”Huh!?”
When I came to, I was in some unfamiliar room… Okay, that’s fine, but… why’s my viewpoint so high? And why’re my legs dangling?
”Hmm?”
I looked around and spotted a mirror… and reflected in it was a man hanging by a rope around his neck…
”WHOOOOAAA!!?”
I grabbed the rope in a panic, desperately yanking it loose and dropping to the ground…
”Wait, what the hell’s going on…? Gah-ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!?”
Just as I started to process what was happening, a flood of information-memories-rushed into me all at once… My brain must’ve been struggling to handle it, ’cause an insane headache hit me like a freight train. It was like my skull was being crushed in a vise-just brutal agony that left me curled up on the floor, writhing in pain…
”Hah… hah… made it… through…”
About three hours had passed since then, and somehow the headache’d finally subsided.
”Phew… I’m…”
First, I stood up and grabbed the suicide note lying nearby… Though, I don’t actually need to read through it. During that headache earlier, every last word of it burned itself into my memory…
”Alright… * * *- just as I thought…”
I looked out the window and spotted a person walking by-a woman. Even from a distance, seeing her appearance confirmed a certain sense of disconnect from my original memories.
”This really is some kind of game world, isn’t it?”
I moved to another room and turned on the TV. Even looking at the newscaster on screen, my suspicion was confirmed. The reason I think this world’s a game or something… it’s the people living here. They look like they’re straight out of a 3D model-like Vtubers1 brought to life.
They’re different from people back on Earth-bigger eyes, and most of the women’re really good-lookin’. There’s still variation, of course, but the general level’s high. Overall, it feels like anime character models’re walking around alive. Like I’m constantly looking at cute girls. Though thanks to the integrated memories, it doesn’t really feel strange to me… The only reason I can even notice it’s ’cause I still got memories of my original world.
”Hmm… Alright, let’s get these memories sorted out.”
So, my reincarnation destination… Possession? No, if the memories’re right, the original owner died, and then I entered the body. So… body-jacking? Hmm, I dunno. Anyway, I can vaguely tell that the original soul ain’t in this body anymore.
”Now then… here’s my situation in this world…”
• Abandoned as a baby at a baby hatch, so my real parents’re unknown-grew up in an orphanage.
• Adopted by the Kuonji couple on my fifth birthday.
• They treated me like family for only a few months… then their daughter, who’d been hospitalized for being sickly, started recovering.
• Once my sister recovered, my adoptive parents poured all their love into her and completely ignored me-they became textbook toxic parents.
• Tried everything to get their attention, but it all backfired. By the time I was in elementary school, I’d already given up.
• After we moved, a girl I met-my childhood friend-became my support. We started dating around second year of middle school.
• Thanks to her, I managed to live a somewhat normal life, but once we hit high school, she started showing interest in a classmate-a good-looking guy.
• Around the end of my second year, I found out about that guy’s shady side. I warned her to stay away from him, but she wouldn’t listen to me… and she cheated.
• He spread nasty rumors about me at school. The people I thought were my friends started avoiding me too.
• To top it off, my adoptive parents kicked me out of the house…
• I was forced into a run-down apartment decades old… At my breaking point, I wrote a suicide note.
• And then I killed myself-and my soul slipped into the body right after. ← I’m here now.
”Rough.”
Since I’ve integrated with the memories of the body’s original owner, I can feel that hatred as if it were my own.
”Everyone around me’s an enemy… Life on hard mode from the start-lol. Can’t even laugh at that orz.”
I looked around the room again… Wait, this ain’t a rundown apartment…
”Where the hell am I???”
The place where the original owner committed suicide in the integrated memories was clearly a cheap, crumbling apartment-the kind with paper-thin walls where you can hear your neighbor’s conversations. But this place’s nothing like that. It’s spacious, like a luxury condo… And he hung himself in the bathroom here. Come to think of it, I was shocked when I woke up, but I didn’t actually feel any pain. Why’s that?
”Alright, I still got a lot to figure out… Also, that God… nah, calling it ‘God’ don’t feel right. I’ll just call it ‘Baby-san’2 for now.”
Speaking of which, I was supposed to have gotten a cheat ability3… but what is it? And if this is a game world… what game’s it from?
”Ahhh… okay, for now..,” I cleared my throat. “Ahem-STATUS OPEN!”
Nothing happened.
”That’s embarrassing,” I buried my face in my hands. “I wanna die orz.”
Saying it with that much gusto makes it ten times worse. At least I seem to be living alone-thank God. If anyone’d heard me, I’d seriously be back to hanging myself.
”Oi, what’s with the sudden shoutin’?”
”Huh?”
A voice came outta nowhere. I spun ’round in surprise, and there stood a towering figure-a dark-skinned, massively built man over two meters tall. His black suit was stretched so tight it looked ready to burst at the seams.
Trivia:
- The protagonist has fully integrated with the original body’s memories, experiencing the hatred as if it were his own.
- The suicide happened in a luxury apartment bathroom, not the run-down apartment from the memories—suggesting something changed after death.
- The protagonist felt no pain from hanging, only shock upon awakening, which remains unexplained.
- The entity that reincarnated him was called “God” but he refuses to use that term, settling on “Baby-san” instead.
- He was promised a cheat ability but doesn’t know what it is yet.
- The world’s inhabitants resemble 3D Vtuber models, with large eyes and generally attractive appearances.
- The protagonist’s integrated memories make this visual difference feel normal to him.
- The original owner’s entire life was a chain of betrayals—from adoptive parents to friends to his girlfriend.
- The original owner gave up trying to gain his parents’ attention by elementary school—showing early trauma.
- The handsome classmate who stole the girlfriend was exposed by the protagonist for shady behavior, but she didn’t believe him.
- The protagonist was kicked out of his adoptive home on top of everything else, then forced into a decrepit apartment.
- The body-jacking happened immediately after the original owner’s suicide, with no gap.
- The protagonist’s instinct was to call out “STATUS OPEN” suggesting video game familiarity.
- The big man appears immediately after the protagonist’s embarrassing failed status check.
Translation Notes:
1 ↩ A virtual YouTuber using a 3D avatar. Here, the world’s people resemble such models brought to life.
2 ↩ The protagonist’s nickname for the reincarnation entity. He refuses to call it “God” and chose this silly name.
3 ↩ A special ability granted to reincarnated individuals. The protagonist was told he received one but doesn’t know what it is.