Urgh!
In a vast bedroom, a young man wrapped in a luxurious silk satin duvet groaned.
His eyes flickered open, unfocused, staring at the unfamiliar ceiling, which bore ancient murals etched on it.
He started hyperventilating, clutching his bedsheets tighter.
It wasn't every day you felt the pain of falling from the 56th floor and felt the pain for a few seconds.
Wasn't it supposed to be instant death?
He immediately reached out for the jug of water on the drawer next to his bed.
Glug! Glug!
Cough!
The frantic guzzling of water made it slide down the wrong hole.
'For fuck's sake.' He grumbled, cleaning up the water that came out of his nose.
It was only after a few minutes that he gained a slight sliver of calm and sanity.
'Where am I?'
He looked around curiously and cautiously.
And he just couldn't keep the gasp inside.
Whoa!
It felt like an old-money themed 5-star hotel room.
Fancy chandelier on the ceiling, over-the-top murals, and art pieces in the room for exaggerated decoration.
The room itself was bigger than the apartment he used to live in.
He got up, but then froze.
'How did I get up?' He frowned, 'Wasn't I supposed to be dead, or at least a vegetable?'
He impetuously threw the duvet away and looked at himself.
He was perfectly fine, but something was different.
Was his body skinnier and paler than before?
'Huh?'
Ryu blinked twice.
A terrible premonition dawned upon him; his heartbeat quickened.
That strange man's face flashed in front of him.
Something felt terribly amiss here.
He instantly ran towards the bathroom and screeched to a halt in front of the mirror.
'Wha-'
What he saw in the mirror wasn't the same unremarkable face with purple dyed hair.
Instead, there was a relatively tall, skinny young man, around the early-20s, with a ghastly pale complexion, looking back in the mirror.
His face was also above average, with sharp and symmetric features, and he had black hair with a faint bluish luster.
But the part that stood out the most about him was his golden eyes that shone with an unsettling light.
Hurk!
Ryu heaved over the sink, his guts twisted, but nothing came out.
'Who's tha-'
Hurrk~!
His eyes watered, and his throat tightened by the unnatural and constant heaving he was facing.
He realized what had just happened, but his brain couldn't accept that.
How was he supposed to believe in that?
It was completely fictional.
It had to.
But this was his reality.
The evident gut pain he was feeling made it clear that he wasn't dreaming.
He had possessed someone else's body.
But how was that even possible?
And he got his answer instantly.
The messenger.
Huff! Huff! Huff!
Taking in three consecutive deep breaths, he tried calming himself down, but he barely had any success with that.
His mind was still a mess.
'Let's calm down and think for a second.' He pondered over his situation.
He realized that panicking like this wouldn't help his situation a single bit.
The shivers running down his body made him feel cold, so he made his way back to the bed.
He got into the comfortable blanket and tried snuggling in, but something got in his way.
'What's poking my back?'
He reached out to the back and retrieved it.
'A book?' He identified.
It was a ragged old book, with crusty leather on top and a crescent moon symbol etched on it.
Curiosity got the best of him, and he opened it.
'Tch!'
The first thing he saw was the same photo of his family that the messenger showed him.
If this were a joke, it was in such bad taste.
His face had a sour expression, and the feeling to hurl up his guts was returning.
He took a final look at it and flipped the page.
[I got a question for you, Tae-Min.]
'This guy got such a rotten personality.'
Ryu could imagine that stupid smile of his through the book page, as he wrote these.
[Why do you think your family was in such a condition? Tattered clothing, chained, and doing things a servant does?]
'Chained?' He questioned, as he took a closer look at it.
Only now did he notice faint chains made up of light wrapped around them.
Tattered clothes and doing menial chores were nothing out of the ordinary for residents of Guryang.
So, in the heat of the moment, he had looked past it, but now that he had seen it again, it was indeed strange.
He had a few speculations, and each of them angered him to some extent.
He needed answers, and he reckoned this book might have them.
And sure enough, the next lines answered exactly that.
[Your family is enslaved under the Sun God, Solis. Along with 35 other people.]
'That number…' Ryu's eyes widened.
[That's right, the terror attack in the Guryang in 2022 wasn't random at all. The cult of Solis sacrificed 38 people to the God, and the Blue House covered it up because both the ruling and the opposition are filled with these cultists.]
Ryu clutched the book hard.
His eyes were moist, but they didn't have a hint of sadness in them.
Instead, it was filled with unending rage and disgust.
His nails dug into the leather of the book, but it didn't leave any marks behind.
He also had another realization following the rage he was feeling.
'Doesn't this mean, without the messenger covering up for me, I'd have been caught and publicly executed already?'
Public execution was illegal in South Korea, but who knew how extreme these cultists were.
His hair stood on end, and he felt like he was left stranded in a tundra naked, with how chilling it felt.
He was actually thankful about the messenger for once.
But it all still felt a bit far-fetched.
Body swapping, soul sacrifice, and still being alive, and so on.
It wasn't like he was in a magical world, was he?
'What am I even thinking?'
But as if the book was reading his thoughts, the next words he read made him frown.
[So, how did you like my little surprise of {Transmigration} in another world?]