“Ugh, my whole body aches.”
Kim Min-hyeok opened his eyes and looked around, immediately sensing that something was off.
“Come to think of it, I definitely got hit by a car.”
The screeching sound of tires that seemed to rip through his eardrums, the impact that struck his body, the screams of people—all of it was crystal clear. But no matter how he looked around, the place in his view didn’t resemble a hospital in the slightest.
“Why is there so much blood…?”
On top of that, he noticed that the blood running down from his wrist had soaked not only his clothes but also the bed sheets beneath him.
“What the hell. Is this all a dream?”
Was the car accident a dream too? Was his wrist being torn to shreds just a part of that dream?
The moment Kim Min-hyeok raised his hand and pinched his cheek hard—
Bang, bang, bang—
“Guide Lee Haru, are you in there?!”
A loud pounding came from the door, and seconds later it burst open. A stranger stormed into the room and froze at the sight of the blood-drenched bed.
“What do you think you’re doing?! Are you trying to kill yourself?!”
“Wait, that’s not…”
His cheek still stung, which meant it probably wasn’t a dream. But there was no pain coming from his wrist at all. And now this unfamiliar man had barged into the room and was yelling at him as if he’d committed some crime.
“Ahh, I’m so dizzy.”
He wanted to ask what the hell was going on, but his vision was spinning. And then everything went dark.
When he opened his eyes again, he was still in the same unfamiliar room. And as if he’d been waiting for this exact moment, the man from earlier unleashed a rapid-fire monologue and disappeared.
“You’re finally awake. Starting tomorrow, you’ll be reporting for duty as the exclusive guide for Seoul Branch Alpha Team 1. You know where the dorm is, right? You stalked them enough to find out.”
What the hell just happened?
That scornful face lingered in his mind, the way it had looked at him with disgust.
Still foggy from sleep, Kim Min-hyeok blinked slowly, trying to gather his thoughts.
“What the hell is a guide? And what’s Seoul Branch Alpha Team 1… Wait, huh?”
As he replayed the man’s words in his head, his eyes widened.
“I’ve definitely heard this somewhere before.”
Guide.
It was a word that came up often in the novels he usually read.
“No way… Did I just transmigrate?”
The classic trope. Caught in a freak accident, slipping into a coma or dying, and then waking up in a completely different world.
Kim Min-hyeok frantically looked down at his hands. They definitely didn’t feel like his original body.
His skin was noticeably paler, and his fingers looked so delicate it seemed they’d snap if he so much as tapped them. His gaze naturally drifted to the area hidden beneath his clothes.
He didn’t hesitate long. Kim Min-hyeok quickly stretched the waistband of his pants. The clothes he was wearing were still stained with blood from before he passed out.
He cautiously checked the size of what was underneath and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thank god… It didn’t shrink.”
Would’ve been nice if it got bigger, but he could live with things staying the same.
Live simply, live happily. Just as his life motto said, what might’ve made a normal person freak out, he accepted pretty naturally.
“Did that guy treat the wrist wound earlier?”
Though the clothes were still blood-soaked, the long gash that had stretched across his wrist had closed up. He clenched his fist and released it—it moved just fine.
Growl—
But damn, he was starving. Kim Min-hyeok got up and glanced around.
He had no idea how long it’d been since he last ate, but the moment he acknowledged his hunger, his stomach went into full protest, demanding he feed it something—anything.
“Why is this room so big?”
Even the blood-soaked bed was huge—big enough for three or four grown men to sleep on comfortably—yet the room still didn’t feel cramped at all.
There didn’t seem to be anything edible inside, so he opened the door and stepped out.
“Whoa. Damn. This place is huge.”
He’d never been in such a nice house in his entire life. The space was so vast it felt empty, with only the essential furniture placed carefully—but every single piece looked top-of-the-line.
“Is it nighttime? It’s so dark.”
One thing that felt strange was the pitch-black curtains covering the entire living room window, making it feel like nighttime.
He was curious about what the view was like behind them, but his hunger was more urgent.
He headed into what looked like the kitchen and spotted a double-door fridge. He rushed over and yanked it open—only to collapse to the floor like a heartbroken heroine in a drama.
“What the hell… Why isn’t there a single thing to eat?”
All it had inside was bottled water.
His eyes began blinking rapidly as a troubling thought crossed his mind.
“What the hell. The person I transmigrated into is a gwanggong?”
