The young man's day always began in front of his computer.
When did it start? The moment he lost his heart to her.
His entire routine consisted of reading every article about her that popped up in the news, then going to her fan cafe to stare at the photos her fans had uploaded.
"Hah, haah…!"
After furiously masturbating to a photo that showed just a hint of her cleavage, the post-nut clarity would hit him.
"Fuck."
If it were a contest of love for her, he was confident he wouldn't lose to anyone in the world.
But that alone wasn't enough to hold her in his arms.
She was a star, shining in a place far too high for him to reach.
And…
She was a married woman.
"Son Si-woo, that bastard."
Son Si-woo.
The strongest S-rank Hunter in South Korea.
A man in his mid-forties with unbelievably sharp looks, an upright character, and a dedication to protecting the nation that had turned the entire country into his fanbase. A total cheat character.
Whenever the two of them appeared with their hands on each other's shoulders and waists, looking affectionate, it was as if they were saying:
If you want me, you'd better be at least this good.
"Ugh…!"
He was lovesick. Terribly so.
They say love is supposed to fade with time, but that didn't seem to apply to him.
As time went on, the part of him that had been satisfied with just looking at her photos only grew more demanding.
"I want her."
I'm going crazy wanting her.
When he lay down to sleep, his head would fill with thoughts of her until it felt like it would explode.
"I'm going fucking crazy, I want her so bad!"
Only after hugging his blanket and screaming and thrashing about a few times would the feeling subside, just a little.
And so it went, day after day.
With every passing moment, the man could feel his patience reaching its limit.
If things kept on like this, it felt like the only future waiting for him was one where he'd show up at her house unannounced and get arrested.
"Still, I want to see her, I want to have her…!"
To kiss the eyes, nose, and lips that perfectly filled her small face.
To grope her full breasts—unbelievable for an Asian woman—and her slender waist.
To lick her long, slender legs from top to bottom.
If I could just feel her once, just one time, I'd be fine with dying.
It was at that very moment.
[You have awakened an ability.]
A line of text that would color his eyes with elation appeared in the air.
[Prepare for the pain!]
And with it came an immense wave of agony.
"Gyaaaaaaah!"
It felt like his entire body was being chewed to pieces.
No, maybe it was more like being seared by fire.
Either way, it hurt.
It hurt so much he wished he would just die.
He'd heard that people could die from shock if the pain passed a certain threshold, but the man didn't feel like he was going to die that way.
"Haah, haah…"
The pain subsided.
So this was the immense pain they said came with becoming an Awakened Being.
"Did I… Did I just awaken…?"
The world was now divided into two types of people: those who had awakened, and those who had not.
To fight against the flood of monsters, the Awakened became Hunters and risked their lives in battle.
So, is being an Awakened a bad thing? Not a chance.
They earned enormous amounts of money and enjoyed popularity rivaling that of celebrities.
These days, thanks to the systematized institutions and methods for training the Awakened, the death rate was a mere drop in the bucket compared to the early days.
"I… I…!"
The man's life was, to put it bluntly, in the gutter.
He'd been abandoned by his parents and grew up getting beaten countless times at the orphanage.
If not for the kindness of the landlady who rented him this place for cheap, he might have ended up a beggar on the streets, or even dead.
He had always envied the Awakened.
If he had awakened like them, his life wouldn't have been such a crawl through the dirt.
"Ha, haha… Hahaha…! Ahaha… Cough, hack!"
Even as he laughed like a madman and choked until he nearly threw up, the smile never left his face.
He reveled in his joy for a long while before finally mustering the courage to face the ability he had gained.
The first step every new Awakened Being experiences.
"S-Status Window…!"
The kind of status window you'd see in an RPG.
One of the privileges enjoyed by the Awakened, it shot up before his eyes.
"Ah..."
The moment he saw his own body quantified into stats, disappointment washed over his face.
They were pathetic.
So bad that not a single one reached double digits.
"R-Right. That makes sense. I always hated exercise…"
He was obese. Severely obese, at that.
When he looked down, his belly fat jutted out like a mountain peak, completely obscuring his feet.
So it was perfectly understandable that his stats were abysmal.
What mattered was what came next.
If I lose weight and train hard, I can get as strong as I want!
The most important thing for that was the special talent given to an Awakened Being: their Trait.
He looked at the Trait section at the very bottom of the status window.
[Equivalent Exchange (SSS)]
"Oh, oooooh…!"
