Became a Swordsmanship Instructor at the Academy
Chapter 1
As soon as I opened my eyes, I could immediately tell I had been reincarnated by the comfort I felt.
The studio apartment where I used to live was so small that I slept on a mattress on the floor, not on a bed like the one I’m lying on now.
I knew it wasn’t a dream, but it still didn’t feel quite real.
Had I really entered the world of a novel?
I was terribly unlucky.
Without fail, it would rain after I washed my car even though there was no rain in the forecast, my phone screen would break after just a slight drop, and even when I fell backwards, my nose would break – that was me.
I don’t know if I sold my country in a past life, but my luck was abysmal until the moment I died. However, after death, luck finally found me for the first time.
The King of the Underworld I met in the afterlife told me I was the 7777777…th soul to come for judgment and said he would grant me one wish.
Of course, he said impossible wishes like wanting to become a god weren’t allowed, so after some deliberation, I said I wanted to live in the world of a novel.
My profession was a web novelist.
While writing, I often thought about becoming the protagonist of a web novel.
Unfortunately, he said my own novel was impossible, which momentarily confused me, but I soon resolved the issue.
It didn’t necessarily have to be my novel.
I was a reader before I was a writer.
Of course, I couldn’t remember everything, so I said I wanted to go to the world of “I Became a Delinquent Inferior Student at Hunter School,” which was the most recent novel I had read.
Finding my wish interesting, the King of the Underworld said he would grant me two additional small requests.
Using one of them, I asked to be sent to a point two years before the start of the original novel’s story.
The original work begins with the protagonist’s high school entrance scene, but his serious delinquent behavior occurs during his second and third years of middle school.
So he struggles quite a bit in the early parts to erase his past image, but if I went to an earlier point, much of that future trouble could be reduced.
I didn’t want to start at too young an age though, so I requested two years prior, but something seems strange.
If my wish was granted, the protagonist should be in the second year of middle school at Hunter School.
Hunter School has a dormitory system where everyone lives in dorms with two people sharing a room, but this is clearly not a dormitory.
Is it because of vacation?
If so, the protagonist should be at his family home…
This is strange too.
It’s a bit bigger than the studio apartment where I used to live, but there’s no way the wealthy protagonist would live in such a small place.
While wondering about this, I was shocked twice when I saw my reflection in the full-length mirror next to the entrance.
Once because I was so handsome.
And once because I looked so aged.
The handsomeness makes sense.
The remaining wish I had asked for was an appearance upgrade.
Typically, all novel protagonists are handsome, but there was a description in the early part of the novel that the protagonist’s appearance wasn’t great.
Of course, as time passes, his appearance gets significantly upgraded as a side effect of the opportunities he gains, but he was quite unattractive in the beginning.
I wasn’t particularly dissatisfied with my face in my previous life, but my current face is handsome enough to put any flower boy actor to shame five times over.
But I definitely don’t look like a 15-year-old.
Kids these days may mature early, but I doubt anyone would see me as a teenager.
While feeling confused, I found a phone placed on the bedside table.
[February 25, 2023, 06:30]
Since the original work begins in 2025 when the protagonist enters high school, the timing roughly matches.
It was locked with fingerprint recognition, but when I put my finger on it, it unlocked, suggesting it was my phone.
First, I searched through the contacts but found no family.
No matter how much of a delinquent he was, he would still have his parents’ numbers, so what’s going on?
Even I, who just wrote stories cooped up in my room, wasn’t this isolated.
Moreover, there were only two contacts registered in the phone: “Guild” and a junior named “Seo-ra.” The junior might be from the same middle school, but I don’t understand what this Guild refers to.
Hunter School strictly prohibits “tempering,” so students decide on their guilds during the third year of high school graduation season.
Just as I was wondering what was going on, the phone rang with a text message.
[(Web Message)
Hello, Mr. Kang Shin-hyeok. This is the hiring manager for the Hunter School.
