My Genre Is Different From Everyone Else’s - Chapter 1 Part 2
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a woman wearing a peculiar mask.
Four eye holes, and a large nose. A wooden mask depicting a grinning mouth. It was a visual assault on the heart as the first thing you see when you open your eyes. Naturally, I screamed in terror, “What the hell?!”
My hand shot out reflexively, pushing the hard mask away. The woman wearing it retreated obediently at my action, the mask’s eyes curving into a half-moon shape. The sound of a laugh could be heard inside it, but faded quickly.
“……”
I buried my face in my hands. What did I just see?
Uwaa. My hands trembled too much from anxiety to just pass it off as seeing a ghost.
I stayed like that for a while, then slowly lifted my head. The feel of the wood against my palm was still too vivid for it to have been an illusion. Feeling uneasy about the fact that I had just touched a ghost, I rubbed my hand against the blanket covering me, feeling troubled.
The soft texture seemed to have a slow and calming effect on my startled mind, and only then did I have the presence of mind to observe my surroundings.
The room seemed straight out of a historical drama, like something belonging to a precious miss. In fact, even the blanket covering me was made of beautifully coloured silk. The outfit I currently donned, though I had no idea when or who had dressed me, was also a hanbok made of exquisitely coloured silk, just like the blanket.
The last time I wore anything like this was on a trip with my friends to Gyeongbokgung Palace back in high school. I stroked the soft fabric of the hanbok and then pushed the blanket aside. When I stood up, I felt an airiness in my body, without any pain or fatigue.
“My injuries…”
I lifted my skirt just in case and found that my knees were perfectly fine. My palms, which I had rubbed against the blanket, were unscathed, and even my fingertips, which had been swollen and aching, had healed.
I patted various parts of my body but felt no pain; there wasn’t a single scar left, as if the injuries had never existed in the first place. Even though it was my own body, it felt strangely unfamiliar to me.
As I sat on the bed, dazed after checking myself, I recalled the man I had seen before losing consciousness. The antique-looking man in the black dopo. His elegant and neat face flashed through my mind. The atmosphere of the room bore some resemblance to him.
I continued to observe the room for a while when the door suddenly opened and someone entered. It was the ghost from earlier. She walked towards me, her steps emitting no sound. In her hands was a small tray.
Hesitantly, I watched her approach before finally deciding to ask the question that had been weighing on my mind.
“…Are you a ghost?”
“Yes.”
Oh, I see.
She answered so matter-of-factly that I had nothing more to say. If she said she was a ghost, who was I to argue? Monsters existed, so why couldn’t ghosts?
I racked my brain in this situation where I could do neither this nor that before deciding to just stay still. I was better off thinking easy.
As they say, let sleeping dogs lie. The ghost looked at me and once again put on one of its eerie smiles. It seriously bothered me.
“I’ve prepared some porridge for you. Please eat it before it gets cold.”
The ghost set the tray in front of me. On the small, gleaming wooden table was a white porcelain bowl filled with warm porridge, from which steam rose in whisps above. It wasn’t unfamiliar, but it had been so long since I last felt this warmth.
As soon as the ghost handed me a spoon, I scarfed down the porridge. I didn’t even have time to blow on it before eating. I felt a prickle on my tongue; perhaps I had eaten too fast and burned myself on the porridge.
Just because class changers appeared didn’t mean our lives got any better. Things were better than before, but the world was still full of monsters.
If you wanted food, you had to steal it from those who had it. If you wanted a safer place to stay, you had to kill whoever owned it. Sometimes, happening upon a twisted class changer was no different than running into a monster.
The warm porridge, which I hadn’t had in months, brought back memories of the porridge my mother used to make when I was sick, back before the sky had collapsed. It was just plain rice porridge without any seasoning, but to me, it tasted amazing.
After mindlessly swallowing the food and filling my stomach a bit, feeling the warm porridge soothe my insides, I began to notice something strange. Despite having eaten nearly two bowls’ worth, the porridge in the bowl hadn’t diminished in the slightest.
Why hadn’t it diminished? Was it not just food? Was it the kind of food that, once consumed, would prevent you from returning to your original world?
Feeling scared, I debated whether or not to put the spoon down now. As the movement of my hand slowed down, the ghost’s eerie laugh resounded again, an ear-grating sound like nails on a chalkboard that made my shoulders wince. Watching me, the ghost said, “Would you like to meet the king? He wishes to see you.”
