01 About Transmigration
When I opened my eyes, I saw a white ceiling, white curtains, smelled the sharp scent of disinfectant, and felt a throbbing pain in my head.
I wasn’t surprised to find myself in a hospital. I just felt a wave of relief.
Thank goodness, I was alive.
And oddly, I didn’t feel much pain in my body, except for my head.
An unfamiliar face leaned forward, her eyes brimming with concern. The girl looked young and pretty, with long, curly hair.
“How are you feeling?” she asked. “We’re in the school infirmary. You were knocked out by a basketball. How does your head feel right now?”
Oh, shit.
As much as I didn’t want to believe it, it only took me exactly 0.1 seconds to realize I had transmigrated.
First of all, I was in a literal car accident. Not the kind where you get hit by a truck—no, I was the one responsible.
I was driving and my attention got distracted by a truck in the right lane. It had furniture stacked in the back trunk, secured by nothing but a thin strap. The car behind it was keeping a massive distance.
I was just thinking about how dangerous that was and how easily it could cause an accident if anything fell out. Then I recalled a short video I’d seen, where the uploader said an entire generation had been traumatized by that one movie where the wood logs fall out.
I slipped into my thoughts, completely unaware that my right foot was pressing down on the accelerator. By the time I snapped back to reality, it was already too late to brake. I crashed straight into the car that had stopped ahead of me.
Anyways, the moral of the story is: keep your eyes on the road and don’t get distracted.
Second, I was twenty-six years old, meaning there was absolutely zero statistical probability that I’d randomly wake up in a school infirmary.
Third, even if the universe somehow bent its laws to dump me in one, I didn’t even know what a school infirmary looked like. In all my years of being a student, I had never once stepped foot inside one.
An unfamiliar person who acted like they knew me? Check. An unfamiliar location? Check.
An unfamiliar body....?
I lifted my arms and stared at them. Smooth, unblemished, and definitely not mine. Check.
Every single criterion for transmigration was perfectly checked off.
Tentatively, I threw out a probe into the dark recesses of my mind. ‘System? Hello? Are you there?’
Silence. Not even a mechanical bleep responded.
Well. So I’ve transmigrated, but unfortunately, I am not the chosen one.
To be honest, that was perfectly fine by me. At my big big age of twenty-six, I had zero interest in saving the world or grinding for points. The only thing I wanted out of life now was to relax and enjoy the ride.
If there were any world-saving quests or dramatic main missions to be done, the universe could go ahead and leave them to the actual high school students. After all, isn’t it a universal law that the saviors in every Shonen manga have to be teenagers? Let the kids have their character development arcs; I’m clocking out.
Besides, nowadays, when older folks transmigrate, all they ever do is cook and farm. I can totally relate. Why stress over a plot line when you can just live a quiet, cozy life?
While I was having a full-blown mental session, the girl, seeing my lack of response, immediately stood up.
“I’ll go get the nurse,” she said, hurrying out anxiously.
Fine. Even if I did transmigrate, I wasn’t happy about it at all. Because just a few months ago, I bought a house. With a thirty-year mortgage.
When I was a kid, I actually really looked forward to growing up. After all, my childhood was filled with anime like Shugo Chara! and Yumeiro Patissiere (yeah, I’m pretty sure watching those ruined my brain. I mean, who didn’t hope to wake up one day and find a Guardian Egg or a sweets spirit waiting for them? but to my disappointment (?) it never happened ).
Back then, I anticipated the future, wondering what kind of amazing adult I would become. Turns out, I just became Hiroshi Nohara from Crayon Shin-chan (Japanese iconic anime character, an average hardworking salary man).
Damn it, does reality have to be this brutal?
Wait, if I’m here, what about my original body? I’m pretty sure my parents would be super worried.
And what about the original owner of this body? Don’t tell me they actually died from getting hit by a basketball? That would be a straight-up homicide case!
The school nurse gave me a basic check-up and asked a few routine questions. I originally wanted to fake amnesia, but after a cautious second thought, I figured it was better not to make a scene. If they actually ended up sending me to a real hospital, it would be even harder to handle.
The nurse concluded that I was just temporarily dazed, which was perfectly normal. Seeing that I was only a bit out of it but otherwise fine, she told me I could head back to the classroom.
I was flabbergasted by how reckless she concluded the situation.
On the way back to the classroom, the girl didn’t need me to say much. She seemed to take it for granted that the original owner of this body was a person of few words, so she just rambled on by herself. From her chatter, I gathered that her name was Lila, and mine was Poppy.
I froze. These were the exact names of the characters in the novel I had stayed up late reading a few days ago.
Ah. The female lead was named Lila, and Poppy was her favorite roaster best friend.
So I really am just a supporting female character.
Thank god I’m not the villain, I thought, mentally wiping a thick layer of cold sweat from my forehead.
But still... did the universe throw me in here as a filler character just because I love to roast people too?
Except, this looked like a high school setting, whereas the background of Lila’s story was supposed to take place in college.
Lila said indignantly, “Those guys were way too careless! Next time I see them, I’m definitely going to give them a piece of my mind!”
"It's fine, it's fine." I said, in an attempt to calm her down.
Before this, I never really understood why the protagonists in the transmigration novels I read never worried about their sudden identity swap. Most of them just glossed over it or accepted reality right away. But now? Now I totally got it.
To be honest, besides accepting it, there really isn’t any other choice.
Might as well make the best of it.
