I wake up feeling even worse than before. This body is absurdly weak. Every step sends pain through my bones, and by now all the others are gone. I don't know when they left, or how I failed to notice it. Standing there in the empty street, I grit my teeth and try not to think about how pathetic this is. "Of course," I mutter. "A beggar. Weak, starving, and sleeping on the ground. Couldn't even get a bed. Of course. Just my shitty luck."
"Hey, look! That kid's gone insane!"
I turn my head and see a group of men stumbling toward me. There are five of them, all drunk enough that I can smell the alcohol before they get close. One lurches forward, squinting at me like he's trying to decide whether I'm worth the effort. "Hey, kid, get off your high horse. Wake up to reality—" He burps in the middle of it, then grins like he's said something clever.
I stare at him for a second, then wrinkle my nose. "Take a step back. Your breath reeks."
The others laugh. His grin disappears. "Huh? What did you say to me, you little shit?"
"I said your breath reeks," I repeat. I should stop there. In this body, with five drunk men in front of me, provoking them is idiotic. I know that. Unfortunately, knowing it doesn't seem to help. "Actually," I add, glancing at the others, "all of you smell like shit."
That wipes the amusement off their faces. One of them clicks his tongue and steps closer. "Listen here, little beggar. You don't talk to us like that."
I can already tell where this is going. I'm weak, exhausted, and in no condition to fight anyone, let alone five drunken idiots. Still, the idea of backing down leaves a worse taste in my mouth than their stench. "So what?" I say.
The nearest one raises his fist, and I brace myself for the hit. Before it lands, something slams into the back of my head hard enough to send pain flashing white behind my eyes. The ground tilts under me, my balance vanishes, and then everything goes black.
The drunks are gone, and I'm alone once again. I groan, trying to sit up, but the pain forces me back down. This body feels like it was built to suffer. For a while I just lie there, staring up at the sky and trying not to think about how badly everything hurts, how wrong this place feels, how little any of this makes sense.
And then I see it.
My breath catches. For a second, I can only stare.
"Dammit..." I mutter, my hand rising to my face. I know what that is. No, more than that, I know exactly what that is, and the realization sends something cold through me. Painfully stretching one arm out, I keep my eyes fixed on the creature overhead. It's a griffin, but not the kind people talk about in old stories. The body is wrong. Too sleek, too cat-like beneath the wings, with a line of larger feathers running from the top of its head down along its back. Golden-brown fur covers most of it, while the feathers around its head are pale, fading deeper in color as they trail down into the rest of its body. It isn't ordinary. It's specific.
Too specific.
I know this Griffin because I wrote this damn creature... Those unique feathers... Yeah, no way this is a coincidence. My fingers tighten against my face as I stare up at it, my pulse starting to pound harder with every passing second. "No..." I whisper. "No, no, no..." The words leave me under my breath before I can stop them. My chest feels tight. My thoughts trip over each other. This isn't possible. It shouldn't be possible.
And yet it's there, cutting across the sky like something dragged straight out of memory.
Then it drops.
I go still, watching it fall. My throat tightens. "Tsk..." I mutter, my voice sounding thinner than I want it to. "Poor thing..." If I'm right, then that means more than just a dead griffin. It means this place isn't just strange. It's familiar in the worst possible way.
As I lie on the ground, still irritated by the fact that I'm stuck in my own novel, something flickers into view in front of me. A dark blue screen projects itself out of thin air, its surface filled with white text that hovers there as if it belongs. No one around me reacts to it. The screen hangs in the air, close enough to touch, like it was meant for me and me alone.
Before I can do anything, the text changes.
[The system greets you.]
[Connecting to host. Please wait.]
I stare at it, my irritation giving way to confusion. "Host?" I mutter.
No. This already makes no sense.
There are windows like this in my story, but not like this. The system tied to Mother Earth doesn't just connect itself to people out of nowhere like some generic piece of game trash. It governs skills—how they're earned, trained, transferred, and developed. Even then, it's not something that gets shoved in your face like this, and definitely not in the first volume. This thing feels completely separate.
Curiosity gets the better of me anyway. I reach out and touch the screen, and the text shifts the moment my fingers make contact. [Status Window] appears in bold, then unfolds into line after line of information about the body I'm wearing. Most of it barely matters at first, because one thing catches my eye immediately. Under physique, it doesn't say [Human Physique].
It says [Cursed Physique].
My expression hardens. So that's why this body feels half-dead.
[Connection Established.]
More text appears after that, not spoken aloud but projected clearly enough that it might as well be a voice in my head. I keep reading, more wary now than curious. This is definitely not normal. The system in my world is centered around skills, their growth, and the ways people gain or inherit them. This thing goes beyond that. It's invasive. Personal. Almost like it was made to guide someone directly.
I test a few windows and quickly find one marked [Tasks and Missions]. That alone tells me enough. Complete tasks, earn points, exchange them for useful things—skills, techniques, affinities, anything that makes survival easier. The details are vague, but the intent isn't. And if the text is to be believed, I won't unlock more of it unless I involve myself in the main story.
I click my tongue under my breath. Of course it wants that.
Annoying as it is, I can't deny how absurdly useful this thing might be. I never wrote a system like this into the novel, so it's probably tied to however the hell I ended up in this body.
Then the screen changes again.
[You're seriously still a beggar, lmao ꉂ (´∀｀)ʱªʱªʱª]
My jaw tightens.
"What the hell is this?" I snap.
The text shifts immediately, almost eagerly.
[You're pretty feisty, huh? I like that. Maybe I'll give you a mission. Hmmm... How about you go slap a knight in the face for 100 points ಥﭛಥ]
I can't deny it'll be useful, and with the kind of world I'm stuck in, I'd be stupid not to take advantage of it. Seriously though, why the hell does it respond like this?
The system has more going on than I expected, and after messing with it for a while, I finally find the reason this body feels so miserable. The level of this curse... Fuck.
[Cursed Physique] - [Curse-★★★★★☆] - [Limits skill slot capacity to 4] - [Weakens all bones by 35%] - [Increases energy waste by 80%] - [Increases damage taken by mental attacks by 75%]
I stare at the screen, my jaw tightening. Why the hell do I have a cursed physique? No... not me. Brey. How the hell did Brey end up with something like this? You can't just be born with a curse. Curses aren't natural. They come from OAS magic, from experimentation, from someone forcing that shit onto you. Which means Brey isn't just some random slum kid. Just who the hell is Brey connected to?
Forget it. If I keep going down that line of thought, I'm going to end up with a headache before I get anywhere. The bigger problem right now is the [energy waste]. Damn it, everything uses energy. Magic uses it, aura uses it, skills use it, and even the energy my body should be getting from food is affected by it. No wonder this body feels half-dead. It's not just weak, it's burning through everything it takes in and wasting the rest.
And because it's a five-star curse, getting rid of it isn't simple. No ordinary temple is going to touch something like this. At this level, the saintess herself would have to look at it, and even then, it'd cost a fortune and probably take years before the removal process is complete. So for now, that option might as well not exist.
The skill limit is less of a problem. Four is restrictive, but it's not enough to ruin me on its own. Replacing one later would be worse. Just thinking about all my pain receptors reacting at once is enough to give me chills.