As a result, I found myself meeting the man I had glimpsed before losing consciousness again. He sat beneath a willow tree by the dusky lake, enveloped in a shroud of mist. Led before him, I sat meekly before the man, who gazed dazedly across the lake.
A breeze stirred from somewhere, rustling the dense willow leaves with a sound that resembled a human cry. My hair, already braided by the ghost before I left, didn’t obstruct my view.
Thanks to that, I was able to observe the man more closely.
He had long, black hair that seemed as though it could reach his knees if he stood. A beauty mark rested just beneath his left eye. His face was elegant but gave off an odd sensation, like gazing at a cluster of peach blossoms. He looked like a libertine in the clothes of a scholar, but also like a scholar masquerading as a libertine.
A golden earring caught the sunlight, glinting briefly between the strands of his hair as it fluttered in the breeze. I wanted to get a closer look, but it soon vanished among the dark tresses.
The man, who looked like an ink and wash painting, didn’t say a word to me, even though he was the one who had summoned me. I contemplated speaking first but decided against it; just because I had been given food didn’t mean my guard had completely dropped, so I decided to keep quiet.
And it was more awkward than I had expected. Unable to overcome the awkwardness, I tugged at the end of the ornate norigae. This was another addition from the ghost, who had seemed unusually excited while dressing me.
The strong wind gusted three more times, making the willow trees seem to weep. Just as my boredom began to overshadow my nervousness, the man finally spoke. His pale, large hand reached out to me, holding a piece of yakgwa.
“Would you like some, child?”
After all this time, the first thing he said was, “Would you like a yakgwa?”
I was stunned by the absurdity of it all, but ultimately decided to accept the yakgwa he offered. As I bit into it, I could taste the sweetness and unique texture of the yakgwa. It was the first sweetness I’d tasted in a very long time, and the treat clung to my teeth.
“When I first saw you…”
A low voice cut through the rustling of the leaves and reached my ears. It seemed the man was finally ready to speak, so I paused my eating. However, he shook his head and fell silent once more.
I took another bite of the yakgwa, just in case, and the man nodded approvingly, as if affirming my choice. Then, with a peculiar smile—like the delicate petal of a peach blossom in full bloom—he began to speak again.
“When I first saw you, I was quite shocked. You were in such terrible condition that I wondered how a young thing like you could be so injured.”
The man’s words made me belatedly realize how I must have looked back then. I could hardly have looked presentable, having barely escaped the clutches of death.
Swallowing the yakgwa I had stuffed into my mouth, I said to the man, “…Thank you for helping me.”
It was what I should have said as soon as I saw his face. The man smiled in response. It wasn’t the amused kind of smile, more like an elder going, “Good job, child,” in response to a little one’s cute tricks. It felt like I was looking at a benevolent elder.
I had so many questions—so much I wanted to ask—but I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to do so.
Who are you? Where is this place? Are we in a sky shard? And if so, are you a monster as well?
Words I couldn’t bring myself to say swirled around in my mouth, and while I hesitated, the yakgwa disappeared inside it.
As I fidgeted with my slightly sticky hands, the man suddenly took one of them in his own. Instead of offering me another yakgwa, he simply stared at my hand with an intensity that bordered on discomfort.
“It seems your wounds have healed,” the man said after a long pause. His voice was slow and relaxed, making me feel drowsy just listening to it.
I wondered if I should pull my hand away. The man, sticking close to me, carried a scent reminiscent of a forest on a rainy day. Was it the smell of grass? Or perhaps the aroma of the woods? It was a refreshing fragrance that was hard to describe, one that made me realize once again that the being before me wasn’t human.
The words coming out of his mouth had only added certainty to my thoughts.
“I am the ▇ of Do⑇#⑆, ㅱ#rang.”
“Sorry?”
“You wouldn’t understand it anyway, even if I repeated it.”
The man released my hand only after placing another yakgwa in it. I was still puzzled by his voice, which sounded like distorted audio, making it hard to grasp his words.
I was more mystified by his noise-distorted voice than by the sudden appearance of the yakgwa. The man spoke in a light tone, as if to tease me, “So, call me whatever you like.”
How could he say that without even knowing what my naming sense was like?
“…Then, can I call you Rang?”
