I Start with a Bad Hand!

“Oh… the bad news is really bad.”

“I understand your reaction, Sister.”

“Unless the good news is that I can return to my original world immediately, I don’t think it will be enough to offset this.”

The priest bowed his head, seemingly embarrassed, but there was a subtle confidence beneath his expression.

‘…It must be genuinely good news then?’

“The impact of the soul’s dissonance is more severe than we anticipated. The remaining fragments of the original soul in this body will be gradually eradicated by you. If a soul that doesn’t fit the body remains, eventually, the body will revert to its natural state.”

“That makes sense, but… what exactly is the good news?”

At my question, the priest’s face lit up again, as if he had been waiting for this moment.

“This is… Well, it’s a bit embarrassing to say, but I think I’ve found a way to connect to the ritual you mentioned from your world. In fact, I’ve received something from your world. I’m not sure how to explain it, but you’ll understand better when you see it.”

“You received something from my world? How is that even possible?”

“Yes, the ritual you told me about. I managed to link to it and summon something that was offered to your soul. If we can trace this back…”

“Wait, wait. A ritual from my world? Normally, people in my world don’t perform such rituals…”

A foreboding feeling halted my thoughts. He summoned something connected to my soul?

“…What did you receive?”

***

On a low, large table, various foods were laid out. Apples, pears, chestnuts, assorted vegetables, pancakes, and colorful candies. As I stared at the table without saying anything, the priest seemed to remember something and approached, pulling an item from his robe.

“Oh, there was also a note. It’s in a language I haven’t seen before. Perhaps you could interpret it?”

He handed me a long, white piece of paper. The thin paper rustled as it landed in my hand.

亡子學生再喜神位*

Between the scattered Chinese characters, one phrase stood out.

再喜

I stared at the characters silently. After a long pause, the priest, sensing my unease, asked cautiously.

“Can you read it?”

“Do you know what it means?”

Jahee.

“…It’s my name.”

This offering table was prepared for me.

As I explained the table’s purpose, the proud smile on the priest’s face vanished.

‘Would it have been better if he had just kept smiling?’

The priest remained motionless, and the room felt like it was filled only with things for the dead and those who were truly deceased. I touched one of the offering dishes, feeling restless.

‘So, this really works.’

All the ancestor rites we performed weren’t in vain. Thinking this, I squatted by the low table and popped a chestnut into my mouth. As I bit into it, the sweet flavor filled my mouth.

‘So, our ancestors really did just eat and leave.’

My father’s business failed, and I died young. Our family diligently prepared food for the ancestors but never benefited from their blessings. The priest still stood there, looking unsure of what to do.

“Come on, we’re supposed to eat this together.”

“Sister… I really can’t.”

“Ah, maybe it’s because the food is unfamiliar. But it tastes good.”

Try some fruit. I pushed a dish of dates toward him.

Reality felt distant. The dates, green, purple, and brown, were oddly mottled. I had never seen such dates here. It wasn’t the dates that were unfamiliar; it was seeing them periodically in my real life.

Among the traditional offerings, there was one out-of-place item: a cheerful-looking chicken box and my favorite ale. My family wouldn’t know I liked that brand. Who told them? Yujin?

Could someone be playing a joke on me? Maybe I had gone mad, and this was actually my original world, which I now perceived as a fantasy. 

“Wow, this spinach salad really tastes like my mom’s.”

Would I snap out of it to find a psychiatrist staring at me? Maybe I was in a white room, my limbs restrained, or still at the bottom of those stairs, hallucinating this long, strange dream. I almost wished that were true.

‘Living here is too horrible.’

A surge of tears I had been holding back welled up uncontrollably.

I shoved food into my mouth, even though it felt like I couldn’t possibly eat it all alone. As I confirmed again that the food I was eating was indeed cooked by my family, I was overwhelmed with another strong desire.

‘Oh, I really want to tell them to stop setting up these offerings.’

I desperately wanted to tell my family to stop preparing food for the dead and instead use that time to do something fun and eat something delicious.

Once should be enough. Why do they have to keep doing it every holiday? I wanted to break this pointless cycle, having benefited the least from it. But more than that, I just…

“Huuh…”

When I suddenly found myself in another person’s body, in a completely foreign world, I believed my goals were very realistic. I never dreamed of becoming an emperor, overthrowing the world’s system, or starting a revolution. I had only two goals:

‘Return Dietrich’s body and go back to my original world.’

I had always vaguely believed that there was a higher chance I was still alive. I hadn’t been hit by a car or fallen ill. I just slipped on some stairs. Even if I woke up with a broken leg or several years had passed, I always hoped I might still be alive.

The biggest reason I could endure this wretched place was the belief that I would someday achieve my goal of returning.

But neither goal had been achieved.

Since coming here, I had never felt such intense despair. My heart felt like it was collapsing endlessly without ever hitting bottom. I couldn’t stop crying, even as the rice in my mouth turned to mush.

‘Really? I can’t go back? Truly?’

Even if I did, my body isn’t there…

‘Wait. It’s just my body that’s gone. So, damn it, I just need to return my soul.’

Why hadn’t I thought of that? Wandering my world as a soul seemed better than continuing to live here.

I looked at the priest, who still stood there awkwardly, unsure of what to do. He had managed to receive offerings from my world, something that seemed physically impossible. So surely, he could find a way to send my soul back.

“Father… No. I still want to go back.”

The priest now looked at me with concern as I suddenly spoke, seeming to have realized something. After saying that, I took a drink from the offering table. The taste of the liquor, left at room temperature for too long, was bland and lingered in my mouth.

After downing a bottle of flat liquor and just about to open a bottle of ale with a spoon, the priest gently lowered my hand.

“Please, calm down for now….”

You might hurt yourself. I have an opener. Without a word, he fetched an opener and a few more bottles from a drawer in his office. When I stared at him, he replied, “It’s fine if an adult gives you alcohol.” Despite the situation, his words struck me as oddly amusing, and a dry laugh escaped my lips.

“How many bottles of alcohol do you keep in your office?”

“Whiskey is fine. It’s like the blood of Hades.”

The priest’s words made me want to get even more intoxicated.

Dietrich’s body had poor alcohol efficiency. No matter how much I drank, I couldn’t get drunk. I drank because it was hard to stay sober, but I never achieved inebriation. So, the priest brought out a few more bottles, and we sipped together until his face turned red and he muttered something before falling asleep, snoring softly.

But I didn’t get drunk. No, Dietrich’s body didn’t get drunk. No, I didn’t get drunk because this body metabolized alcohol too efficiently. So, now I had lost my drinking companion, lost Dietrich, and lost myself, leaving me with nothing. I wanted to drink, but I couldn’t even achieve that simple solace.

The alcohol was so efficiently broken down that it disappeared from this body, leaving no trace. What was the point of drinking if it didn’t get me drunk? Yet, if I didn’t drink, I wouldn’t even know if I could get drunk. So, by that logic, drinking was still beneficial. Even if it didn’t make me drunk. Yes.

I grabbed a bottle and went outside. The priest’s office had become stiflingly hot. Walking down the corridor, I saw the dimly lit street below the tall buildings, the occasional streetlight flickering. The air felt sluggish, and a humming sound filled my ears. My consciousness remained clear, but everything around me felt blurry.

In the midst of all this haziness, one thought was crystal clear.

I could now understand Dietrich’s choice.