Chapter 1
If I were to summarize my 20 years of life after reincarnation in one
sentence, it would be:
“I became the worthless youngest child of a prestigious family of prophets.”
“You’re truly terrible at prophecy. Can you even make a living with that
skill?”
“There’s no way someone like you could inherit the family’s fortune-telling
business!”
“Prophecies about good fortune can be vague, but prophecies about misfortune
must never be unclear! They need to be specific! You’re completely useless!”
I was born into the Jericho family , a lineage renowned for its prophets, a
family that made a living by foreseeing people’s futures and receiving payment
for their insights.
The problem was, perhaps because of their constant interaction with the upper
class, my parents had become hopelessly extravagant.
They would rack up debt to attend every kind of event and banquet, chasing an
impossible dream of joining the aristocracy.
But it wasn’t just their lavish spending that was the issue. They also had a
nasty habit of treating their children differently based on their abilities,
and that’s where my misfortune began.
“You’re so useless that even bread is wasted on you!”
Starvation was a daily occurrence for me growing up.
While my older brother and sister, who could predict fortunes effortlessly,
were fed and dressed in the best of everything, I had to endure the sweltering
summers and freezing winters in the attic, wearing tattered clothes.
For 20 years, I wasn’t treated as a child but more like a servant, waiting on
my family hand and foot while doing every menial task imaginable.
Unlike my siblings and parents, who could foretell fortunes, I could only
predict misfortunes—and even then, my visions were vague and brief, lasting
only one to three seconds into the future no matter how hard I tried.
Prophecies of misfortune need to be precise and detailed so that people can
act in direct opposition to the predicted events. But with my abilities, I was
practically useless.
Just how useless was I?
One day, my parents, brother, and sister all died at the same time in a car
accident.
I didn’t see it coming.
Even though my entire family disappeared in an instant, I didn’t feel
particularly sad.
Considering how they treated me, wouldn’t it have been stranger if I did?
The real problem came afterward.
“Jericho Amael, we offer our condolences. Are you aware that your parents left
behind a significant amount of debt?”
Even in death, my so-called family managed to drag me down.
The debt was astronomical.
How much? Enough that I had to sell our house, the family fortune-telling
business, and every bit of inheritance just to settle it.
Overnight, I was left with absolutely nothing.
And then, on the very same day that I became completely destitute—
Verified as having turned 20 years old and officially an adult!
Congratulations!
You have obtained the following skills: <Body Modification>, <Absolute Hypnosis>, <Time Freeze>, and <Sensitivity x3000>.
Use your skills to train your loyal slaves however you like!!
For the first time in 20 years, I saw a system window appear before my eyes.
So I did have skills from my past life, but they were locked because they were
from an erotic game and couldn’t be used while I was a minor?!
With 20 years of survival skills honed through menial labor, I managed to find
work at a small restaurant near the fortune-telling shop.
All Day Serving Food and Cleaning Tables
I spent my days serving food and cleaning tables, and at night, I would
collapse onto the small staff bed provided by the restaurant, marking the end
of another exhausting day.
But even as I lay there, a fiery desire would surge through me multiple times
a day, whispering temptations I couldn’t easily dismiss.
Unlike the useless prophecy abilities that had defined my life so far, I now
had these erotic game skills from my previous life.
Couldn’t I use them to live a good life for once?
What if I approached a lonely, wealthy widow and used my skills to make her my
devoted slave? Living as her pampered kept man…
It didn’t sound like a bad idea.
Thanks to my wretched parents, there was at least one thing I could
begrudgingly thank them for: my superior height and good looks. Adding my
erotic game skills to that equation made the idea of living as a kept man seem
not just feasible but realistic.
But of course…
Thinking about it and actually doing it were two very different things.
The impossibility of it stared me in the face every day, thanks to a poster
prominently displayed on the restaurant’s wall:
Unregistered illegal magic use is a serious crime!
If you witness illegal magic use, report it immediately!
Reporting illegal magic in daily life ensures greater safety for the Empire and yourself!
Let’s say I went ahead with my plan.
I seduced a lonely, wealthy widow, used my skills to make her utterly devoted
to me, and she started saying things like, “I can’t live without Jericho
Amael’s incredible prowess! Oh nooo”
If a single servant overheard her and reported me, I’d be executed by hanging
on the spot.
Even if I somehow managed to get all the servants on my side, secrets don’t
stay hidden forever.
Eventually, word would get out that some vagrant had moved into a rich widow’s
house, was performing strange magic, and spending her money recklessly.
At that point, I’d have to prove that my abilities weren’t illegal magic. But
did I have authorization from the Mage Tower or the Holy Church?
Of course not. Without their approval, my death would be guaranteed the moment
my skills were exposed.
“Why not just register your skills officially?” you ask.
Magic registration is no simple matter.
You have to explain the mechanics behind the magic to the meticulous mages and
witches at the Mage Tower…
But how could I possibly explain the mechanics behind erotic game skills?
If I could do that, I’d have become a mage long ago!
And just look at the skill list.
How would I explain those kinds of skills—skills an incubus would use—to
people without making myself look like a complete degenerate?
Even if I somehow managed to register the skills and use them legally, morally
speaking, using them to force innocent women to become my personal cash cows
just felt wrong.
In conclusion, living as a kept man using my erotic game skills was
impossible.
