MEYIM| Chapter 1

Episode 1

The One and Only SSS-Rank

Yeongwon thought back to yesterday, which had been unusually short.

The first place she opened her eyes was a private hospital room. So, thinking that the ambulance must have arrived quickly after the traffic accident, she checked herself for any broken bones.

But strangely enough…

There wasn’t a single place that hurt.

What…?

This is weird…

Then she noticed something strange about the logo on her hospital gown.

Normally, an ambulance would take a patient to a major hospital. But the name written next to the logo was Banpogak Awakener Rehabilitation Hospital.

She had never even heard of a large hospital like that.

Something felt seriously off.

Swish.

She pulled up the blinds covering the window so she could look outside.

There was no way that was real.

A gigantic pillar of water could be seen in the distance.

She suddenly remembered the contents of the novel she had been reading at the crosswalk.

Gates that broke the laws of nature, Espers who wielded supernatural powers, Guides who healed and controlled Espers through physical contact, and the like.

The hospital’s name on the logo was also an “Awakener” hospital.

In the novel, Espers and Guides are collectively called Awakeners.

“Ha……”

Yeongwon rushed into the bathroom attached to the private room and checked herself in the mirror.

The woman in the mirror was definitely Sim Yeongwon.

Sim Yeongwon, with her naturally pale-colored features, just like always.

But this Sim Yeongwon didn’t have short hair.

She wasn’t wearing a wig, either.

Her skin also looked cleaner somehow.

Yeongwon wondered if maybe she had fallen asleep until all her broken bones healed and her hair grew this long.

But if that were the case, she should at least have had an IV stuck in her arm.

Then…

Drrr, drrr.

A strange alarm went off.

It didn’t sound like it was coming from somewhere outside.

It felt like the sound was ringing directly inside her head.

[Sim Yeongwon has entered the field ‘South Korea’ for the first time.]

[World Guide Ranking: #1, SSS-Rank / Only One]

[SSS-Rank ranking closed because there is no other person of the same rank.]

Something like a hologram appeared in front of her eyes in rapid succession.

“I think I’m screwed……”

While regret and confusion came rushing in, she heard a whisper in a horribly sweet voice.

And she remembered several scenes from the past that she had been desperately trying to forget.

‘Save the world.’

‘Yeongwon, didn’t you say you wanted peace?’

It felt like she could hear those voices again.

Voices she had thought had been buried in the past forever.

Yeongwon stiffened her expression and touched her own face reflected in the mirror.

Bang!

The door suddenly flew open.

A strange middle-aged man had barged into the hospital room, and their eyes met.

“Ah……”

He froze as if he had seen a ghost.

Slowly.

Yeongwon felt the strength drain from her legs.

A wave of exhaustion washed over her.

“Yeongwon, Sim Yeongwon……!”

“Uh……”

“Doctor! Go get the doctor!”

The man shouted toward the hallway outside the room.

She felt drowsy.

Her field of vision slowly narrowed.

The man’s dress shoes approached her.

His shoes were really shiny.

That random thought crossed her mind.

And then she lost consciousness.

She slept for an entire day.

At least, that’s what the middle-aged man who had shouted her name told her.

After waking up, she spent more than half a day lying in bed under the medical staff’s watch.

“How are you feeling?”

“Is anything hurting?”

Yeongwon nodded or shook her head in response.

At the same time, she desperately tried to remember whether there had been even the smallest clue about an SSS-Rank Guide in the opening of the novel.

Unfortunately, nothing special came to mind.

The same went for information about the world itself.

The only thing she clearly remembered was that it was a modern fantasy novel set in a Guide-verse world.

Gates, or dimensional rifts, could suddenly open anywhere in the world without warning, allowing monsters to come pouring out.

Espers fought those monsters using supernatural powers, while Guides prevented Espers from going berserk and helped them recover their strength.

That was about it.

She couldn’t remember any other special hidden setting or secret card.

Yeongwon stared blankly at the ceiling of the hospital room.

I got transmigrated into a book, but my information level is basically the same as some random ordinary person in the novel.

This is ridiculous. Seriously, what the heck…

There were only two things that felt like valuable information.

(1) In the prologue, an S-Rank Esper, probably someone named Kim, went berserk in the middle of Myeongdong because he didn’t receive Guiding in time.

(2) Yeongwon didn’t know exactly what it referred to, but after that incident, a “Non-Selective Rush” and then a “Gate Wave” happened one after another.

