One day, I received an email. The sender asked if I could help remake his novel. I was dumbfounded at the time. The author might've been on a short hiatus, but to ask a random reader who left a few comments in a paid serialization... of course I refused.
In fact, I didn't reply at all. I was a mere reader of novels not an editor and while the novel was interesting in the things I could learn from it, it didn't do more than that.
The webnovel was called, The Returnee Hero. It wasn't sensational, but fairly popular. It had been on hiatus for 3 months when I received the email.
Unsurprisingly, the number of readers significantly dropped.
I then received another email shortly after
[from: [email protected]]
[Please, this is only for my personal satisfaction. I won't reveal anything you do or even credit you if you don't want it. It'll only be between me and you. Who knows? Maybe I'll find some inspiration to continue the story...]
It was a fairly long, but simple email. He wanted me to remake his novel for his own gratification. How much did he like my comments to send an email like this?
* * *
Was replying to that email saying no the cause of this situation? The chance of winning the lottery was 1 in 8,145,060. What was happening to me had to be 1 in 7 billion.
I found myself in an ordinary home, but it wasn't my world and I wasn't me. That might've sounded philosophical, but it wasn't. That was literally the case. I had become an extra in my novel.
An extra I didn't remember creating.
Kim Chundong.
Chundong lived in an ordinary apartment, but he didn't have any parents or relatives. Of course, I didn't know why. At 9 years old, Chundong was admitted to the Military Agent Academy, a place that trained elites to fight against monsters and djinns, but what abilities did Chundong even possess to pass the entrance exam? I had no clue. I didn't know anything else about him. I didn't even know how he looked. Not even joking, I didn't.
When I looked in the mirror...
(?)
That's all I saw. An oval with a question mark.
It was quite an unbelievable site to see a letter for a face but somehow it worked.
How I got here? I went to bed like usual, but found myself on the last day of the semester at the Military Agent Academy when I woke up.
I had 2 suspicions.
First was that I was being tested by my father again, but then I quickly ruled that out. I would have woken up to the movement around me to bring in such a realistic looking set or if I was drugged and then brought here I would still feel the effects in my system.
Second was that I was still dreaming, but I naturally dismissed that because the thought of being in a dream would never occur to the dreamer. More importantly, no dream would continue for 2 weeks with such clarity.
I spent the past 2 weeks pondering whether the world inside the novel should be treated as my new reality.
Ding Ding—
I laid in bed and blankly stared at the ceiling until my smartphone rang. I glanced over and saw that it was time to go to school.
"Why the hell do I need to go to school?"
The Military Agent Academy held its graduation 13 days ago, but that graduating class only consisted of non-combatant cadets. Non-combatant cadets couldn't be called heroes.
Combat class cadets had to attend school for 3 more years. These 3 years would be spent at Cube, the Hero Academy.
Unfortunately, this damned Chundong guy was a combat cadet. Again, I had no clue who he was or what his abilities were.
"Ah... well guess I'll do nothing."
I barely did anything the past 2 weeks. I spent most of my time on the internet, ate food when I got hungry, figured out how to use the internet,learnt about the outside world for the first time...
Anyways, the only noteworthy event was going to Seoul 2 days ago for the 3 hour long Cube Entrance Ceremony. I didn't want to go, but I had no choice since I would be expelled if I didn't attend and I would rather play it safe when it's highly likely that the author put me here.
I couldn't figure out why he put me here so early in front of the novel's timeline, for what reason, and with what power.
It seemed I would live like this for a while, so I might as well make a living. In the novel, being a hero was everyone's dream job. Things would become dangerous midway because of villains, but after that the story went on hiatus so it was unknown territory. I just needed to survive until then.
I was sure I'd figure something out when the time came just like I always do.
* * *
7:33 A.M.
School would begin in 57 minutes. I got up and trudged to the bathroom. The question mark greeted me in the mirror.
"Is it ever going to go away? Can the other students even see it?"
My face was literally a question mark and I didn't know why. It wasn't because the author didn't describe this face. If that were the case, billions of other people in this world wouldn't have faces. So why was only Chundong's face a question mark?
"How peculiar."
I washed my face after questioning what my life has come to. I could feel my skin and hair, even through the question mark leaving me with a bizarre sensation.
After washing up, I changed into the Cube uniform I received at the entrance ceremony. Other than that, I had no other luggage. Anyone who saw this uniform would undoubtedly envy me, but I had no idea what I was doing. This was my first time attending a school.
As I opened the door, I glanced back at my home for the past 2 weeks—the apartment I barely found thanks to the address on my cadet card. It seemed I got attached in this short period and I felt like I would miss it.
Cube floated on an island in the middle of the East Sea. Once I left, I probably wouldn't come back.
"What will the author throw at me next?"
I left the comfortable apartment and stepped into an unfamiliar world.
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