“Hkk… hack! Kehack! Cough! Ugh…”
In the bustling emergency room, Haran — who had been snoring away in a hospital bed — jolted awake with a hacking cough.
“Mmm… what…?”
Where am I? Who am I?
He blinked his heavy eyes over and over and wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth, then was in the middle of pushing himself upright in bewilderment when —
“Ugh…”
“Oh! You’re awake?”
“Huh? Yeah… yeah…”
A nurse who had been moving back and forth on the other side of the bed brightened and came over to him.
“You shouldn’t be sitting up like that just yet. First, could you tell me your name?”
“……? Haran…”
“Yes, Pyo Haram. Do you know what today’s date is?”
“Pyo Haram? I’m just Haran.”
“Yes. The date.”
“Well, I don’t generally go around keeping track of dates.”
Why is she speaking informally all of a sudden?
The nurse tilted her head slightly. But she quickly smoothed her expression and scrawled notes on the chart she was holding.
“Alright, then — do you know where you are?”
“Uh, mm…”
Haran let his eyes drift around the room. The air smelled of blood and disinfectant. The space was all white and clean, with injured people lying across bed after bed.
“…A hospital?”
“That’s right, Haram. This is Korea University Hospital, and we’ve brought you into the emergency room for now. We ran an ID search and it says you’re an E-rank hunter. If you’d like, we can transfer you to a hunter hospital, and also…”
“Hold on, hold on.”
“Yes?”
“What are you going on about. You keep saying Pyo… Haram? I told you, I’m just Haran. And what’s a… hun? Hunter? I genuinely have no idea what you’re saying.”
“Oh…”
The nurse’s hand stilled where she’d been writing. Her eyes wavered as she looked back and forth between Haran’s face and the patient information attached to the bed. And then —
“Um… Pyo Haram?”
“I keep telling you, I’m just Haran.”
“Ah, right. Okay. Just Haram, then.”
“Haran.”
“Yes. Um, patient — could you wait here for just a moment?”
“……?”
“Just a moment. Intern! Intern!”
The nurse turned and walked away. She seemed to be going to fetch someone.
Haran shook his head at the strange person and looked away. As he did, something like a dark shadow hanging in front of his eyes swayed and poked him in the eyeball.
“Oh.”
What’s this?
He tilted his head and reached up to feel around near his eyes. What his hand found was a mop of hair — coarse and unruly as animal fur.
“……?”
Huh? Hair? Don’t tell me — my hair?
He tugged at it, and felt a sharp sting at his scalp. Haran’s eyes went unsteady. He examined the few strands he’d pulled — jet black.
But I have silver hair…
Now that he thought about it, the back of his neck felt bare too. When he felt around, the length of the hair was shorter than anything he could call his own.
Something was wrong. The instinct came to him clear and certain. A cold sweat began to run down his back.
“Why is this, why is this…?”
Haran lifted two trembling hands and felt over his face. W-what’s with these soft, doughy cheeks? And this round face shape? And — there was barely anything to his body, just bones!
Whoosh, whoosh —
Drained of all color, Haran looked frantically around him. What came into view at just the right moment was his own face reflected in the metal pole of a hanging IV stand.
A pale complexion, rough-looking skin, long bangs falling forward — a young man with a gloomy expression stared back at him.
This can’t be — this can’t be!
Haran hurriedly threw back the blanket. What met his eyes then was a set of unfamiliar, foreign-looking clothes that he hadn’t had the presence of mind to notice while inside the dungeon.
He refused to accept the situation even as he dutifully ran his hands over his body from place to place. And from the pockets of the shirt he was wearing, strange objects he’d never seen before began to emerge.
A jet-black… brick-like thing with a cracked surface as if a spider had built its web there. Then a flat something, worn with peeling leather. And yet another —
“A will?”
A crumpled, folded piece of paper was spread open in his hands. The characters on it were clearly ones he had never seen before, and yet somehow, strangely, he could read every word.
My name is Pyo Haram, E-rank healer. My phone number and address are…
A will. Written neatly, right in the center at the very top of the note. Among the lengthy contents that followed, what stood out to Haran were the unfamiliar name and the identifying information written below it.
The meaning was unmistakable.
His body had been switched!
“Ah… ah… AAGH! No! My dimensional transfer! My body! AAAGH!”
Haran — no, the former archmage who had now become Pyo Haram — understood. He had only half succeeded in the dimensional transfer.
The intern watching Haram shake violently in shock and shriek his lungs out turned to the resident beside him.
“…Should I push radiology to rush the brain scan they took of Pyo Haram earlier?”
The resident let out a sigh and nodded.