S, A, B, C, D, E, F.
The letter at the very top was there.
And there were three of them.
"Is… Is this even possible?"
The highest rank for a Hunter's ability was supposed to be S-rank.
"Does that mean… I'm the first?"
Didn't this mean he was the very first Awakened in the long history of Hunters to manifest an ability that surpassed S-rank?!
"Uhehehe!"
With this, it might be possible.
I might be able to push aside the S-rank Hunter Son Si-woo and stand by her side…!
"W-Woooah…!"
His dick got hard.
It was shorter than his protruding belly, so he couldn't see it, but he could feel it tense with power.
He forced himself to take a deep breath.
He had only confirmed the Trait's name and rank; he hadn't checked the essence of its power yet.
With a trembling hand, he lightly touched the Trait section of the status window floating before him.
[Equivalent Exchange (SSS)]
Summons a giant set of scales visible only to you.
If you place what you have and what you want on each side, and the scales balance, you can exchange them.
"..."
At first, he didn't understand.
He had to read it over and over again before he could grasp, at least roughly, what the ability did.
"So… I give up something I have, and in return, I take something I want from someone else…"
The man's fists trembled.
"Th-This is fucking bullshit…!"
I don't have a single damn thing to my name, so what the hell am I supposed to give up and what am I supposed to take?!
His anger exploded.
It felt like even his own ability was mocking him for having nothing, and the agony was unbearable.
His hope, which had swelled up only to shrivel in an instant, sent him retreating back under his blanket.
Huddled under the covers, he was refreshing Nertube when the algorithm recommended a new video.
It was probably because he'd watched so many of her videos.
It was a video of a special lecture given by her husband, Son Si-woo, at Korea University's Yeouido Campus, which specialized in Hunter training.
The man who possessed the woman he could never have.
A thought suddenly struck him.
How great would it be if he could use his ability to swap bodies with that bastard?
He wouldn't care about getting older if it meant he could get the man's status, his power, and her.
But it was impossible.
To do that, he would need to possess a value similar to Son Si-woo's, and how could that ever be possible?
"Bastard. Lucky bastard…"
The man clicked on the video, spitting all sorts of curses.
He was planning to leave a whole bucketload of hate in the comments.
In the video, Son Si-woo was saying:
[I envy all of you. Why? Because you have youth. Youth is truly limitless. You can become anything, do anything. Hahaha! I'm not lying. I'm sure there are people who envy what I have, but if someone offered to let me trade everything I have now for youth, I would take that deal in a heartbeat. That's how precious youth is…]
The man's fingers, which had been typing out all his malice toward Son Si-woo, froze.
There was something.
Something he had that Son Si-woo didn't.
Something Son Si-woo would trade everything to buy—he had it.
"Youth…!"
The conditions for a trade were met.
He wanted everything Son Si-woo had, and Son Si-woo wanted his youth.
With a trembling heart, he cried out.
"A-Activate Equivalent Exchange."
The words had barely left his mouth when a giant golden set of scales materialized behind him.
"…I want to swap bodies with the S-rank Hunter, Son Si-woo."
[Comparing the value of S-rank Hunter Son Si-woo's body and the user's body.]
A small figurine that looked just like him appeared on one side of the scales.
And on the other side, a figurine of Son Si-woo appeared.
The scales tipped endlessly toward Son Si-woo.
[Result of objective value comparison: The body of S-rank Son Si-woo is significantly more valuable. Trade is not possible.]
"N-No, Son Si-woo definitely said it in the video…! That he'd give up everything to buy youth!"
[The video alone is not enough to determine the subject's true intentions.]
"Th-Then is there no other way…?"
As he asked with a pitiful expression, another message appeared.
[If a mutual agreement is reached through conversation, the trade is possible.]
With those final words, the scales vanished.
"A-Agreement?"
It meant he had to somehow draw out Son Si-woo's true feelings through words and make the value of their two bodies equal.
If he could just get an agreement, he could have the man's body.
"But how…?"
Forget about getting an agreement, just meeting him seemed impossible.
"If I can just get him to agree…"
Agreement.
The word kept circling in his mind.
If he could just do that, if he could just take over Son Si-woo's body…
He could have her.
Gulp!
Swallowing hard, he immediately sat down in front of his computer.
He had to gather all the information he could on Son Si-woo.
He began to scrape together every detail: the places he frequented, the things he liked, his hobbies, everything.