““My life this time is messed up.”
“Guess I’ll start with that as my first line.”
Sounds quite intriguing, doesn’t it?
“And the next line… hmm.”
Blinking, Lloyd picks up his pen and tosses it aside.
“Ah, forget it.”
He had envisioned enjoying a successful writer’s life, but come to think of it, he had never even written a diary before.
Such a waste.
If he wrote about his previous life, it would surely be a hit.
Instead, he closed his eyes and decided to just contemplate.
Laying down on a plush meadow as his bed.
“Ah, forget it.”
Lloyd opens his eyes.
The vibrant inner wall was emitting a fantastical light as the sun shone on it.
He clumsily stood up, grabbed the pen awkwardly stuck around the lake, and climbed back up.
Spreading the book enchanted with the ‘unreducing page’ spell, he leaned over it.
Feeling a suffocating pressure in his chest, he decided to bear it.
“There’s nothing else to do anyway. Someone might be curious… let’s just give it a shot.”
And so, he started writing a diary about his previous life.
This life is messed up
My father ruined his business and fled, and my mother is living in lethargy, having lost the will to live.
But as their child, I couldn’t let them starve.
-Mom, I got a job. You don’t need to worry now.
Dropping out of school was the only way to earn living expenses.
I worked my butt off. I had never worked hard in my life, but when the situation hit, I did anything that paid – delivery, loading and unloading, anything.
But it felt like pouring water into a bottomless bucket.
The situation did not improve.
Even after three years, it was the same.
Getting tired.
Just as I wanted to give up on everything…
-Are you Mr. Yeja’s guardian?
My mother passed away.
-The cause was acute stress-induced arrhythmia.
It was a fire illness.
The doctor said my mother had too much pent up inside, and that’s what caused it.
I didn’t shed a tear during the three-day mourning period. It didn’t feel real. Even when I saw the body, she looked just like I remembered her. But even then, I just felt numb.
But at the crematorium, carrying her ashes, the tears came out of nowhere.
I cried for a long time. In front of all the relatives, embarrassingly so.
After the funeral.
I returned to my rented room.
I didn’t cry after the crematorium. Instead, deep down, a devilish thought emerged, ‘Now I can finally live my own life.’
Overwhelmed with guilt, I sat down, and the next day, I went to school. I applied for readmission.
Then I realized.
Tuition was needed. I checked for student loans, but I was not eligible.
It was because of my grades. I was a screw-up. If I had known I couldn’t get a loan, I would have tried harder.
I checked my bank account. I thought I could pay at least one semester’s tuition.
It was strange.
I had been working for three years. Not just as a cafe part-timer, but two or three jobs. I sent over 3 million won a month to my parents.
I thought if I sent them enough money, they would snap out of it sooner, so I worked myself to the bone to send them money.
I didn’t know they would use it all.
There was no tuition.
I entered the Korean Scholarship Foundation website to find a way.
Something big on the main screen.
Student loan, living expenses loan 31.3 million won.
That’s when I faced reality.
Third year in university.
I’m 28 years old.
Even if I graduate, I’ll be 29.
What’s worse, it’s a local university.”
The reflection on the monitor had grown gaunt.
Yet, up till then, I clung onto a ray of hope.
I became an orphan. They said we’re a developed country on the news, I thought there would be some welfare or something.
There was. But I wasn’t an orphan since I had a father. A father I couldn’t contact. A father who didn’t even come to my mother’s funeral. That’s the law.
File a missing person report, or maybe separate from the family register. There has to be a way, right?
If I search… Yeah, if I search.
I’m tired. Honestly speaking. Let’s say I scrape by with government aid and manage to graduate college.
Then what’s left for me?
A diploma gained at the cost of a $40,000 debt?
——————
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I had no future.
“People live by dreaming.
Not necessarily professional dreams.”
Buying a house, having something they want to buy. Living powered by these small dreams.
I had none of that. Forty thousand dollars. Not enough to live on for some, but for me, the debt was too large.
A deep philosopher’s time came.
Truth be told, I wanted to die. I wanted to give up everything and let go.
But I didn’t have the courage.
So, I became a hikikomori.
The cycle of barely getting by until my money ran out and then taking on part-time jobs continued.
I played games, watched anime. Web novels, light novels. I didn’t spare anything I could enjoy in my room.
It was escapism. I ran away from reality.
“Then, one day.
While I was on the way to a part-time job.”
I collapsed.
