Team Leader, Let’s Retrieve the Transmigrators First! - Chapter 2.1
“Ah. We’re not grim reapers. We’re something similar.”
“What?”
Iryeong scratched his head. He seemed to be pondering how best to explain.
“We retrieve the souls of transmigrators who fall into original works and guide them to the Underworld… There isn’t an official name for us, but among ourselves, we call ourselves Soul Retrievers.”
Kangmu, who had been waiting with a bored expression for Iryeong to finish explaining, abruptly asked Lee Jinwoo,
“Lee Jinwoo-ssi, how do you like it here? Do you want to stay?”
“What…? My opinion matters?”
If I say I want to stay, I can? Usually in movies or novels, they drag you off to the Underworld no matter what.
Lee Jinwoo tilted his head at Kangmu’s question.
“The procedures have become much more lenient these days. If a transmigrator wishes, you can live out your life as a character in the novel before coming with us. This is the procedure for confirming your choice.”
“Oh. …Okay.”
Iryeong added with a bright smile.
“The expansion of souls’ Soul Rights has become quite the issue in the Underworld lately. Going to the Underworld wouldn’t be bad either. Soul welfare has improved quite a lot. The reincarnation process has also been streamlined, so you won’t have to wait long.”
“So, what will you do? Will you experience this world to the end before leaving? Or will you leave now?”
A cute man with a bright smile and a man with an icy air.
The stark difference in temperature between them, like going back and forth between a hot bath and a cold one, left Lee Jinwoo unable to collect himself.
“Well…”
Lee Jinwoo hesitated. Still, before he’d been imprisoned here, he’d been quite happy…
That was when it happened.
“Search the forest! Don’t overlook a single thicket. Search them all!”
The knight commander’s vicious shout rang out.
Oh, right. The genre here was…
“His Grace the Grand Duke is on his way! We must find Edwin-nim before he arrives!”
…a psychologically brutal, R-19 confinement BL novel.
“W-Wait! Wait! Please, take me with you too! The Underworld. I’ll go there!”
“Good.”
Kangmu immediately accepted his answer, turning toward Lee Jinwoo with his face brightening. Kangmu smiled like a devil who had just closed a deal.
“Then we will begin the retrieval of the transmigrator’s soul.”
At that moment, a brilliant mass of light began in Kangmu’s hand and grew larger and larger until it wrapped around all three of them, illuminating the black forest in a dazzling glow.
“The Young Lord is over there!”
“Get him! Don’t let him escape!”
The last thing Lee Jinwoo saw as the light engulfed him was the knight commander’s eyes, wide with disbelief.
“What is that?”
“Magic…?”
Lee Jinwoo wanted to at least raise his middle finger at the knight commander, who had always looked at him with contempt. But before he had the chance, his soul vanished from this world without a trace.
Lee Jinwoo’s soul safely crossed the dimensional gate and arrived in the Underworld. The last thing he’d seen while in the form of a soul was the Grand Duke appearing in person. After watching him approach Edwin’s collapsed body, Lee Jinwoo trembled as though struck by a chill.
“…I hope he doesn’t get put through anything too awful.”
His thoughts went to Edwin of the original story, now far away. He felt sorry for the man, who would wake up only to suddenly find himself subjected to the Grand Duke of the North’s obsession.
With lingering regret, he glanced at the world of the original story he’d crossed over from, still faintly visible through the dimensional gate he’d passed through.
His memories of the place he’d transmigrated into weren’t all bad.
His memories of living as the sickly second son who was loved by his family had been far better than his previous life. Compared to his real life, where web novels had been his only friend and only hobby in a bleak hospital room, it had mostly been warm and colorful.
If only things hadn’t gone wrong at the very end, causing him to fall into the world of the novel he’d been reading and get kidnapped in place of the main bottom.
Before long, the world of the original story reflected in the dimensional gate faded and disappeared. Its surface turned completely black and glossy like a mirror, reflecting nothing but his original appearance.
“Ah…”
Lee Jinwoo was now dressed in the hospital gown he’d worn while alive. His appearance had changed as well. He was back to his original, unmistakably sickly self.
Tears rapidly welled in his eyes at the miserable sight. After seeing only the face he’d had in the original story, overflowing with vitality, facing his original appearance, withered away by illness, made everything feel futile.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
