Chapter 2

My life as a transmigrator started off with a tired old cliché.

Just like many other parallel universe hoppers out there, I was minding my own business while I was on my way home with a can of beer in hand. Then, all of a sudden, a truck bulldozed over me, and soon after, I woke up inside a fictional world.

It was an ordinary beginning, all things considered.

Nevertheless, I had no other choice but to follow the original story as it was written. Holding onto what feeble hope I had that maybe—just maybe—if I see through it and reach the novel’s ending, I might be able to go back to my original world.

Of course, life wasn’t so easy.

A day before my graduation in that world, I was once again bulldozed by a truck.

‘This . . . What is this . . .’

The next time I came to, I realized that I possessed the body of yet another character.

* * *

The second world I found myself in was a martial arts fantasy fusion, sort of like a cultivation novel.

Beside me was a father who was a master and brothers who had achieved transcendence, and so due to this kind of background, it was effortless for me to hone my skills and learn the way of the sword. Faithfully enough, this world’s genre meant that to live was to fight, and to fight was to live.

With no time to grieve my previous life’s death, I decided to grab the bull by the horns. I wasn’t able to reach the previous novel’s conclusion, but this time for sure, I’d reach the end.

My second transmigration, which started with a hopeful outlook, hit me with a forkball instead of a fastball.

Since I wasn’t familiar with such tropes like the ‘Four Heavenly Kings’ and whatnot, something any high school student would have known the lore to by heart, I initially couldn’t figure out how to use my abilities. It was weird that whenever faced with situations where even the smallest gap in one’s defense meant death, nobody coughed up blood.

Well anyhow, just like the last time, I was unable to see this novel’s ending.

I honed my abilities and strived to become a character befitting a protagonist, and so I pushed my weak body and trained like a madman. It was a struggle to hold a wooden sword properly at the beginning of my training, but after a year passed, I was then able to turn a piece of cloth into a weapon sharp enough to cut through flesh.

Ironically, such passion led to a worse demise. In one small instance where I suddenly couldn’t use my abilities, I was caught by the villain, and in the midst of running away, I tripped over a rock and died.

That’s right. This time, I was killed by the ground.

‘Fuck.’

I couldn’t help but curse at myself.

This wasn’t a sitcom, though? How could my death be so hilariously pathetic that a drowning fish would seem like a bodhisattva’s ascension in comparison?

But anyway, I entered my third transmigration after this absurdity.

Before I woke up as Rosetta, I lived as the female lead of a novel that was countless times worse than the past two rounds. If one were to search to the ends of the earth, scour through every single novel out there, there wouldn’t be anyone who’d top this character as the most pathetic, most pitiful female lead.

‘Rita Vernand.’

Ugh. Well.

Yeah.

Honestly, it was a dark past that I’d rather not think about. I’d have preferred to take the dreaded CSAT a hundred times more than to live one more second as Rita Vernand.

In that life, instead of the male lead, it was me who was stabbed to death.

At the male lead’s downfall—the male lead who did all sorts of crazy things due to his obsession with me, by the way—one of his enemies had pointed a knife at him just as scheduled. But instead of letting nature run its course, I jumped in front of him to take the hit.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I wasn’t inspired by the noble spirit of sacrifice or anything, nor had I fashioned an illusion of love through the almighty power of Stockholm Syndrome. I felt nothing of the sort.

I just really, really wanted to leave that place so I would never see that little shit of a male protagonist ever again.

That was all I was hoping for.

“Rita!”

During the last few seconds before my third transmigration ended, that guy’s face got as messed up as I imagined it to be as he wailed in lamentation.

That’s right. Cry some more, you damn son of a bitch.

I ended my third round with a bitter taste in my mouth. I thought I’d finally rest easy—I wanted it to be the end. I had no desire to live any longer. All the lingering attachments I had left for my original world had long since disappeared.

Since my past lives ended through accidental means, I thought that I could finally be set free of this unending torture if I willingly jumped to death on my own volition.

However, I could almost hear the echo of a nonexistent being’s derisive cackle directed at me when, yet again, I had escaped death.

‘I’m so done.’

As I opened my eyes, I realized that I might never be able to break away from this cycle. No matter how many times I died, I would eventually wake up again, and again, and again.