“…Tell them as fast as possible.”
* * *
After a brief descent into panic, Haram managed to claw back his grip on sanity thanks to the pleading of the medical staff.
Half in a daze, he sat through a meeting with the doctor — taking in the news that there was no major abnormality in his brain, and something about monitoring him to observe his cognitive function.
Everyone around him seemed convinced there was something wrong with his head, but Haram was too trapped inside his own private worry to notice.
And finally, after some time had passed —
My body… my handsome face…
Shhhhh —
Under the wary glare of a nurse, Haram had taken refuge in the bathroom and came to a halt in front of the sink.
He stood there in a daze for a moment, then washed his face with cold water and brought his dripping face up to the mirror.
“Haahhhh…”
The unkempt hair was one thing, but the eyes, nose, mouth — was this right? These soft, doughy cheeks, completely at odds with a body that had nothing on it but bones — was this really right?
“Dear god… for f*ck’s sake…”
A round face, with the outer corners of the eyes angled slightly upward in a way that looked somewhat prim and haughty, thick and long lashes. Clear white of the eye and large irises. Perhaps because of those eyes, the body looked younger than its actual age.
Already thin, and on the small side too — he looked like a light shove would send him toppling over.
“Ha…”
None of it sat right with him. Haram’s original body hadn’t been particularly imposing either, but it had been in far better shape than this.
Tall, broad-boned — even without exercise, the build had been solid…
He groaned. From the moment his left leg started giving him trouble — no, from the moment his eye level had dropped — I should have figured it out then.
“Ngggh…”
He let out another pained noise, and from behind one of the stall partitions, someone shouted.
“Hey. Some of us are trying to go in peace.”
“……?”
“You think you’re alone in here?”
“……”
The gravity that had been written all over Haram’s face dissolved into exhaustion. He ran his wet hand through his unruly bangs, pushing them back, and walked out of the bathroom.
What am I supposed to do now…
He was in the middle of that thought when —
“Ugh…!”
The world in front of Haram’s eyes spun. His complexion went pale in an instant and he threw out a hand to brace himself against the wall.
Beeeep —
A ringing began in his ears. At the same moment, something hot and metallic dripped steadily from his nose. He quickly bowed his head — through his swimming vision he could see dark red spots of blood falling onto the white floor.
“Ah…”
Through the noise of the ringing, a voice came, flickering and faint.
‘Sua-chon.’
From somewhere in the chaos of his mind, fragments of a memory that were not his own rose to the surface.
A dog they’d had when he was small. A younger self being scolded by his parents. A sister’s wedding. A family dinner out. And then —
‘…Run! Get away…!’
‘Sis…!’
‘Waaaah!’
Boom — an explosion rang out. Strangely, his left eye and his left leg began to ache.
Bzzz — bzz — bzzz —
The vibration in his pocket, going off at just the right moment, pulled him up from the border between dream and waking. Haram gasped for breath without quite meaning to and wiped at his nose with his sleeve.
“Snf…”
Then he fumbled through his pocket and pulled out the source of the vibrating that had saved him.
“Ah… ah. A phone…”
He tightened his grip on the cracked black brick — the phone — and read the words on the screen.
Saetbyeol Kindergarten
Incoming Call
He didn’t even know what a kindergarten was, and yet his heart dropped. Without quite thinking, he touched the screen and answered.
“H, ahem, hello?”
— Yes, this is Sua’s uncle. Saetbyeol Kindergarten here.
“…Yes.”
— It’s time for Sua to be picked up. Will she be going home on the bus today? We have you marked down to pick her up in person, but…
“…Ah. Pickup. Yes, I, I’ll — come in person. Yes.”
His voice came out embarrassingly unsteady. The one answering now was not Archmage Haran.
The body’s original owner — Pyo Haram’s memories — seemed to be moving the body while shutting Haran out.
— Around what time should we expect you? Sua’s been asking for her uncle a lot.
Whether Haram had frozen or not, the person on the other end of the phone kept going in their bright voice.
It was clearly a name he was hearing for the first time — and yet the moment he heard “Sua,” the clear face of a small child flooded into his mind. It felt as if something had lodged itself in his throat.
He answered in fits and starts, his voice rough and strained like a man being choked.
“…Soon. As soon as I can. I’ll be there.”
— Okay! Then we’ll get Sua ready for pickup. See you soon!
Click. The call ended. Pyo Haram’s memories, as though they had done what they came to do, sank back down beneath the surface.
At the same time, control of his body returned to him. In that brief stretch, his legs had given out and a cold sweat had broken across his whole body.
He stood there gasping, staring at the phone.
Memories… the body’s memories have influence over the body itself…
