Chapter 1
The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a small child smiling brightly at me. Even for his age, his skin was unusually pale and translucent, and his features were already perfectly formed. The only thing that seemed out of place was how dirty his clothes were.
When I just stared without saying anything, the little boy’s expression shifted to worry. He raised his small hand and placed it on my forehead.
“Channie, what’s wrong?”
I slowly looked down at my own hands. They were too small—no, they were definitely a child’s hands, not those of a seventeen-year-old high school student.
“W-why am I like this?”
Those were the last words I managed before everything went dark.
When I came to, I was lying on a soft bed. Right, I must have had a really vivid dream. But the moment I opened my eyes, that brief comfort evaporated. My body was still that of a seven or eight-year-old kid. A woman who’d been dozing in a folding chair stirred at my movement.
“Chanhee, are you awake?”
I trembled silently. “Chanhee” was my name, yes. But that didn’t mean this body was me. The situation was too absurd to accept calmly. Before I could even process it, though, my head suddenly exploded with pain.
“Argh!”
“Chanhee!”
The door burst open and someone rushed toward me. Through the haze, I saw it was the same little boy from before I’d blacked out. His face was filled with genuine concern as he grabbed my hand. The moment he touched me, though, I lurched forward and vomited onto the blanket. My head was pounding too hard.
“Can’t you get out?”
The woman, who’d been so gentle moments ago, shrieked at him. The boy looked completely cowed, though his worried eyes never left me as he slipped out of the room. I writhed on the bed. The woman started sobbing like her world was ending.
“Chanhee, please, stay with me…!”
Through the pain, fragmented memories began flooding in. Yu Chanhee. Eight years old. Only son of a wealthy couple. These were the memories of the body’s original owner. Once all eight years of memories had sorted themselves out, the headache gradually subsided. With tears streaming down my face, I slowly raised my head to look at the woman.
“Mo…m?”
She cried even harder and pulled me into her arms. I’d expected her to feel like a stranger, not my mother, but apparently not. As these memories became mine, I grew strangely calm—as if I’d been this child from the very beginning. Only then did I recall who that little boy was.
“Hyunjae.”
Yu Hyunjae.
And Yu Chanhee.
They were characters from the novel I’d been reading just moments ago. As I came to my senses and looked around the room, I noticed family photos plastered all over one wall. What kind of normal eight-year-old has a room like this? But yes, it matched exactly what I’d read.
「Yu Chanhee’s room displayed various weapons he’d collected since his first selection ceremony, neatly arranged. The collection was impressive, befitting a child from a top-tier second-generation Ranker family. But anyone who entered that room would understand what those weapons truly meant to Yu Chanhee.」
Those seemingly peaceful family photos would soon be replaced by brutal weapons. In a room belonging to a mere eight-year-old. This world, which at first glance seemed no different from the one I’d left behind, was actually a ruthless meritocracy that revolved entirely around “ranking.”
In South Korea, every person receives a <Ranking Assessment> when they turn eight—a test of their inherent potential and power. Starting with that initial assessment, they undergo three ranking selection ceremonies total before reaching adulthood at twenty. It’s crude but devastatingly precise.
The novel followed Yu Hyunjae, a “powerless person” as rare as top-tier Rankers, who awakens his latent abilities at seventeen and begins his rise. In other words, the real story doesn’t start until he’s seventeen. But right now, both Yu Hyunjae and Yu Chanhee were only eight years old. And from what I could remember, tomorrow was the <Ranking Assessment>.
“Where is Hyunjae?”
“Chanhee…”
“Please bring Hyunjae here!”
When I shouted, Mom bolted out the door and dragged Hyunjae back in. His terrified face was still so young, but exactly as the novel described. Smooth black hair, translucent skin, and clear eyes that made him almost pretty. But right now, he was still just a parasitic existence “wearing Yu Chanhee’s hand-me-downs.”