After a moment’s consideration, I chose one of the few words I had managed to understand. I had been tempted to call him something like Dorangdorang, but that didn’t seem to fit his demeanour.
“As you wish.”
The man smiled, his eyes curving.
As I stared dazedly at his smiling face, a sudden gust of wind swept in, much stronger than the breeze from earlier.
The mist over the lake began to clear, and waves rippled across its glistening surface. Willow leaves fell one after another, but strangely, none landed on the man… No, I mean, none landed on Rang or me.
As I watched this curious sight, Rang once again extended his hand toward me. This time, he neither offered a yakgwa nor took my hand first. He simply held it out, as if inviting me to take it.
Looking into my eyes, he spoke slowly, “If you choose to follow my path, you can become stronger than anyone else. You’ll be able to live how you want and do what you want, free from fear or the need to crawl.”
His words came as a surprise. Yet, as soon as I heard them, a sudden realization washed over me, even though no one had explicitly mentioned it.
It could have been instinct, or maybe even desperation. Perhaps it was the despair that came from being rejected three times.
It was a slimy emotion, characteristic of those who had already resigned themselves to death once.
The place I had crawled into was a sky shard. A sky shard where monsters were said to roam. I remembered the words of those who claimed that class officials came from the same realm as those monsters.
So who was this man I encountered inside the sky shard? He could only be one of two things: either he was a monster, or…
I swallowed hard. Noticing my wide-eyed expression, the man wiped away all traces of laughter from his being.
“Will you follow my path?”
I remembered the words of the physical-type class official, who had told me my genre was different. The man in front of me, asking the same way a class official might, filled my vision. The first thing that caught my eye was how different his clothes were from those of other class officials. It wasn’t armour or a robe. He was wearing an antique dopo and durumagi.
Seeing this, I wondered. Was it really a matter of genre, not talent?
If they truly meant it in such a visceral way, I couldn’t help but feel stunned and bewildered.
Nevertheless, I took the man’s hand. Had anyone else witnessed it, they might have scolded me for acting so rashly.
Why was Rang different from the others? And why was he here in a sky shard instead of outside? Even I thought there were many oddities, but even so, I couldn’t afford to hesitate.
What was there to hesitate about? After all, the other class officials outside had already made it clear that they wouldn’t allow me to change classes.
Maybe, if someone had been there to stop me, I might have been more cautious. But with only Rang and me in this place and a cliff looming behind me, I couldn’t afford not to be rash.
As soon as our hands touched and he intertwined our fingers, gripping tightly, a system message—one I had only heard of in stories—appeared before me.
[This isn’t the correct metho̶̱̱̐̌d̴̰̬͌ to ⑇ange classes. Do you wis̸͙̭̈h̴͉̊̐ to pr#cce̶͚͂͊d̸̺̟͆̓?]
Was the system trying to stop me instead of a person? The garbled message would seem strange and suspicious to anyone who saw it, but my decision had already been made.
“Yes.”
Rang smiled.
[You have changed classes. Your class title is ‘The ▇ of Do⑇#⑆.’]
[This is not the correct form.]
[System error.]
[Re#!? ▇⑇ ⸎ㅱ?⑆! the system.]
[Your class title is ‘The ▇ of Do⑇#⑆.’]
[System error. Impossible. Re-establishing.]
[Error]
[Error]
[Error]
[⑆ㅱ⸎#?!⸎▇]
[Class change successful.]
[Your class title is―.]
[―’Dokkaebi Princess.’]
[Congratulations. You are the first hidden class changer. The blocked path for humans is now open. Higher compatibility class change possible. Hidden class change possible. The quest of Lee Hoyeon, who is trapped in the hidden gate ‘Tiger’s Mountain,’ is now complete.]
[Pld̴̩̗͚̓̅͘g̶̖̽s̶̡̖͑̔̍d̸͚̓̑ s#d̸̟̹͑͛s̸͙̭͊͝f̴̓ the wor̶̬̾l̸̢̘͐d̵͙͌͘?!]
My genre was eastern fantasy.
Translator Notes ˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥
this is what a norigae looks like
and this is a yakgwa!
as for the dopo and durumagi, you can guess from the novel cover
Storyteller Clementine's Words
I use the volume version of the raws, which means the chapters are longer than usual. The way I personally split chapters may differ from the webnovel version since I split purely based on vibes, pls keep this in mind when reading >.<
pe551
Thank for the chapter (•‿•)