A born-and-bred homosexual, he had even delved into BL novels. And if memory served, refrigerators in stories with the popular gwanggong tag always looked like this—completely barren.
“Well damn, guess that means he’s rich.”
But Kim Min-hyeok, ever the embodiment of relentless optimism, quickly dusted himself off and stood up.
So what if he had transmigrated into a gwanggong? That was a hundred—no, a thousand—times better than ending up as some gloomy character straight out of an old melodrama.
“Alright then, time to grab the wallet and head outside. Do I have a phone or what?”
Having lived alone since childhood, Kim Min-hyeok was used to talking to himself. Like he was chatting with someone, he muttered as he walked back into the room he’d first woken up in.
Important items were usually kept in the bedroom, after all.
“Found it!”
Thankfully, the things he needed were neatly placed on the nightstand next to the bed.
“Looks just like a smartphone.”
The phone looked almost identical to the ones from his original world. When he opened the wallet, an ID card was right there in front.
“S-rank Guide, Lee Haru.”
The ID card displayed a photo of an unbelievably beautiful face—so striking you’d never forget it after seeing it once—along with a serial number, guide rank, and name.
“He looks kind of… sad.”
The jet-black hair and dark eyes gave off the impression of a man burdened with a story. His melancholy gaze stared blankly at Kim Min-hyeok from within the wallet.
“If he’s an S-rank guide, there’s a high chance he’s an important character…”
He didn’t know how the guide ranking system worked in this world, but typically they went from F-rank up to S-rank. S-rank usually meant top tier.
“Anyway, let’s eat first.”
He tried to recall whether a character named ‘Lee Haru’ had appeared in any of the novels he’d read, but his stomach felt like it was clinging to his spine, so he decided to put that off.
No doubt, eating something would help kickstart his sluggish brain.
Now officially Lee Haru, Kim Min-hyeok—his soul firmly lodged in this new body—grabbed the phone and wallet and stepped outside. Past the door stretched a long hallway with only two doors in sight.
He pressed the down button on the elevator, and before long, the doors slid open.
“Let’s try the first floor.”
The elevator panel showed it went all the way down to basement level five, but heading outside meant he needed to go to the ground floor.
When he arrived, one look around was enough for Lee Haru to conclude this place definitely wasn’t an ordinary apartment building.
The ground floor looked like a full-blown commercial complex, with cafés, restaurants, and even what seemed like a boutique.
“Is this a mixed-use building?”
Coming to his own conclusion, he soon spotted a nearby pizza shop.
“Eek— W-Welcome!”
It wasn’t until he saw the clerk’s startled reaction that Lee Haru realized he was still wearing his blood-soaked clothes.
“This isn’t blood, it’s ketchup.”
Feeling bad for scaring the guy, he tried smiling, but the clerk only panicked more and lowered his gaze.
Weird. With the face he’d seen in the wallet, nine out of ten people would’ve smiled back.
Still, Lee Haru didn’t dwell on it. Shrugging off the odd reaction, he went to the kiosk and placed his order.
A large pizza, a serving of spaghetti, and a 1.5-liter bottle of cola. With the receipt in hand, he found a table and sat down.
“Hurry up already. I’m starving to death.”
One leg jittered uncontrollably. Any Korean mom watching might’ve slapped him across the head, saying he was letting all his luck slip away.
“That bastard’s got a hell of a face. Is he out of his mind? He’s single-handedly dragging the reputation of all guides through the mud. Did he seriously come down here still wearing his own bloody clothes?”
Huh. Something felt off.
Lee Haru perked up his ears at the voice coming from behind.
It could have been about someone else, but the only people in the restaurant were himself and two people sitting at the table directly behind him.
Judging by the tone, it was obviously about him. Lee Haru’s posture gradually tilted back.
“Exactly. So what if he’s an S-rank guide? He sells his body like a cheap whore and now he’s even tried to off himself just to latch onto some S-rank espers.”
Ha. Ha. Ha.
The second voice boomed like they didn’t care who heard it, echoing across the room.
“Order number 127, your food is ready!”
He wanted to turn around and confront them, but the food came out with perfect timing. Hunger outweighed curiosity, so Lee Haru quickly got to his feet.
“Thank you.”
“…E-enjoy your meal.”
Accepting the tray piled high with food, he offered a polite smile, and the clerk muttered a faint reply with a face about to burst into tears.
As he carried the loaded tray back to his seat, Lee Haru made direct eye contact with the two men who had been staring daggers at him the entire time.