I had a mysterious experience.
I was clearly unconscious, but I heard a doctor say I died from overworking.
I found out then that you could die from overworking just from playing games.
“Well, it’s not that surprising.
After my mother passed away, there wasn’t a single time when I had a proper sleep.”
“It was severe insomnia.
It was too painful when I closed my eyes, so I stayed awake until my eyes automatically closed.”
At minimum two days, at maximum three days without sleep, that cycle repeated. That day too, after pulling three all-nighters, I was on my way to work. I expected my health to deteriorate but I didn’t think I would die.
Just when I thought it was all over.
Something I didn’t expect at all happened.
“A world I had never seen before.
I had become someone else.”
“At first, I couldn’t believe it.
I wondered if this was reality or if I was dreaming.”
“But that only lasted for a while.
People are adaptable animals, so I grasped the reality.”
I realized I had reincarnated in a web novel.
“It was a novel I often read so I figured it out quickly.
It was a novel I kept reading unconsciously until I reached the 1,000th episode.”
“The title…
For some reason, I can’t remember the title even though I remember everything else.”
The character I reincarnated into was Lloyd Christopher Windsor.
The youngest of the Windsor Dukes.
He was classified as ‘out of standards’ in the story, and he was the world’s number one, recognized by the author.
He indeed had an overpowered ability.
One day after reincarnation. I was confident I could win even if I fought against a god.
But the best thing was.
“I had a lot of money.
And I was handsome.”
But perhaps God thought it was too perfect and gave me one flaw.
“I was short.
It seemed like that character called Shota.”
“…Will I grow soon?
That was the only thing I was hoping for in this life.”
“Anyway.
I knew the story.
Who the final villain is, who the main characters are, what they like, everything.”
The crises that would come to the protagonist, and the power to overcome them.
-Hmm. You guys handle it.
“I’m not interested.
Why would I care about such things when I’ve become a rich unemployed man?”
Catching up on the sleep I missed in my previous life seems way more productive.
Lloyd woke up with deer-like eyes.
After writing everything, it feels like it’s really crappy.
“Let’s just sleep. Writing is not working out.”
Lloyd gave up neatly and tossed his pen into the lake. He kept the notebook, but since he had written it in Korean, no one could read it anyway.
“Ugh.”
Lloyd used the book he had been diligently writing just a moment ago as a pillow and fell asleep.
It was a truly happy life.
He was 58,000% satisfied with this life.
**
In Windsor, Lloyd was receiving tremendous love.
The first and second children were girls, and he was the only boy.
Windsor didn’t discriminate between boys and girls for the succession, thanks to its meritocratic system.
However, the current head of the Windsor family, Lady Amélia, seemed to have an extra soft spot for her son.
Being called the staunch Northern Duke, she was still extremely merciful to Lloyd.
Normally, if a lazy good-for-nothing was born in Windsor, it would become tough to live life, but not for Lloyd.
Of course, part of it was because Lloyd was a prodigy. Effort is what you do to acquire abilities. If you already have the ability, there’s no need to force yourself.
But here’s the thing.
Amélia Windsor, the second daughter of the Windsor family, had a slightly different perspective.
“That kid is probably still sleeping.”
The weather was nice.
He was definitely taking a leisurely nap by Delin’s Lake.
It was an unbelievable sight for an Academy freshman.
“He’s become way too lazy.”
Amélia had a lot of worries.
Her feelings for Lloyd were just as strong as her sisterly love.
…Isn’t this just too much? Her brother was lazy to the extreme.
Thinking that he might not even make a single friend, she couldn’t help but worry.
Amélia vowed to fix Lloyd’s laziness this time, for sure.
“Lloyd!”
As expected, he was sleeping by the lake.
“…Why is Sis Amé here?”
It had been a year since the possession.
Already, all the family titles and such had been settled.
“What did Sis call me?”
“Well…”
Lloyd yawned and said, “You called my name, right?”
“Besides that!”
“Then…”
Lloyd seemed to be thinking hard, nodding his head up and down as if dozing off.
Amélia made a bewildered expression.
However…
“Oh well, forget it.”
Amélia kindly smiled and patted Lloyd’s head.
“As long as you’re healthy.”
She stood up from her seat.
Then, with a satisfied expression, she returned.
Exiting Delin’s Forest.
But then…
Amélia stopped her steps and looked back.
“…Once again, I came here and couldn’t say anything.”
It was her 8th failure this time.
