. The reward for setting that untouchable record in the Hall of Honour, a feat designed to prevent other transmigrators from crossing over for the foreseeable future.

While the record might one day be broken, the different time flow between worlds meant this world was safe for decades.

For the Sect of Order, whose entire purpose was correcting chaos, preventing the influx of more transmigrators was a massive victory.

"The Veil of Deception...!"

His face brightened as he tipped the envelope over. A thin, unadorned necklace fell out with a soft clink.

His eyes darted back to the letter, catching the postscript.

'Wait, hold on. Explode?'

He dropped the letter on the floor, his mind racing. It had definitely been more than a minute.

As if responding to his thought, fwoosh!

The paper ignited, burning into fine black ash without a sound.

'Then why call it an explosion?' he wondered.

It was absurd, but he wasn't exactly in a position to complain.

The Veil of Deception.

He remembered the item well from the game. It was a solution to one of the strange inconveniences of being high-level: weaker monsters would sense the power gap and flee on sight.

While that was usually a convenient way to avoid pointless fights, it became a massive headache when you actually needed to grind them for specific drops.

The Veil of Deception solved that by masking a player's power, making monsters attack normally regardless of the level difference.

It had been an essential tool for his UrMumSpammer build, which relied on taking damage to maintain a low HP threshold.

He examined the thin necklace, turning it over in his hand.

He didn't quite see how its game function would apply to his current predicament, but he put it around his neck anyway.

A soft crack sounded, and he startled, reaching for the clasp.

"Wha—?"

But it was too late. The necklace seemed to melt into his skin, burrowing inside without leaving so much as a mark.

There was no pain, just a profound sense of shock as the thin metal chain vanished into his skin without a trace.

He ran his fingers over the smooth spot, unable to find as much as a scar. Then he sat down, a new awareness dawning on him.

He closed his eyes and focused inwards.

There was a subtle dissonance in his dantian and meridians, a foreign presence overlaying his own energy.

He quickly understood what the necklace was doing and how its function had been translated from the game to reality.

To any outside observer, he would now appear to have no internal energy or mana whatsoever. It was an item that, true to its name, deceived all who looked upon him. It was exactly what he had just nearly killed himself trying to achieve.

A hollow laugh escaped him as he stroked his neck.

"Couldn't have given this to me a week earlier, huh..."

If they had, he could have skipped the two days of agonising, the three days of convulsions, and the final day of miserable recovery.

He let out one last grumble, and knelt.

Facing a direction he could only guess, he offered a quiet prayer of gratitude to the Sect of Order and to the long-slumbering Goddess they served.

He'd never been one for gods, but he was practical enough to acknowledge a gift when he received one. This wasn't a conversion; it was a transaction, and he was settling his account.

Finishing the prayer, he rose to his feet, and the room seemed to settle with him. It finally felt like his own space.

A full day was dedicated to the grim task of resetting his life.

He dealt with the filth left from his near-death experience, disposed of the letter's ashes, and angrily washed his clothes.

After also washing his own body, it felt like he was shedding the last five days of failure.

This marked the end of the beginning.

It had been one month since Lee Su-hyeok had started living as Yuri. And now, even Yuri’s face had to go.

His new challenge for the past few days had been a daunting one.

It was a type of martial art he had only read about in stories, a method of using ki to reshape muscle and bone.

He imagined that with enough skill, one could likely change their whole body, but for now, just a new face would grant him the freedom he needed.

Living as Yuri for a month had made one thing clear. He needed to dispose of the name, and the face attached to it, as quickly as possible.

He was already careful around Gordon, but he knew he had to create even more distance.

The old man knew this face too well.

The Veil of Deception was a perfect shield for his power, but it was useless for hiding his appearance.

A new face was the only real solution. It would allow him to leave a simple note, buy a fake identity, and finally move without fear.

Unfortunately, the process was proving to be incredibly difficult.

He could shift his facial muscles with some effort, but the beneath remained stubbornly fixed.

The memory of his last reckless experiment, the one that left him convulsing on the floor for days, made him cautious.

Knock, knock.

A sharp knock sounded at his door.

He waited. It came again, more insistent this time.

Knock, knock, knock.

He held his breath, determined to remain silent.

It was probably Gordon, but the persistence felt wrong. For a moment he considered if it could be Lorelia, then dismissed the idea.

He would just pretend he wasn't in.

He turned his attention back to his reflection, focusing on the muscles around his eyes. He was trying to change their shape, to alter their size, when the door suddenly blew inwards.

KABOOM!

The sound was like an explosion.

Yuri shot to his feet, stunned. He stared at the splinters of wood that had been his door.

“…”

A blonde woman stepped over the wreckage.

She strode into the room, and her sharp, intense gaze locked with his.

"Why were you pretending not to be here?"

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