“Damn it, if you’re going to give me skills like this, at least create an
environment where I can actually use them,” I muttered in frustration, pulling
the blanket over my head.
What was the point of giving me erotic game skills if the only thing I’d get
for using them was a noose around my neck?
My grumbling didn’t last long.
The work at the restaurant was grueling, and soon, sleep overtook me as
exhaustion weighed down my body.
The Arkhal Empire Was Burning
Mountains of corpses were piled everywhere, and rivers of blood flowed along
the streets.
The harrowing screams of people being burned alive echoed endlessly, creating
a horrifying symphony of despair.
At the center of it all stood a witch.
Her grotesque figure, with four arms, was entirely exposed to the world, her
bare form a terrifying sight amidst the chaos.
The witch, hiding neither her deranged laughter nor her sensual body,
unleashed devastating magic, massacring people endlessly.
The flames she conjured drew closer and closer to me.
Just before the fire consumed my body, I locked eyes with her.
Her hair, stained with blood and turned a dark crimson, whipped through the
air as she spoke to me.
“Do you think I’m hideous too?”
One side of her face was breathtakingly beautiful.
But the other side was the exact opposite.
Her distorted skin was riddled with more than ten eyes, grotesquely clustered
like a spider’s, blinking erratically.
It was a horrifyingly twisted visage that made me want to retch.
The witch laughed as she watched me tremble in terror.
“So, you think I’m hideous too! Hahaha!”
She cast her magic again.
The flames that engulfed the empire didn’t stop there. Soon, they spread
across the entire continent.
The world burned.
And I burned with it.
The excruciating pain was unbearable, and my screams joined the cacophony of
cries from those around me.
There was no happiness left in the world.
Only ash, fire, screams, and the grotesque remnants of humans twisted into
unrecognizable monsters.
I jolted upright, as if propelled by a spring, and the first thing I noticed
was how drenched my clothes were.
It felt like I had bathed in sweat—my clothes and bedding were soaked through.
Damn it.
Apparently, my prophecy ability is only accurate when it comes to grand-scale
events.
A prophecy about the end of the world, no less!
The problem was when it would happen.
And who the witch I saw in my dream was.
Even if I somehow figured out her identity, I had no plan for how to stop her.
I cradled my head in my hands, slumping onto the bed.
“What am I supposed to… How the hell am I supposed to handle this?”
All I had were the newly unlocked erotic game skills and a prophecy ability so
pathetic even my own blood relatives dismissed it.
And I was supposed to stop a witch capable of unleashing magic strong enough
to annihilate an empire?
How? Seriously, how?
I thought this was an erotic game!
Why am I suddenly being thrown into a dark fantasy that reeks of
post-apocalyptic despair?
Sleep was no longer an option.
I racked my brain, tugging at my hair as I tried to come up with a plan.
They say your brain works faster when you’re in life-threatening situations,
don’t they?
Like a bolt of lightning, an idea struck me.
The witch’s face—half of it was monstrously deformed.
A nightmarish visage covered in clustered eyes.
And she had asked me, “Do you think I’m hideous?”
Could it be?
Could the witch have gone berserk and caused all this destruction because of
her disfigurement?
If that’s the case…
What if I healed her face before she lost control?
It wasn’t a bad idea.
But how?
How the hell was I supposed to heal a face so grotesquely deformed?
I wasn’t a priest or a doctor trained in advanced healing techniques.
If I had been a medical student in Korea in my past life, maybe… but I was
just a STEM student!
“Body Modification.”
One of the four erotic game skills I had received.
Couldn’t that skill… fix her disfigured face?
“Status window.”
I quickly pulled up the status window and reread the description for Body
Modification.
The explanation was so crude and absurd that if King Sejong himself had seen
it, he would’ve wept and abandoned the creation of Hangul.
But to summarize, it was a skill that allowed me to reshape another person’s
body however I wanted.
This could work.
I could heal the witch’s deformed face, stop her rampage, and save the world.
A glimmer of hope brightened my expression.
But it was quickly extinguished.
[Unregistered illegal magic use is a serious crime!]
[If you witness illegal magic use, report it immediately!]
[Reporting illegal magic in daily life ensures greater safety for the Empire
and yourself!]
The contents of the poster proudly displayed on one of the restaurant’s walls
came to mind.
Illegal magic use.
How was I supposed to do this?
Even if I healed the witch’s face, I’d still be executed for unregistered
illegal magic use.
This was a no-win scenario.
If I didn’t heal the witch, she would destroy the empire, and I’d die along
with it.
If I did heal her, I’d be executed for illegal magic use.
Why does this always happen to me?
There had to be a way to use my skills without being executed for illegal
magic.
Without approval from the Mage Tower or the Holy Church, was there any other
way?
I spent the entire night agonizing over this dilemma.
“Amael! Are you up? Let’s get ready to open the restaurant!”
My sleepless night ended when the restaurant owner called my name.
By then, I had my answer.
There was a way to use my skills without being executed as an unregistered
illegal magic user.
“Today will be my last day working here!”
“What? What’s this all of a sudden?”
“I have something I absolutely must do!”
After finishing my shift and collecting my wages, I bought a train ticket to
the capital.
The only way to use my magic without being executed for illegal magic use…
Was to pretend to be a saint.