You have been finally selected for the position of swordsmanship instructor at the Hunter School that you recently applied for.
We have attached a link with information about future schedules, so please be sure to check it.]
Kang Shin-hyeok?
The protagonist’s name I remember is Lee Ji-sung.
The room is a bit spacious but still a studio apartment, so it should be my phone… Wait, could it be that I’ve possessed a character named Kang Shin-hyeok instead of the protagonist?
Suddenly, with a splitting headache, numerous memories began to surface.
The pain quickly disappeared and the emerging memories subsided, but anger welled up instead.
Why… Why did I become Kang Shin-hyeok instead of the protagonist?
I definitely specified the novel title and even the time point… Could it be because I didn’t explicitly ask to become the protagonist?
This is absurd.
If I wished to live in a novel world, it obviously means I want to live as the protagonist.
No one would make such a wish to live as a character they barely remember.
Right, now I recall that after I stated all my additional wishes, the King of the Underworld asked with a meaningful expression if these two wishes were really all I wanted.
Was that what he had in mind?
I feel like I’ve been scammed.
No, I have definitely been scammed.
I naturally thought I would become the protagonist, but instead, I’m some character whose name I didn’t even know…
Actually, thanks to the memories that just surfaced, I now remember who Kang Shin-hyeok is.
He’s the homeroom teacher of the class next to the protagonist’s, and he teaches swordsmanship.
A supporting character with very little presence in the original novel… No, since he doesn’t even appear in the latter half, he’s an extra among extras.
The pain earlier seemed to be the emergence of Kang Shin-hyeok’s memories once I realized I was him. General life knowledge and personal details are vaguely recalled, but everything else is hazy.
SIGH… This really isn’t right.
If I had known this would happen, I would have just asked to be sent to heaven…
I desperately wanted to go back and argue, but the only way to return to the afterlife is through death.
If I committed suicide to argue, I might be sent straight to hell without any questions asked…
Feeling helpless with nothing I could do at the moment, my anger gave way to despair.
I carelessly threw the phone away and lay down on the bed.
As they say, only those who have eaten meat know how to eat it—was the luck too much for someone who had been so unlucky in their previous life?
I’ve been completely duped.
As I was thinking about what to do next with a sense of hopelessness, the phone rang.
I picked up the phone I had thrown away and saw it was an unregistered number.
I thought about ignoring it as spam but decided to answer just in case.
“Hello.”
―This is the Finance Team at Chase Guild. Is this Kang Shin-hyeok?
Chase Guild was one of the top 10 guilds that appeared in the original novel… Then I suddenly remembered that Kang Shin-hyeok belonged to Chase Guild.
―Hello? Are you there?
“Ah, yes. This is he.”
―You haven’t set up an account for your severance pay, so I’m calling about that. Can we deposit it into the same account where we’ve been sending your salary?
“What? Ah, yes.”
The memory of quitting the guild last month surfaced, suggesting that I only recall stored memories when I encounter certain situations or face something directly.
―It will be deposited right after this call, so if there’s any issue with the amount or if you have any questions, please contact us again at this number.
It seems I quit the guild to become a teacher, but right now I don’t care about that, so I just said I understood and hung up.
Not long after, the phone rang again.
I pressed the call button without thinking, but it was a message, not a call.
[Hwasin Bank deposit: 38,871,463 won. Sender: Chase Guild Severance Pay. Balance: 309,532,485 won]
The severance pay of nearly 40 million won is impressive, but the account balance is over… over 300 million won?
For some people, 300 million might not be much, but for me, who barely made ends meet as a third-rate writer and died of stress-induced illness at twenty-nine, it’s a huge amount I never possessed.
My mind snapped to attention, and I got up.
Yes. Lying here lamenting my situation won’t solve anything.
I can’t turn back time, and as they say, if you can’t avoid it, enjoy it.
Looking at things positively, the conditions aren’t bad.