I had grown desensitized to the value of my own life. The lives I fulfilled weren’t mine to begin with, and so these deaths meant nothing to me. Despair had stopped visiting me the moment I was granted immortality; the anguish of a wealthy man entailed the power to obtain all the treasures in the world, but never the answer to happiness.

‘Oh well. What kind of novel is it this time . . .’

The worst. The absolute worst of the worst.

And now the fourth was—

Thankfully, I didn’t have to wrack my brain for the title of a novel every time I entered a new world. The moment I’d possess the body of a character, the novel’s contents would affix themselves at a corner of my subconscious. Whenever I wanted to know something about the world I was in, I’d be able to find the answers in that internal book as if I was searching through my own memories.

‘I read this when I was in high school.’

was a novel I distinctly remember reading at the school library.

Alicia Valentine was the female lead of this novel.

‘And Rosetta . . .’

Alicia’s half-sister; the ducal family’s disgrace; an unwanted illegitimate child;

A worthless sub-villain.

Using Rosetta’s perpetually jealousy over this half-sister of hers who hailed from a pure lineage, the male lead used this as justification to brutally murder Rosetta in the end.

The devil works hard, but the universe works harder to make my repeated life a living hell.

* * *

‘You can’t run away from me forever, Rita.’

Rita. Rita. You . . .

‘Because you are my eternal darkness.’

Stop, stop, stop. Just stop it now.

The short breath I inhaled turned into a gasp, a shudder simultaneously crawling through my spine. It was followed by cold sweat on my forehead and an inexplicable tremor on my hands. That horrendous, nightmarish voice rang between my ears. No matter how many times I tried to forget him, his ubiquitous malevolence continued to haunt me.

Frantically, I brought my hands to my chest to check if the knife was still there. It wasn’t.

‘Right . . . I’m not Rita anymore . . .’

My time as Rita had already come to pass. She’s become history now—a past that I would no longer need to revisit.

As I regained my senses slowly, I could feel my breaths turn from severe gasps to gentler huffs, my sight from a spotted mess to a gradually clearer image. My eyes could not keep up with the light that soon returned to me, and so I couldn’t help but squint even though I wanted to take in as much of its radiance as I could.

“Oh, it’s dazzling.”

From beyond a large window beside the bed, countless rays of sunlight poured through from the clear blue sky above.

Absolutely dazzling.

‘It’s been a while since I saw something like this.’

During my entire life as Rita, I lived as if I was already six feet underground, locked up in a place where darkness was my only companion. No matter how much time passed, it hadn’t been possible for me to know whether it was night or day.

I endured, survived, persisted.

I lived, but did not truly live.

And yet now, the sun was shining so brightly for me.

Looking out the window blankly, I thought that I had finally woken up in a nice place. Ever since the beginning of my life as a transmigrator, I was at the mercy of a fickle roulette that refused to divulge what kind of fate I next had in store.

When struck with misfortune, one might turn up in a place like the third round. If you got lucky, on the other hand . . .

Well I wouldn’t know. The goddess of fortune never smiled down on me.

Anyway, since my most recent point of reference was my third round, anywhere else was comparatively better. Anywhere at all.

If I were to rank my role here . . . I think I’d be third place or something. I wasn’t the protagonist this time; I wasn’t even a character that carried that much weight in this world. Presumably, as long as I didn’t do anything malicious, I should be able to live a normal, quiet life.

‘Ah, but. There’s one thing that’s bothering me.’

I lowered my gaze toward my unblemished forearms. The wounds I had sustained, stinging as I moved ever so slightly, were carefully hidden beneath my nightgown. Although I was accustomed to pain far worse than this, it wasn’t good to just receive it all wordlessly without so much as a protest.

Familiarity might become comforting in the long run, but pain would always be pain.

Throughout all my five lives, of which were comprised of my original life and my four transmigrations, I was resolute on the following: Don’t bully children. Don’t be a pushover. Be careful with family.

It’s better to nip it in the bud. Right now, a woman named Katie was definitely posing as a hindrance to my life.

I returned my gaze out the window to admire the scenery that it depicted.

Still, the sun enveloped me in its warm embrace.