But putting aside the destruction of the world or some huge catastrophe, there was also a much more immediate and realistic problem.

Everyone surrounding the “Sim Yeongwon” of this world was suspicious in a way that made her extremely uncomfortable.

“Yeongwon, if anything feels even a little strange, tell me.”

Something strange?

Everything is strange.

Of course, Yeongwon didn’t say that.

The man seemed quite a bit older than her, but she didn’t even know whether she was supposed to speak casually to him or use polite speech.

So she pretended her throat hurt, coughed a little, and simply nodded to answer him.

“You don’t have anything? Really? Then get some more rest.”

“I’ll turn on some anime for you.”

“It’s the one with the princess and prince. There’s a picture book here, too.”

Yeongwon had no idea what kind of person the Sim Yeongwon of this world had been.

But from the man’s condescending gaze and the way he spoke to her like she was a little child, she was certain of one thing.

The “Sim Yeongwon” of this world was clearly considered an extremely immature person by the people around her, even before taking her status as a patient into account.

“Yeah. Tell them. Sim Yeongwon woke up.”

Her certainty only grew after she overheard the man talking on the phone.

“She hasn’t changed at all.”

A rough laugh followed.

“She eats, lies down, and doesn’t talk. She’s practically mute. An idiot.”

The man seemed to think that Yeongwon wasn’t intelligent enough to understand what he was saying.

“She hasn’t gotten the okay yet. So, yeah. We’re going to keep her locked up a little longer. Just a bit more. She is clean.”

Something about this felt really bad.

Besides, this seemed to be an “Awakener” hospital, yet nobody had said a single word to Sim Yeongwon about her ability.

There were plenty of other strange things, too.

The man who seemed to be Sim Yeongwon’s only guardian didn’t give her a smartphone or any other electronic device, even though those things obviously existed in this world.

Even though she didn’t seem to have any injuries or illnesses, he never told her when she would be discharged.

“Next, let’s watch this one.”

“This one’s about playing detective.”

Instead, he only played cartoons that elementary school kids would probably enjoy.

It was frustrating…

But honestly, they were pretty fun.

So Yeongwon decided to just enjoy life in bed for a little longer while binge-watching the anime, which already had nearly ten seasons.

She comforted herself by thinking that it wasn’t even her first time being treated like a human parasite.

The food wasn’t hospital food, either.

They gave her delivery or takeout, so it was pretty delicious.

She had also confirmed through the behavior of the medical staff and the man that there were no security cameras inside her room.

So whenever she was alone, she secretly played around with her status window.

Ding. Ding. Drrr.

Thankfully, the controls are pretty intuitive.

Where’s the settings menu?

Oh, there.

Some sound effects can be muted…

Transparency…

Hide the screen…

She didn’t know all the details yet, but she could roughly understand what tabs like Esper Ranking, Guide Ranking, and Ranker Chat were for.

Even with a smartphone app you’ve never used before, you can usually tap around for about three minutes and get a general idea of how it works.

The status window was exactly like that.

So it took less than thirty minutes to figure out the basic controls.

It did take a little longer because whenever someone was watching her, she stayed still. She didn’t want them to notice her doing anything strange.

Then, about a week later, Yeongwon overheard the man talking on the phone again.

And that’s when she realized the time limit for the incident she’d been worried about had finally started.

“She’s still the same idiot.”

A gruff laugh.

“She awakened as a Non-Selective Guide. We already checked her rank. Around B-Rank.”

“Two billion?”

“Raise it. Tell them we’ll make the deal at three billion.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Another laugh.

“She couldn’t become a backup Guide with a properly functioning brain anyway. And as a frontliner, she’s obviously useless.”

Even from those fragmented pieces of conversation, Yeongwon could figure it out.

In the minds of the people around her, Sim Yeongwon was an idiot.

That idiot had recently awakened as the type of Guide they called a Non-Selective Guide, and her ability had been evaluated as roughly B-Rank.

And now, with the help of criminals operating inside Banpogak Awakener Rehabilitation Hospital, that man was planning to sell Sim Yeongwon overseas.

“We’ve already found a captain who can help with the smuggling.”

“An international passenger ship.”

“It leaves next Thursday at 7:00 p.m.”

“We’ll put her in as cargo and send her off.”

“We’ll hand her over at an even more remote dock.”

“Where?”

“Qingdao, of course.”

The destination was Qingdao, China.

Ah.

There was no way she could just let that happen.