I’m taller than before, my face is incomparably more handsome, and at twenty-five, I’m four years younger.
While I may not be as wealthy as the protagonist, I have 300 million won in my account—a balance I always worried about—and a respectable job at Hunter School.
Monsters, portals, and hunters exist, but the setting being modern South Korea rather than a fantasy world is also a merit.
Being an orphan, I have no family to support, and my hunter rank is a decent B.
Of course, as the story progresses, “power inflation” occurs, making B-rank hunters mere extras, but that doesn’t matter.
The original story hasn’t even begun yet.
There aren’t any particular disadvantages either.
If I had to point one out, it would be the desperately poor interpersonal relationships—in other words, being a serious “loner”?
That’s not a significant problem.
I was a loner in my previous life anyway.
Writing is primarily a solitary activity, which inevitably reduces social interactions.
Of course, Kang Shin-hyeok is a different kind of voluntary loner compared to me.
The fact that he’s a loner despite such excellent looks and decent abilities suggests that he built walls against others himself.
Considering that he wasn’t a stand-out character in the novel, the original Kang Shin-hyeok must have been quite introverted.
Actually, this is better for me now.
My memories aren’t perfect, so if I had close friends or a lover, it would likely create awkward situations.
In my previous life, I gave up many things.
Most notably, dating and marriage…
I told people around me that it was bothersome and that being alone was more comfortable, but that wasn’t the real truth.
There were various reasons, including family issues, but the biggest factor was that I was just a third-rate writer who could barely make a living.
As the saying goes on the internet, I thought that someone like me liking someone could potentially hurt that person.
Some people say that considering factors like money or appearance isn’t true love, but I thought that was completely unrealistic.
Although I’m not the protagonist I wanted to be, I can live differently now.
In this life, I won’t give up on anything.
More happily than the protagonist.
Not as a loner but as a popular person, I’ll enjoy everything I couldn’t before.
***
After overcoming the shock yesterday, I bought a notebook and spent all day writing down the novel’s content that I remembered.
I couldn’t recall everything perfectly, but as I wrote by hand, more content came back to me than I had expected.
“We’ve arrived at our destination. Everyone please get off.”
At the driver’s words, I got off the bus, and the winter wind cut through my entire body.
March is approaching, but it’s still February, and given the region, it’s quite cold.
Perhaps that’s why there are hardly any people around.
I tightened my clothes once and turned my head to see the mountain right there.
I need to move into the Hunter School dormitory by this Saturday, so I don’t have much time, but while thinking about what I could do in the meantime, I came to Mount Seorak to find the protagonist’s first opportunity.
If the original work had followed the typical academy clichĂ© of finding medicinal herbs on the school’s mountain, I wouldn’t have dared to touch it as the disappearance of the herbs might arouse the protagonist’s suspicion—knowing the future—and might cause the future to deviate.
But fortunately, the first opportunity the protagonist gets isn’t medicinal herbs but an internal martial arts manual.
The novel I’ll be living in is a “book possession” story, where the protagonist possesses a character in an existing novel, so there are two protagonists.
Kim Do-hyun, the original protagonist of the novel, and Lee Ji-sung, who possesses the delinquent in the novel.
Originally, the true protagonist Kim Do-hyun comes to Mount Seorak for a training retreat during the second semester of his first year and gets lost, accidentally discovering a portal.
The portal contained the last words of a martial arts master and the verses of an internal martial arts manual, but the protagonist Lee Ji-sung, who possessed the delinquent, gets there first.
This time, I plan to get there first, but…
Of course, there might be something like a “protagonist buff” or I might not be able to surpass the protagonist who eats wild ginseng like rice using his wealth, but that doesn’t matter.
I have two years until the original story begins.
The retreat is in autumn, so it’s exactly 2 years and 6 months?
My goal isn’t to save the world in place of the protagonist or become a hero, so I don’t need to be as strong as him.
Taking a deep breath, I took my first step toward the mountain entrance.