Exactly ten years from now, he’d make his explosive debut in the Ranker world by taking down an emerging second-generation anti-government guild leader. And the one who would awaken him would be me—Yu Chanhee.
It seemed like a decent role, but the truth was that the entire early part of this novel revolved around the conflict between Yu Hyunjae and Yu Chanhee. Hyunjae was a child suddenly brought home one day by Yu Dohyun, Chanhee’s older brother and the No. 1 second-generation Ranker. Chanhee personally gave him the name “Yu Hyunjae”—the boy who’d had no name or surname until he was five. Hyunjae lived happily with Chanhee until they were seven. It was one of the few bright spots that would form Hyunjae’s emotional foundation. Until the spring when they turned eight, before Yu Dohyun gave his life for Hyunjae.
Yu Dohyun died senselessly because of Hyunjae, and South Korea, having suddenly lost a top-tier Ranker, was thrown into chaos. How extraordinary must this child be? What kind of immense potential did he possess? But a month later, Hyunjae was declared “powerless.” That was the beginning of Hyunjae’s second tragedy after losing Dohyun.
Throughout elementary and middle school, Chanhee pitied Hyunjae. It was devastating humiliation from Hyunjae’s perspective, but to everyone else, they only saw the “mature” Chanhee, who even sheltered the powerless boy who’d gotten his brother killed. After despairing over and over, Hyunjae stopped wallowing and threw himself into physical training. Thanks to that, he would later surpass Chanhee in pure physical ability alone.
When Hyunjae overtook him in the second ranking selection ceremony, Chanhee began to “break.” One consequence was his collusion with <Crush>, a private guild masquerading as rebels. Chanhee became a Necromancer—a sacrifice for the illegal resurrection research Crush was conducting—and summoned his dead brother Dohyun to absorb his power. But unable to handle power beyond his capacity, Chanhee went berserk. When a <Gate> conveniently opened at their school, Dohyun’s corpse grabbed Chanhee and vanished without a trace.
That was the end of Yu Chanhee. Witnessing Chanhee’s final moments—a twisted mix of love and hate—Hyunjae awakened. Exactly one year later, after killing Crush’s leader, he made his debut among the upper ranks.
I looked down at young Hyunjae sitting in front of me.
“Channie, are you okay…?”
“…Yeah.”
After sorting through everything in such a short time, I felt strangely calm. Maybe this abnormal composure was a gift from God for someone dropped into this situation completely alone.
“It’s not your fault.”
“…”
“If Mom says anything, tell her confidently that it’s not your fault.”
After Dohyun died, Mom hated Hyunjae like she wanted to kill him. Even though none of it was his fault. I figured I should fix that first. Why not do the typical thing? A transmigrator who knows how the story unfolds, changing everything step by step. The protagonist would be by my side, we were still in an innocent childhood where nothing had gone wrong yet—there was nothing problematic about it. Don’t panic, just take good care of the protagonist and let him protect me later when he’s overpowered. Yeah, that was my conclusion.
“Got it?”
“Yeah…”
“Promise me.”
I held out my pinky finger. A bit childish, sure, but if this was a world at the level of a shonen manga, shouldn’t I set up a scene like this? As I smiled, Hyunjae finally relaxed and hooked his pinky with mine.
“Channie…”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t get sick…”
Despite his lisp making it sound almost funny, Hyunjae was completely serious. It hadn’t been long since Dohyun died right in front of him—a time when losing someone was still terrifying. I nodded.
“I’m not sick.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. And I absolutely won’t get sick in the future.”
Because I absolutely hate being sick.
And so my life as a transmigrator began.
Footnotes:
- <Ranking Assessment> / Ranking Selection Ceremony: A mandatory government evaluation system that tests individuals for their inherent power/abilities. The first assessment occurs at age 8, with subsequent ceremonies at specific intervals until age 20.
- Ranker: An individual who has awakened supernatural abilities and been officially ranked by the system. Higher-ranked individuals hold significant power and social status in this society.
